Do you know all effects types in detail or do you outsource some?

[soundmodel]

I have been a bit confused about developers that have large packs of effects like reverbs and EQs.

To me it seems that to produce such either requires an army of coders or some sort of simplifications for companies of only a few developers. Reverb design seems deep enough that if one wanted to have state-of the-art reverbs all the time, then I am not sure if that works out, if one is also going to have state-of-the-art everything else.

Possibly though, some of the in-board effects in e.g. synths aren't usually as special as some 3rd party ones.

[pscorbett]

I'm not sure if agree with your characterization that some are special and others aren't. That's starting to veer into magical thinking territory.

Regardless, I think some (many?) have developers that have experience in most common effects. I'm kind of new to this (~2years, not professional) and I've dabbled with most common effects and synthesis processors multiple times. Some go deeper than others, but it's not a huge barrier to learn if you are motivated. Plus, many single effects processors have many other buildings blocks that may or be exposed in the GUI. For example, a reverb is already one of the more complex effects, but it probably has EQ/filters, pitch shifters, etc.

[gambero]

Like everything, if you fragment the subject well enough, you can learn it with relative ease. Apply this for how many people are working on a project/in a company and you get the flexibility you asked about.

[jupiter8]

I'm not sure if agree with your characterization that some are special and others aren't. That's starting to veer into magical thinking territory.

While i do agree with you i can see where he's coming from. Apart from reverbs which seems to be a mix of science and black arts!

But for arguments sake, take two developers, Melda and Valhalla DSP, both one man shows as far as i know. One is obsessed with reverbs, that's all he thinks about eat, sleeps, makes reverbs. Can Meldas (which makes every plugin known to man) offering reeeally be on the same level? Can one person really be that productive and knowldegable?

With that said MTurboReverb seems to be an exceptionally good reverb, easily as good as any other and certainly the deepest ever.

So the answer is (as always): maybe, it depends.

[JustinJ]

But for arguments sake, take two developers, Melda and Valhalla DSP, both one man shows as far as i know. One is obsessed with reverbs, that's all he thinks about eat, sleeps, makes reverbs. Can Meldas (which makes every plugin known to man) offering reeeally be on the same level? Can one person really be that productive and knowldegable?

I can just about see how Sean at Valhalla keeps the core of development to himself but Melda? The output of Melda is just insane. I know they (he) took care to develop reusable code chassis and so on, but still. And certain Melda offerings like MTurboReverb that you mention are very highly acclaimed indeed. Then there's MSoundFactory and so on. Can't be one guy surely?

[jupiter8]

But for arguments sake, take two developers, Melda and Valhalla DSP, both one man shows as far as i know. One is obsessed with reverbs, that's all he thinks about eat, sleeps, makes reverbs. Can Meldas (which makes every plugin known to man) offering reeeally be on the same level? Can one person really be that productive and knowldegable?

I can just about see how Sean at Valhalla keeps the core of development to himself but Melda? The output of Melda is just insane. I know they (he) took care to develop reusable code chassis and so on, but still. And certain Melda offerings like MTurboReverb that you mention are very highly acclaimed indeed. Then there's MSoundFactory and so on. Can't be one guy surely?

I would'nt bet my life on it but it sure seems that way. Everything i've read it's always "me" or "he" never "we" or "them". But i don't really know for sure.

[jupiter8]

Now i just found a site that claims they have between 11-50 employees so i don't don't know.
So maybe that wasn't the best of an example.

[whyterabbyt]

Melda saves himself an awful lot of time and effort per plugin with the framework decisions he's made. I recall someone (Angus from FXP?) pointing out that UI and operational stuff and suchlike, are a very considerable part of the effort of creating a given plugin, the actual audio engine is much more 'straightforward' in comparison. By standardising so much, Melda leaves much more time for the DSP side of things.
Obviously the closer you want to get to emulating a specific existing device, the more effort is required on the DSP side, but a lot of the companies with big bundles have been in the business for a long time, a large product range isnt that surprising. And obviously, anyone doing specific hardware emulations may tend to have a wider range by default; 6 different distortion pedal emulations instead of one broad-scope plugin.
Yes, there are some fairly specialist plugin developers out there, Sean Costello and (formerly) Michael Carnes obviously spent decades on reverb designs, but its not like there isnt 40+ years of papers and hardware designs out there as reference for people who arent going in quite as deep.

[jupiter8]

Then on the other hand:
https://soundand.design/interview-with- ... 2530f436d9

MF: Melda Production has a rather extensive catalog of plugins. Are you able to say how many developers have worked on all these, or if these are mostly done by solo developers versus small teams? What’s the process of developing a plugin like, from a human capital perspective?

Vojtech: I’m afraid I can, the programming is just me really

And I’d definitely like some other dev with me, but I’m not going to just get some dev, who knows C++. That would only slow me down. And finding someone with high experience in C++, knowledge of algorithms and audio processing and the ability to learn this monstrous project, well, I find it hard to believe, sadly.

[dmbaer]

But for arguments sake, take two developers, Melda and Valhalla DSP, both one man shows as far as i know. One is obsessed with reverbs, that's all he thinks about eat, sleeps, makes reverbs. Can Meldas (which makes every plugin known to man) offering reeeally be on the same level? Can one person really be that productive and knowldegable?

Melda got acquired about 2 years ago (maybe more) by Image Line, at which time Vojtech started adding to staff, as I understand it. He even posted a notice that he was looking for a developer. But in the early years (producing his first ... I dunno ... 150 plug-ins) he did that solo. He is an absolute master at writing reusable code ... probably a genius - I truly believe that. Melda took some shortcuts along the way that also promoted rapid development. The company will win no awards for documentation any time soon. The manuals are produced by software generation (and we're not talking AI here) and leave much to be desired. But it's all worth it if you admire deep, deep functionality, which is much appreciated by some of us.

[resynthesis]

Same in other domains using lots of DSP. A while ago I worked with one group of, I think, fifteen. There was one mathematician, two DSP engineers and the remainder were there for the areas "around" the DSP. Making the software bug-free and bulletproof is the nasty, time consuming part of software production so if you have a debugged framework in place your productivity should soar.

[soundmodel]

Melda's output is very surprising, because I think it surpasses even the likes of Soundtoys or Eventide.

Thus the question. It is confusing if one company can produce severely more than another.

It is also surprising if Melda could produce comparable reverbs as Valhalla who seems to focus more on reverbs.

However such observations could tell that, possibly, the algorithms aren't special, but easily available ones.

[whyterabbyt]

Thus the question. It is confusing if one company can produce severely more than another.

I dont find it confusing, there's lots of possible reasons. why is it confusing to you? You're plenty fine with musing about possibilities sometimes,

However such observations could tell that, possibly, the algorithms aren't special, but easily available ones.

See. Musing about possibilities. A little bit more of that in advance and you wouldnt need to ask these questions, and its not like you're about to start a plugin company, is it?

[soundmodel]

It is confusing because if a person would actually follow all the research in EQs, reverbs, distortions, pitch detectors, ..., then it sounds like it is too much for one person.

Even professional researchers cannot focus on many topics.

[whyterabbyt]

It is confusing because if a person would actually follow all the research in EQs, reverbs, distortions, pitch detectors, ..., then it sounds like it is too much for one person.

Even professional researchers cannot focus on many topics.

If it were too much for one person, then the only logical inference is that one person wouldnt follow all the research. Because they couldnt. Im not even sure how that's hard to comprehend.

And the inference from that would be that some plugin developers are very focussed specialists, and some work more broadly. That's not a hard one either.

You're basically asking 'If it takes 30 years to master patissierie, how come every baker's shop still sells croissants' without acknowledging the difference between mastery and capability.