The sound of silence...
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or is it the kiss of death? Is it worth to invest more and more effort in playing Sylphyo or is it better to change the instrument? Why don't we hear anything about the Sylphyo from Aodyo? Is there a long term commitment to Sylphyo? What are the next steps from Aodyo? Software update? New mouthpiece? Sylphyo V.3 or anything else?
What do other Sylphyo users mean? -
I totally agree ! And where is the case ?
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I agree, too!
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Yes, this is concern of mine as well. The Sylphyo has been my entre into electronic music that has opened a whole world for me.
I do suspect (and hope) that this hiatus in development - likely caused by the energy spent launching the Anyma Phi - will not be permanent.
I will say that they have been quickly responsive to a request for one additional finger pattern in a finger I authored earlier (Native American Flute), and the Beta firmware they sent me for testing did have other updates, although I do not know what or how large they were.
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Very small company, and I know Maxence left recently.... but also still hoping for ongoing upgrades....
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Yes, a smal company, and perhaps difficulties to fight against steamroller as Akai or Roland ; how many Sylphyo or AnimaPhi sold ? enough to get a strong development team ?
I hope the best for Aodyo team (and the Sylphyo' players !) -
Hello everyone,
So we all come to the same conclusion (see my recent post and I had not seen this thread).
I chose Sylphyo and I want the instrument to continue but ... -
One thing that may help is getting more exposure for the instrument. More sales ==> Better focus and support.
And the best way to get exposure I think is to post videos. I did a basic YouTube show-and-tell on the instrument for the Native American flute crowd. I feared they might revolt ("Not traditional!!"), but there was no backlash, and at least half a dozen folks followed me down this path. Surprise!
-- Clint Goss
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@clint Good idea!
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I wish we could have a short statement from Aodyo.
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StevieK, me too
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Yes, that is a thing I really expect. The sylphyo is not a cheap one, and they offered updates in their advertisements. I understand that is difficult for a small company, but they told me months ago that they were working on it. See my posts. Maybe they can cooperate with others (Respiro?) to solve the problems. Still waiting
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Aodyo will be in Berlin in May 2022 to present Anyma Phi at Superbooth. Why not the Sylphyo?
Aodyo, please help us!
Is the Sylphyo dead or alive? -
Aodyo needs to sell the Anyma Phi. The Sylphyo alone, as a niche poduct, cannot feed more than one person and I doubt that even that is possible. We are lucky that the Sylphyo is not computer software dependent at the moment. As long as the sensors work and USB and MIDI plays, the Sylphyo will play.
Unfortunately, Sylphyo and Anyma Phi are not a happy family. It was a clever move to borrow Mutable Instruments Algorithms and go for modern sounds, but this does not support the Sylphyo. On the other hand, Aodyo could not risk do invent a completely new and specialized wind synth as their second product and keep sitting in the wind controller niche with a handful of customers.
I changed my mind about feature requests for a Sylphyo software editor, or another communication between Sylphyo and Link, or weird special modifications that "may" be interesting. I rather want this instrument in a solid state. I am willing to talk about every single feature request, sort out what is not really necessary and finally pay a moderate amount for a good firmware update. I am definitely not interested in an eagerly programmed editor with hundreds of features but destined to end it's life in the jungle of permanently changing operating systems and new computers. I prefer to play this instrument as it is and just want to get a solid update from time to time to make it even more solid and, if possible, a little more flexible.
Otherwise, where would we go? I would not buy another WX, lost two because of hardware and/or electronic problems. I would not buy another Eigenharp, lost one because of software problems. Aerophone, Warbl? Nope. I would save myself to an Akai EWI for half the price of a Sylphyo and add a wireless MIDI box. This works for sure and is backed by a big company. But I don't like the idea because I have good reasons to play the Sylphyo.
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@peter-ostry said in The sound of silence...:
Aodyo needs to sell the Anyma Phi. ... ... ...
Well said!!
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@peter-ostry I believe in the future of Sylphyo, so i have bought a second Sylphyo. When i get the new Sylphyo, i can sent back the old one due to an display-error (in warranty time) and hope i will get a new one.
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We do not plan to stop producing, developing and supporting the Sylphyo anytime soon, however new developments will arrive much more slowly than before the pandemics.
Our intention has always been to provide instruments that can evolve over time and continue to work independently of computer OS evolutions and even of our own existence as a company.
Since its introduction six years ago, we published 20 free firmware updates for the Sylphyo, much more than most competitors, and we intend to continue as long as possible.But you guessed it right, a small team fighting amongst giants is not an easy adventure, even more so when you're doing niche products. And COVID and the semiconductor crisis didn't help.
We've been facing significant supply chain issues and cost increases, hence why the case disappeared temporarily, for instance. Even just making internal prototypes has become much harder and trickier due to this.
Delivering the Anyma Phi took us some time, and maintaining production of both the Anyma and the Sylphyo is a very time-consuming activity in itself.
Recently we've been busy preparing various trade shows (Synthfest, SuperBooth, NAMM) where you will find both the Sylphyo and the Anyma Phi (yes, not just at NAMM).Even though we're growing in the face of all cosmopolite microbes and Suez canal obstructors, we're just not enough people yet to have a decent capacity of parallel processing, so we have to deal with things one after the other.
The result of all this, for the Sylphyo, is that v1.4.9beta is one year in the making despite being a relatively mundane update, and new developments will arrive slowly.
The best way to significantly speed things up is to get more people to know and buy our products, so we're very grateful for @Clint's work and we encourage anyone to spread the word about us.I totally understand that some people find this an uncomfortable position to be in. If you depend on a product to make a living, you need it to be able to evolve at your own pace, and it can't be far behind your needs for too long before the situation becomes untenable.
I'm in that position myself regarding computers: I support small open-source hardware and software companies and buy their products, but I can't "wait for them to get theirshact together" because I've got work to do, so I do my work on computers from a behemoth company whose ethics I despise and end up using both. The behemoth doesn't care about my use cases, and the little ones care a lot but is slow to support them.
Either way I'm angry :), but I'm seeing more and more good things trickle down my way.Now, what's left for the Sylphyo?
Major updates take time, and cooperating with others wouldn't make development shorter because it's often not a problem of not knowing how to do or finding solutions, but rather of finding the time to develop them and ensure they won't cause further issues down the line.
We've been carefully listening to all the feedback we received along the years, and this shapes our roadmap for future major updates. But there are many things that could be introduced much earlier in minor updates, simply because they're easier to do.
It's impossible to tell from outside if a feature request is trivial or not, only we can tell. For instance, the fingering changes Clint submitted were easy to do, but sometimes a seemingly insignificant fingering request could require major rework in some parts of the fingering system. Sometimes a blockage dissolves, and a bunch of requests change from hard-to-do to trivial, but we're not sure there's still interest in it.
That's why it's important to us to constantly get as much feedback and ideas as we can, and we encourage you to do so, keeping in mind that only time will tell which of these ideas will end up in an update and when.I'll conclude this by giving maybe another perspective on the developments at Aodyo in the past few years. Yes, during this time our major focus was the Anyma Phi, but it would be an error to see the competition in Aodyo resources between the Anyma Phi and the Sylphyo as a zero-sum game. Many developments originating from the Sylphyo's firmware and synth culminated in the Anyma Phi we have today, which is much more than a few Mutable algorithms slapped together. The new knowledge we gained doing and perfecting the Anyma Phi will ultimately come back to benefit the Sylphyo in some form or another.
…if you live long enough to see it ;).
(just kidding, back to work)R&D Engineer at Aodyo / Ingénieur R&D chez Aodyo
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@join Thank you for this different information.
We had guessed the situation and the objectives of Aodyo with Anima Phy and the Sylphyo which today is a successful instrument. There was a concern for the future as for many start-ups but I think people here are reassured.
Little product is as much updated as you and the new sounds are gadgets for me to work on the train or on the plane. To work seriously I am with respiro.
I know that the time is not easy for companies (covid19, Uckraine, God keeps them). I am happy to have come out of the business world and to make music! Good luck.
didg.bandcamp.com -
@reidid789 said:
new sounds are gadgets for me to work on the train or on the plane. To work seriously I am with respiro.
Oh. Oops.
Not sure if Aodyo likes to hear that ;-)But this touches the point I am most interested in:
Will the Sylphyo's evolution go more to the sound or more to the controller? I don't expect an answer, I'm just curious. -
Unless a new Sylphyo appears with 10x the processing power, it's unlikely that it's gonna be able to rival computer-based physical models of winds, so no offense taken :).
As for directions for the future, I guess it'll focus on the controller part (reliability, ease of switching between different configurations, more options) about as much as the sound part.
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Now it is 1,5 year since the last update. And still waiting.
