Dearest James,
About one or two months ago, we started working on FxSound improvements without knowing its history, based solely on its quality and Open Source nature. Only recently, once our modifications were completed and published, did I have the opportunity to delve into the history of DFX and FxSound.
It’s a truly remarkable project, and I want to congratulate you on your forward-thinking choice to make it Open Source. We are genuinely proud and happy to have contributed to the extraordinary work your father started.
Your decision to open the code made our contribution possible. If FxSound had remained proprietary software, we wouldn’t intervene, not even for a fee, given the large number of software we already manage. But your equalizer impressed us, and so we dedicated ourselves to it with commitment.
We invested a lot of time and energy. Some improvements, particularly the implementation of the variable number of bands without restarting, were extremely complex. Personally, I dedicated myself almost full-time for two months, working ten hours a day, including Saturdays and Sundays. With almost 50 years of programming experience, I can assure you that few would have had the skills to implement these changes, some of which had even been left untouched by your father due to their complexity.
All of this was only possible thanks to your choice to make it Open Source. For this, I reiterate my compliments and thank you again!
We will do our best to actively support you: we will add a dedicated chapter on our “References” page and place links to your website everywhere, to direct traffic your way.
Some Technical Details
I’ve noticed that many users utilize FxSound in a rudimentary way, loading one preset after another and settling for a “Wow, it sounds better!” Many also complain about strange issues, such as “it used to sound better,” etc.
I want to assure you: FxSound is a truly excellent piece of software. Our tests with the Audio Analyzer have confirmed its outstanding performance.
However, it’s crucial to use the appropriate adjustments and compensate frequencies with knowledge. Simply loading a predefined preset and expecting miracles is not enough. This explains why some users praise it and others criticize it: they expect “pre-cooked” presets to do everything on their own, but that’s not how it works.
Now, with the classic 31 ISO bands, the ability to equalize correctly is even more crucial. Otherwise, you risk creating only random curves and looking for presets that sound “loud,” which might sound powerful, but without truly compensating your audio system.
We sincerely hope that in the future you will be able to integrate our improvements. This would allow us to eliminate our downloads and redirect all traffic to your website. If, however, integration is not possible, we will be forced to maintain our own version. We will do so, but in that case, we won’t have the time to integrate your future developments, and consequently, they will be losed.
Cheers,
Livio from T-System