Dave Smith Instruments SYNTHESIZERS

On 16 Oct 2010, at 19:32, Dustin D wrote:

> Show us that you care after the initial purchase and you have customers for life. I feel that synths are too valuable to be disposable and need to be updatable. Is it possible to open source the programming to the community if DSI doesn't have the resources? 


This is something I would really love to see. I genuinely believe that people would buy *more* DSI gear not less if it were opened up in this way. If I could rewrite the software for (say) the Prophet08 or PEK, I'd sell my granny to get one. As it is, I don't particularly feel the need to own one.

Even if it weren't done on current products, you could open source the code for products that were no longer supported and no longer in production. If there were enough people out there who loved them, you can be sure there'd be all kinds of interesting stuff got done.

In a synth world where it becomes increasingly difficult to differentiate your product from the next guy's, open source software is one thing that could really set you apart. How about it, Dave?

T.

> In a synth world where it becomes increasingly difficult to differentiate 
> your product from the next
> guy's, open source software is one thing that could really set you apart. 
> How about it, Dave?

This might indeed bring a few new customers. But most likely not enough to 
cover the cost of the additional people for the manufacturer's support 
department.

Or do you really think that customers wouldn't expect support from the 
manufacturer for a third party OS or would not blame him for problems caused 
by 3rd party OSs?

"Hey, Dave, OS 0.1 beta from well known list member X adds a lot of 
fantastic features to the PEK. Unfortunately it causes my PEK to 
occasionally freeze and sysex transfer to downgrade to an older OS was 
promised only for version 0.2.
X unfortunately doesn't reply to my mails atm, I think he is on holiday / 
didn't pay his provider / is a little distracted after his divorce/his pet's 
passing/his boyfriend's unexpected pregnancy / can't be bothered with bug 
reports atm cause he's already developing another set of fantastic addons / 
...

So I thought that DSI could help for once. I suppose it takes only a few 
minutes to recompile, interpret and debug his uncommented C++ code" ;)

Things like that have never happened in the past and will never happen in 
the future.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tom Wiltshire" <tom@...>
To: <DSI_Evolver@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, October 16, 2010 9:43 PM
Subject: Re: [DSI Synths] DSI Evolution?



On 16 Oct 2010, at 19:32, Dustin D wrote:

> Show us that you care after the initial purchase and you have customers 
> for life. I feel that synths are too valuable to be disposable and need to 
> be updatable. Is it possible to open source the programming to the 
> community if DSI doesn't have the resources?


This is something I would really love to see. I genuinely believe that 
people would buy *more* DSI gear not less if it were opened up in this way. 
If I could rewrite the software for (say) the Prophet08 or PEK, I'd sell my 
granny to get one. As it is, I don't particularly feel the need to own one.

Even if it weren't done on current products, you could open source the code 
for products that were no longer supported and no longer in production. If 
there were enough people out there who loved them, you can be sure there'd 
be all kinds of interesting stuff got done.

In a synth world where it becomes increasingly difficult to differentiate 
your product from the next guy's, open source software is one thing that 
could really set you apart. How about it, Dave?

T.

I think it would go without saying that if a manufacturer were to open up the 
code to the public then the company would not support the altered product. I 
don't know of any software company that has, so why would we expect DSI to? I 
think opening up the software to the public would be a great idea. I'm totally 
with Tom in that I would be a DSI customer for 'life' if they did something like 
that. Hell, DSI could even make some spare change selling chips with the 
original OS on it if people F'ed up their code so bad that they couldn't even 
revert back to the original code base.

But whatever, I don't expect this to happen. This code is more than likely on 
all of his products, so he wouldn't want his competitors stealing his 
intellectual property.

-Jim





________________________________

From: Stefan Trippler <doct@...>
To: DSI_Evolver@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sat, October 16, 2010 5:57:01 PM
Subject: Re: [DSI Synths] DSI Evolution?

  
> In a synth world where it becomes increasingly difficult to differentiate 
> your product from the next
> guy's, open source software is one thing that could really set you apart. 
> How about it, Dave?

This might indeed bring a few new customers. But most likely not enough to 
cover the cost of the additional people for the manufacturer's support 
department.

Or do you really think that customers wouldn't expect support from the 
manufacturer for a third party OS or would not blame him for problems caused 
by 3rd party OSs?

"Hey, Dave, OS 0.1 beta from well known list member X adds a lot of 
fantastic features to the PEK. Unfortunately it causes my PEK to 
occasionally freeze and sysex transfer to downgrade to an older OS was 
promised only for version 0.2.
X unfortunately doesn't reply to my mails atm, I think he is on holiday / 
didn't pay his provider / is a little distracted after his divorce/his pet's 
passing/his boyfriend's unexpected pregnancy / can't be bothered with bug 
reports atm cause he's already developing another set of fantastic addons / 
...

So I thought that DSI could help for once. I suppose it takes only a few 
minutes to recompile, interpret and debug his uncommented C++ code" ;)

Things like that have never happened in the past and will never happen in 
the future.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tom Wiltshire" <tom@...>
To: <DSI_Evolver@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, October 16, 2010 9:43 PM
Subject: Re: [DSI Synths] DSI Evolution?

On 16 Oct 2010, at 19:32, Dustin D wrote:

> Show us that you care after the initial purchase and you have customers 
> for life. I feel that synths are too valuable to be disposable and need to 
> be updatable. Is it possible to open source the programming to the 
> community if DSI doesn't have the resources?

This is something I would really love to see. I genuinely believe that 
people would buy *more* DSI gear not less if it were opened up in this way. 
If I could rewrite the software for (say) the Prophet08 or PEK, I'd sell my 
granny to get one. As it is, I don't particularly feel the need to own one.

Even if it weren't done on current products, you could open source the code 
for products that were no longer supported and no longer in production. If 
there were enough people out there who loved them, you can be sure there'd 
be all kinds of interesting stuff got done.

In a synth world where it becomes increasingly difficult to differentiate 
your product from the next guy's, open source software is one thing that 
could really set you apart. How about it, Dave?

T.

On 16 Oct 2010, at 22:57, Stefan Trippler wrote:

>> In a synth world where it becomes increasingly difficult to differentiate 
>> your product from the next
>> guy's, open source software is one thing that could really set you apart. 
>> How about it, Dave?
> 
> This might indeed bring a few new customers. But most likely not enough to 
> cover the cost of the additional people for the manufacturer's support 
> department.
> 
> Or do you really think that customers wouldn't expect support from the 
> manufacturer for a third party OS or would not blame him for problems caused 
> by 3rd party OSs?

You're probably right, Stefan. Customers can be an unreasonable bunch, it seems. Getting upset at X for code written by Y is pretty clearly unfair though.

Still, there are people doing new firmware for the Jupiter6 amongst others, and I don't think Roland have had any emails complaining about it. So maybe it's possible. I'd like to believe so.

T.

Let's face it. In this day and age its what limits us, not enables us, that creates good music. Seriously, you have NO OTHER WAY to create a sequence to send to outboard gear? Is it THAT difficult to recreate the bassline you programmed on the Evolver to send to another synth? I just don't believe it.

What DSI has going for it is that Dave has some sort of vision for his instruments. I don't feel he's ever just tried to rip off Moog or whatever. He builds things he wants to use. For the most part, I agree with his choices. Sure, there are things I wish the Evolver could do (at this point, mostly that my rotary encoders wouldn't jump), but what I respect is the insane amounts of flexibility already included in the modulation sources - for that matter that has always been included in Smith Products (Seq Circuits, DSI, Wavestation, whatever).

Yes, the Evolver is not a Fantom Workstation, nor is it a swiss army knife. It does what it does and I am thankful for it.

I'd rather Mr. Smith spend his time engineering a next generation synthesizer than patching the software for a synth thats basically a decade old.

j

--- In DSI_Evolver@yahoogroups.com, James Elliott <johans121@...> wrote:
>
> I think it would go without saying that if a manufacturer were to open up the 
> code to the public then the company would not support the altered product. I 
> don't know of any software company that has, so why would we expect DSI to? I 
> think opening up the software to the public would be a great idea. I'm totally 
> with Tom in that I would be a DSI customer for 'life' if they did something like 
> that. Hell, DSI could even make some spare change selling chips with the 
> original OS on it if people F'ed up their code so bad that they couldn't even 
> revert back to the original code base.
> 
> But whatever, I don't expect this to happen. This code is more than likely on 
> all of his products, so he wouldn't want his competitors stealing his 
> intellectual property.
> 
> -Jim
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> From: Stefan Trippler <doct@...>
> To: DSI_Evolver@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Sat, October 16, 2010 5:57:01 PM
> Subject: Re: [DSI Synths] DSI Evolution?
> 
>   
> > In a synth world where it becomes increasingly difficult to differentiate 
> > your product from the next
> > guy's, open source software is one thing that could really set you apart. 
> > How about it, Dave?
> 
> This might indeed bring a few new customers. But most likely not enough to 
> cover the cost of the additional people for the manufacturer's support 
> department.
> 
> Or do you really think that customers wouldn't expect support from the 
> manufacturer for a third party OS or would not blame him for problems caused 
> by 3rd party OSs?
> 
> "Hey, Dave, OS 0.1 beta from well known list member X adds a lot of 
> fantastic features to the PEK. Unfortunately it causes my PEK to 
> occasionally freeze and sysex transfer to downgrade to an older OS was 
> promised only for version 0.2.
> X unfortunately doesn't reply to my mails atm, I think he is on holiday / 
> didn't pay his provider / is a little distracted after his divorce/his pet's 
> passing/his boyfriend's unexpected pregnancy / can't be bothered with bug 
> reports atm cause he's already developing another set of fantastic addons / 
> ...
> 
> So I thought that DSI could help for once. I suppose it takes only a few 
> minutes to recompile, interpret and debug his uncommented C++ code" ;)
> 
> Things like that have never happened in the past and will never happen in 
> the future.
> 

etc etc etc

Wow J. I guess you have my work flow all sorts of figured out don'cha? Maybe I 
really don't want to use my computer in my setup. Maybe I would like to use my 
evolver, modular, 777, and a midi/cv converter and that's it. Maybe with that 
setup in mind I would like to use the evolver as the clock source. Maybe, just 
maybe just maybe, I'm using the evolver's sequencer to control my modular 
because the evolver has those super duper handy dandy modifiable clock dividers 
built right into it, and I can have it send out a standard clock and I can use 
its sequencer to pump out funky clock division trickery which was part of the 
sound I was going for at the time. Maybe you're just not familiar with what 
would make someone actually want to use the evolver's sequencer to sequence 
other instruments. I guess I could buy a P3 or a Cirkilon (sp?), but I really 
don't want to spend $1000+ on another piece of kit, especially during these 
times of economic uncertainty. 


And as for the tired and recycled quote goes, "In this day and age its what 
limits us, not enables us, that creates good music". Sorry dude, but that 
applies only within a given context. A guitar is what enables a guitarist to 
play guitar music. A percussion kit is what enables a percussionist to play.... 
percussion based music. Please. 


One last thing J, don't presume that I have hit some kind of creative roadblock 
because of these issues. As I've mentioned earlier in these series of threads is 
that ALL OF THESE ISSUES WERE DOCUMENTED AND PRESENTED TO DSI A LONG TIME AGO 
>>>> YEARS AGO!!!! If you read the whole thread you will see where the context 
for this discussion even came from.

Thanks,
Jim





________________________________

From: lesser_inc <j.doerck@...>
To: DSI_Evolver@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sun, October 17, 2010 5:42:55 PM
Subject: [DSI Synths] Re: DSI Evolution?

  

Let's face it. In this day and age its what limits us, not enables us, that 
creates good music. Seriously, you have NO OTHER WAY to create a sequence to 
send to outboard gear? Is it THAT difficult to recreate the bassline you 
programmed on the Evolver to send to another synth? I just don't believe it.

What DSI has going for it is that Dave has some sort of vision for his 
instruments. I don't feel he's ever just tried to rip off Moog or whatever. He 
builds things he wants to use. For the most part, I agree with his choices. 
Sure, there are things I wish the Evolver could do (at this point, mostly that 
my rotary encoders wouldn't jump), but what I respect is the insane amounts of 
flexibility already included in the modulation sources - for that matter that 
has always been included in Smith Products (Seq Circuits, DSI, Wavestation, 
whatever).

Yes, the Evolver is not a Fantom Workstation, nor is it a swiss army knife. It 
does what it does and I am thankful for it.

I'd rather Mr. Smith spend his time engineering a next generation synthesizer 
than patching the software for a synth thats basically a decade old.

j

--- In DSI_Evolver@yahoogroups.com, James Elliott <johans121@...> wrote:
>
> I think it would go without saying that if a manufacturer were to open up the 
> code to the public then the company would not support the altered product. I 
> don't know of any software company that has, so why would we expect DSI to? I 
> think opening up the software to the public would be a great idea. I'm totally 

> with Tom in that I would be a DSI customer for 'life' if they did something 
>like 
>
> that. Hell, DSI could even make some spare change selling chips with the 
> original OS on it if people F'ed up their code so bad that they couldn't even 
> revert back to the original code base.
> 
> But whatever, I don't expect this to happen. This code is more than likely on 
> all of his products, so he wouldn't want his competitors stealing his 
> intellectual property.
> 
> -Jim
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> From: Stefan Trippler <doct@...>
> To: DSI_Evolver@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Sat, October 16, 2010 5:57:01 PM
> Subject: Re: [DSI Synths] DSI Evolution?
> 
> 
> > In a synth world where it becomes increasingly difficult to differentiate 
> > your product from the next
> > guy's, open source software is one thing that could really set you apart. 
> > How about it, Dave?
> 
> This might indeed bring a few new customers. But most likely not enough to 
> cover the cost of the additional people for the manufacturer's support 
> department.
> 
> Or do you really think that customers wouldn't expect support from the 
> manufacturer for a third party OS or would not blame him for problems caused 
> by 3rd party OSs?
> 
> "Hey, Dave, OS 0.1 beta from well known list member X adds a lot of 
> fantastic features to the PEK. Unfortunately it causes my PEK to 
> occasionally freeze and sysex transfer to downgrade to an older OS was 
> promised only for version 0.2.
> X unfortunately doesn't reply to my mails atm, I think he is on holiday / 
> didn't pay his provider / is a little distracted after his divorce/his pet's 
> passing/his boyfriend's unexpected pregnancy / can't be bothered with bug 
> reports atm cause he's already developing another set of fantastic addons / 
> ...
> 
> So I thought that DSI could help for once. I suppose it takes only a few 
> minutes to recompile, interpret and debug his uncommented C++ code" ;)
> 
> Things like that have never happened in the past and will never happen in 
> the future.
> 

etc etc etc

We had a similar issue and discussion in another group I am in involved in, the Korg MS2000 group.  There are changes and features that we all would have liked to see, basic things like putting the step modulator out to MIDI so the MS2000 could be used as a analog type step sequencer for external equipment.  The reality was the processor in the MS2000 was max'd out, there were no more functions that could be added without sacrificing the current features and performance of the synth.  This could also be the case of the DSI, at least for some of what you are asking....

Bob
El Segundo, CA

-----Original Message----- 
From: Tom Wiltshire 
Sent: Oct 17, 2010 5:56 AM 
To: DSI_Evolver@yahoogroups.com 
Subject: Re: [DSI Synths] DSI Evolution? 

  




On 16 Oct 2010, at 22:57, Stefan Trippler wrote:

>> In a synth world where it becomes increasingly difficult to differentiate 
>> your product from the next
>> guy's, open source software is one thing that could really set you apart. 
>> How about it, Dave?
> 
> This might indeed bring a few new customers. But most likely not enough to 
> cover the cost of the additional people for the manufacturer's support 
> department.
> 
> Or do you really think that customers wouldn't expect support from the 
> manufacturer for a third party OS or would not blame him for problems caused 
> by 3rd party OSs?

You're probably right, Stefan. Customers can be an unreasonable bunch, it seems. Getting upset at X for code written by Y is pretty clearly unfair though.

Still, there are people doing new firmware for the Jupiter6 amongst others, and I don't think Roland have had any emails complaining about it. So maybe it's possible. I'd like to believe so.

T.

my issue with DSI a year ago  on this forum was  about having an optional 4 
voice addon upgrade , hooking up an  added internal board  to chain voices 
rather than buying and carrying around a PE rack. (there is PLENTY of room 
inside) -- and i got the same type of criticisms  here for my suggestion.  there 
were those  on the forum who were somehow personally offended that i 'blashemed' 
and critiqued Daves 'masterpiece' of synth engineering, and those  people who 
understood my point and agreed.   Seems the same now on this sequencer issue .  
nonetheless, i was told to forget it by DSI and  to go buy the PER . 
i just wonder what inspired the new Potentiometer  mod--- unless it was a 
grudging acknowledgement that the original encoders dont hold up.  (for only 
$300 extra dollars--right?)  
How did this mod  eventually reach the top brass of DSI ,?  WAs it through 
the user feedback?  

Every product can EVOLVE to be better. 



________________________________

From: Bob S. <tttsystems@...>
To: DSI_Evolver@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Mon, October 18, 2010 2:35:47 AM
Subject: Re: [DSI Synths] DSI Evolution?

  
We had a similar issue and discussion in another group I am in involved in, the 
Korg MS2000 group. There are changes and features that we all would have liked 
to see, basic things like putting the step modulator out to MIDI so the MS2000 
could be used as a analog type step sequencer for external equipment. The 
reality was the processor in the MS2000 was max'd out, there were no more 
functions that could be added without sacrificing the current features and 
performance of the synth. This could also be the case of the DSI, at least for 
some of what you are asking....

Bob
El Segundo, CA

-----Original Message----- 
From: Tom Wiltshire 
Sent: Oct 17, 2010 5:56 AM 
To: DSI_Evolver@yahoogroups.com 
Subject: Re: [DSI Synths] DSI Evolution? 

On 16 Oct 2010, at 22:57, Stefan Trippler wrote:

>> In a synth world where it becomes increasingly difficult to differentiate 
>> your product from the next
>> guy's, open source software is one thing that could really set you apart. 
>> How about it, Dave?
> 
> This might indeed bring a few new customers. But most likely not enough to 
> cover the cost of the additional people for the manufacturer's support 
> department.
> 
> Or do you really think that customers wouldn't expect support from the 
> manufacturer for a third party OS or would not blame him for problems caused 
> by 3rd party OSs?

You're probably right, Stefan. Customers can be an unreasonable bunch, it seems. 
Getting upset at X for code written by Y is pretty clearly unfair though.

Still, there are people doing new firmware for the Jupiter6 amongst others, and 
I don't think Roland have had any emails complaining about it. So maybe it's 
possible. I'd like to believe so.

T.

--- In DSI_Evolver@yahoogroups.com, James Elliott <johans121@...> wrote:
>
> Wow J. I guess you have my work flow all sorts of figured out don'cha? Maybe I 
> really don't want to use my computer in my setup. Maybe I would like to use my 
> evolver, modular, 777, and a midi/cv converter and that's it. Maybe with that 
> setup in mind I would like to use the evolver as the clock source. Maybe, just 
> maybe just maybe, I'm using the evolver's sequencer to control my modular 
> because the evolver has those super duper handy dandy modifiable clock dividers 
> built right into it, and I can have it send out a standard clock and I can use 
> its sequencer to pump out funky clock division trickery which was part of the 
> sound I was going for at the time. Maybe you're just not familiar with what 
> would make someone actually want to use the evolver's sequencer to sequence 
> other instruments. I guess I could buy a P3 or a Cirkilon (sp?), but I really 
> don't want to spend $1000+ on another piece of kit, especially during these 
> times of economic uncertainty. 
> 

JE-

I clearly don't have anything figured out.

Starting off constructively, you could look into buying a Novation Bass Station. They are cheap and have a cv-midi input. This way you could send a sequence on channel 2 of the evolver to the modular with the important parts of the sequence way up around 100-127 and use 1 or 0 (can't remember what the lowest value is) as a rest. Tuning the modular quite low, the lowest notes from the evolver should not really noticeable - or you could high pass filter that... anyway... Then you could take the cv generated back into the cv-midi input and use the clock from there. Granted, you don't have that particular piece of gear, but its doable and cheap.

Secondly, I commend the simplicity of your setup and I believe it does speak to my point that as a backlash to the "everything in the box" mentality of the last decade, people are looking to get MUCH MORE out of LESS. Composing stuff for 3 actual instruments and having it be suitably complex is a lot more rewarding than just dialing up 3 virtual instruments... and it looks a heck of a lot cooler live. We both know your setup would be cheaper and easier to accomplish if you just used a computer. Please don't take ANY of this as a jab because I feel that we are in agreement on this point.

I do read this group, and specifically this thread. Usually I don't have much to say, but I read A LOT of folks weighing in on this topic - and had just returned from sunday morning all-you-can-drink mimosas... which may have affected my tone - apologies all around. My point is/was/is that the Evolver is not a GenoQs box. It was created as a synth that has insane amounts of modulation possibilities built in. In the past, I wished to be able to output one source or another... heck even to use the knobs easily as general midi... or to be able to address the modulation sources with something other than SysEx  (read PC-1600)... its a pain in the ass.... but the Evolver was meant to be a world unto itself... and there generally is a way around the limitations.

I stand by my wish to have DSI spend time on new products rather than add new features to an old product. Bug fixes, YES. If there are bugs it would be nice to see them fixed, but other than that, I think things are pretty ok.

j

> And as for the tired and recycled quote goes, "In this day and age its what 
> limits us, not enables us, that creates good music". Sorry dude, but that 
> applies only within a given context. A guitar is what enables a guitarist to 
> play guitar music. A percussion kit is what enables a percussionist to play.... 
> percussion based music. Please. 
> 
> 
> One last thing J, don't presume that I have hit some kind of creative roadblock 
> because of these issues. As I've mentioned earlier in these series of threads is 
> that ALL OF THESE ISSUES WERE DOCUMENTED AND PRESENTED TO DSI A LONG TIME AGO 
> >>>> YEARS AGO!!!! If you read the whole thread you will see where the context 
> for this discussion even came from.
>

--- In DSI_Evolver@yahoogroups.com, Scott Lawlor <sklawlor@...> wrote:
>
> when you say the encoders jump, what does that mean from a sonic perspective?
> 
>  

What ends up happening is I turn the encoder a bunch of times and finally it catches on a value.. so theres stuttering in the values... If I may, an impersonation of a manual filtersweep:

eeeeeeeeeeeeeee-[chunk]-euuuuuuuuuuuuuu-[chunk]-ooooooooooooo

the chunks are not sounds, more a representation of numbers changing quickly. I've just got some deoxit so I'm going to try that soon. I have MEK #0009, so I reckon its well time for a tune-up.

j

--- In DSI_Evolver@yahoogroups.com, Tom Wiltshire <tom@...> wrote:
> You're probably right, Stefan. Customers can be an unreasonable
> bunch, it seems. Getting upset at X for code written by Y is pretty
> clearly unfair though.
> 
> Still, there are people doing new firmware for the Jupiter6 amongst
> others, and I don't think Roland have had any emails complaining
> about it. So maybe it's possible.

Better to ask how Akai feels about the JJOS, a third party OS for existing products not long discontinued ones.