EightyEight - A vintage Jupiter-8 emulation that sounds awesome!

[Morphoice]

Again: EightyTen and EightyEight at the present time ARE FREE and there are no plans to change that. That's a simple fact, so it's correctly advertised. If you want this to change, it can absolutely be done! But I’m sure thousands of Users won’t thank you for it.

Also think twice about using words like “cheated”. Those are very serious legal accusations I won’t take lightly and my patience and understanding with this kind of toxicity is slowly running very very low. There are plenty of products to chose from, if mine don’t sound good for your production, move on. Don’t publically attack my business.

[Matt67]

Then please show me the free version:

[Matt67]

I hereby publicly retract my statement, “I feel cheated,” and apologize if it came across the wrong way. Furthermore, it is not my intention to harm you or your company. That is the last thing I want.

But this back-and-forth with the labels bothers me. “Unstable” is labeled as free, but it isn’t. As for the other products, I still haven’t fully figured out what they actually are. Beta, free, paid? All of this confuses customers. And I’m certainly not the only one.

[Morphoice]

This post is about EightyEight. Unstable has a different model — you can download a free version (pay nothing) directly from my website, and the link is right there in the screenshot you posted. If you want to use it professionally and without limitations, you can purchase a license. The limits are clearly laid out on the website — again, transparent. Nothing misleading, nothing cheating.

If this doesn't suit you, move on. Use something else. That's perfectly fine with me.

But the fact that you feel the need to bash someone on a public forum instead of making music, and feel entitled to dictate how they run their business, tells me all I need to know — especially that I'm not the real problem here. I communicate all models openly and clearly, and I have every legal right to make and change them as I see fit. They're not up for debate.

Keep in mind: I do this on the side, alongside a full-time day job. I'm a solo developer, not a multi-million-dollar corporation. This isn't my main source of income — it's a passion project born from years of work, study, professional music production, and servicing synths. That I offer it for free with an optional donation model at all should tell you something about my intentions.

You need to seriously put your issues into perspective. Your feelings are not mine to manage.

This thread isn't a complaint hotline either, and it's not my job to be on standby here 24/7 for everyone who feels the need to jump onto that train. I'd much rather the discussion be about the plugin's sounds and features — that's what I'm here for. Your personal issues with me don't interest me. For any technical questions, bug reports, or actual support needs, I'm happily available via the ticket system on my website. That's the proper channel. Feel free to use it if you need it.

[tumface]

But the fact that you feel the need to bash someone on a public forum instead of making music, and feel entitled to dictate how they run their business, tells me all I need to know — especially that I'm not the real problem here.

You created these threads on KVR to promote your products. I think you've actually been granted quite a bit of good will. "Why aren't you making music instead of ___" isn't a great thing to post. If they were in the middle of making music, they wouldn't be reading your thread, either. By definition, they're using the forum instead of in the middle of making music.

Keep in mind: I do this on the side, alongside a full-time day job. I'm a solo developer, not a multi-million-dollar corporation. This isn't my main source of income — it's a passion project born from years of work, study, professional music production, and servicing synths. That I offer it for free with an optional donation model at all should tell you something about my intentions.

Nobody cares if it's your main job or your side job. They're just judging what's put in front of them. Installing a plugin and using it in a project isn't effort-free for the user. The person using it has to put in effort, too, and having instances of it saved in a project file means the project file now relies on that plugin. Even a 100% free demo requires some effort and a small amount of risk to try.

If you want to use it professionally and without limitations, you can purchase a license.

Actually, I didn't even notice that gotcha until just now. That's even worse. Nobody is going to accept that as a definition of free with no strings attached. It's trialware or something.

You need to seriously put your issues into perspective. Your feelings are not mine to manage.

I don't think I need to comment on this any further than to quote it.

[simmo75]

Nice job on the 2 beta’s, I’m looking forward to seeing them develop. They sound great!

One suggestion from me would be to please add an ‘Init’ or ‘default’ patch?

[psynical]

My gawd, some of you people are just AWFUL.
A dev makes a free synth and you're here complaining that "it's not free enough!!!"
Find something else to complain about.

[Morphoice]

But the fact that you feel the need to bash someone on a public forum instead of making music, and feel entitled to dictate how they run their business, tells me all I need to know — especially that I'm not the real problem here.

You created these threads on KVR to promote your products. I think you've actually been granted quite a bit of good will. "Why aren't you making music instead of ___" isn't a great thing to post. If they were in the middle of making music, they wouldn't be reading your thread, either. By definition, they're using the forum instead of in the middle of making music.

Keep in mind: I do this on the side, alongside a full-time day job. I'm a solo developer, not a multi-million-dollar corporation. This isn't my main source of income — it's a passion project born from years of work, study, professional music production, and servicing synths. That I offer it for free with an optional donation model at all should tell you something about my intentions.

Nobody cares if it's your main job or your side job. They're just judging what's put in front of them. Installing a plugin and using it in a project isn't effort-free for the user. The person using it has to put in effort, too, and having instances of it saved in a project file means the project file now relies on that plugin. Even a 100% free demo requires some effort and a small amount of risk to try.

If you want to use it professionally and without limitations, you can purchase a license.

Actually, I didn't even notice that gotcha until just now. That's even worse. Nobody is going to accept that as a definition of free with no strings attached. It's trialware or something.

You need to seriously put your issues into perspective. Your feelings are not mine to manage.

I don't think I need to comment on this any further than to quote it.

Don't bother. I'm already starting to slowly lose interest in continuing to make stuff for free. So the problem will solve itself — thanks to the likes of you and threats like this. Hope it was worth it. I'll make sure the thousands of users will know who to thank.

[Morphoice]

"it's not free enough!!!"

This sums up the problem perfectly.

And I'm afraid if I'm not 'free enough,' I suppose I simply have to stop being free at all, and then all is well.

[ghettosynth]

@Morphoice

Why do you make it so complicated?

Free = completely free, with no restrictions.

Beta = a beta version (no more and no less). Of course a beta is free. Have you ever seen beta testers being asked to pay for the privilege of testing a product? If I ever did, I'd politely decline.

Paid = the product costs money.

Anything else is misleading to customers. It was the same with Unstable. On KVR, it's labeled as "Free", yet there's no genuinely free version to be found. Ever since then, I've ignored Morphoice products. That may not matter to you, but I'm not convinced I'm the only person who feels this way.

Just be honest and label your products for what they are. Don't use a thread title like "A free Jupiter-8 emulation" and then say further down, "The beta is free." That makes me feel cheated.

No, this is your desire but others don't see it that way. Free means free now along with any stated restrictions. Which means, only, that there is a zero-cost license that you can use in the specified applications as defined by the license. It doesn't mean that it will be free forever.

Granted, mixing beta and free can be confusing to consumers, and vendors should be careful with this. I think that Uhe does a great job of this making it clear that the beta has an expiration date. Everyone should do this, expire your betas, no phone home necessary.

Soundtoys often releases products as free, for a limited time. The annoying naivety here is that KVR users seem entitled to free without realizing that free only makes sense to a vendor as a component of their business strategy. The same is true with "open source." You can foster a healthier relationship to "free" by trying to understand why any given product is free and accepting that any limitations might be a function of a viable business strategy. That some people release things into the wild for no apparent reason doesn't mitigate this. Those are often signaling plays.

[Matt67]

Granted, mixing beta and free can be confusing to consumers, and vendors should be careful with this. I think that Uhe does a great job of this making it clear that the beta has an expiration date. Everyone should do this, expire your betas, no phone home necessary.

That’s all I asked for: a clear explanation of what’s what. Nothing more, nothing less. That’s why I also mentioned another Morphoice product here, namely “Unstable.” It’s listed on KVR as “free” (see my screenshot above). I searched for it for a very long time and even asked about it here in the forum. I couldn’t find a free version anywhere. That’s what I mean by misleading information.

I have absolutely no intention of attacking the developers or anything like that. But I use almost all add-ons in public productions. And for that, I need clarity on what I’m allowed to use and what I’m not. What’s free and can be used without restrictions, what’s just a beta, and what I have to pay for in order to use it. And if everyone else thinks that’s clear, I guess I’m the exception. But is it really just me?

[Teksonik]

Granted, mixing beta and free can be confusing to consumers, and vendors should be careful with this.

For over two and half decades people have been releasing free plugins here without restrictions, without conditions, without expiration.

This is what people have come to expect when they hear "free".

There have of course been "free for a limited time" plugins but when they are no longer free (become payware either again or for the first time) they generally keep working. I can't think of an example where a free plugin stopped working by design.

I think the confusion here is a new developer who should probably be using the term "demo version" rather than "free" since it is basically a demo with some restrictions (ten minutes per session in this case):

Unstable 1.png

Hundreds of plugins have demo versions and they're never called a "free" plugin even if they don't expire (I believe the aforementioned U-he is a good example).

I don't wish any ill will towards the developer and genuinely hope his side business is a huge success but if one wants respect from the forum then one needs to respect the forum and its commonly accepted nomenclature.

[Echoes in the Attic]

The license is quite cheap and seems like good value. Seems strange to do false advertising as free when it’s so cheap.

[donato]

It's free (for money). What a joke.

[tumface]

I was taking it at face value when he said it worked for free and the license was optional, but might not be optional in the future. Seeing what Teksonik just posted, that's a lot worse than I imagined.