One Month Later - Early Feedback

Updated 2018-09-23

10th of August was a very exciting day for us. For the first time, everyone could download Sononym and try it out at home, or in their studio. Since then, we’ve receive a lot of praise for our similarity search (check some of the testimonials), but also other types of feedback:

Reported issues

Sometimes, it’s the small stuff that make or break things. Just days after launching, we received reports that certain files could interrupt file indexing on macOS (we immediately put out an update). Since then, we’ve also received reports that certain ASIO drivers can cause problems on Windows - something we’re planning to solve by replacing the entire audio framework in Sononym.

Database performance

Another thing which has been the cause of some frustration is the scanning of very large sample collections.

It’s understandable - part of the appeal of Sononym is in the ability to dive through vast amounts of samples. But what we didn’t expect was the sheer size that some sample collections have.

More than a hundred thousand? Sure!
Half a million, check ✔
1 million samples? Wait a moment..
2 million ... how is this even possible? 

Of course, the hard reality is that our software has limitations in how many files it can be expected to handle. Maybe we are to blame, since we have positioned ourselves as an audio browser for ‘vast amounts’ of samples.
The solution is simply to avoid putting all your samples into a single library - as the limitation applies per library, it’s entirely possible to create e.g. a library dedicated to drum machines, and another one for leads and melodies.

But this has certainly made us think hard about how we could deliver the goods to such power-users. And refining the software, based on the feedback we receive, is exactly how we intended things to work in the first place.

What’s next

On the short term, we are simply looking to bring improvements to overall performance and stability.

But, thanks to you, several ideas have been floated that we never considered during development. And also, a lot of your suggestions have confirmed ideas that we are looking forward to implementing in the next few versions.

Especially, workflow enhancements and integrations that makes Sononym feel more integrated in your DAW remains a top priority for us.

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Questions or comments to this post? Feel free to contact us.

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