Changes to the Patreon structure

Hi everyone, I just wanted to make a quick announcement post regarding some changes to the Patreon structure.

The next big update for the app will be a big one. In fact, I re-wrote the majority of the app, and there are enough big new features that I think it's time we move up to v2.0!

I didn't want to reveal anything too early, but one of the new things I wanted to add to the app is nexusmods.com API integration, to allow people to log in and view from within xVASynth what voices there are available on the nexus, endorse them (for anyone's nexus page with voices, not just mine), and as well, to download (or batch download) them and have them installed automatically, if you have a premium membership for Nexus (they require it, for API downloads).

However, having just finished a conversation with them, their stance was that in order to allow me to officially integrate the app into their API system, I need to not have any early access content (they say they have the rule because some people can take that to the extreme, which I understand). 

However, I thought this would be a really cool feature to have, and that it would help to get a community around the tool for when xVATrainer is finished (which is well underway now), and people can make their own nexus pages for voices/plugins, should they choose to.

This whole xVASynth project was never about making money, the whole Patreon thing was a last minute idea I had two weeks before launch (having started work in 2018), knowing I'd have a lot of expenses to make for the project, in funding the kind of hardware I needed for research/development. I never expected this much support (or any, really!), for which I am deeply thankful.

So going forward, I will be making some changes/reorganizations to the Patreon tiers. I will remove the early access for new voices as a benefit, and instead I will be releasing voices straight to the Nexus. In exchange, I will be removing the Producer tier, and move its benefits down into the Insiders tier. This will mean Insiders can request new public voices. However, as this means a larger number of people, to manage, I will limit this to just datasets I get given (at least the audio), or that I already have, as sourcing the datasets myself takes a surprisingly large amount of work/time, in a lot of cases.

Finally, the Investors tier will go from $25 to $20, just because the jump between tiers would be too high. Here, there's no restrictions on the requests (other than it's actually possible to train/get the data)

I will continue to honour the voices currently in early access of course, due to go public on the 8th, but starting with this next batch (which is nearly done, it'll be a big one!) I'll be switching over to straight-to-public releases.

For everyone else, nothing else changes. I will still be training voices, at the same speed, it's just that there won't be a 2 week period between training and release.