Great video. 2k+ views so far. Even if a small percentage of those were real perspective purchasers who have been dissuaded, that’s a significant dent in Elektron’s bottom line. And, sorry to say, that’s probably the only way the company reassesses their priorities.
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You voluntarily left out the part of my post where I mention “the mythical man-month” didn’t you ? Throwing more developper doesn’t necessarily speed up development. If may seem counter-intuitive, but it’s actually true.
Also, Elektron hired more developper at some point to help with development, it’s been mentionned before. Your assumption about “skills and availability” is totally biased, there’s no ground for anyone to make this assumption given that we don’t know the nature of the problems they encounter, the number of developper in the team and their individual "skills.
Open source is not a magic solution, nor has it been a solution to anything development related, ever.
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This is powerfully wrong. The world would be a very different place without the BSD network stack and the GNU toolchain.
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Based on what we know, I think it is a fair assumption that their team lacks either skills or resources to solve the issues they are having.
Of course, if OB was open source or if they even communicated more openly with the community about the problems, we would know for sure.
It’s not magic, but open source development has been hugely succesful in some cases (check out MySQL for one example).
Also since Elektron seems to currently be unable to release OB, something needs to be done. Going open source is not the only option, but could help.
Especially if/when they finally release OB and it stops working properly after first major MacOS / Windows update, open source community would probably fix the issue quickly - I wouldn’t be as optimistic about Elektron dev team fixing the issues quickly.
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Strange, I don’t remember seeing overbridge being announced on my eurorack gear anywhere I’ll have to email Herr Doepfer and get to the bottom of this. Also It’s not meant as advice for anyone, just an opinion. If you want to go buy the newest shiniest unfinished Elektron box then go for it.
My statement is probably phrased wrong, but it still stands. The GNU toolchain hasn’t been made open source overnight to answer a management problem. There’s a whole point to the GNU project besides “hey, we don’t have enough resources, let’s make it open source”, there’s a whole philosophy behind it. The tools it created did help development for other stuff, but GNU development hasn’t been the easiest task, just look at GNU Hurd for example.
Also, there’s a distinction to be made, my comment didn’t address open source tools, it’s about implementing open source practices inside development, which is two very different things.
What do we know exactly ? Except that the deadline has been estimated wrong and that they’re working on it ?
Those are two different things. While open source development has been successful it’s not adapted to every situation.
Also, “open source community” isn’t a thing. There are open source communities formed around specific software but forming such communities takes time, and they’re usually not as big as you might think. What makes those communities happen is that the software they’re developing helps a lot of people in their work. Wether you like it or not, OB’s user base is pretty niche and I doubt any developper would be intereseted to work on it in their spare time while not being paid.
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We also know there is a ”big bump” affecting core functionality of OB that they haven’t been able to solve.
I asked Simon if he could elaborate and describe the issue in more detail, but he hasn’t done that yet.
I agree with you that making OB open source would not solve the immediate issues.
I disagree that it’s too niche, there’s already a bunch of apps for elektron gear, mostly based off published midi specs or patient reverse engineering of transfer data.
It would be amazing if they did make OB open source. Not holding my breath for that though.
Anyone know who this dude is on here so I can tag him? Says he’s on the forums. Just wanna say you’re right, people just have to treat the boxes as what they are. You mentioned you’d like to try an octatrack, I think you’d be a lot happier with it. It doesn’t have many outs but it makes life a lot easier. And if you buy second hand you’re not handing more money to elektron. OT has always been rock solid for me, it’s deep enough in its life that it’s pretty far past the worst of its issues. Of course it has its quirks and things people would change but for me it’s always been solid and you’re not gonna end up waiting round for OB. At this point you could probably swap a DT for a mk1 which is outrageous imo
“Big bump” is pretty vague, but seeing OB’s specs, I think it’s safe to assume that problems are probably due to audio drivers or hardware limitations. If I’m wrong I’d be glad to admit it, but I don’t think there’s any easy solution here.
It’s niche in the sense that OB is tied to elektron hardware, and is made for a specific use. The user-made elektron’s app are awesome, but they are made only for a specific use also.
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Yeah indeed, but I do think there is huge potential there.
Like if you look at eurorack, incredibly niche but theres seemingly a million small shops building modules and also people who buy them. Designing and making hardware is orders of magnitude more complicated than just software.
It depends on where elektron wants to be in the future. If they wanted to become really big like to take on Roland or Korg say, open sourcing their devices and overbridge would be the quickest and cheapest way to do it.
They make great hardware which would be the platform, then use software to get an ecosystem of developers interested and active. Doesn’t have to be open source but it would be a big draw to attract developers though.
I think Korg is testing the waters on this by making an SDK for the prologue.
Maybe Elektron want to stay small and boutique though as well, which is also cool too.
Also: alley-oop
2k!
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Congrats ! You won a free Overbridge software ! 
2001 ! A Status Odissey…
And you don’t need any specific software to copy .wav files on the card. Easy, fast. 
Main reason I wouldn’t choose AR / DT for now.
I’d be more interested in DN, and Overbridge would make sense for me, but not with 100% analogue A4/AH and a good sound card with multi in/outs, very low latency and midi.
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Well, there is potential, but maybe not for OB. I don’t see what making it open would add to it really.
The korg SDK is a nice start indeed. Opening FX programming when they’re digital anyway makes a lot of sense for most case, and honestly I’ve been looking for something like this for quite some time.
A counterexample to this would be the Novation peak. They use an FGPA for the oscilator and FX. I don’t know much about FGPA programming except that it’s hard to learn, and there’s not many people out there who know how to program an FGPA so new custom FXs would take forever to come anyway.
Eurorack is particular, for most case I don’t think the schematics are that complicated, and some uses chips for the audio processing anyway, so it’s still mostly a progamming job. I agree that manufacturing is a whole other problem in itself though and doesn’t simplify things.
My machines are in storage… 
Can someone verify they still work?
Worried about OB2K… 
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I thought you were always connected to them…
I disabled the ConsCiousness Direct Connect setting on OT so I can control midi tracks with external midi… 
Should have toggled it back on before I tucked them in for nap time…
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Add compared to what? Remember that at the moment, we have nothing for DT or mk2 series.
Not to mention that open sourcing the way Elektron boxes communicate with computers would open up huge possibilities for different applications. You really don’t see any potential there?
Harggg . missed it 