Ugo's IRONHEAD (formerly Impact) morphing drums coming soon!

[runagate]

Cool demos runagate. I suppose Impact won't be free?

It's not freeware but I've no idea how much it'll cost. Cheap, though.

And I'd know, too, since I started begging Ugo to sell it to me when it was in it's early beta stage

[runagate]

Impact runagate demo C

Here's 2 straightforward beats and examples of what Impact can sound like Much less crazy arrangement, more Impact goodness.

[jopy]

wow ugo! (and cj),

that is really something. i'm usually not that impressed by drum synths, but this one sounds completely different; i'll be checking on this one.

[runagate]

*waves furiously at jopy*

I've missed you! Glad you're around!

[blortblort]

Oh man....want this.... bad.
runny- those are great demos.
when? not soon enough.

[runagate]

I don't know when but I'm going to end up with entirely too many presets and demos by the time it's out.

I think I'm on demo #10 here or so.

[bobsled]

...lovin' the demonstrations...


...but I wanna play too...

[runagate]

Cool, glad you like, bobsled

I'm about to go use Impact and Pluggotic's new morphing synth Vektrash live and hook the morph parameters to my Photon's infrared dome... *prays shitty laptop doesn't crash*

[ugo]

thanks for the encourragement guys. im just sorting out a few last things but impact will be out pretty soon.

Ugo rules, PERIOD..I wish I had more time to work with him again, cause I had an absolute blast working with him on Metallurgy's design stages..

Best of luck, Ugo, you're gonna blow 'em away, I just know it!

thanks donovan!

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one with a new trick nearly ready to slip from their sleeve.


I look sincerely forward to Impact. There's a severe lack of innovative drumsynth/drummachine VSTs. But I am sure this one will be the ne plus ultra thus far.

thanks jack. im looking forward to your next vst too. the mp3 you posted sounded great.

Cool demos runagate. I suppose Impact won't be free?

impact wont be free, but it wont be too expensive either.

here is the pricing:
impact = $40.
impact + metallurgy bundle = $50. (metallurgy is $20 on its own.)
also, metallurgy owners will be able to buy impact for $30.

Impact runagate demo C

hope your gig goes well!

-ugo

[runagate]

I'm going to try to record the whole show, PC gremlins willing. So just maybe perhaps there'll be a live Impact demo before it's even released. I'm still in awe of our new VST culture, Ugo, I really am. I still remember being a pre-PC age musician and hearing rumors about Soundhack (only on Mac back then, most of their stuff still is ) and just being blown away by the idea of using that live. Now I get to go play a morphing drum synth live lol.

When I have time I should really edit in all the demo links in order from least to most weird. Just seeing my name as the OP is going to predispose people to thinking that Impact is somehow an FSU-type drum synth, which it is capable of being, but it's also perfectly able to do straight sounds with subtle morphing for variation. It really doesn't sound like anything else, but sounds great, which I think will be it's main strength in most people's minds. It certainly has a wide palette of sounds under the hood

[spectrum]

Just a note to Ugo for his benefit:

You should be aware that "Impact" is already a plug-in name used by Digidesign for a while and they usually legally trademark their product names and protect them by making sure that other companies do not use the same names:

http://www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?nav ... temid=3981

So it might be a big hassle for you down the line to use this name. We were going to use the same "Impact" name for an instrument several years ago and abandoned the name after seeing the Digidesign used it first. (and also when NI used the similar "Intakt" name)

I'm not affiliated with Digidesign at all, but I'm just giving a little friendly advise from one developer to another developer that it can be a big drag to deal with this kind of problem when you use a name that someone else in the business is already using. Now that there are thousands of plug-ins, instruments and hardware devices in our industry that have been created with trademarked names, it's quite a bit harder to come up with something original! We actually spend a lot of time and resource with our own product names and trademarks....it's a huge hassle, but getting more important all the time. This kind of research is critical these days...even when releasing an independant plug-in for direct sales.

I bring it up here because it's always much easier to change the name before something is released....after it's been on the market for awhile, it's really tough on a company (especially a small one) to have to change their product name.

Best regards,

spectrum

(aka: EP from Spectrasonics)

PS. The product sounds really cool!

[liars&ashes]

----Digidesign's Impact product is a compressor though, no real chance of it being mistaken as a drum synth. And unless I'm totally off, unless it's a "competing" product, the name is kind of irrelevant in any real confused customers = sales lost legal arguement terms.
----Or there's always, change the *c* to a *k* (ie = Impakt), and wait for N.I. come knocking, since they seem to practically have that k instead of a c thing on lockdown.

Jeff

[spectrum]

----Digidesign's Impact product is a compressor though, no real chance of it being mistaken as a drum synth. And unless I'm totally off, unless it's a "competing" product, the name is kind of irrelevant in any real confused customers = sales lost legal arguement terms.....

Please don't take this harshly, but based on my experience, that's completely incorrect information from a legal point of view.

Have you ever dealt with US or CTM trademark law cases as it applies to the music software industry?

Trademark law applies much more broadly than you might realize. You often have to steer clear of even many non-software areas (including hardware products, band names and non-music related software products)...names are a huge hassle and it's a very complicated field...especially since the laws are different in different parts of the world. (and who really wants to lose the ability to sell in a large territory like N.America or Europe or Japan?)

It's too much to argue the details on a forum like this, but the bottom line is simply this:

When a major player with deep pockets is already using the exact same name in the same industry for several years, you can absolutely count on losing that legal battle. I'm not an attorney, but I do deal with these matters on a weekly basis and I think you'd be hard-pressed to find any trademark attorney that would advise differently than what I'm saying in this particular case.

My guess is that Ugo hasn't retained an IP specialist attorney yet and didn't do the research into the previous use of that name in our industry and the legality of using it....so, I'm just trying to give a little helpful advise from someone else who's been in the business for awhile and dealt with this many times.

It's particularly an issue because both companies are based in the US...so the trademark law bears that much more weight.

spectrum

[liars&ashes]

----Yeah Digidesign most likely has enough legal firepower to intimidate/force a name change later if they wanted to, but what are the odds they'd want to bother ? It simply isn't anywhere near their compressor plug-in in any way, shape, or form, other than being a vst, which is really pretty vague as far as making some kind of comparison.
----I suppose emailing and asking them if using the name Impact for a drum synth is going to cause them any problems, certainly couldn't hurt, but I'd still bet my $20 that they'd never bother with chasing after some guy who isn't making more $ than them, why bother ya know.

Jeff

P.S. Here it goes again huh Ugo.

[ugo]

You should be aware that "Impact" is already a plug-in name used by Digidesign

thanks for letting me know about this!
man, what a drag. i checked around for vst and dx plugs named impact, but i totally forgot to check on digidesign stuff. my first name attempt for the synth was bang but that was taken by cycling74.

you are correct in that i have not retained an attorney for this stuff yet. i just cant afford one yet and the laywers in my family do employment and bankruptcy, not copyright/trademark.

damn...time to come up with yet another new name. this is going to take some thought. good to know about this before i released it though.

P.S. Here it goes again huh Ugo.

indeed.
looks like i'd best come up with a new name. i'd rather not take my chances with digidesign/avid.