Not a deal - 8dio

[Fleer]

https://vi-control.net/community/threads/adachi-important-update-in-op.116094/

Edited November 14, 2023 by Fleer

[Fleer]

Check from page 32 and be on your toes

[smallstonefan]

I've got quite a bit from 8DIO and I've been happy with the quality.

I suspect they are gearing up to sell the company - that would explain a lot of what I'm seeing on these often overly-aggressive sales tactics.

EDIT: Read from page 31 on. YUCK! I'd hate to be 8DIO with that stuff floating about the internet. Then again, I focus HEAVY on customer service in my company and like to think I'd not let something get to that point. I still enjoy my 8DIO libraries.

Edited January 12, 2023 by smallstonefan

[BTP]

29 minutes ago, smallstonefan said:

I suspect they are gearing up to sell the company - that would explain a lot of what I'm seeing on these often overly-aggressive sales tactics.

They're probably just focusing on Soundpaint. It seems like they're releasing new versions of all of their 8Dio libraries on Soundpaint. I don't think their 8Dio libraries sell much without big sales anyway now, they're getting old and there are a lot of newer and more attractive alternatives from other companies.

[PavlovsCat]

This story Mario / Evil Dragon told on Vi Control goes back 13 years ago, and I was the person that a developer turned to for advice on behalf of Mario at the time. Troels, the co-founder of 8Dio (Tawnia is the CEO of 8Dio, and Troels' wife). 

So 13 years ago, Mario worked for a developer that made a competitor library to ToneHammer and the developer had literally plagiarized some of the content from ToneHammer,  so there wasn't a very good relationship between the two developers. Mario posted a review on ToneHammer's competitive library, basically painted it as inferior to the library he worked on. Except Mario hid the fact that he worked for the competitor developer when he compared it as superior to ToneHammer's library. Troels saw the post, DMed Mario that it was unethical for him to pretend he was giving an unbiased review, that he had a moral imperative to disclose that he had worked on the library and for the developer whose library he was praising as superior to ToneHammer's library. Troels' stated that Mario could be sued for what he did. 

Mario was very worried that he could be sued by ToneHammer for his review without disclosing he worked for the competitor whose product he favorably compared. It was also rumored at the time that Mario was engaged in piracy, so I think that also made him concerned about legal action against him. The developer took the situation to me to ask my advice. I told him -- and I think we had a group chat -- that what Mario did was certainly unethical and he should give Troels a sincere apology and not engage in that type of behavior again, but considering that Troels' company was located in the US and Mario lived in Europe, the odds of ToneHammer taking legal action were very remote. But again, I emphasized to focus on the ethical aspects, and approach Troels with a sincere apology and not engage in similar behavior in the future. I never knew if Mario took my advice or not until recently. I discovered Mario did nothing. He never apologized for his behavior. 

So when Sarah Mancuso started her thread pulling in anyone who has ever had a dispute with 8Dio she could find, I knew that Mario's story, that he presented as Troels attacking him for merely doing a light critique of his sample library was patently dishonest. It was a lie. I spoke with the developer involved in it and he still had all of his notes and shared them with me, and it is exactly what I just presented. Consequently, I posted the real story in the thread. Mario responded to me, basically acknowledging that I was telling the truth. We had maybe 5 or 6 posts interacting, friendly, but I was calling him out for not telling the truth. However, Mike Greene, the owner of VI Control, and an 8Dio competitor, deleted all of those threads and PMed me not to share my story on his forum again. His message stated, "Stay out of this!" He let me know that he detested 8Dio. He later deleted more than 100 posts by other forum members, the majority of which objected to the toxic attack on 8Dio as being a vendetta. 

Now, this makes it even more complex, but the person who created the thread, Sarah Mancuso, turned what was her 8Dio fan thread sharing her Kontakt scripts for one of their libraries into an attack thread, pulling in stories from everyone she could find who ever had a beef with 8Dio. I knew one of the other people she used in the thread, Corey Pellazari. After sharing my story, I was contacted by 8Dio's CEO, Tawnia, who was appreciative that I came forward to tell my part in the story. She also shared screenshots and emails of what occurred with Corey. In that case, the screenshots and exchange made it very clear what occurred. 

Corey was working with SoundIron -- co-founded by Mike Peaslee, Troels' former partner in ToneHammer. The two had a not so amicable split and dissolved their business prior to Mike co-founding SoundIron and Troels co-founding 8Dio. Corey, a talented, yet broke, composer, was eager to do work for developers and had a deal with SoundIron.  To cut to the chase, Corey was an 8Dio customer. But he created a puppet account and did a written review in 8Dio's WordPress based review system (they no longer use) under the puppet account and it was brutal, making insults about the management. All of the screenshots and registration and correspondence with Corey was shared with me. Corey created the account using the same fake name he used in a April Fools Day video on YouTube that he made, and oddly, he used his Gmail account with his full real name as the email address and his business name. So Tawnia contacted him about the reviews and said that he could do a review under his real name, but this puppet account never made any purchases, so he needed to delete it. My take on the correspondence was that Corey was incredibly embarrassed about it and very angry about being confronted. When I asked him about it, he didn't want to get into it. And he was pretty unhappy that years later, Sarah and Mike Greene were using it to make their own personal agenda attacks on 8Dio. The story gets even stranger, so you'll need to keep in mind that Corey publicly shared that he had some very severe mental illnesses, disclosing that one was bi-polar disorder.  I believe that played a factor in some of his behavior. 

In any event, shortly before his death, I was trying to get Corey's home address to get a new computer to him, paid for by 8Dio, What people don't know is that Corey, while he had made a video about 8Dio -- he never once did a video reviewing 8Dio libraries (he made a video where he shows people how to optimize / batch save 8Dio libraries). Corey did privately vent to me about different developers he had negative feelings about, and he definitely had some resentment with Tawnia, however, Tawnia was also his confident that he shared his personal life and struggles with. So it's pretty complex. It's not at all what Sarah Mancuso presented in her thread, and Sarah and I had many PMs about her thread about Corey. Sarah never once reached out to Corey or ever had a single communication with him. She also never once had a correspondence with Tawnia, even though she had referred to Tawnia as an "evil b*tch" in her thread attacking 8Dio, Tawnia, and Troels. Sarah eventually acknowledged in our correspondence that she was angry with 8Dio for not doing a deal with her on her scripts for their library. Troels had shared with me that the library she created that for had long since been retired, that she persuaded him to re-release it, and he told me that in the several months that he released it that 8Dio made a little more than $400 USD in gross sales for the library. He told me that Sarah had asked 7 figures for the library and it just wasn't realistic (Sarah claims that she asked 6 figures), so he liked her work and proposed she work with 8Dio on a future project, letting her know about two upcoming projects. He offered her a rate, and Sarah told me that it was below what she felt she was worth, and that was the end of their relationship leading to her making her thread. 

I also took issue that Sarah Mancuso and Mario / Evil Dragon, both work for an 8Dio competitor, Impact Soundworks and were attacking that 8Dio and not disclosing that. In fact, I only learned that when someone posted it in the thread -- Mike Greene ended up deleting those posts, like he did more than 100 other posts objecting to the attack on 8Dio. I had, in friendly  PMs, been trying to persuade Mario and Sarah to disclose their employment with Impact Soundworks. Andrew Aversa, Impact Soundworks owner, ended up posting in the thread too, after someone posted that Mario and Sarah both work for Impact Soundworks, an 8Dio competitor, and that it was unethical for them to make these attacks against a competitor and also not to disclose that fact. 

I should also note, that after this began to die down, Sarah had told me (via PM) that she felt a bit played by Mike Greene and stated that 8Dio never wronged her. Mario, in our conversations, still felt that Troels was in the wrong 13 years prior and that Troels was a bully to tell Mario that he could be sued. When I told Mario that I would have likely told him the same thing in Troels' position, it fell on deaf ears. 

So this is the other important factor in all of this and explains why Mike Greeene was so passionately engaged in this vendetta thread against his competitor, 8Dio. Just weeks prior to Sarah turning her 8Dio fan thread into an attack thread, Tawnia/8Dio pulled their sponsorship / advertising from VI - Control. Now I realize this is controversial and many people in this forum have different views, but this is what occurred: Following Christian Henson making his controversial anti-trans tweet (and yes, it is now become public, via Mike Greene, that Christian has a trans child and was frustrated), Tawnia, on behalf of 8Dio, came to Mike to persuade him to stop censoring LGBTQ forum members from discussing the topic, as he had recently done (I read their conversation and discussed this with them, BTW and tried to work things out). When Mike refused, things Tawnia told him that as long as he was censoring the LGBTQ community 8Dio could no longer support VI Control and would be pulling their sponsorship and advertising. Greene had posted and later deleted a claim that Tawnia threatened a boycott, but that was not part of any of the correspondence that I saw. In any event, this was the incident that lead Mike to become furious with 8Dio and he even attempted to persuade me to never work with 8Dio. After I forwarded an email to Tawnia where Mike told me how he hates 8Dio and urged me to never to work with them -- referring to me as a "good guy" with a "great heart." Mike told me that he agreed that what he was doing maybe wasn't ethical, but Tawnia has a lot of people who don't like her, and where there's smoke there's fire. He said that he really wanted to simply ban her from VI Control but that it would be a bad look publicly and urged me to never work with 8Dio or Tawnia and very insultingly, claimed she was manipulating me to share my story and make Mike look bad. I told Mike that Tawnia actually was trying to persuade me to NOT post on VI Control because she finds it so toxic. When I forwarded Mike's email telling me not to work with 8Dio and disparaging Tawnia to Tawnia, cc'ing Mike, Mike responded by threatening to make me look terrible on 8Dio, by taking my long posts and creating a thread which he said would make me look  very bad. He later followed through and took my posts from various threads, edited and deleted his posts I was responding to and created a new thread.

The bottom line is that VI-Control's owner, Mike Greene, who is also an 8Dio competitor, is angry with 8Dio's CEO after the company pulled its sponsorship of his forum, criticized him and has spent the last 10 months going on long, off the rails rants about 8Dio hurting other developers by lowering their prices too much. 

Edited June 28 by PavlovsCat

[kitekrazy]

46 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

Here's a thought. Go and make an honest, less than gold star review of an 8Dio and SoundPaint library and see if it goes up. Report the results back here. 

 

There's plenty of software especially games where reviews are not honest.  No bad product exists at pluginboutique.   Hornet shows all reviews.

DAW drama.......I don't know what to say about that anymore other than that's Vi Control.   Then again the posts about Dirk should have their own drama zone. 

[PavlovsCat]

On 1/12/2023 at 5:30 PM, kitekrazy said:

There's plenty of software especially games where reviews are not honest.  No bad product exists at pluginboutique.   Hornet shows all reviews.

DAW drama.......I don't know what to say about that anymore other than that's Vi Control.   Then again the posts about Dirk should have their own drama zone. 

Knowing how VI Control is managed, you won't see a thread that negative stay up on a developer that buys a sponsorship or advertising there. I won't say too much, but there are bad ethics all over the place there if anyone seriously cares. I didn't know much about the Dirk stuff. I'm mainly focused on getting the best sample libraries and plugins I can get for the lowest price and not big into the other stuff. I have given advice to a lot of developers. But I'm not really up on which developer is ripping off which contractor these days. But the sleaze of some of these folks is pretty bad, but I wouldn't be turning to folks like influencers and unstable and hostile contractors bashing competitors of companies they work  for,  especially  when they clearly have an ax to grind -- not if anyone is searching for truth. After reading through the thread, my take is that there's one very hostile individual (Ms. Mancuso) who has a vendetta and isn't a great source for a balanced perspective, especially when she works for a competitor that I didn't notice her disclosing (maybe she did, but I didn't see it, and those relationships are certainly going to impact her and it's very clear that she's bitter about not getting the deal she wanted with 8Dio, so the bias makes clear that we're not getting a very balanced/honest perspective; my personal experience with my single interaction with her leads me to believe she's not big on ethics and integrity).

As far as Plugin Boutique, I completely agree with you, it's pretty blatant when everything is rated 4-5 out of 5 stars. But frankly, VI Control isn't a great place for honest negative feedback on developers who advertise there. I'll leave it at that. 

Edited November 15, 2023 by PavlovsCat

[Christian Jones]

Why would Cory do that. Even worse, why would he post that he did that (acquiesce to 8dio in deleting his critical videos so he could get free stuff from them after what he said they did to him). I also listened to Corey's 4-year-old video about his experience with 8dio threatening to sue and libel him, and how that "crushed" him and made him unable to work for a while due to the emotional anguish. Idk I guess everyone's different in how they deal with stuff, and I know it's not good but I've tended to harbor grudges personally and I certainly wouldn't be making up with a company regardless of what free stuff they offered. 

[PavlovsCat]

On 1/12/2023 at 6:00 PM, Christian Jones said:

Why would Cory do that. Even worse, why would he post that he did that (acquiesce to 8dio in deleting his critical videos so he could get free stuff from them after what he said they did to him). I also listened to Corey's 4-year-old video about his experience with 8dio threatening to sue and libel him, and how that "crushed" him and made him unable to work for a while due to the emotional anguish. Idk I guess everyone's different in how they deal with stuff, and I know it's not good but I've tended to harbor grudges personally and I certainly wouldn't be making up with a company regardless of what free stuff they offered. 

Libel is only if you lie about a person or a business. If I state that I think XYZ developer's library of sample llama screams is complete garbage, that's not libel. If I state that someone said something to me they actually stated is not libel. If I falsely state that a certain developer is a serial killer, an adulterer and that he's embezzling from his corporation, that is libel. Libel means publishing lies. Now Corey stating in writing that he was blackmailed, if untrue, is both unethical and libel.  Was Tawnia trying to persuade him to soften his negative comments or was it actually a threat? I'm not sure where his reviews he stated deleted appeared, but if it's on somewhere like Trust Pilot, 8Dio wouldn't be able to delete them. It's difficult to say if he's exaggerating on what he was told or not. I only know him from his videos, and he appears to be pretty honest, but then, in his own words, he stated that he was willing to delete his critical comments in exchange for free libraries. So the bottom line is, we really don't know if he's portraying his conversations accurately or not. We're only hearing one side of the story from someone we really don't know. 

If I'm going to be completely candid -- and that is my preferred way to operate -- I do find influencers commonly have very convoluted ethics.  Their whole operation relies on getting free products and cash for doing reviews (and if those are popular enough, ad revenue from Google). If you're an influencer and you do a very negative review of a developer -- and Corey famously did one years ago for a developer whose name escapes me but he's a metal producer based out of Indiana -- and what happens then is that developer is no longer going to give you free product or sponsor your channel and pay you to promote them on their channel. The whole industry of influencers, to be super candid, is very ethically problematic. These are sales promotion people. Every brand has had influencers as part of their promotional plan for products for the last 10 years.  Are we to be shocked even that our favorite influencer -- and he's my favorite in this space -- is not above being comprised because he was hyper critical of one developer? 

I stopped writing on marketing  strategy a decade ago. I actually have contemplated writing on the other side, educating consumers on marketing strategies and tactics that are ethically problematic -- and the most common ethically problematic marketing tactic is the use of influencers, because they pose as unbiased reviewers when the truth is, they couldn't be any more biased. Their model is about trying to appear unbiased while getting free product and dollars from the folks their "reviewing" products for.  Cory appears fairly honest for an influencer.  In my experience, the closest shot people have to an unbiased review is still going to be at a publication that has a legit j-school quality editor and can make the balance between the editorial side and advertising (every publication faces those battles). But I wouldn't put any influencer on a pedestal.  The entire model is pretty corrupt by design. 

Edited January 14, 2023 by PavlovsCat

[PavlovsCat]

So, I won't say exactly, but I did go directly to a main source to find out what occurred with 8Dio (okay, it's easy to guess by that who I chatted with). Here's what I found. 

According to what I was told, Sarah Mancuso created a non-commissioned hobby project around a discontinued 8Dio library and then approached 8Dio to pitch them to pay her more than ten thousand dollars for it. 8Dio wasn't interested, but offered her something (money) for her effort out of gratitude. Sarah was clearly hyper offended and modified the thread she had made from praising 8Dio libraries to not just bashing those libraries, but repeatedly calling the same company she was praising "amoral" and bashing the same libraries she was previously praising and then citing anyone she knew who said anything bad about 8Dio even if it had nothing to do with her original objection. It's a very clear vendetta by someone against a brand, a clear effort to attack a brand. A smear campaign. Mancuso also didn't share that she works for one of 8Dio's competitors (the owner later chimed in on the thread). 

Look at my past posts about 8Dio. I'm hyper critical and guess what, I've never been told to take anything down and 8Dio has always been very professional with me. And I've NEVER at any point taken any NFRs from 8Dio or Soundpaint or money. I just hate terrible ethics and the toxic behavior in that thread and even the forum owner participating in it, It's one thing for Mancuso to share her specific experiences, but she's engaged in an all out attack and take down attempt of a business, She's urging people not to buy  8Dio and  from her own story, she approached them to pitch them something she made for one of the retired libraries -- when pitching a developer something for an existing library is a crapshoot -- and she's angry that they didn't pay her what she feels it's worth. I don't find that is anywhere in the realm of bad ethics or exploitation. Now if 8Dio hired her and didn't pay her an agreed amount, that would be unethical. But if you perform work in advance and pitch it to a company and they don't want it, that's not a reflection of their bad ethics. It's their right to accept or reject anything they like. 

Does 8Dio make my favorite sample libraries? Nope. Have they ever been dishonest with me or pressured me to take down a negative review? Nope. But, of course, I'm not an influencer, and the reality is, brands routinely work with influencers before their "reviews" go live and brands will negotiate on negative portions of a review video. Again, I urge people to try for themselves rather than believe the words of someone trying to destroy a company simply because she's bitter that they didn't want to buy her non-commissioned work for what she wanted. FTR, I've heard her music and she's clearly very talented. I would suggest that she better focus herself and not do non-commissioned projects if she wants to be paid, as those are a crap shoot. 

From a strategy perspective, with VI Control's owner chiming in to declare that he's on "team Sarah," I don't think it would be a great idea for 8Dio to post there. No matter what their response, they're not going to get a fair hearing on that platform. I know that 8Dio is on Discord and that is where I think anyone who wants their side of things should check. 

Edited January 14, 2023 by PavlovsCat

[PavlovsCat]

Last month, Mike Greene was telling me that his forum was the wrong place to air grievances against a developer and now he's actively participating in a thread against a competitor developer declaring that he's on "team Sarah." Troels commented in the thread for anyone following this toxic drama. To be really candid, this is exactly why I loathe VI Control. The bullying and the ethics are terrible there. Look back on my posts about 8Dio and I have been hyper critical. I've even been that way with Troels and  he was still friendly with me. So Troels posted in the forum (and yes, he was the person I was chatting with) and guess what? The angry mob is attacking him because they blindly believe every charge made up from Sarah Mancuso. I can tell you, as someone libeled by her weeks ago, she's not someone I find even slightly concerned with ethical behavior. Again, who creates a thread praising a developer and their libraries and then after that developer doesn't pay her 6-7 figures she wants for her non-commissioned work she pitched to them (FTR, Troels told me that Sarah initially asked 7 figures for her scripts, Sarah claims she asked 6 figures; I haven't seen anything in writing that makes clear which is accurate) , she goes back and modifies her praise of that developer to pure venom and trashing every product and urges everyone not to buy their products. 

If that isn't an obvious vendetta and libel, nothing is. She's deliberately trying to damage a developer, to destroy them. completely out of spite and the forum's owner is supporting her effort.  I am done with VI Control after this. I would urge others to vacate that forum.  Mike Greene is using his forum to sabotage a competitor. I hope developers stop advertising there after this, 

Edited June 28 by PavlovsCat

[Kal Elle]

Evil Dragon is the best Forumist in the world (sorry Fleer, you are close 2nd) ?,

and if ED confirmed stuff on the VI Control thread, that is enough for me to stay away forever.

Specially if this behaviour has continued for years and years.

[Technostica]

The response by Troels put him in a bad light in my eyes
I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, but after reading his reply I have taken a negative view.
I have always found him to be somewhat of a quirky character, at least on YT. Now I am starting to wonder what is behind this quirkiness.

 

[PavlovsCat]

37 minutes ago, Technostica said:

The response by Troels put him in a bad light in my eyes
I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, but after reading his reply I have taken a negative view.
I have always found him to be somewhat of a quirky character, at least on YT. Now I am starting to wonder what is behind this quirkiness.

 

That post wasn't a great idea. But it's a pretty hostile thread and he was going to be attacked no matter what he said. And consider that I'm easily one of the top harshest 8Dio and SoundPaint critics at this forum,  but I'm not okay with the mob action mentally of that thread. People aren't looking for facts,  they're looking to burn the  developer at a stake. It's a hostile echo chamber. 

Edited January 14, 2023 by PavlovsCat

[Amicus717]

1 hour ago, PavlovsCat said:

That post wasn't a great idea. But it's a pretty hostile thread and he was going to be attacked no matter what he said. And consider that I'm easily one of the top harshest 8Dio and SoundPaint critics at this forum,  but I'm not okay with the mob action mentally of that thread. People aren't looking for facts,  they're looking to burn the  developer at a stake. It's a hostile echo chamber. 

I rarely get involved in threads like that one, mainly because it's a waste of energy. What actually happened is a total unknown -- I don't know any of the people directly involved, and neither does 99.999% of the commentators -- and so drawing conclusions is pointless. And honestly, maybe I'm just getting old and tired, but the drama of it just wears me out.

It kind of dovetails with my own mild distaste for VI Control, generally. I have never enjoyed it much, and rarely go there unless on a search for specific info that is hard to find elsewhere. I personally have not had a bad experience on the forum, but it's always had a chaotic schoolyard vibe that I found a bit off-putting. That's just my own sense of things, and I can understand others finding it a very useful community to participate in.

I'm perfectly content with the Cakewalk forum. This is a good group. 

 

[PavlovsCat]

5 minutes ago, Amicus717 said:

I'm perfectly content with the Cakewalk forum. This is a good group. 

This a great group, the best! It's part of why we're afraid to venture out from the deals forum.  There's such a great group here. Dead serious.  I'd be happy to hear music from everyone here after spending so much time here. I never even had the nerve to publicly share music with only me playing until last year and it was at this forum. It wasn't easy, but people were super nice and encouraging. 

Edited January 14, 2023 by PavlovsCat

[Technostica]

6 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

That post wasn't a great idea. But it's a pretty hostile thread and he was going to be attacked no matter what he said. And consider that I'm easily one of the top harshest 8Dio and SoundPaint critics at this forum,  but I'm not okay with the mob action mentally of that thread. People aren't looking for facts,  they're looking to burn the  developer at a stake. It's a hostile echo chamber. 

It's seemingly his only public response in that thread so it carries a lot of weight. That's why I personally took it to be a negative.
I am ignoring all the responses by third parties as they are irrelevant.
So if I just look at the responses by the three or more parties that had personal direct negative experiences and his reply, it looks pretty bad.
Then I add on top of that my perception of him from watching many YT videos and the amateur psychologist in me has a field day.

I like Troels, even though I don't care for his walkthrough videos. At least he no longer speaks at a hundred miles per hour which was an issue a number of years ago.  But for my tastes, he talks too much and has the need to repeatedly tell us how wonderful the product is.

When I add all this together, he comes across as seemingly being a troubled figure.
I wish him well as I don't want to kick a man when he's down.

[antler]

Lots of accusations in that thread. I wouldn't have any idea whether they were true or not. Some people claim to have proof of such and such; why not post them (or partially redacted screenshots) in addition to making assertions?

[Fleer]

6 hours ago, Technostica said:

I don't want to kick a man when he's down.

+1

[kitekrazy]

2 hours ago, antler said:

Lots of accusations in that thread. I wouldn't have any idea whether they were true or not. Some people claim to have proof of such and such; why not post them (or partially redacted screenshots) in addition to making assertions?

This thread does not really belong in Deals forum and better suited for coffee house or Vi Control drama zone.  Mod please move this thread.