Audiority The Abuser goes mkII - FREE for existing users - (re)Intro Price

[itanever]

Ah.. and I know that someone wrote to our dealers after the discussions in this thread because, suddenly, we were warned that this product is now unmarketable. Furthermore, a pluri-banned user is now stalking our videos with comments accusing us to support Russia.

What the hell? For real? Unbelievable how petty some folks can be.

[Agreed]

God dang, who would do that? Luca has put out really cool software for very affordable prices, I can't imagine how miserable of a prick you have to be to try to go gunning for them like that. Wow.

Thank you for your good and hard work under the Audiority brand. I am sad to know you're under such stress. I guess if I were in the position of a developer I would be happy to take customer feedback into consideration, nothing wrong with gauging your market... But this seems like a kind of bullying - it is not unambiguously a terrible name or anything, seems to be a regional issue with the connotation - and there are many audio manglers on the market that have aggressive sounding or "out there" names, was it really necessary to hound him privately through distributors?

[mcbpete]

Just to mention (as I was initially the one on this thread talking about the plugin name) - it wasn't me who contacted any dealers about the name. As far as I had left it I was happy with the way it was all concluded by page 2 (me raising the potential offense some users might have with the name, and Luca acknowledging that wasn't his intent and potentially changing the name in a future update)

[woodsdenis]

Really I find the tone of this thread really disgusting and lacking in any kind of insight into what language actually means, when using any word it requires a context to understand its meaning. There are very few words that alone have meaning and impact, the N-word being the obvious one. The name of this plug is obviously about audio, nothing else. How on earth can one think otherwise. It"s this kind of overt dumb "wokeness/political correctness" that gives right-wing zealots the oxygen they need to flourish. Can we please give the dev and everyone else a chance to talk about the plugin please?

[vitocorleone123]

I miss the modulating drive knob.

The drive modulation is still there. I decided to remove the animation because it was just wrong imho. If you wanted to find your sweet spot between that know and the envelope, you had to turn the env off, change Drive and set the env again. Now you can move the knob while Env amount is set to something different from 0.

Anyways, I have already prepared a replacement for The Abuser. I'm still undecided if I'll release it or not. It's the same plugin.. just renamed and with a wonderful neutral grey color.

Now that I'm not upset any longer, I just want to know why nobody posted on the mk1 thread after I wrote about the upcoming mkII version: viewtopic.php?p=8368670#p8368670

Not a single person asked for a name change since I were about to release the mkII version and, to be totally honest, not a single person complained about that in 8 years.

Ah.. and I know that someone wrote to our dealers after the discussions in this thread because, suddenly, we were warned that this product is now unmarketable. Furthermore, a pluri-banned user is now stalking our videos with comments accusing us to support Russia. We are banning all the accounts that user is creating on YT as well, but I'm very very tired, disgusted and disappointed.

That's the level we reached here on KVR.

Cheers,
Luca

1) OMG! How can anyone confuse Italy with Russia? Have they bothered to look at a map? Don't people have anything better to do than hate? There's more than enough in the world already, and there are NOT enough talented and generous plugin developers like you, Luca.

2) As the designer, removing the knob and choosing the color is in your purview - I mean, look at the MolotGE green. Or the new Arturia eFX plugin green. I like the new dark green and see no issues whatsoever with the visuals of the plugin.

3) A new plugin brings new attention (and, hey, again the new design is more modern and eye-catching as your skills have grown from mk1), meaning new people. This is probably a big part of why it was never mentioned. The other big part being that it's never bothered people enough before to mention it. If it really bothers people, they can speak with their wallet by not buying the plugin, and those that like it will buy it. Taking steps to try and block the sale of software by Audiority is... awful.

I hope this thread can pivot to talking about the use and sound rather than the superficial things like the name and color of the faceplate.

I know I plan to recommend this plugin (or any replacement if that happens) to people who don't have much in the way of saturation/distortion plugins as a great place to start.

[Mr Arkadin]

Maybe have a competition for your future plugins.

My entry:
Product name: Bland
Product colour: Beige
No number values on knobs, because numbers are racist

[itanever]

Really I find the tone of this thread really disgusting and lacking in any kind of insight into what language actually means, when using any word it requires a context to understand its meaning. There are very few words that alone have meaning and impact, the N-word being the obvious one. The name of this plug is obviously about audio, nothing else. How on earth can one think otherwise. It"s this kind of overt dumb "wokeness/political correctness" that gives right-wing zealots the oxygen they need to flourish. Can we please give the dev and everyone else a chance to talk about the plugin please?

This.

Also it's quite common to take expressions or words that in their literal sense refer to something bad and use these to refer to something good instead, e.g. 'to be killing it', 'break a leg', 'wicked' etc. Sometimes these new meanings can become entrenched as has happened with words like 'terrific' (and 'awful' has gone in the opposite direction). This is also how reclaiming words works. Take the word 'queer' for example, disregarding its original meaning it was used mainly as a pejorative not too long ago. Now according to Cambridge dictionary it has become an umbrella term meaning 'not fitting traditional ideas about gender or sexuality'. Since this is an on-going process, it can still be used as a slur, but usually we are pretty adept at determining how it was used via contextual knowledge. And in general, words and phrases that have strict meanings are the minority, language tends to be pretty ambiguous and context specific.

What I wanted to say is that everyday language use is complex, meanwhile bickering about certain words is not.

[plexuss]

Really I find the tone of this thread really disgusting and lacking in any kind of insight into what language actually means, when using any word it requires a context to understand its meaning. There are very few words that alone have meaning and impact, the N-word being the obvious one. The name of this plug is obviously about audio, nothing else. How on earth can one think otherwise. It"s this kind of overt dumb "wokeness/political correctness" that gives right-wing zealots the oxygen they need to flourish. Can we please give the dev and everyone else a chance to talk about the plugin please?

Yes. that's what I said earlier: context and nuance. This audience lacks these abilities apparently. That's their burden to bear. Ignore them.

[thecontrolcentre]

Has it ever occurred to either of you that just because some of us do not share your opinion it doesn't mean we are unable to see both sides, are right-wing, stupid or lacking in understanding? Could it not be we have a different experience of the world and the way language is used to hurt people who are different?

FYI I wrote to Luca to explain the reason I would not buy this plugin, even though I have bought most other Audiority products .. and he was very understanding and supportive. I won't go into it here because of the idiots who immediately jump in to these discussions with straw man arguments, lack of empathy and plain hatred for anything that doesn't fit in with their narrow black and white world view.

The Abuser seems to be a decent distortion unit from a decent developer and I wish him well.

[jens]

Ah.. and I know that someone wrote to our dealers after the discussions in this thread because, suddenly, we were warned that this product is now unmarketable.

That is perfectly absurd in every possible way.

Who is the reseller? I think Bitwig is a pretty stupid name - if I send them an e-mail about it, will that render Bitwig "unmarketable"?

My wife keeps saying Covid seems to have done something with many people - they seems to overreact in totally strange ways, unlike anything we've seen before the pandemic. It's like they lost social touch somehow during isolation. I think she may be up to something.

That should include your initial reaction to the challenge of your plugin's name (not something I have even remotely ever seen before coming from you), just as it would include whoever wrote the dealer just as it would include the latter hinself.
What about keeping a bit of cool for a moment? It seems you are - together - blowing this way out of proportions.

Luca, I think it is as great as it is understandable that you are passionate about your work, which I think totally speaks for itself. I assume and hope that you are pretty successful. Almost everyone loves your work and for very good reasons. Abuser was your first plugin. Back then you had just been starting out and you didn't even code it yourself initially, right? Would your current you even give it the same name? You are certainly right that any critique regarding its name could have been timed way better, but it is what it is. You have to somehow deal with it as it plays out. You can either do that in the cool and professional manner a sucessful entrepreneur such as you are can afford, or you can let it get close to you, rile you up and let it escalate in a way that will potentially affect your business - and here especially your own decisions - to a much greater degree than this little episode probably deserves.

Personally I am convinced that anyone is fully entitled to question and criticize the name and everything else about your plugins. Just as you are entitled to just ignore this.

[Audiority]

The plugin will be re-released with a new name and color.