Message from Slate regarding AAX updates

Dear FG-X and VCC Slate Customer,
This is one of the hardest emails I've ever had to write. The reason for this, is because I really love what I do. But one of the main reasons I love what I do is because I get to make products that make people happy. But clearly, there are a lot of you out there who are quite unhappy, due to the missed deadlines of our VCC and FG-X updates.

First, and this goes without saying, I feel terrible about this. I never intended for this to happen, and I read all the negative comments, and it breaks my heart. Because I failed you guys.

This company means the world to me, and I have always strived to make mindful decisions that would ensure that it remains healthy. But unfortunately, despite the fact that I am often seen around Hollywood Blvd wearing a cape, I have no super powers and am just a mere mortal who makes mortal mistakes. And clearly, I've made mistakes this past year. Let me tell you about them.

As many of you know, we work a long time on our products. Two years ago when AAX was announced, we were just beginning the development of some pretty intense new products, which are all as of this email, unreleased. Two of them you know about, the Virtual Mix Rack, and the Virtual Microphone System. Both of these were new and exciting products that required a lot of effort from the entire team, and so we began to start the R&D. And then, we get hit with AAX.

We were not prepared, nor did we have a big enough team to simultaneously develop big new products while updating old products. My first mistake was realizing that fact too late. What should have happened is a pause in all production to hire more developers to help with our new 64bit AAX framework, pause all new development, and then proceed with full force on all of our legacy updates. Instead, I became fearful. This fear was derived from the fact that we are one of the newer games in town as compared to our competition, and I felt like new product development was crucial enough that we had to keep some part of the team on it while another part worked on the framework and updates. This compromised the productivity of both teams since neither side had enough manpower.

When the framework was complete, we had to decide where to start. So let's just get this out of the way and say it was an obvious choice with VBC and VTM. VBC was written INTO the new framework. Converting it to AAX would be the easiest and more straight forward. Than came the VTM. This was in our old framework and had an insanely complex algorithm, but several of our very talented team members were able to get the port done in the Winter. And now we are left with the VCC and FG-X. Oh boy. Here it goes.

I think it's fair to say that the algorithms, meaning the audio processes, of the VCC and FG-X are some of the best out there for what they aim to do. Well, at least I hope you think that since you bought at least one of them. These were the very first two plugins that Fabrice and I worked on and we're proud of them. But as great as these algorithms sound, the way the code was written back then had a bit to be desired. Ok, they had a lot to be desired. Alright fine, they're a mess.

There was no way we could use the same code for these plugins in our new framework, because we owe it to you, the customer, to improve them. With a cleaner code, they would be bug free, and use dramatically less CPU. Furthermore, there are aspects of our new framework that the VCC and FG-X code is not 1:1 compatible with so it would have taken just as long to convert the old code into the new framework. So the choice was obvious. We started last year to rewrite FG-X and VCC with fresh code, new features, and new algorithms. But again, going back to my first points, the team was overloaded. There were members bouncing back and forth to all the projects… one week it was VMR, then VTM AAX update, then VBC bug fixing.. it was insane. And to top it all off, we parted ways with two of our team members in the Spring, making a bad situation even worse.

I do NOT expect sympathy from you. I do NOT consider any of this an excuse. I will stand here in front of you and say we messed up. But rather than drown in our sorrows, I'm going to tell you what we are doing to make things better.

First and foremost, with the exception of the few members finalizing VMR, the entire rest of the team is focused on FG-X and VCC. We will do NO OTHER DEVELOPMENT ON ANY PRODUCT until these two AAX updates are done. Second, we are hiring hiring hiring. We are going to put ourself in a position to be able to execute faster, more efficiently, and we'll be able to meet deadlines and schedules.

So some of you are saying "Enough of the drama, when the hell are we getting our plugins?". And just in case you didn't hate me enough already… I can't give a date YET. Because unlike last time, I will not give you a date until I'm ready to put my life on the line because I'm so sure we'll make it. But what I am going to do is make you a promise: You will have an inside look at the productivity of these two projects with weekly emails of information. And I also promise that as soon as I have the confidence to give you a release date that I know is a reality, I will state it in one of these weekly updates.

Last, I'll say that we are working on a possible temporary solution that could get you guys up and running in Pro Tools 11 while we finalize VCC 2.0 and FG-X 2.0. And to end on a positive note, these 2.0 updates will be amazing. Please keep that in mind. With the VCC, it's goiong to be simpler, have new options, and include a new console emulation that I predict will be your new favorite and most used console emulation yet. The FG-X will have a new metering algorithm but that will likely get overshadowed by the new FG-LEVEL algo. This new algo has been over three years in the making and utilizes a brand new loudness process that is so ridiculously transparent that you'll think it's defying the laws of physics.

Ok, so that's all I have for you today, but you'll be hearing from me again soon. I know this is not the email you really want, but I hope you'd agree it's better than silence. You can email me at slate@stevenslate.com. It might take me a bit to get back to you because it's so busy here, but I promise I will. Have a great weekend,

Steven Slate