Vital - Released

[Jac459]

In the world of technology, not moving forward is moving backward.
You can run around it and pretend it is wrong but it is a "mechanical" fact.
The only exception is when a technology is not used anymore, or not available like for analog synthesis for example where some people can try to have the original product. But you will have hard time to transpose this to software world.

So yes, Vital is definitely losing (or has lost) its mojo. It isn't a top synth anymore.

Does it mean that you can't use it ? No it doesn't. You can perfectly use it and be happy with it, not everybody needs latest synths technology.

Does it reduce the quality of this synth ? Not at all, Vital is an absolute masterpiece of a software and it will take years for this synth to be forgotten.

Is saying that a software is aging a critic of the developer ? I think obviously not. I still don't really get why you are so triggered.

Yes, music must be made only with the most current versions of the most top synth for the very moment. If you don't use them your music costs nothing.

Are you sure? Are you serious? Why this marketing bullshit? Why do you beleive in it? All this garbage was invented to divert our attention and palm off new shiny toys. And soon they will be superseded by new ones. Again and again.

For me, "mojo" is individuality of an instrument rather than its presence in "tops". Vital has that "mojo". But even this isn't important. Many synth has "mojo" but differencies so vague and subtle that talks about them hardly make sense.

I should agree, Vital is usable but more or less buggy. And these bugs weren't fixed. If you didn't pay for it, may be, you may not demand anything. Just let developer know about bugs. But if you paid you paid for a fully working synth. If you demand you are right.

You quoted my post but don't answer to it...

Seems you totally miss the point. I explain again.

As I said before you don't need a new synth to make music. You don't need GAS, you don't need anything. It has been years that we have much more than what we need to make music.
Hell, I am not even sure that if I was only having the synths and effects built-in of my DAW I would do less good music...

So no, of course, music is not made with the latest synths... And I never said that.

BUT

If you are about to buy a new synth, or spend time to learn a new synth, I bet you will choose your synth and try to have more features, more quality of life, better UI, better stability, better browsing, better filters emulation, and so on and so forth. That's not really what Vital is offering anymore. It has been outclassed and it is normal... No shame on that...

[Weasel-Boy]

Fannon wrote:

Version 1.5.5 was released 22 month ago, though. Since then, I think the dev has done some minor bugfixes without increasing the version number, but I'm sure there hasn't been much updates since

I thought this was an odd thing to say, but I checked it out. And thanks for the heads up.

I had v1.5.5 from Oct. 26, 2022 installed since around that date. I just downloaded another copy of v1.5.5 a few minutes ago and I can clearly see the two files are different by their byte sizes. Here's a screenshot of the two:

Screenshot 2024-07-14 at 1.35.24 PM.png

A nice as this is, I think Matt should've mentioned it or changed the version number anyway.

[lobanov]

You quoted my post but don't answer to it...

Seems you totally miss the point. I explain again.

As I said before you don't need a new synth to make music. You don't need GAS, you don't need anything. It has been years that we have much more than what we need to make music.
Hell, I am not even sure that if I was only having the synths and effects built-in of my DAW I would do less good music...

So no, of course, music is not made with the latest synths... And I never said that.

BUT

If you are about to buy a new synth, or spend time to learn a new synth, I bet you will choose your synth and try to have more features, more quality of life, better UI, better stability, better browsing, better filters emulation, and so on and so forth. That's not really what Vital is offering anymore. It has been outclassed and it is normal... No shame on that...

No, I answered, you haven't grasped my point

Yes, Vital is buggy. I don't like its preset browser too. But in its current state it is completely usable. It sounds well (you agree with me in this regard), has big amout of options and is more or less stable. You can download or create a skin for it. There are tons of presets for it including free ones. I don't know about MacOS and Linux (and in doubt about them) but in Windows it will work for years. In Linux we have Vitalium. The sources of Vital are open. Nothing can stop somebody to fork it, make a new synth (with a different name but equivalent to Vital in its core functionality) and fix bugs, add new features etc.

This is an awesome gift from Matt! This is the single thing I wanted to say. Thank you, Matt, thank you.

[Jac459]

You quoted my post but don't answer to it...

Seems you totally miss the point. I explain again.

As I said before you don't need a new synth to make music. You don't need GAS, you don't need anything. It has been years that we have much more than what we need to make music.
Hell, I am not even sure that if I was only having the synths and effects built-in of my DAW I would do less good music...

So no, of course, music is not made with the latest synths... And I never said that.

BUT

If you are about to buy a new synth, or spend time to learn a new synth, I bet you will choose your synth and try to have more features, more quality of life, better UI, better stability, better browsing, better filters emulation, and so on and so forth. That's not really what Vital is offering anymore. It has been outclassed and it is normal... No shame on that...

No, I answered, you haven't grasped my point

Yes, Vital is buggy. I don't like its preset browser too. But in its current state it is completely usable. It sounds well (you agree with me in this regard), has big amout of options and is more or less stable. You can download or create a skin for it. There are tons of presets for it including free ones. I don't know about MacOS and Linux (and in doubt about them) but in Windows it will work for years. In Linux we have Vitalium. The sources of Vital are open. Nothing can stop somebody to fork it, make a new synth (with a different name but equivalent to Vital in its core functionality) and fix bugs, add new features etc.

This is an awesome gift from Matt! This is the single thing I wanted to say. Thank you, Matt, thank you.

Ok. On that I agree .

[3lu5iv3]

i accidently made this bass sound in Vital. Vital is amazing!

https://wormhole.app/yPj5x#ExrobLB_AM9b6eaHY5pRTg

[218]

Has anyone experienced CPU problems within the last two updates. Im on a workstation Thinkpad equipped with i7 processor, 48gb ram,Win 10 and mainly working in Live 11 / 12. The VST2 version is constantly lagging and causing huge cpu spikes. VST3 runs a little better but it still feels buggy and unstable. I can run gigantic reaktor ens and stuff like that without any problems…so as of now it seems like I have to conclude that Vital has become a major CPU Hog:-(

[Teksonik]

Is Teksonik polite? I don't think so. He doesn't care what is going on with Matt.

I don't have much time to faff about with KVR these days but your comment needs to be addressed since it is a blatant falsehood.

I don't know if you spent any time on the Vital forums but I created a thread there titled "Matt are you OK?" which was locked and it looks like it has been deleted or at least I can't find it now.

I started it because in the beginning Matt was very engaged with his customer base but then he suddenly disappeared. I was genuinely concerned about his well being not as a developer but as a human being and said so on more than one occasion in that thread. Was he ill or been in an accident or? At the time he didn't strike me as the type of person who would just ghost his paying customers but I have since learned that he is in fact that kind of guy.

In the early days I was one of the most vocal supporters of Matt and Vital and as I said purchased the early access version. I did a lot of tech support on his forums especially related to issues with FL Studio since I had done tech support for it in the past. As I have written here I have been the most vocal critic of those who insist on calling Vital "free". Again, it is a commercial synth with a free version. Those who did nothing but suck up the free version did more to kill it that any critic. Period.

So if you want to talk about being "polite" then you're more guilty than anyone by saying I didn't care about Matt since I was one of those who really did and my actions are witness to that fact.

Now I'm going to explain this one more time. If you don't get it now then that's on you:

If you offer a product and then accept money for that product (as Matt has done and still does) then you're running a business and at that point you owe your paying customers a certain level of support. At this point I don't see him giving any support even to the Subscription and Pro level customers who were and still are promised "Prioritized Support". Subscription level customers were and are promised "First Access to New Plugins" which were never created. Again a promise made to entice payment and not fulfilled. That's not how you run an honorable business.

So the bottom line is we need to hold software developers to the same standards as we would any other business. They don't get a pass just because they write code. If their product is still buggy and they are providing no visible support then they're going to get called out whether that triggers the fanbois or not. Blind sycophancy serves no one.

If Vital was only freeware then he would owe no one anything at all but it's not. Again its a commercial product that he has accepted payment for so he has obligations to those who gave him their hard earned money. No one is asking for major updates at least without a corresponding upgrade fee but simple basic service and a stable product ("usable" is not the same as stable) and engagement with paying customers on his company forums is not asking too much and if it is he should simply go out of business and move on.

If Matt is no longer capable or willing to support his product then he should stop selling Vital, plain and simple. I certainly still care about him as a human being but as a developer his behavior is unacceptable. End of Story.

Stop worshipping someone who based on his actions or lack thereof cares nothing about you. It just makes you look like a simp.

[Touch The Universe]

I forgot how amazing vital sounds. How are you guys on the presets front - content, want more?

I'll likely be releasing another bank here shortly, if for no other reason than fun

[swilow11]

Vital is great but I'm basically in the same boat as others. It seems to have been abandoned which isn't a huge problem as it works and the bugs I've experienced are relatively minor- but something like Serum or Current can do most of the same things and I have more faith in these products working into the future. They feel more solid and reliable.

That said, I still think the resynthesise preset function in Vital is amazingly good for generating wavetables, so I still use that and bounce the tables into any of the other way-too-many wavetable synths I've got. Wish such a feature was more common- Serum does it but Vital does it better ime.

[Jac459]

Is Teksonik polite? I don't think so. He doesn't care what is going on with Matt.

I don't have much time to faff about with KVR these days but your comment needs to be addressed since it is a blatant falsehood.

I don't know if you spent any time on the Vital forums but I created a thread there titled "Matt are you OK?" which was locked and it looks like it has been deleted or at least I can't find it now.

I started it because in the beginning Matt was very engaged with his customer base but then he suddenly disappeared. I was genuinely concerned about his well being not as a developer but as a human being and said so on more than one occasion in that thread. Was he ill or been in an accident or? At the time he didn't strike me as the type of person who would just ghost his paying customers but I have since learned that he is in fact that kind of guy.

In the early days I was one of the most vocal supporters of Matt and Vital and as I said purchased the early access version. I did a lot of tech support on his forums especially related to issues with FL Studio since I had done tech support for it in the past. As I have written here I have been the most vocal critic of those who insist on calling Vital "free". Again, it is a commercial synth with a free version. Those who did nothing but suck up the free version did more to kill it that any critic. Period.

So if you want to talk about being "polite" then you're more guilty than anyone by saying I didn't care about Matt since I was one of those who really did and my actions are witness to that fact.

Now I'm going to explain this one more time. If you don't get it now then that's on you:

If you offer a product and then accept money for that product (as Matt has done and still does) then you're running a business and at that point you owe your paying customers a certain level of support. At this point I don't see him giving any support even to the Subscription and Pro level customers who were and still are promised "Prioritized Support". Subscription level customers were and are promised "First Access to New Plugins" which were never created. Again a promise made to entice payment and not fulfilled. That's not how you run an honorable business.

So the bottom line is we need to hold software developers to the same standards as we would any other business. They don't get a pass just because they write code. If their product is still buggy and they are providing no visible support then they're going to get called out whether that triggers the fanbois or not. Blind sycophancy serves no one.

If Vital was only freeware then he would owe no one anything at all but it's not. Again its a commercial product that he has accepted payment for so he has obligations to those who gave him their hard earned money. No one is asking for major updates at least without a corresponding upgrade fee but simple basic service and a stable product ("usable" is not the same as stable) and engagement with paying customers on his company forums is not asking too much and if it is he should simply go out of business and move on.

If Matt is no longer capable or willing to support his product then he should stop selling Vital, plain and simple. I certainly still care about him as a human being but as a developer his behavior is unacceptable. End of Story.

Stop worshipping someone who based on his actions or lack thereof cares nothing about you. It just makes you look like a simp.

That's not exactly how I was seeing things but your point is actually quite strong...

[Jac459]

Vital is great but I'm basically in the same boat as others. It seems to have been abandoned which isn't a huge problem as it works and the bugs I've experienced are relatively minor- but something like Serum or Current can do most of the same things and I have more faith in these products working into the future. They feel more solid and reliable.

That said, I still think the resynthesise preset function in Vital is amazingly good for generating wavetables, so I still use that and bounce the tables into any of the other way-too-many wavetable synths I've got. Wish such a feature was more common- Serum does it but Vital does it better ime.

The bug I have is quite big, the windows is about 5 times the size of my screen. The UI at the end is smaller than my screen but the window it is opening cover my whole screen. This is really annoying and making me use vital only when I really need it.

I am a paid customer (the 80 bucks tier) and while I don't feel robbed because overall the quality of sound of vital is great, it is definitely not my best purchase.
It is definitely below average for me in terms of value for money.
If I compare to pigments, phase plant (both you can get for 99 bucks), or spire, the uhe bunch, or the mighty shiny avenger 2 that you can get for below 200 bucks, they are much much better value.

Even Current that is the most direct competitor (I personally think that vital is compared to serum only because of the release date) is better value at 130 bucks (with the yearly subscription trick).

I am not even talking about thorn (awesomely sounding wavetable + spectral synth too) as I feel it is also abandonware. But Thorn has no bug and is ridiculously cheap, not far from one digit. That makes a difference

For free it is different. I still think vital is the best free synth.

[iamneorev]

I've been messing with Serum for the first time, but wanted to check out Vital. I keep hearing comparisons between the two.

[Jac459]

I've been messing with Serum for the first time, but wanted to check out Vital. I keep hearing comparisons between the two.

Serum is the climax of what can be done with wavetable synthesis, in terms of practicality, workflow, sound quality, all.

Vital is strongly inspired by it and come close from a wavetable synthesis and add a spectral flavor that Serum hasn't.

2 glorious products.

But for me if you want the most powerful and quintessential VST of 2024, it is Avenger 2... Not.a single doubt...

[Touch The Universe]

Phaseplant has the best wavetable import from waves I've come across. I use that to export WT's I import into Serum! Also Dune 3, etc. I'll test Vital again though for the WT import and resynthesize to see if I missed something. Thanks for the heads up.

[Bartone]

Vital is very awesome synth! Would be sad if the developer doesn't work on the synth anymore. It has been long time, but maybe the developer will continue working with it again. But that's the worry, if he does not continue working on the synth. Do i want to spend my time to learn to use this synth, when I could use my time on synths which are constantly getting updates and bug fixes. That is the question users are going to ask - if no now, but soon if the situation continues like this. And can I recommend this synth to my friends when knowing the development has stopped for a while already.