buzz forums

Would you pay for Buzz so that Oskari could afford to work more on it? Or rather, if Oskari said he was going to start charging for Buzz, but would be working a lot more on it first, and then charge for it, would you pay, and if so, how much?

Aye, I definitely would - for the amount of time I use it and the amount of joy it brings me in playing around with the thing, sure I would. I really like the Reaper payment scheme - it's $60 for non commercial use and that entitles you to two major update versions (so around 2 years worth [countless] incremental updates - last time I bought a license that was just over 100 version releases)

there's nothing stopping you from paying for buzz, hit the donate buttons at http://jeskola.net/buzz/

for a commercial release, i would probably buy it because its my DAW of choice for more than a decade and i'd have no other choice than to pay up

But i have a bit of a hard time imagining that "your average DAW user" would accept the current state of buzz in a commercial product. Its still quite experimental and fast-changing and less "polished" or "set in stone" like other commercial DAW. Quite a few rough edges remain (Wavetable, multiIO, the GUI, countless of buggy machines (not buzz's fault but the consumers won't care) etc etc). Maybe for the crowd that would otherwise buy MAX/MSP or Reaktor...

Don't get me wrong, all these things don't matter to people already into buzz and who know about its strong points. But for someone who has to make up his mind over spending say 100 or 200$ (or even more) for a buzz license it becomes very important. You don't have users anymore but customers and those will not want to hunt down a usable ASIO driver / VST loader (thx Polac) or whatever is needed to get going and will generally be less tolerant about unfinished and unpolished features...

I would buy it if it was polished up a bit more and included a few more features like native audio tracks + visual parameter automation (splines etc.). For that I think I'd pay say USD$300.

The modular machine view would be a bit of a point of difference to other DAW's.

Definitely it’s a yes for me.

I would want good audio file handling, recording, and editing in the song view like most DAWs. Currently I use Reaper for this purpose, but I would like to be all self contained in Buzz.

Hoooo! How much for a commercial version – IF OSKARI WOULD WORK MORE ON IT.
Excuse me, but to put it mildly, what a strange view on oskaris work. Besides of the reasonable doubts about "Your averege user", it is:

1. Disrespectful to the whole idea and work, especially to contributers like polac and all the others
2. Disrespectful to oskari: Do you want to purchase the right to "officially" complain about so called missing features.
3. Disrespectful to the whole culture around it: Don't you feel, that it is more than just a DAW

As unz said, you can allways donate ... there is that suggestion of 300 $, so go ahead, I think you will get a very good Buzz 1469!


Buzz 1469 out now! Free update for all unregistered users.
A phantastic DAW with maximum modularity, combined with:

A wave editor,
2 sequencer views of your choice with unlimited tracks (all your computer can eat),
Individual editable themes for your own taste,
A massive collection of powerful generators and high quality effects you can't really check out in a lifetime (even becoming more),
Comfortable group controls of different machines in one parameter window,
Sophisticated, free asignable PEER-manipulation to create complex sound structures, expressful random melodies or wicked rythms,
Sub-pattern trigggering to add more live to your music,
Full VST-integration,
Unlimited connectable machines to be your own architect and listen to the birth of a new sound,
Set up your own templates and load them easily by drag and drop,
and midi and more and more (and something more I have not discovered yet).

All that will give you endless inspiration. Regardless, if you're on Electro, House, Breakbeat, HipHop, Jazz or even Classic.
And may be the best of it all: You can build your own buzz machines.

No, may be the best of it all is: You can allways get technical help, inspiration and music from the ever collaborative buzz scene spreading all over the world and - be a part of it.

So check it out!

Klangkulisse wrote:Hoooo! How much for a commercial version – IF OSKARI WOULD WORK MORE ON IT.
Excuse me, but to put it mildly, what a strange view on oskaris work. Besides of the reasonable doubts about "Your averege user", it is:

1. Disrespectful to the whole idea and work, especially to contributers like polac and all the others
2. Disrespectful to oskari: Do you want to purchase the right to "officially" complain about so called missing features.
3. Disrespectful to the whole culture around it: Don't you feel, that it is more than just a DAW

I certainly didn't mean to be disrespectful (as I'm sure nobody else did), the question was just simply asked would I buy a polished commercial version of Buzz and I answered that I would.

It does not mean I don't appreciate the work Oskari (and others) does and has done of the past decade or so. I donate when I can and purchased corona etc.

I find it strange that you think wanting to support Oskari if he chose to release a commercial version buy purchasing it is somehow disrepectful.

Anyway, I just donated another EUR$150, so thanks for everything either way Oskari

I'm pretty sure most of us are here because we love using Buzz. I certainly meant no disrespect. I have donated a few times I recall.

One of the things that happens when people value Buzz and small communities like ours is getting defensive about it. Another is that they try to help improve it with ideas on how to move forward. Before this descends into the infinite flame war that is the internet norm, lets all take a deep breath

Klangkulisse: I understand what you mean, especially the coding your own machine bit being brilliant But no need to panic..

mosis, double07, mridlen: Please remember this is Oskari's now 15 year old baby, and it's really up to him. Other than that, this topic seems to come up every few years and get about the same response in terms of yes and no.

There was an idea on the irc channel a while ago to make a webpage with all the various donate buttons of different buzz devs and maybe a list of what they were working on. Some of us would prefer you donate through buying records or sending beer, but those details could replace the donate button. Then if someone wants to support a particular machine or whatever, they can see whats going on and help out where they want.

Perhaps someone reading this would like to help out development of buzz, and knows how to make a decent looking webpage? If so, please PM the various devs here and ask for details!

mantratronic wrote:There was an idea on the irc channel a while ago to make a webpage with all the various donate buttons of different buzz devs and maybe a list of what they were working on. Some of us would prefer you donate through buying records or sending beer, but those details could replace the donate button. Then if someone wants to support a particular machine or whatever, they can see whats going on and help out where they want.

Perhaps someone reading this would like to help out development of buzz, and knows how to make a decent looking webpage? If so, please PM the various devs here and ask for details!

Could we just add it to the wiki?

mantratronic wrote:Please remember this is Oskari's now 15 year old baby, and it's really up to him.

Of course, I was just saying if he did CHOOSE to release a commercial buzz I would buy it.

double07 wrote:

mantratronic wrote:There was an idea on the irc channel a while ago to make a webpage with all the various donate buttons of different buzz devs and maybe a list of what they were working on. Some of us would prefer you donate through buying records or sending beer, but those details could replace the donate button. Then if someone wants to support a particular machine or whatever, they can see whats going on and help out where they want.

Perhaps someone reading this would like to help out development of buzz, and knows how to make a decent looking webpage? If so, please PM the various devs here and ask for details!

Could we just add it to the wiki?

yes, good idea!

Being a BUZZ-user since 1998, this tool also inpired me to get into developing and entirely change my job subject.
How about that?

And mantratronic: i totally agree with all of your points.

Of course, I was just saying if he did CHOOSE to release a commercial buzz I would buy it.

Yes I would definitely pay for commercial Buzz. Either way I still want native audio file handling. No rush though, take your time.

Being a BUZZ-user since 1998

I started using it late 1999. It was really the only free softsynth studio back then. Cakewalk was just a midi sequencer, and pretty much everything else was sample based. FL Studio was called Fruity Loops, and the only other alternative was Reason 1.0. I don't even think Buzz supported VST back then. Ahhh the good old days. LOL

Ready to rok!

mantratronic wrote:But no need to panic..

Way off from going beserk.

Only getting sometimes a little bit bugged out by those phrases "Can't we have ..."

But anyway, this also belongs to the buzz scene, the only thing is I don't believe in commercial buzz scene

Never mind, just wanted to add some spice to this point.

I started using buzz in 2002 because I had no money and wanted to make music. I might pay for a pro version or something, but I'm pretty happy with things the way they are. I'm glad this came up again because I've been meaning to donate for a long ass time and this finally motivated me to do it. If I was in Finland I'd buy oskari a few rounds but I'll settle for a paypal donation. before getting to this topic on the board, I just mentioned on another thread about kickstarter campaigns for feature requests. I'm not sure how the details would work out since a lot of the advancements made with buzz are dispersed among a bunch of different people, but it's an idea. maybe you wouldn't even need kickstarter, and if someone was willing to implement a feature request they could just say "hey, I'll do it for $xx, or (insert barter item), here's how to hook me up".

I meet very few people (one since I started using buzz) who are familiar with the concept of a tracker. I think the main thing that would keep people from paying for something like buzz (or any tracker) is the esoteric and sometimes arcane things you have to know to use it, hex notation being foremost in my mind. I love the fact that I can bust out a loop in seconds without ever touching the mouse, but this kind of thing is foreign to most paying consumers of music software. I try to share how awesome this program is but most people are turned off by the fact that my music kind of looks like spreadsheets, and anytime I try to give a friend an overview of how it works the MEGO (My Eyes Glaze Over) effect sets in almost instantly.

I've definitely got to hand it to oskari and all the devs and people who keep this community going with very little monetary reward - it's cool to be a part of something community based and non-commercial. the fact that the main support forum disappeared and a replacement was up in less than 24 hours was fucking amazing. thanks again guys!

I really want to use Buzz after trying to use Renoise (pattern matrix is quite cumbersome compared to Buzz), but I see that there isn't much development of Buzz going on. Could Oskari start charging for it (maybe $20 or something cheap like that) so that he can spend more time on it? Remember where Fruity Loops came from - I found version 3.5 on a Computer Music cover disc yesterday, it runs fine in Windows 8 64 bit, fairly basic but loads of good demo tunes with it - now think where Buzz could be in a few years' time if Oskari was being paid to develop it.

Or could he make it open source and let the community work on it? There were many Buzz clones around, are any of them still going/being developed?

For me, nothing compares to the speed with which you can lay down a track with the Buzz sequence editor and pattern editor - perfect user interface design, perfect choice of keyboard shortcuts too.

Buzz really only needs the wavetable and piano roll finished to be about perfect.