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Sooooo, is buzz dead again ?

Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2018 10:44 am
by pavulon
Hi guys
I've never been a buzz power-user myself, tried it few times,did few blips and blops, however, I really loved some of the music created with it and in general, I was fascinated about the concept and the vivid buzz scene growing around it.
Then, the infamous hard drive crash happened which killed it all - for years, a very devoted and loyal group of its users continued to use it but it was all destined to fail - it was sad to look at - people tried to keep that Frankenstein running with various tweaks, plugins, hacks.
And then, out of nowhere - the new buzz arrived with a steady stream of updates.
I was following the news waiting what will happen but unfortunatelly - new buzz never again gained the momentum it had when it all started.
And now, there are no updates for more than 2 years and the community is pretty much dead - no updates, no new machines, not much going on around it.
I hope I won't upset anyone, thats not my intention.
I would rather like to know what you guys think - is there any hope for buzz ? Would you recommend it to anyone starting with music ?

Re: Sooooo, is buzz dead again ?

Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2018 5:45 pm
by domtron
I'm using Buzz x64 mostly with VST's. It's working, rock solid,selecting only stable VST's though.

Re: Sooooo, is buzz dead again ?

Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2018 3:22 am
by Candle
I never stopped using it. And there are new machines (the Snow Globe machines are an example). There has not been development from Oskari for a while, but the community is still here - albeit (as you say) much reduced from the heydays of yesteryear.

Still, there's no other software I want to use to make music. And there's enough of a community here that supports what users seem to be trying to do with the program.

Just my 2¢'s…

See You In The Shadows…

Re: Sooooo, is buzz dead again ?

Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2018 5:46 pm
by IXix
pavulon wrote:the community is pretty much dead
Who're you callin' dead?

Re: Sooooo, is buzz dead again ?

Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2018 6:02 pm
by tinga
pavulon wrote: is there any hope for buzz ?
Maybe, Buzz seems an old school thing, but its not the case, its great for VST, many innovative stuff in the gear, a small community, but very reactive, sometimes, I report a bug and just few hours after, an update 8-) .
pavulon wrote: Would you recommend it to anyone starting with music ?
Yes of course.

Re: Sooooo, is buzz dead again ?

Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2018 7:29 pm
by polac
Would you recommend it to anyone starting with music ?
Buzz is pretty intuitional, so i would say yes.

Re: Sooooo, is buzz dead again ?

Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2018 10:13 pm
by AndersBrontosaurus
Since Buzz is fully functional i'd definitely say there's hope for buzz. i guess you wonder if there's any for future development? i don't know. There is no official timeline for development. Off course it would be fantastic if Oskari left all other things in his life behind and focused on developing Buzz in a microsoftish patch tuesdaystyle with a continuous flow of new features for free forever but this is not the case and quite an absurd thing to ask for. Since buzz is fully working I think that nobody is really bothered about this. Personally i do keep a hope that Oskari has something up his sleave but if buzz stays like it is i will still be completely satisfied and grateful for all the efforts already put into the project. Speaking about the forum people are not sharing a lot of things with the community but my impression is that it is very very active on a supportive basis. I have asked A LOT of simple and/or stupid questions over the years and almost always get help within a few hours. Feel free to join the forum. The more the merrier. :-)

Re: Sooooo, is buzz dead again ?

Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2018 7:39 am
by Joachip
It has never been "dead".

PS: Most people use the 32 bit version which is the most tested one.
And it can actually load 64-bit VST plugins... because polac is a wizard!

Re: Sooooo, is buzz dead again ?

Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2018 10:09 am
by pavulon
Thanks for all your opinions. You guys indeed look like a very helpful, friendly bunch ! :D

Re: Sooooo, is buzz dead again ?

Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2018 10:57 pm
by nathansnider
Buzz is still rokin' after all these years. Obviously, development and community activity have both slowed down a lot, but it's far more powerful now than it was back in the heyday when there were a dozen .bmx songs a day being uploaded to scene.de or wherever.

A lot of the momentum in the early days was a result of people transitioning from the old DOS trackers, which were still (relatively) widely used back then. After a few years of using FT2, when I found Buzz, it was a huge leap forward, and it just flowed naturally from my old tracker habits. Somebody who came up using Ableton is probably not going to adopt the Buzz workflow quite so easily, and depending on their goals, they might not even see much benefit in it. But I don't think I could ever give up on Buzz. The modular signal flow combined with the tracker interface is like water to me. There are always things that could be improved, but a lack of development doesn't mean that it's "dead."
Joachip wrote:Most people use the 32 bit version which is the most tested one.
And it can actually load 64-bit VST plugins... because polac is a wizard!
Is there a trick to make this work? All 64-bit VSTs I've tried in 32-bit Buzz have failed to load. They show up in the machines list duplicated as both generators and effects, but they just produce a "Load Error" dialog when I try to add them.

Re: Sooooo, is buzz dead again ?

Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2018 9:49 am
by polac
Is there a trick to make this work? All 64-bit VSTs I've tried in 32-bit Buzz have failed to load. They show up in the machines list duplicated as both generators and effects, but they just produce a "Load Error" dialog when I try to add them.
Do you have the full loader package installed? There are two exes called vst.exe and vst.x64.exe required to run a vst as separate process. However I don't know why they show up in both generators and effects for you.

Re: Sooooo, is buzz dead again ?

Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2018 3:07 pm
by nathansnider
polac wrote:Do you have the full loader package installed? There are two exes called vst.exe and vst.x64.exe required to run a vst as separate process. However I don't know why they show up in both generators and effects for you.
Hmm, interesting, I don't see vst.x64.exe in my Buzz directory. User error, clearly. I'll reinstall this evening when I have more time to play around. Thanks!

Re: Sooooo, is buzz dead again ?

Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2018 9:11 pm
by HerrFornit
well, there are a lot of competitors these days. So many professional software, which you can get in lite versions for almost free.

But nothing compares to me with BUZZ. Even when I came back to making music after many years.
I have a free licence for Abelton life lite. I always get depressed when I open it facing the GUI. Cant get used to it (yet).
I'm a tracker.....

Hopefully BUZZ is maintained for a while, at least OS compatibility.
PS: An installer containing the brilliant extensions, you know, would just be the dot on the i ;)

Re: Sooooo, is buzz dead again ?

Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2019 4:19 pm
by mcbpete
Joachip wrote:Most people use the 32 bit version which is the most tested one.
And it can actually load 64-bit VST plugins... because polac is a wizard!
Which setup do you think is the most stable - the stable 32bit of Buzz with Polac's VST loader bridging to 64bit VSTs, or using the native (but experimental) 64bit Buzz build without bridging ?

Re: Sooooo, is buzz dead again ?

Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2019 6:37 pm
by onecircles
This topic really irritates me, for obvious reasons. It's a pretty stupid thing to come ask the community of people who use this program for their creative work "so is your creative tool dead?".

It's not dead, it's finished. It's complete.

It's massive, complex, wonderful, enticing.
Modular, configurable.

It's the daw that you create through your choices in the modular environment. It is a mirror of YOUR SOUL.

Maybe you are dead inside, pavulon, and this is why you ask this stupid question.

Re: Sooooo, is buzz dead again ?

Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2019 8:09 pm
by IXix
onecircles wrote:it's finished. It's complete.
I certainly hope not!

Re: Sooooo, is buzz dead again ?

Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2019 9:41 pm
by onecircles
Yeah, good point IX. This thread is actually the reason that I decided to begin learning IXMagic today, which is one of the most powerful tools in the HISTORY OF MUSIC and you released it last week! I just meant that buzz has got enough already to fill a lifetime of music, and yet it continues to evolve thanks to the devs like you and the community.

I am an electronics professional with experience in military avionics. I built a custom DAW computer just for buzz. It literally does nothing except make music using buzz. I spend all day every day in buzz. It is the seat of all my musical ambitions. I will never switch daws. Buzz is just too unique and powerful for me to consider anything else.

For instance: I don't have any effects pedals for my guitar, I use Buzz cable routing, polac ASIO drivers, and BTDsys Peer state to create a virtual pedalboard in my overclocked DAW computer that makes my guitarist friends do a double-take. My balanced signal comes out my lynx interface and goes through a radial DI box and into my guitar amp and it's all running at 96khz and it sounds amazing.

It's a tracker AND the most insane multi effects you could ever imagine, AND so many other things it would take me hours to write a post detailing them, and that's just in my little universe of buzz. There are so many options with buzz that everyone creates what they want. It's a daw that mirrors you, rather than telling you how you're supposed to create music.

For people like me there is no choice but Buzz. :idea:

Re: Sooooo, is buzz dead again ?

Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2019 9:46 pm
by onecircles
One thing though, I WILL admit it hurt a little when we got surpassed in the search rankings by the Over 50 Seniors Forum! HAHA but hey we're a niche. Maybe we'll get some cool old jazz folks to come over to make electronic music, or maybe, just maybe they will entice us to their forum and we will find true love.

LOL!

:lol: :dance: :lol:

Re: Sooooo, is buzz dead again ?

Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2019 10:11 pm
by HerrFornit
onecircles wrote: It's a tracker AND the most insane multi effects you could ever imagine, AND so many other things it would take me hours to write a post detailing them, and that's just in my little universe of buzz.
So you are the one who will update the KVR buzz site? ;) ;)
https://www.kvraudio.com/product/buzz_by_jeskola

Re: Sooooo, is buzz dead again ?

Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2019 7:10 pm
by IXix
When a musician is ready for Buzz, Buzz will find them.