Fractal ICONS Plugin

[sashimi]

I just realized there is now a free trial, sweet! I finally get to try Fractal modeling. I am most interested in the Fender amps anyway. Will be giving this a try this weekend.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

The thing with piracy that bugs me is that I know too many musicians that make no money thus find it acceptable to use stolen gear. That’s bad enough.
The ones that make money with it, worse.

IMO stealing is equally bad whether or not you are making money from it or not. There is no stipulation or agreement that allows theft on that basis and it's even harder to draw the line on. Its just childish to convince yourself its a solid justification.

When you’re young and broke, you can rationalize it, but I generally found that as I had the disposable funds I’d inevitably buy the stuff that mattered to me, and wouldn’t for the shit that ultimately didn’t.

Eventually I would like to think most people grow out of it, or maybe I should say, I just can’t relate to the mindset of grown ass folk who continue to do that shit. Ultimately it’s counter to your own self interests if you don’t give a dev a reason to continue to create cool stuff. Maybe I’m losing touch.

Totally agree with this. Kids and teenagers do stupid impulsive things without fully understanding the consequences and repercussions of how it affects others. Part of growing up is coming to that understanding. I'm genuinely embarrassed for grown ass adults who feel like they are so important and entitled to have access to software that they can't afford. Probably say in front of a spec'd out computer online pissing money away on other things while claiming that their situation makes stealing acceptable.

Too many people who use stolen software steal so much that they've lost their perspective on it all. When you pay your own money for something, you treat it very differently than something in a big pile of stolen stuff that you never set time aside for.

I also genuinely hope this doesn't affect Fractals plan's too much going forward for more plugins. There should have been appropriate market research to land on a pricing structure that accounts for things like this - hopefully the price point allows for enough sales for them to succeed with it. I'd be a bit disappointed if it doesn't pan out, as I'm very much committed as a customer to this, and ultimately it's something that needs to be appropriately navigated - much like every other software company out there has to. I didn't massively WANT this product, but I wanted it to succeed so I can buy others. I was putting my money where my mouth was because I've been clamouring for a Fractal plugin for so long.

My feeling has always been that Fractal held off until they felt confident enough in being able to make things work - I dont think they've been so naive where they're doing things by the edge of their seat. Pricing higher might mean there are less "lost sales" vs people stealing a $29 plugin, but it's certainly a somewhat brave approach compared to how most companies are doing things at the moment. Perhaps I'm too optimistic but I want to believe there are enough good guys out there who genuinely want these companies to succeed, and buy into the whole company (and Cliff himself) when they become a customer. It's kind of how I feel with Valhalla - even if I don't love all their products I feel like I owe it to what Sean Costello is doing to keep supporting it.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

Isn't it not just a concern about losing sales, but also other companies seeing behind the curtain and getting a look at Fractal's modeling magic?

Nah, if there was any merit in that they'd just plump up the cash. Or just scrape from the demo. I think its too easy to just make a NAM model or cut a lot of corners rather than trying to reverse engineer decades of Cliffs work

 

[paisleywookiee]

You didnt answered anything for me just trolling, trying to be release the pain from your hurted-butt i think

 

[volkan]

Stop getting butt-hurt over the fact that I answered your questions. You're either here to join the community in good faith, or you're here to be a troll and will be treated accordingly.

And trying to show yourself good guy contributing this forum : )

 

[BROCKSTAR]

 

[Whizzinby]

Totally agree with this. Kids and teenagers do stupid impulsive things without fully understanding the consequences and repercussions of how it affects others. Part of growing up is coming to that understanding. I'm genuinely embarrassed for grown ass adults who feel like they are so important and entitled to have access to software that they can't afford. Probably say in front of a spec'd out computer online pissing money away on other things while claiming that their situation makes stealing acceptable.

Too many people who use stolen software steal so much that they've lost their perspective on it all. When you pay your own money for something, you treat it very differently than something in a big pile of stolen stuff that you never set time aside for.

I also genuinely hope this doesn't affect Fractals plan's too much going forward for more plugins. There should have been appropriate market research to land on a pricing structure that accounts for things like this - hopefully the price point allows for enough sales for them to succeed with it. I'd be a bit disappointed if it doesn't pan out, as I'm very much committed as a customer to this, and ultimately it's something that needs to be appropriately navigated - much like every other software company out there has to. I didn't massively WANT this product, but I wanted it to succeed so I can buy others. I was putting my money where my mouth was because I've been clamouring for a Fractal plugin for so long.

My feeling has always been that Fractal held off until they felt confident enough in being able to make things work - I dont think they've been so naive where they're doing things by the edge of their seat. Pricing higher might mean there are less "lost sales" vs people stealing a $29 plugin, but it's certainly a somewhat brave approach compared to how most companies are doing things at the moment. Perhaps I'm too optimistic but I want to believe there are enough good guys out there who genuinely want these companies to succeed, and buy into the whole company (and Cliff himself) when they become a customer. It's kind of how I feel with Valhalla - even if I don't love all their products I feel like I owe it to what Sean Costello is doing to keep supporting it.

Funny you mention this, because I was telling someone else here when it dropped how a Fender suite isnt exactly my primary interest, but after banging on for plugins for so long I auto-bought it to show support for the endeavor. It was a put up or shut up moment.

I hope they anticipated this would happen, because unfortunately it’s fairly predictable in this space.

I hope the impact is minimal and that they realize it’s been such an energizing thing for their fan base. This has been the most exciting recent development in the modeling space imo. I’m confident that the overwhelming majority of their users will support them by legitimate means, and hopefully FAS will see that the value this adds to their users outweighs the downside that some small percentage of spineless weasels will be using a crack.

 

[RiffDuck]

Happy Friday everyone! Word on the streets is that I can steal things if I don't like how much they cost

I'm off to steal some private jets and a few yachts if anyone wants to join

 

[paisleywookiee]

And trying to show yourself good guy contributing this forum : )

He's not just a good guy. He's a fucking hero.

Well, maybe an anti-hero. Like Deadpool, but better looking.

 

[DrewJD82]

This is an interesting angle, are we profiling the metal dudes as more likely to pirate software than the Fender dudes?

I’m a metal dude and definitely take no offense to that, I actually thought in the same direction upon the release. Partly due to seeing far, far, far more “Mix Test #32 w/ ____ plugin” metal tracks than I’ve ever even seen of a single clean amp “tone test”, go visit Sevenstring.org and you’ll see what I mean. The other part is because I recall Cliff saying what particular area would expose their secret sauce and my knee-jerk reaction was “Ah, maybe Fender’s won’t make that particular aspect as noticeable and not draw attention to it, a safer lamb to be led to probable slaughter”

 

[Ed DeGenaro]

IMO stealing is equally bad whether or not you are making money from it or not. There is no stipulation or agreement that allows theft on that basis and it's even harder to draw the line on. Its just childish to convince yourself its a solid justification.

Totally agree with this. Kids and teenagers do stupid impulsive things without fully understanding the consequences and repercussions of how it affects others. Part of growing up is coming to that understanding. I'm genuinely embarrassed for grown ass adults who feel like they are so important and entitled to have access to software that they can't afford. Probably say in front of a spec'd out computer online pissing money away on other things while claiming that their situation makes stealing acceptable.

Too many people who use stolen software steal so much that they've lost their perspective on it all. When you pay your own money for something, you treat it very differently than something in a big pile of stolen stuff that you never set time aside for.

I also genuinely hope this doesn't affect Fractals plan's too much going forward for more plugins. There should have been appropriate market research to land on a pricing structure that accounts for things like this - hopefully the price point allows for enough sales for them to succeed with it. I'd be a bit disappointed if it doesn't pan out, as I'm very much committed as a customer to this, and ultimately it's something that needs to be appropriately navigated - much like every other software company out there has to. I didn't massively WANT this product, but I wanted it to succeed so I can buy others. I was putting my money where my mouth was because I've been clamouring for a Fractal plugin for so long.

My feeling has always been that Fractal held off until they felt confident enough in being able to make things work - I dont think they've been so naive where they're doing things by the edge of their seat. Pricing higher might mean there are less "lost sales" vs people stealing a $29 plugin, but it's certainly a somewhat brave approach compared to how most companies are doing things at the moment. Perhaps I'm too optimistic but I want to believe there are enough good guys out there who genuinely want these companies to succeed, and buy into the whole company (and Cliff himself) when they become a customer. It's kind of how I feel with Valhalla - even if I don't love all their products I feel like I owe it to what Sean Costello is doing to keep supporting it.

Obviously it’s bad whether you make money from it or not. But let’s face it the logic of the “3000 plugin downloads every crack there is” guys is they’d never have bought it.

And it’ll just sit there unused.
Yes ut sucks but welcome to a post Napster world.
It’s part of the business model now.

Doesn’t mean it can’t bug me more when guys that make money do it

 

[GreatGreen]

I'll probably get dog-piled for this, but here goes anyway:

First, I absolutely agree that any piracy is totally immoral and wrong. Not defending or justifying piracy whatsoever. HOWEVER, the goal of the business should not be to shift things into an us/them scenario. The more a business attempts to moralize and drive a divide between customers and pirates, the more the pirates will turn it into a war against the people "looking down their noses" at the pirates, the more diligently the pirates will devote themselves to pirating everything you release. What I'm saying is you can complain about pirates all day long and blame all your problems on them, but that won't put food on your table or keep your people employed. To the contrary, more often than that it just makes things worse, even if what the business is saying is completely true.

The other thing that needs to be said is that 1 pirated copy ≠ 1 lost sale, no matter who would try to have you believe otherwise. Most pirates never would have purchased the product either way. Actually in some cases piracy can even be a good thing because if the product is good, it's effectively free marketing. Word gets out to more potentially paying customers who never would have heard about your product otherwise. What is better for a business, 100 sales, OR 110 sales and 1,000,000 pirated copies, where 20 of the legit sales came from people who otherwise wouldn't have heard about the product if not for pirates making it popular by talking about it?

Piracy also has a cost to the user. There's a good chance anything pirated you get will contain computer-destroying malware. You often have to go to the ends of the internet's sketchiest places to find it, those places themselves also often full of malware. A lot of users would rather pay for the real deal and get the "better service" of a clean and direct software delivery platform. Steam recognized this years ago and they built their entire business on this principal, and now they're a multi-billion dollar business, far and away the best platform for video games in their industry to the tune of commanding 74-75% global market share. People would rather pay for a game on Steam than pirate it for free because the user experience is better than piracy.

In a perfect world, piracy would not exist. I am not defending it, just trying to shed some light on things. Publicly gnashing your teeth at it won't make it go away, so you might as well try to fully understand it so you can attack it and defend against it with greatest efficiency. You're free to write it off completely and say "well pirates are just evil terrible people who I am better than" but again, that won't put food on your table or keep butts in seats at the studio.


So what can you do, right now, to help stop the piracy? Here's an idea. If I was Cliff, I'd release my own special "pirated" version of the software that would work fine for about [random number of minutes] after initial launch, but then all the functionality would break over the course of another [random number of minutes], after which the sound would garble up and quit working. Do not explain that it's a pirated copy, do not throw a middle finger at the pirate. No gotcha moments. Instead, let the pirate draw the conclusion that "the pirated version" of the software "must not have been pirated right" and that they should instead get the real thing if they want it to work. Flood this version all over the place to obfuscate the actual pirated version so pirates have a higher chance of getting the "special" version. This effectively manipulates the market such that purchasing the legitimate version will guarantee a vastly superior experience vs the experience of trying to find a "working" pirated version by scouring through the worst places on the internet.

 

[yek]

I'll probably get dog-piled for this,

Absolutely and rightfully so.

 

[LP59]

The other thing that needs to be said is that 1 pirated copy ≠ 1 lost sale, no matter who would try to have you believe otherwise. Most pirates never would have purchased the product either way. Actually in some cases piracy can even be a good thing because if the product is good, it's effectively free marketing. Word gets out to more potentially paying customers who never would have heard about your product otherwise. What is better for a business, 100 sales, OR 110 sales and 1,000,000 pirated copies, where 20 of the legit sales came from people who otherwise wouldn't have heard about the product if not for pirates making it popular by talking about it?

I have first hand knowledge as a plugin developer and I can assure you piracy hurts sales. It is never a good thing. People crave cracks of plugins that are already well-known. Nobody ever turned an unknown plugin into a popular product due to piracy.

So what can you do, right now, to help stop the piracy? Here's an idea. If I was Cliff, I'd release my own special "pirated" version of the software that would work fine for about [random number of minutes] after initial launch, but then all the functionality would break over the course of another [random number of minutes], after which the sound would garble up and quit working. Do not explain that it's a pirated copy, do not throw a middle finger at the pirate. No gotcha moments. Instead, let the pirate draw the conclusion that "the pirated version" of the software "must not have been pirated right" and that they should instead get the real thing if they want it to work. Flood this version all over the place to obfuscate the actual pirated version so pirates have a higher chance of getting the "special" version. This effectively manipulates the market such that purchasing the legitimate version will guarantee a vastly superior experience vs the experience of trying to find a "working" pirated version by scouring through the worst places on the internet.

It's been tried. The problem is the reputation of the source is very important on the scene. If somebody new comes along with a crack, it will be viewed with a great deal of skepticism. You can't just "flood this version" as a newcomer.

 

[AlbertA]

The other thing that needs to be said is that 1 pirated copy ≠ 1 lost sale, no matter who would try to have you believe otherwise.

Is this based on any data? At first glance and with no experience on this space this is what I would assume - but it’s this reality?

Most pirates never would have purchased the product either way. Actually in some cases piracy can even be a good thing because if the product is good, it's effectively free marketing. Word gets out to more potentially paying customers who never would have heard about your product otherwise. What is better for a business, 100 sales, OR 110 sales and 1,000,000 pirated copies, where 20 of the legit sales came from people who otherwise wouldn't have heard about the product if not for pirates making it popular by talking about it?

This is no different than the “free exposure” argument. It’s BS.

 

[Orvillain]

I'll probably get dog-piled for this, but here goes anyway:

First, I absolutely agree that any piracy is totally immoral and wrong. Not defending or justifying piracy whatsoever. HOWEVER, the goal of the business should not be to shift things into an us/them scenario. The more a business attempts to moralize and drive a divide between customers and pirates, the more the pirates will turn it into a war against the people "looking down their noses" at the pirates, the more diligently the pirates will devote themselves to pirating everything you release. What I'm saying is you can complain about pirates all day long and blame all your problems on them, but that won't put food on your table or keep your people employed. To the contrary, more often than that it just makes things worse, even if what the business is saying is completely true.

The other thing that needs to be said is that 1 pirated copy ≠ 1 lost sale, no matter who would try to have you believe otherwise. Most pirates never would have purchased the product either way. Actually in some cases piracy can even be a good thing because if the product is good, it's effectively free marketing. Word gets out to more potentially paying customers who never would have heard about your product otherwise. What is better for a business, 100 sales, OR 110 sales and 1,000,000 pirated copies, where 20 of the legit sales came from people who otherwise wouldn't have heard about the product if not for pirates making it popular by talking about it?

Piracy also has a cost to the user. There's a good chance anything pirated you get will contain computer-destroying malware. You often have to go to the ends of the internet's sketchiest places to find it, those places themselves also often full of malware. A lot of users would rather pay for the real deal and get the "better service" of a clean and direct software delivery platform. Steam recognized this years ago and they built their entire business on this principal, and now they're a multi-billion dollar business, far and away the best platform for video games in their industry to the tune of commanding 74-75% global market share. People would rather pay for a game on Steam than pirate it for free because the user experience is better than piracy.

In a perfect world, piracy would not exist. I am not defending it, just trying to shed some light on things. Publicly gnashing your teeth at it won't make it go away, so you might as well try to fully understand it so you can attack it and defend against it with greatest efficiency. You're free to write it off completely and say "well pirates are just evil terrible people who I am better than" but again, that won't put food on your table or keep butts in seats at the studio.


So what can you do, right now, to help stop the piracy? Here's an idea. If I was Cliff, I'd release my own special "pirated" version of the software that would work fine for about [random number of minutes] after initial launch, but then all the functionality would break over the course of another [random number of minutes], after which the sound would garble up and quit working. Do not explain that it's a pirated copy, do not throw a middle finger at the pirate. No gotcha moments. Instead, let the pirate draw the conclusion that "the pirated version" of the software "must not have been pirated right" and that they should instead get the real thing if they want it to work. Flood this version all over the place to obfuscate the actual pirated version so pirates have a higher chance of getting the "special" version. This effectively manipulates the market such that purchasing the legitimate version will guarantee a vastly superior experience vs the experience of trying to find a "working" pirated version by scouring through the worst places on the internet.

This is not informed by industry experience nor evidence. Claptrap.

 

[GreatGreen]

Absolutely and rightfully so.

When someone says they think they're going to be dog-piled, what they mean is that they believe irrational but loud people are going to irrationally lash out at them.

I'd love to hear your reasoning for why I would be "rightfully" dog-piled for condemning piracy while also attempting to explain some of it as opposed to just knee-jerk barking at it like a dog because that's the popular thing to do.

 

[Jarick]

I have to think some of the plugin pricing is based on the knowledge there will be some theft. It's unfortunate, just like shrink is built into retail prices.

Last weekend I took my kid to Best Buy to look at phones and while we're standing there a guy grabbed a box of earbuds, shoved it in his coat pocket, and walked out. Kid and I just stared at each other because theft is such a weird concept to a responsible adult and a good natured kid.

IMO there really is no discussion about piracy to be had...it's theft, both illegal and immoral.

 

[GreatGreen]

I have first hand knowledge as a plugin developer and I can assure you piracy hurts sales.

Your "first hand knowledge" as a plugin developer just tells me you have a personal stake in the argument and are therefore emotionally biased towards it and less capable of thinking about it rationally.

Please tell me how you can "assure me" that piracy hurts sales when evidence of "lost sales" because of piracy are by definition impossible to determine... because you're not only trying to count sales that didn't happen, you're attempting to count sales that didn't happen and arbitrarily attributing the reason for the lack of a sale to a specific cause you also cannot validate.

It is never a good thing. People crave cracks of plugins that are already well-known. Nobody ever turned an unknown plugin into a popular product due to piracy.

You have evidence of that? Because I have personally been to friends' studios where they use cracked software, decided I liked the way the software worked, and went out and purchased it myself. Looks like that "nobody" claim of yours isn't true. It happened with me. You can say that's just anecdotal if you want but if it happened with me, that means it can happen with anybody and likely has. Often.

It's been tried. The problem is the reputation of the source is very important on the scene. If somebody new comes along with a crack, it will be viewed with a great deal of skepticism. You can't just "flood this version" as a newcomer.

Maybe not, I'm happy to say that was just a single idea off the dome. But whether that idea works or not doesn't detract from the overall message of the post which is that just because piracy happens doesn't mean the sky is falling, and that it should be attempted to be better understood.

 

[DrewJD82]

When someone says they think they're going to be dog-piled, what they mean is that they believe irrational but loud people are going to irrationally lash out at them.

I'd love to hear your reasoning for why I would be "rightfully" dog-piled for condemning piracy while also attempting to explain some of it as opposed to just knee-jerk barking at it like a dog because that's the popular thing to do.

While I have no desire to debate anyone about it as I don’t sell plugins nor know enough of that world from a tech standpoint, but I caught a bit of ‘negotiating with terrorists’ vibe from your post. This planet is scarred and fucked all over because the few who ruin it for the many are allowed to get their way FAR too often and I know it wouldn’t sit well with me if, as a company owner, I had to make decisions based off the few bad apples more than the actual customer base.

I suppose most of all, it’s insulting/infuriating to live in a world of “Well, it’s not going away so get used to it” when “it” is a moral situation where the right and wrong presents itself immediately and without question, but as a society we just allow it to continue rather than figuring out what can be done to stop it.