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Darkglass Anagram Multi FX Announced

#3,661
my two cents..
so, Anagram is an expensive piece of equipment and i understand why people could have some grudge against marketplace. It is true that in many other industries, marketplaces get abused a lot and then you reach a point that you "must" spend money in order to have a meaningful and useful experience with whatever you bought.

But that's not the case here. The thing is, even with a current version of Anagram - we are already getting a lot. In order for me to get all those sounds i have now, with this level of quality - my pedalboard would be huge and only god knows how much money i would need to spend. Def much more than I've spent to get Anagram.

yeah, who wouldn't like getting new blocks every month for next 10 years and not spend a dime anymore - but this is also not realistic thinking. I believe Darkglass will continue update the stock offering but the marketplace would also give us more options. Also, i don't have anything against high prices - this is up to a developer to decide and then community will organically decide if the price is reasonable for the value you are getting. Like with every other product.

Frankly, I would be content with what i have now (+synth from Darkglass or marketplace) - but that's just me.
 
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#3,662
JustFunk said:
Personally, I would never support a company which sells (or allows the sale of) 100 bucks add-ons, as I would conclude that the (high) cost of the gear is not a finished price for a high end bass tool, bust just an initial one, leading to double spending by just adding 10 sounds/sims. I have reasons to believe that such move would put the Anagram out of market. Iphone’s apps, indeed, don’t work this way, being most of great apps free, some which require a small investment, and only very few asking for a premium and those by themselves would have never led Iphone into being a successful product. Either you sell the platform for cheap knowing that the customer is going to build it according to his needs at a premium, or you charge a premium for the platform and cover bassists needs mainly for free or a very very low price. Doing both wouldn’t work as a strategy. When a company makes great things is only half-there. It is extremely easy to loose all good achieved due to a wrong move.
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I have mixed feelings about this.

DG stated from the start that it would be a platform capable of hosting third-party plugins. This is exactly what they promised. They also promised yesterday in the marketplace launch video that their own updates will always be free.

You are under no obligation to buy anything from the marketplace. Whilst I would agree that there are gaps in the Anagram's feature set, which you could argue means "it's not finished", it's perfectly usable as it is and keeps getting better as DG continue to develop it at a rapid rate. Sure, some of the plugins fill some of those gaps for some people, but DG will also continue to add features to plug these gaps, FREE OF CHARGE. FWIW. I had a cursory look through the marketplace offerings yesterday and watched a couple of videos. There are a few genuinely useful plugins there, which I may invest in, but nothing that I feel is essential.

Regarding the iPhone analogy - this was my first thought too, but I feel it's misplaced. Yes, there's a ton of free and inexpensive options available, many of them great, and many of them crap. But there are premium ones too. There are also a lot of subscriptions hidden in free apps that can get very expensive. I'd also argue that the iPhone experience without downloading any apps is rather lacklustre - the anagram is perfectly giggable with the provided blocks out of the box. DG are also offering free trials for every plugin - not something you'll find for premium apps on the iPhone.

Regarding the cost of the plugins, my gut reaction was that some of them are indeed expensive. However, I looked some of them up, and they are the same cost to buy to use in a DAW (such as the Bogren plugins). Could they be discounted? Possibly - but why should they sell their software cheaper for a different platform? I bet they're already giving a cut to DG on any sales, too. Maybe they will run seasonal offers. It's also worth remembering that there are a number of free plugins available too - I will definitely be checking these out.

What would piss me off is if they went down the subscription route. I think they would lose customers.
 
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#3,665
With the Marketplace I think a lot of people are having a knee-jerk reaction and missing the point. The point of the marketplace is to give 3rd parties a way to sell (or give away in some cases) their plugins for the Anagram. People buy 3rd party plug-ins for their DAW all the time. Note that there is not a single Darkglass developed plug-in on the marketplace. Darkglass have repeatedly stated that their blocks and plug-ins will remain free updates.
 
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#3,666
viobass said:
With the Marketplace I think a lot of people are having a knee-jerk reaction and missing the point. The point of the marketplace is to give 3rd parties a way to sell (or give away in some cases) their plugins for the Anagram. People buy 3rd party plug-ins for their DAW all the time. Note that there is not a single Darkglass developed plug-in on the marketplace. Darkglass have repeatedly stated that their blocks and plug-ins will remain free updates.
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Being one of the vendors on the marketplace I may have a conflict of interest, but I can say I fully subscribe to this point of view. That's just what it is.
Also, one of the reasons for me to join was exactly that Darkglass would never charge for effects in one way or another, as that could easily turn rather unfair.
Opportunistically, I also hope and am convinced they'll continue to develop the firmware and the platform, as that means more potential users for us.
 
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#3,667
Is anyone doing comprehensive demos of these online?

Love to hear what's now available in the shop!

Also, I wonder if DarkGlass would ever consider selling a pedal with no software - for much cheaper - as a loss leader.

The videogame model. The UAD model.

Like you buy it, and get 10 free things, then everything else is a purchase.
 
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#3,668
Question for users (and sorry to derail the thread, but I didn't find the answer from a search) -

If the Anagram loses power or restarts during a gig, does the dry, unprocessed sound still pass through the 1/4 or XLR's? I had a gig with my QC where it power-cycled on its own and I didn't have any sound until it rebooted. Unfortunately it was during an encore and I've really soured on using the QC live.
 
#3,669
daste said:
Being one of the vendors on the marketplace I may have a conflict of interest, but I can say I fully subscribe to this point of view. That's just what it is.
Also, one of the reasons for me to join was exactly that Darkglass would never charge for effects in one way or another, as that could easily turn rather unfair.
Opportunistically, I also hope and am convinced they'll continue to develop the firmware and the platform, as that means more potential users for us.
Click to expand...
I'm interested in the Cosmic Milk Chorus because it has a crossover. I'm going to try it and if I like it, will buy it.
 
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#3,670
viobass said:
I'm interested in the Cosmic Milk Chorus because it has a crossover. I'm going to try it and if I like it, will buy it.
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If you have any question I'm here.
To be as fair as possible: also the Pirkko Chorus Deluxe by Dirty Boys Audio has a crossover and is free. Check that out as well.
 
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#3,673
JengDoe said:
Okay, I bought an expensive MSI laptop, so why do I still have to pay for Windows, movies, a Spotify subscription, and VST plugins?


I hope a lot of people buy these new blocks and Anagram becomes more popular because of the market.
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the message was not against paying for a very specific plugin you may need. The message was against having to pay 100 bucks for plugins as the only way for the Anagram not to age faster than its hardware. If it’s the case, but looking at the marketplace it seems it is not (expensiver stuff cost 50 euros but most are from free to 30).

From an happy Anagram owner (waiting for it to arrive).
 
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#3,674
Mo'Phat said:
Question for users (and sorry to derail the thread, but I didn't find the answer from a search) -

If the Anagram loses power or restarts during a gig, does the dry, unprocessed sound still pass through the 1/4 or XLR's? I had a gig with my QC where it power-cycled on its own and I didn't have any sound until it rebooted. Unfortunately it was during an encore and I've really soured on using the QC live.
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No.

I doubt you'd find any effects unit that still passes an audio signal from an input to an output while the device power-cycles or reboots.
 
#3,675
DaBigBadaBoom said:
Is anyone doing comprehensive demos of these online?

Love to hear what's now available in the shop!

Also, I wonder if DarkGlass would ever consider selling a pedal with no software - for much cheaper - as a loss leader.

The videogame model. The UAD model.

Like you buy it, and get 10 free things, then everything else is a purchase.
Click to expand...



This covers a fair few
 
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#3,677
Mo'Phat said:
Question for users (and sorry to derail the thread, but I didn't find the answer from a search) -

If the Anagram loses power or restarts during a gig, does the dry, unprocessed sound still pass through the 1/4 or XLR's? I had a gig with my QC where it power-cycled on its own and I didn't have any sound until it rebooted. Unfortunately it was during an encore and I've really soured on using the QC live.
Click to expand...

Nope it’ll cut out completely but it boots in 7 seconds vs the QC’s minute plus
 
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#3,678
Overall the Marketplace is a great idea, it greatly accelerates the amount of utility you can get from it. Darkglass may have released the blocks from the Marketplace eventually, but do we want to wait the years for that to happen? A few thoughts on some potential improvements:

  • A way to see what blocks are trials and which I've bought or are free. When selecting a block it'd be nice to know which is which.
  • Categories - Lots of amps, but not all bass amps. You can make a guitar amp work for bass, but may take more tweaking.
    • This will become more necessary over time, as more non-bass effects are released and if this become more of a multi-effect for all musicians
  • Ratings - Some sort of metrics on downloads, favorites, etc.
  • New Blocks Feature - In order to combat some of the ratings or downloads (if you sort by number of downloads) naturally any new blocks would be at the bottom, so would be nice to have a Featured Blocks or New Blocks so you can see what you may have missed since the last time you checked
  • Demo's - Would be great to have a Youtube video to demo and go over some of the features. The Auto Drummer for example has an action button, but when I activate it, it just goes to the next section, but how do I trigger a normal fill or outro? I couldn't figure it out in the 10 minutes I was playing with it, and unclear on where I should go for help or a demo.
  • Prices in USD - Would be nice to change the currency to my country, wherever that is.

I recognize this is 1.0 and I'm not complaining, just identifying some ways I think the experience could improve over time. Great release!
 
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