I made a really good sounding JUNO-6 emulation for free, shared it in the KVR forum - this is what happened

[Morphoice]

@David-Healey that doesn't change my experience though ;o)

[David Healey]

@Morphoice said in I made a really good sounding JUNO-6 emulation for free, shared it in the KVR forum - this is what happened:

that doesn't change my experience though ;o)

True, no amount of AI can do that :) Just respond politely, ignore the trolls, and focus on the positive comments.

[dannytaurus]

I get way more bad reviews and negative feedback on my free plugins than I do on my paid plugins.

They aren't anonymous either - they either come by email or their email address is attached to the review.

As for the sound - unfortunately nobody downloading a free plugin cares how much time you took perfecting the sound. On the other hand, if you charged $199 for exactly the same plugin, you'd probably get a lot more positive feedback and lots of compliments on the sound.

Most people value something based on what it cost them. If it cost zero, they don't value it at all. If it cost hundreds of $$ they're much more likely to appreciate it, love it and, most importantly, use it..

[dannytaurus]

@Morphoice

Oh, and the most common accusation: "this was made by AI."

I would put that comment down to two things:

1. You have a quite a lot of (what appear to be) AI-generated images on your site, and
2. The plugin UIs are very minimal, even simplistic, and could be mistaken by some as first-pass AI-generated output.

Plugins based on vintage gear often have vintage-looking skeuomorphic UIs, which AI has a much harder time creating. Examples: all the vintage synths by Arturia, UVI, Cherry Audio, etc.

Your Juno might sound better than the Juno offerings from any of these makers, but with a simplistic UI and a price tag of free, nobody is going to compare yours to those.

None is this is critical of your design, by the way. It's reminds me a lot of Valhalla plugins, which is a good thing!

[Morphoice]

@dannytaurus yeah, the Valhalla UI was the real inspiration behind it, along with that flat design phase Apple is now dialing back on. I kind of love it, and it's really easy to do thanks to David's LAF tutorials.
Most of the art is my own — drawings, photography, or renders. There's some circuit-cyberpunk background on Circuit Mix, and the three guys on Wingmen are early AI imagery, because I was too lazy to draw something for hours and I can't draw men - but that's about it. There's even a media section where you can download my drawings and photography. People see what they want to see, though.
And I don't get the problem. 100 years ago they were railing against the moving production line. Now it's AI. The complaint never changes — only the target. Those who can't do will always resent those who do, and no new tool will ever fix that, because the tool was never really the issue.

Point taken, though! I should simply charge. A lot ;)

[Chazrox]

This post is deleted!

[Chazrox]

@Morphoice said in I made a really good sounding JUNO-6 emulation for free, shared it in the KVR forum - this is what happened:

Free stuff attracts the most entitled users

Theres's a quote by Jim Rohn and it goes "Dont be perplexed by the perplexed" lol. In this case, you also know this is a fact so just accept that and you're good to go. Im sure it sounds great and yes, the music scene has grown to something else in recent years. It definitely has to do with how the next generation is growing up with technology. Everything is user friendly and getting easier so even more is taken for granted. People who even care about whats going on "under the hood" is a dying breed. With that said, m grateful to find communities like HISE forum where I can relate to people who still get sense of accomplishment from "doing the work". In the end, the internet is a dangerous space. Choose your battles. lol.

[griffinboy]

@Morphoice

Sorry to hear that!
Yeah I understand that experience. Audio plugins come under horrible fire no matter what they are. I'm not sure of the full reasons myself. I sometimes get into debates to counteract this kind of "all negatives no positives feedback" whenever I see it online.

It's possible not many of these negative messages were aggressive, It might be the case that it was intended to be genuine feedback. But I've not seen the messages so I can't really speak to that.

You probably don't need to be told, but that download count is great, keep it up.

[Lindon]

@Morphoice kvrAudio is FULL of trolls, ignore it and keep going...VI Control is just as full, only there its the orchestral bias crowd... keep doing your thing...

[Morphoice]

I feel the need to point out once again, what a welcoming, helpful, generous and lovely community the HISE forum is. Kudos to you all. Y'all taught me how to make those plugins. Not AI.

[Christoph Hart]

KVR is the 4chan of music forums, don‘t bother…

[CassD]

7000 is wild! Have you seen any sales from the traffic?

Aprehensive to release my first product due to these reasons. It’s not like devs don’t have backend costs too… Apple dev certificate, hosting etc.

Meta ads are not working for me so I’m going to try this option.

Hope you get some friendly feedback. People are making music with your tools and that’s awesome.

[ustk]

@CassD said in I made a really good sounding JUNO-6 emulation for free, shared it in the KVR forum - this is what happened:

It’s not like devs don’t have backend costs too… Apple dev certificate, hosting etc.

For a year now, I spent more on the different charges than what comes back... yes, I'm currently paying to work at a point I can barely eat...

[David Healey]

Edit: Updated from my earlier post that had some incorrect figures.

This got me thinking.

I have one free product that generally gets positive reviews, but I've been considering making it a paid product - especially since I've just completed a big upgrade for it. So I decided to run some numbers.

17,292 people downloaded the free product.
400 (2.31%) became paying customers on average (very skewed, see the bit below)
The average delay to conversion is about 84 days.
336 (84%) of converted customers bought only once.
During 2023 and 2024, the freebie benefited from YouTube exposure, Facebook ads and product marketing, around 3-5% of downloaders went on to become customers.
Based on downloaders acquired since that marketing activity stopped, the conversion rate appears closer to 0.3-0.7% (roughly 1 customer per 150-300 downloads).

So for approximately every 1000 downloads I get 5 customers. They go on to spend more than the freebie cost me (not including the initial cost to create it), so I guess the freebie stays for now. But that conversion rate is terrible.

[Sifres]

Could it be that your 1.0.6 has no more working arpeggiator? Couldnt get it to work.

KVR crowd seemed a bit annoyed that you dissed the TAL version though, good that you changed it.

[dannytaurus]

@ustk What are your HISE products? Or is this from consulting on other HISE products?

[Morphoice]

@ustk same here.

[Morphoice]

@Sifres I didn't diss Tal — I have great respect for them. All I asked was whether it sounds better, given that the Tal version is many years old and doesn't model certain things that mine does. The chorus topology is wrong, they did not model the BBD, etc.etc. It's a great synth but it's not a Juno. Same with Arturia, who are a multi-million dollar company and couldn't even get the Memorymoog filter right.
But I don't think making it sound good is what people care about. People would rather have fancy buttons and wooden panels to play around with. That makes them feel more like they own the hardware they could never afford. And that's fine. The established developers know this and deliver.

So I won't be putting effort into a good sound anymore, and I won't engage with those people who are not my customers. I'd rather spend time at the pool with my girlfriend. The plugins I made are the plugins I wanted to make, because I use them myself in my music and they sound the way I like. I enjoyed the journey of making them over the years. I don't own a CS-80 anymore, and will probably have to sell my Juno and Simmons too. So my plugins have me covered, and with them finished I'll probably move onto something else.

[dannytaurus]

@Morphoice When you're making plugins that you want to use yourself, you can never lose. No matter what the critics say.

[Morphoice]

@dannytaurus absolutely. It was important to me to get that chorus right, the competition just doesn't. Along the process I also modeled most of the 808 voices in faust from their schematics, indeed by single resistors, capacitors etc. That handclap is fire!!! And there is one other thing I want to figure out before I move on, that's the non linear algorithm of the AMS RMS16. And so far it sounds like I'm almost there. But both will probably never get out. Or maybe at some point I just dump all the DSP for free on some website before I die. Who knows ;)))