Why isn't Melda more popular?

[Underoath77]

I don't understand why m sound factory and mxxx aren't more popular, I know that Melda is most known for their freebie bundle, but whenever I try to bring up either of them on social media, all I hear is contact or reactor is superior....

Trying to get a following going because with more customers the more willing they will be to push out products and stay afloat. Maybe they are more popular than I thought? It's just super frustrating when all I hear about is native instruments when that company has nothing but problems and power struggles internally and is pretty much a pyramid scheme...

I believe it might just be the GUI that puts people off but I would love some feedback. This company does not get the love it deserves and I have gone to using it exclusively. Besides a few niche plugins , Melda does everything I could ever need it to. Just wish that it was one of the bigger companies, because Vojtech doesn't get the recognition for the hard-ass work he's done. He's gone above and beyond listening to our requests, and time and time again proves that he is a wonderful developer that values feedback..

[Tyrs]

Ni strategy: making good products, looking perfect, selling most possible
Melda strategy: making best plugins.

In other words, it seems like Melda has a vision of THAT plugin and the rest is irrelevant. And honestly, I hope it'll never change

[GusGranite]

Melda Production plugins are just awesome. Really pleased to have found them.

[yellowmix]

MSoundFactory is great but idiosyncratic which turns many people off. Remember, many synth users are not sound designers and many people don't like to read manuals.

MXXX is simply very expensive compared to many other systems. Cheap often wins, and those willing to spend more cash really need to love a system. There's a good demo but there are a lot of options out there.

[werzel]

Equating popularity with success doesn't make any sense.

[zipb]

MSoundFactory is great but idiosyncratic which turns many people off. Remember, many synth users are not sound designers and many people don't like to read manuals.

This. Even for an old man with formal training in electronic music and tons of synth editing experience(me), Melda stuff is, uh, ehm, let's say different. Close buttons all over the place, an updater that is somehow not rendering text properly, Melda stuff is not for the faint of heart/occasional user. Quirky. Reminds me a bit of Buchla synths/modules, takes a while to get used to the method behind the madness.
I can get results from mdrummer and msoundfactory that are really interesting and unique, though.

[Michael L]

Coding GUIs can take more time than the dsp.
A generic GUI lets Melda code a lot more dsp.
It's looks vs. brains.

[Held]

Melda has a very clunky first impression, but gets better the more you use it. Other companies provide a polished first impression and the clunkiness emerges when you go deeper. Most people aren't able to see the potential of Melda, so they use something else.

[RobinWood]

There have been topics explicitly about that and topics about impressions, workflow, sound, bugs & issues, marketing, its community. If you think it's only about the looks you'll unfortunately never understand it. If you think melda is superior to everyone else and gets treated unfairly, this is a deadend in understanding too. Whatever the reasons are, they will never change, melda has said that very clear and the users love it for that and that's how it shoule be. Rather make the few users really happy than trying to make the majority just a little happy.
What I see is whenever melda is mentioned to new users or in comparison to existing plugins the main argument is "it's cheap". And then I see how many of them do impulse shopping and short time after reselling them again. I experienced melda rather with no so smart algorithms (morph, autoalign, turbocomp, spectraldelay - in comparison to their originals) or soundwise not so good results (basically all spectral effects). I experienced cpu overhead for abstraction and easy things done complicated. It's surely not only the looks...

[Nicolaibob]

Some people uses a Texas Ti-89 for complex equations... others uses the calculator in their smart watch, which looks pretty cool IMHO... I am told that it’s possible to play Snake on the Ti.....

Id say that melda is built with focus on engineering, possibilities and integrity in mind, where others are built more with appearances, simplicity and marketing in mind.

I am an engineer. I would choose engineering anyday...

[Sam-U]

Because UX is important and many options available does not mean having useful options available. Also implying only melda focuses on DSP while others on the looks is just a pretty dumb strawman imo. The recent kvr readers choice awards have shown despite having melda plugins as options availabe people like e.g. u-he, fabfilter, izotope, valhalla with all of them being top notch dsp wise, but additionally with many thought put into on which parameters to put in the users face, which parameters to better abstract and how to guide users through the signal flow. I can only speak for myself: I once owned melda plugins but noticed they totally disrupt the flow when being in a creative mood. I didn't open them more often and they needed to go.

[Svama]

It’s much easier to sound not musical with Meldaproduction plugins than with most other stuff. Like easy distorting your signal by compressing your signal with mdynamics. Musical saturation is another example. More options, more knobs to make it sound great.
I really like melda, not for the easy moving stage. Mdrumreplacer is really great with these phenomenal content.

[DPhil]

It’s much easier to sound not musical with Meldaproduction plugins than with most other stuff

This +100. Yesterday I read in the u-he sub how much thought they put for example into filter design and how it creates even/odd harmonics with different topologies which then are controlled by many steps in the chain. Just to create something that sounds musical right out of the box. With Meldaproduction it's more like: it's a technical/experimental side effect, deal with it. And that has been confirmed recently by users too. Sure you can tweak another 10 knobs to maybe make it sound right, but other devs have shown you don't have to.

[Annabanna]

I worked at a restaurant decades ago where we had a defining concept of chosing something from each column to create your own meal. Fusion styles covered everything from Indian to Jamaican with lots to choose from Pick your protein, your carb, your sauce, etc.

The chef was a genius too. Some of the best, most creative stuff I've ever eaten, and wildcards every night so it was always a unique experience.

It was not only wildly unpopular, but fully half the people who DID eat there ended up "creating" something like chicken parmesan with tomato sauce and mozerella over spaghetti. A number of them were visually frustrated that we didn't just make those exact choices for them and expressed frustration over being given "homework" when all they wanted was dinner.

Then, we had a few die hards who came back night after night, and pushed the envelope trying new things.

They're just two completely different types of people.

The flip side is those customers were raving fans who told others about it, so we at least did a half decent referral business with zero advertising whereas your average McDonalds' customer isn't going around telling everyone how much they love McDonalds.

[Held]

I once owned melda plugins but noticed they totally disrupt the flow when being in a creative mood. I didn't open them more often and they needed to go.

Melda is a set of building blocks where you can create your own instruments and tools for creative exploration. But you have to build them first before you can get into creative flow. If you don't want to do that kind of work, other plugins are available.

It's great for procrastination, though

I read in the u-he sub how much thought they put for example into filter design and how it creates even/odd harmonics with different topologies which then are controlled by many steps in the chain. Just to create something that sounds musical right out of the box. With Meldaproduction it's more like: it's a technical/experimental side effect, deal with it. And that has been confirmed recently by users too. Sure you can tweak another 10 knobs to maybe make it sound right, but other devs have shown you don't have to.

In MSF, you have the modal filter where you can create any (in)harmonics you want. If you know what you are doing, you can create amazing sounds that no one else has, but it takes a lot of skill and practice. My first attempts sounded really bad, and I'm still figuring stuff out. If you don't have that kind of interest and endurance, it's better to use something else.