Nope—I'm always open to suggestions and I do implement features on either personal whim or by request. The new features is mostly targeting the larger stuff, like the macros stuff I've been working on for the last little bit.
Sorry for not being so present. As mentioned, this is a solo passion project. When my time gets tied up with life, my kids or other work, Patchboard's development tends to slow down temporarily. That said, I never stop responding to emails and I do my best to provide direct and detailed support, as many here have attested to. I'm not an active VI-Control user; I only noticed this thread again because @Hans-Peter mentioned people were having issues.
You've hit the nail on the head for what I intended. Honestly, I would love to reduce the price substantially. The price frustrates me too. I want people who are just starting out or even hobbyists to have access to these kind of tools. I've been mulling over potentially a feature-limited entry tier or free version, perhaps. The only thing that gives me pause, though: I don't believe I'd be able to support the community well if it ballooned in size.
To some extent, the price is high to artificially limit the user base. That way, I can support everyone fully. The highest tier is effectively a dedicated support contract. The people who paid for that have my personal cell. I received a phone call just last week first thing in the morning to fix an issue. I was screen sharing this week into another composer's rig on Saturday at midnight to fix some strange network issues they were having. Not a Patchboard problem, it turns out, but it was preventing it from working.
I suspect I could double the number of users by halving the price, but I'm not sure I could do much more than 2x users. Then I'd be supporting 2x the number of people, for basically the same pay.
As you said, what people are really paying for is me and the ability to influence the future direction and development of Patchboard. In an ideal world, it's like having a in-house developer shared between everyone who's bought in.
This is a good idea and would be really easy to add as a preference! The reason the empty column sticks around is because the Layouts were added originally to make it so things didn't move around on screen and you could rely on muscle memory. If an empty column disappeared, the visual layout on screen might change. I agree it's a nice to have option, though, and would probably be how I'd personally choose to work.
For what it's worth, the Cubase support is no longer based on Eucon and hasn't been for a couple of years now. I wrote a custom Remote plug-in for Cubase that functions like the Logic plug-in. I'm very curious about this new Control API. Embarrassingly, it's the first I've heard of it!
There's no real certainty there, unfortunately. If I get hit by a bus, eventually things will break. Maybe Cubase updates and the plug-in no longer works. Same thing with Pro Tools. Browsers change and all of a sudden the UI doesn't look right. (This actually just happened with Chrome on Android, perhaps. Still need to test but got a report that something is amiss there.) Since the software around it keeps changing, it needs to be kept alive as well.
No offense taken! The price is absurd. That $2500 comes with free hugs and emotional support at all hours of the day over the phone. I even would swing by LA studios in person in the before times. It's really intended for a small subset of people. I should probably retire that highest tier because I don't want to be doing that level of hands-on support these days.
The copyright isn't updated because I'm lazy and I didn't know anyone actually noticed or cared. But I will update it now as a symbol of my devotion to you and the cause.
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We have talked - peacefully - many times before, and you have been very helpful.
