Friedrichs Audio "Graphs"

Friedrichs Audio has released an new module called “Graphs” which is a polyphonic dual universal slope generator for $5. theres a free version thats monophonic. i received the email today and picked up the poly version.

the only other module i have from him is East Of Easel which i like enough that i didnt have a problem dropping 5 bucks on Graphs.

This looks like a tinier version of his Maths clone Spikes to me.

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Unfortunately, there is a reason why his stuff is not in the library. Not a good one :frowning:

In Andrew’s post about using GPL licensing, this guy was a case study of why we protect our IP

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isnt that the same with klirrfactor? yet omri has videos with both klirrfactor and friedrichs audio stuff. i dont know the back stories but the stuff i have from friedrichs work well and sounds nice. what exactly is the back story?

klirrfactor has just made a personal decision to sell his stuff independently. friedrich’s first module was a direct Math’s clone - including the artwork. MakeNoise asked him to change it and he refused, leading to his banishment. He then changed the artwork later.

I, personally, would never give this dude any money.

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I think that he wasn’t actually banned, judging from this (old) post by Vortico:

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yes, it’s kind of sad seeing him going back to cloning Math again with this Graph thing… what he has done with spikes (which is really not math anymore) is by far the best and most featured function generator. the only one with perfect v/oct tracking. I think his random modules are also quite powerful.

He was banned from the library. I think make noise complained about it… and he wasn’t very nice when he was around, saying his filter was sooo much better than all the other dev’s filters…

I do miss “true resonance” tho :slight_smile:

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I don’t want to be critical, but it seems pretty easy for this community to make “I hate this guy” threads

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is this accurate? i wasnt around then but it seems @xandra-max’s post shows Andrew stating that freidrichs never asked to distrubute through the plugin manager and did eventually change the graphics on Spikes to something that would have been ok to distribute officially.

fwiw East of Easel is a nice module to play around with west coast synthesis in addition to what @pyer had to say about Spikes and the Hot Bunny stuff.

@David almost seems like offering paid modules outside of the official plugin manager is frowned upon.

I don’t think anyone cares how you sell your modules.

What is “frowned upon” is making a module with nearly identical artwork as a Eurorack module, charging for it (!!!) and when said owner of Eurorack company asks him to stop, he got very indignant and refused (also the original name of said module was “floats” clearly a nod toward Maths that was his, um, inspiration)

It was only after a lot of public criticism that he changed things

The fact that he annoyed folks by claiming his filter was better than any of Vults (laughable) and being a jerk about that did not endear himself to the community.

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your comments just seem harsh. “laughable”, “jerk”, “true resonance” jab. is it really necessary? i thought this wasnt that type of community.

yes, yes it was necessary. I was there, and as a developer, I don’t take someone ripping off someone else’s work lightly.

I think it is interesting that you seem more interested in defending this guy and not the principles that he violated.

Certainly hope it doesn’t become that kind of community

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then maybe dont call people jerks publicly on the forum.

i also find it interesting that you think insults are necessary.

Can we not devolve the thread please.

Andrew Belt’s message was clear cut.

Friedrichs has changed his panel design sufficiently to satisfy Andrew Belt at last check and he is not alone in choosing not to use the plugin manager, that is his prerogative. He is not the only plug-in developer to have benefited from making modules similar or identical to Eurorack counterparts. Admittedly he should have handled it much better when he was called on it.

At the time, as Eric is alluding to, he did not handle it well and had also rubbed people the wrong way with claims about no other module having “real” resonance.

Having said that, that is historical and unless he has done something new to irritate I suggest moving on and keeping this forum and thread as a positive place to interact.

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I wonder what he meant by that.

He was making a marketing claim for his own modules. It was a silly debate, especially considering Leonardo Laguna Ruiz is (and was then too) known for meticulously modelling hardware. Not to mention other developers who, while maybe not going to the same lengths as Leonardo, still comfortably know what they are doing.

I meant to ask what he meant about “real” resonance :upside_down_face: Sounds very snake oily.

I do have Spikes, but never use it as a filter. I think there are better modules for that. For very snappy envelopes though, I think it’s ace.

i have hardware modulars and when i started using vcv less than 2 years ago i thought that filters were a weak point within the Rack environment. Vults were nice but i started with the free versions which were good but i wasnt overly impressed with them until i upgraded to the premium versions.

now we are starting to see more quality filter options like Oxidlab and Slime Child that are also high quality, but it does seem like there was a time when filter modules needed improvement and resonance was one of the things i thought didnt come close to analog when i first started with vcv and honestly i still feel that way about digital vs analog filters in general.

this is not meant to be agrumentative. purely subjective but even though Friedrichs may have gone about making his argument the wrong way (i dont know what was said), he may have had a valid point. if he was singling out Vults work then he was wrong for that 100%. on the other hand, if he was trying to make the point that filter modules could use improvement then i think that could have been a valid discussion but apparently he went about it the wrong way.

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I respect your commitment to making sure that our community is inclusive and welcoming. I agree that we don’t want this to be the kind of place where one wrong word can result in someone being driven out by the online equivalent of an angry mod of villagers with pitchforks and torches. Forgiveness is an important part of community - but so is accountability.

More than one person has testified in more than one way that this person violated the norms of this community (both formal and informal) and behaved badly. I think it’s important to believe them. If someone does engage in behaviors that are harmful to the community, the onus is upon them to make amends. Rationalizing problematic behavior (especially when we weren’t around to actually hear what was said) goes beyond being generous and welcoming and actually undermines important ways in which a community protects itself from abuse.

You are clearly satisfied that this developer’s past behavior doesn’t constitute a reason not to buy their modules and you are satisfied with your purchase. That’s your decision to make and a perfectly valid calculus. Given the same facts, other people are inclined to make different, equally valid decisions, such as choosing not to support this developer’s work. It doesn’t seem particularly valuable to continue deliberations beyond this point. It seems to me that the most likely outcome, considering the dynamics of the conversation so far, would be a further escalation of tensions. I think we can agree that isn’t the desired result.

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