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Larry Shelby

By Larry Shelby
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telecode 101

telecode 101

Posted
Posted (edited)

After going through the massive headache of migrating to a new DAW and OS. I have learnt the value of sticking to just a couple of software companies and the ones that make the better products and installers. It took forever to migrante. I am now with two DAWs. The old one that has everything. And the new one that has most of it except the stuff that does not work on M1 platform. Massive PITA. 

Edited by telecode 101
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MrFigg

MrFigg

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Posted
18 minutes ago, Patrick Wichrowski said:

Their plugins new versions must be using use the Crysis game engine. Everything slowed down here. Luckly i have some old installers from 3 years ago that were lost in my downloads folder.

I've just been through all my folders hunting. Not so happy. Lesson learned.

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MusicMan

MusicMan

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6 hours ago, Magic Russ said:

Echo thief has some unusual impulses.  You can use 7 zip to extract them from the exe to use in your favorite convo verb.

I was looking into that one. You can actually just download all the impulses free from the Echo Thief website too which is easier.

I went with Artillery instead in case it has any decent drum samples included. They mention 30GB available to buy only what you like, so I suspect it's limited, or likely doesn't include any.

But none of the ones you can get for free had great reviews. I'm not even sure I'll ever install it to find out!

Edited by MusicMan
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PavlovsCat

PavlovsCat

Posted
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I'm just going to be super candid.  

RED FLAG #1

The  website design looks like it was done by a hobbyist in the 90s. It isn't well coded or mobile-friendly. Consider that this is a software developer and the website is also software. It doesn't send a message that reflects this developer is serious about usability or user experience -- or stated another way, about how his products (in this case, the website) work. Is it functional? Yes, to an extent and in certain conditions (it doesn't contain audio to provide examples and is difficult to view on a mobile phone). It looks like the site of a hobbyist who is unlikely to know about properly testing an app or anything about user experience design or even beta testing. A stock template based WordPress site,  which a lot of developers and small retailers use in this business. But the lack of discernment by the developer sends up a red flag for me, especially after my experience downloading their flagship synth, Infinity, and finding it to be less than stellar. 

RED FLAG #2

It's 2023. What plugin developer of audio plugins tries to sell their audio and effects plugins without featuring audio demos on the product pages? That's an odd omission.  

RED FLAG #3

I searched for videos on YouTube about their drum plugin, not a single video came up. 

This developer might be talented at coding plugins, he might be a wonderful person,  but all signs point to his output presented on this site as not being up to fundamental professional standards -- at least in terms of user interfaces and usability-- for even a small developer. There's plenty of free stuff that covers this same ground as what this dev is selling that's really good. Years ago I downloaded Infinity synth  when it was free and deleted it shortly thereafter.  Everything-- from my  past experience (with Infinity) to the website design from 1996, communicates that this is not worth our time. 

If anyone here who has tried any of these plugins has found them to be high quality and worthy of recommendation, please chime in. But so far, the posts in this thread appear to confirm what I'm sure most of us suspect.  

Edited by PavlovsCat
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user 905133

user 905133

Posted
Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, PavlovsCat said:

I'm just going to be super candid.  

RED FLAG #1

The  website design looks like it was done by a hobbyist in the 90s. Literally. This is what they looked like then. It doesn't send a message that this developer is serious. It looks like a hobbyist who is unlikely to know about properly testing an app or anything about user experience design or even beta testing. A stock template based WordPress site,  which a lot of developers and small retailers use in this business,  would be a giant leap forward. 

This is a specious argument.  I can point you to at least one huge company (I won't mention any names), that has a super slick professional website that sends what some might think is a message of extreme competence.  However, the website has been known to have misleading, inaccurate, and/or confusing information.

No Red Flags based on cosmetics, but the huge company has a reputation for making customers see red.

1 hour ago, PavlovsCat said:

. . . but all signs point to his output presented on this site as not being up to fundamental professional standards . . . .

If you look at all of the free synths and free FX threads, I am sure you will find that there are a number of competent plug-ins that do not have professional-looking websites. In fact, some are also based on pre-2020+ website technology.

On the other hand, I could show you a line of synths from a huge company with a very professional-looking website that continues to have bugs in the synth engine.

Yes, people often judge books by their covers, but the veneer does not guarantee quality content. On the other hand, you can probably find quality books that have rather ordinary covers.

Have you ever seen how plain many models look without their make-up, wigs/hairdos, glamorous clothes, etc.?

If you have specific complaints about a particular software product, that's a different issue.  Your Red Flag argument is dubious at best.

Edited by User 905133
fixed some typos
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PavlovsCat

PavlovsCat

Posted
Posted (edited)
12 hours ago, User 905133 said:

This is a specious argument.  I can point you to at least one huge company (I won't mention any names), that has a super slick professional website that sends what some might think is a message of extreme competence.  However, the website has been known to have misleading, inaccurate, and/or confusing information.

No Red Flags based on cosmetics, but the huge company has a reputation for making customers see red.

If you look at all of the free synths and free FX threads, I am sure you will find that there are a number of competent plug-ins that do not have professional-looking websites. In fact, some are also based on pre-2020+ website technology.

On the other hand, I could show you a line of synths from a huge company with a very professional-looking website that continues to have bugs in the synth engine.

Yes, people often judge books by their covers, but the veneer does not guarantee quality content. On the other hand, you can probably find quality books that have rather ordinary covers.

Have you ever seen how plain many models look without their make-up, wigs/hairdos, glamorous clothes, etc.?

If you have specific complaints about a particular software product, that's a different issue.  Your Red Flag argument is dubious at best.

Dubious? I downloaded Infinity years ago and it was poorly designed and less than mediocre sound-wise (of course,  that's subjective). 

You used a strawman argument to make it appear I made a point I never made.  I never asserted or implied a well designed website is a sign of a high quality developer as you stated.  My point was that a poorly designed website with coding (it is terrible on a mobile phone, as someone pointed out; the site clearly doesn't use a responsive design), design, usability and user experience issues is a piece of software that doesn't reflect a high quality software developer and I've worked with dozens of them over the years, from small ones to managing areas including development myself.  A website is a piece of software.  If a developer's site has problems on mobile and was clearly coded to a standard that is more than a decade past (pre mobile), that's a red flag, IMO.  It speaks to quality standards, knowledge of usability and user experience led design.  

[REFERENCE: https://validator.w3.org/nu/?doc=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stagecraftsoftware.com%2F]

Of course,  as I made clear, it doesn't make it certain the developer doesn't have skills. It just makes the probability of the developer not having high standards in their product software development much more likely than if they had a well designed and up to date well-coded website. You can feel free to disagree,  of course. I'm just stating my thoughts. But I never stated I  thought it was certain that the developer doesn't have some decent plugins. I'm saying that there are a lot of signs that reflect poor quality and poor judgment.  That's all.  You  can download his plugins and report back and if you find something truly good, I'd be open to checking it out. 

Edited by PavlovsCat
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user 905133

user 905133

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Posted

I stand by my assessment of your claim (red flag # 1) both for what it says and for what it implies.

In addition your new (not previously raised) corollary about websites that aren't (and are) designed to look good on mobile  phones also says nothing about the quality of the products made available at that site. 

10 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

Of course,  as I made clear, it doesn't make it certain the developer doesn't have skills. It just makes the probability of the developer not having high standards in their product software development much more likely than if they had a well designed and up to date coded website. You can feel free to disagree,  of course. I'm just stating my thoughts. But I never stated I  thought it was certain that the developer doesn't have some decent plugins. I'm saying that there are a lot of signs that reflect poor quality and poor judgment.  That's all.  You  can download his plugins and report back and if you find something truly good, I'd be open to checking it out. 

Yes, I disagree that website design correlates with product quality.  I was also  sharing my thoughts. 

  • One set of small points related to the website's automated response system and the developer's personal responsiveness:
    • When I originally used the website I found that the automatic turnaround (acknowledgement / license / serial number) was fast and effective unlike many professional-looking sites with more modern website designs.  
    • When the developer took the initiative to send out an e-mail about a newly discovered issue with a plug-in stating what the issue was and what would be done to fix it, I took the opportunity to revisit  the site and to try some of the other freebies.  Again, the responsiveness of the website was fast and effective with one exception.
    • When I e-mailed the developer that the website did not send out a similar acknowledgement / access reply for one of the products, he replied promptly and reported that he found the reason for the issue I called to his attention. When I looked immediately after getting the reply, it was fixed.
    • The reply was not defensive or dismissive (unlike some replies I have seen and heard about from some huge companies with fancy websites.)

As for your stated and implied points about mobile phones and using their website designs and functionality as standards to judge the professionalism of plug-in makers, I have used mobile apps from big budget international corporations that have very slick, very professional-looking websites that have major issues.  In fact, I called several companies to try to work through some of the issues ("am I doing something wrong, or is it the app") and ended up with customer service duplicating the issues. 

By any chance did you write to the developer about the Infinity Synth and your concerns?  If so, how did he respond?  Also, did you try to give him your professional advice about his website design?

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PavlovsCat

PavlovsCat

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@User 905133We'll just have to agree to disagree.  But instead of writing long missives telling me how I'm wrong for using my past experience with his flagship synth and the condition of his website to assess that his other plugins PROBABLY  aren't exceptional;  wouldn't it make more sense for you to download some of his plugins and share your thoughts?  I have in the past.

I was just sharing my experience, my thoughts and entertaining the possibility that there might be some gem there that I missed. Your posts are merely critiques of my posts. I clearly stated that it's not impossible that this developer has some decent plugins and asked anyone to share if they found that to be the case. Based on my experience, the developer's website and the feedback comments from people in this thread who have tried his plugins --  like MrFigg who has made multiple posts sharing how he was unhappy with the plugins and has been attempting to remove them from his PC -- the signs don't point in a positive direction. And, no, to answer your remark, I didn't contact the developer to inform him I wasn't impressed with his Infinity synth and offer him unsolicited advice for improvements as you suggested and the vast majority of people wouldn't do that either -- as unsolicited, highly critical advice is often not well received. Like most people who download and install a free plugin they didn't find to their satisfaction, I simply deleted the plugin, as others in this thread have shared they've done. 

Anyhow, you and I just see things differently.  We can move on. It's no big deal.  You've made your point that you disagree with me a number of times. I think we're all clear on that. 

Edited by PavlovsCat
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MrFigg

MrFigg

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Posted

I wrote to the guy to ask a question and he got back to me within a couple of hours which is plus points in my book. 

Patrick Fridh (AKA Bitley) created  arguably one of the best and most extensive Reason Refills ever , Way Beyond Fairlight. His website om the other hand was absolute chaos. Totally rubbish. After 10 years he’s now got it together and looking quite good. 

Yeah, the Stagecraft plugins don’t do anything for me but they were free, I don’t have to use them and I think I’ve finally managed to locate every nut and bolt they put on my machine. 

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user 905133

user 905133

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2 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

We'll just have to agree to disagree.  But instead of writing long missives telling me how I'm wrong for using my past experience with his flagship synth and the condition of his website to assess that his other plugins PROBABLY  aren't exceptional;  wouldn't it make more sense for you to download some of his plugins and share your thoughts?

Anyhow, you and I just see things differently.  We can move on. It's no big deal.  

(1) I am not sure where we disagree and where we agree. That said, I stand by what I said and am willing to leave it as it stands with a clarification of where I was coming from.

(2) I feel strongly that your red flags post in both style and content and your critical judgments based upon the website as you experienced it might inadvertently cause readers to dismiss from consideration some plug-ins that might work for them if they tried them out.

(3) I guess we are disagreeing about the value and validity of making judgments based on personal experiences. Not 100% sure, though. I have no issues with your using your personal experiences to make decisions for yourself.    

Oh--as for advising me that it would make more sense for me to download some of his plug-ins and share my thoughts [presumably about specific plug-ins], thank for the suggestion.  I know I downloaded and tried a couple; not sure which ones.  As a fan of delay / echoes, I probably downloaded and test drove a delay plug-in.  I know I had a very cordial discussion with an independent developer about a plug-in I tried out.  Not sure if it was one from Stagecraft or from someone else.  I did indeed look for the correspondence yesterday but didn't find it. So I am not sure it was a Stagecraft plug or what.  If I find out it was from Stagecraft, I will do another test drive and share my impressions in hope that it helps someone here.  Just so you know, just because  I don't use specific plug-ins, that doesn't mean others wouldn't find value in them.  

PS: I just looked at the SC plug-ins I have installed on my PC.  I have Armory, AutoFilter, Bitcrusher, and Delay; so I was probably correct in recalling my experiences with SC Delay.  FWIW, as a fan of echo/delays I have sometimes used multiple ones from different manufacturers. I accept that some people might choose never to do anything like this.  That's OK with me.

Peace.

 

Edited by User 905133
added a missing letter (typo)
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