Being someone whose favorite 'loid is Oliver is suffering.
I will summarise Natalia's latest document because reading is my passion™. I will reduce it to the absolute minimum so people not interested in reading dry legal disputes can follow the basics of what's being said.
Basically, the dispute involves who was actually in charge of the Indiegogo campaign: VocaTone (Austin Grissom) or Misbah Studios (Natalia Shmueli). As far as it was presented to the public, they are both responsible for the project, with Maghni AI always being described as by 'Misbah Studios and VocaTone': a collaboration.
From Indiegogo's perspective, ownership is ambiguous. The campaign was run under VocaTone's name - by Natalia Shmueli (CEO of Misbah Studios), with Grissom asking her to take the position because he did not feel comfortable handling the money.
With Grissom being VocaTone's then-CEO, perhaps this makes Shmueli's Indiegogo position akin an employee of VocaTone, hired to manage their account, as she suggests. Or perhaps her being the CEO of Misbah puts Misbah Studios in charge of finances, as Grissom seems to feel. Unfortunately, I doubt this relationship had employment contracts to make their respective obligations clear. This sort of confusion often happens when business ventures are undertaken by a group of friends doing favours for each other.
This is probably a good time to link Indiegogo's Terms of Use for any backers wondering what their rights are. Note: Exact terms may be different from when Maghni AI launched in 2024.
She responds to VocaTone redirecting refund requests towards her.
She stresses that VocaTone is labelled as the main company behind the campaign, and that Austin Grissom was listed as VocaTone's CEO, asserting that this makes VocaTone the main party responsible for issuing refunds.
[Grissom previously countered that Natalia was responsible for refunds because she was the individual who was operating the campaign (under VocaTone's name), and funds were delivered to her bank account.]
Shmueli says that Grissom requested she act as the campaign's financial administrator on VocaTone's behalf.
She states the campaign owner is responsible for refunds, and that handling the funds does not make her the campaign owner.
She takes issue with VocaTone launching a "refund form" that promises that the backer's reward will be put into storage, but does not promise to refund them. (Personally, I think this is VocaTone reducing the amount of packages they have to ship by getting a list of backers who are no longer interested in receiving them.)
She suggests that VocaTone's actions have broken various FTC guidelines and regulations.
She stresses that she has contributed the entirety of her life's savings, and has nothing left to contribute.
She states that the current Maghni team (Crescendia) should not be held personally responsible for refunds.
She stresses that VocaTone is labelled as the main company behind the campaign, and that Austin Grissom was listed as VocaTone's CEO, asserting that this makes VocaTone the main party responsible for issuing refunds.
[Grissom previously countered that Natalia was responsible for refunds because she was the individual who was operating the campaign (under VocaTone's name), and funds were delivered to her bank account.]
Shmueli says that Grissom requested she act as the campaign's financial administrator on VocaTone's behalf.
She states the campaign owner is responsible for refunds, and that handling the funds does not make her the campaign owner.
She takes issue with VocaTone launching a "refund form" that promises that the backer's reward will be put into storage, but does not promise to refund them. (Personally, I think this is VocaTone reducing the amount of packages they have to ship by getting a list of backers who are no longer interested in receiving them.)
She suggests that VocaTone's actions have broken various FTC guidelines and regulations.
She stresses that she has contributed the entirety of her life's savings, and has nothing left to contribute.
She states that the current Maghni team (Crescendia) should not be held personally responsible for refunds.
Basically, the dispute involves who was actually in charge of the Indiegogo campaign: VocaTone (Austin Grissom) or Misbah Studios (Natalia Shmueli). As far as it was presented to the public, they are both responsible for the project, with Maghni AI always being described as by 'Misbah Studios and VocaTone': a collaboration.
From Indiegogo's perspective, ownership is ambiguous. The campaign was run under VocaTone's name - by Natalia Shmueli (CEO of Misbah Studios), with Grissom asking her to take the position because he did not feel comfortable handling the money.
With Grissom being VocaTone's then-CEO, perhaps this makes Shmueli's Indiegogo position akin an employee of VocaTone, hired to manage their account, as she suggests. Or perhaps her being the CEO of Misbah puts Misbah Studios in charge of finances, as Grissom seems to feel. Unfortunately, I doubt this relationship had employment contracts to make their respective obligations clear. This sort of confusion often happens when business ventures are undertaken by a group of friends doing favours for each other.
VocaTone does seem to be exploiting the fact that Shmueli managed their Indiegogo account to scapegoat her, I understand why she's on the warpath given she appears to have sunk the lion's share of her personal money into the project. Equally, Shmueli may be taking advantage of the fact that VocaTone was chosen to be the public face of the project simply because they were more well-known to the fandom. Certain statements imply that it was primarily Misbah driving Maghni AI behind the scenes, with VocaTone acting as more of a fandom spokesperson. Their Vocatone-focused public branding may not reflect the legal ownership and internal management structure behind the project.
A court could probably review their legal relationship and determine which company is more responsible for refunds. They may even decide it's Crescendia, on the simple basis that they are the current owners that chose to take over the project. However, from a non-legal layman's point of view of what 'feels right', both Natalia and Austin were the public figures spearheading Maghni AI, with it collapsing under their leadership. The project was always presented as a collaboration between VocaTone and Misbah Studios, a joint venture framed as 'by VocaTone Studio and Misbah Studios' before things went south. In many ways they acted like the same team, with Misbah and VocaTone functioning as different 'brands' - VocaTone targeting the fandom, Misbah targeting professionals.
Debating who was really in charge feels like splitting hairs about a joint effort that fell apart for a variety of internal reasons. Shmueli's inexperience resulted in the loss of their code. Grissom failed to develop VocaTone's voicebanks. Both they and Crescendia misled the public. With the information we have right now, putting the entirety of the responsibility on either party feels somewhat disingenuous.
A court could probably review their legal relationship and determine which company is more responsible for refunds. They may even decide it's Crescendia, on the simple basis that they are the current owners that chose to take over the project. However, from a non-legal layman's point of view of what 'feels right', both Natalia and Austin were the public figures spearheading Maghni AI, with it collapsing under their leadership. The project was always presented as a collaboration between VocaTone and Misbah Studios, a joint venture framed as 'by VocaTone Studio and Misbah Studios' before things went south. In many ways they acted like the same team, with Misbah and VocaTone functioning as different 'brands' - VocaTone targeting the fandom, Misbah targeting professionals.
Debating who was really in charge feels like splitting hairs about a joint effort that fell apart for a variety of internal reasons. Shmueli's inexperience resulted in the loss of their code. Grissom failed to develop VocaTone's voicebanks. Both they and Crescendia misled the public. With the information we have right now, putting the entirety of the responsibility on either party feels somewhat disingenuous.
This is probably a good time to link Indiegogo's Terms of Use for any backers wondering what their rights are. Note: Exact terms may be different from when Maghni AI launched in 2024.
Creators are obligated to provide refunds if they cannot deliver rewards, but the backer accepts that they may not be to their liking.
Indiegogo is not obligated to provide refunds. Refunds are offered under the Creator's own refund policy, which backers are obligated to read and acknowledge the risks of when pledging. (Did VocaTone have a refund policy?)
When pledging, backers accept that the project may never be completed.
Creators must immediately notify their backers if they face obstacles or delays. (Oops, all parties have failed that clause.)
Indiegogo is not obligated to provide refunds. Refunds are offered under the Creator's own refund policy, which backers are obligated to read and acknowledge the risks of when pledging. (Did VocaTone have a refund policy?)
When pledging, backers accept that the project may never be completed.
Creators must immediately notify their backers if they face obstacles or delays. (Oops, all parties have failed that clause.)
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What I'm mainly thinking about is about how Maghni will move on. I know it's easy to lump this up as a sunk cost fallacy, and if members of the fandom are willing to give the current Crescendia devs an out and say 'we know what happened wasn't entirely on you guys, so please just give it up we don't expect this of you'... then well, maybe it *would* be best to take that path and avoid getting wrapped up in years of being asked 'hey aren't you the guys who scammed the vsynth community!!!' by people without full context.
This whole thing is really difficult to talk about, because we ultimately have no clue how involved any party actually was. I really think that, as much as I believe in the good faith of those remaining and feel generally positive that their stance through this 'drama' was to remain somewhat professional + stand strong on development of the engine continuing, that there will never be a release of Maghni that people won't connect to this situation and won't effect how they feel about supporting it even if it is removed from those that people have lost trust in the most. Mainly because I imagine most people won't be 24/7 reading every update on this thread or vocatwt and, like I said before, would likely rather cautiously avoid all things Maghni due to not being fully in the know.
Even if the new team had been more consistent with updates, and maybe we had seen that Maghni was continuing smoothly over the last few months -- in order for the backers to actually get what they had paid for and to feel comfortable, this whole thing would've had to have happened at some point, and I don't think how wrapped up in genuinely serious personal shit helped with how long it took to reach this boiling point.
Personally, knowing that these guys *would* likely be versed in voicebank development at the least and can't get an engine out there, maybe there could be a world where we see Crescendia as a third party for another engine. we could have audine synthv 2 redux deluxe before maghni ai
This whole thing is really difficult to talk about, because we ultimately have no clue how involved any party actually was. I really think that, as much as I believe in the good faith of those remaining and feel generally positive that their stance through this 'drama' was to remain somewhat professional + stand strong on development of the engine continuing, that there will never be a release of Maghni that people won't connect to this situation and won't effect how they feel about supporting it even if it is removed from those that people have lost trust in the most. Mainly because I imagine most people won't be 24/7 reading every update on this thread or vocatwt and, like I said before, would likely rather cautiously avoid all things Maghni due to not being fully in the know.
Even if the new team had been more consistent with updates, and maybe we had seen that Maghni was continuing smoothly over the last few months -- in order for the backers to actually get what they had paid for and to feel comfortable, this whole thing would've had to have happened at some point, and I don't think how wrapped up in genuinely serious personal shit helped with how long it took to reach this boiling point.
Personally, knowing that these guys *would* likely be versed in voicebank development at the least and can't get an engine out there, maybe there could be a world where we see Crescendia as a third party for another engine. we could have audine synthv 2 redux deluxe before maghni ai
The sheer hilarity of posting a "refund form" that guarantees you get absolutely nothing out of this is killing me right now. It's so shitty and misleading to me that it wraps around to being genuinely funny
The best way they could probably turn this around is by making professional quality diffsinger banks with the vocal data they already have. But I don't see any commercial products working out soon
It's already been mentioned that it's likely commercial Vsynths were not interested before, and I'd say with this public scandal that's unlikely for the future.
The best way they could probably turn this around is by making professional quality diffsinger banks with the vocal data they already have. But I don't see any commercial products working out soon
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Here is the current Q&A for Maghni AI, and it seems like the "Maghni Ai" (tentative name as it will be rebranded into some other name later) is still in the development stage.
Owh yeah, let me also attach the link for the blog:
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This is definitely the most succinct and to-the-point statement we've had, so I recommend giving it a read. It summarises the majority of the Maghni AI story (film rights pending) in a digestible way. However, I'll still summarise it for posterity:
Notable updates for backers:
AURUM
AUDINE
OLIVER
LIMITED TEST LIBRARY 1
LIMITED TEST LIBRARY 2
UNKNOWN VOCATONE BEGINNER VOCAL
UNKNOWN VIBRANT VOCATONE VOCAL
GLASSIA
GABRIEL
DONOVAN
PROBABLY BIG AL
PROBABLY SWEET ANN
UNNAMED FEISTY VOCAL
UNNAMED GENTLE VOCAL
UNNAMED RESONANT VOCAL
Their sacrifice will be remembered.
Maghni AI was jointly led by Natalia Shmueli and Austin Grissom, with Shmueli funding.
Barham Karim, the programmer coding the software, was asked to upload his code multiple times, and refused.
His work on the AI engine took longer than anticipated. Shmueli no longer had the funds to maintain his payments. Karim needed proof of financial support to maintain his immigration status in Germany (his place of residence during development).
The crowdfunding campaign was launched in partnership with Vocatone to enable Karim to continue working on the project. (These are significantly more precarious circumstances than were communicated to backers at the time.)
[Additional context: There were two crowdfunding campaign announcements, with the initial one in 2020 being cancelled due to criticism from the community regarding how little of the engine they had to show. Vocatone promised to push back the Kickstarter six months until they had a demo. Several years later, the crowdfunding campaign would launch in 2023, now on Indiegogo, with the infamous demo now known to have been enhanced by RVC.]
After the crowdfund, Karim's updates would often be delayed by months. Shmueli and a second unnamed developer purchased an AI training machine to be shipped to Germany to speed up the process.
Shmueli left the project for personal reasons, but remained available as Karim's contact. [Why did the remaining team not have his contact details?]
Karim ceased sending code after July 9th, 2025, and progress was halted. No code for Maghni had been uploaded except for the concatenative code and an inference script. This was the only time they received deliverables for the AI engine. [Oh my god. Four years of development with no work uploaded. Might need to add some sort of content warning for any producers reading this. and they just kept sending him money. top 10 vocal synth companies you wouldn't want to negotiate a hostage situation.]
The old code is no longer relevant, as the new engine uses new and improved technologies.
They reject the claims that output from Synthesizer V was used in Maghni's engine demonstrations. [Note: This is disputed by Suzie, who says she fed Synthesizer V output into RVC to create the spliced samples for Oliver's 'Right Where You Are' demo.]
They confirm RVC was used for Oliver's demo in both his consonants and high notes. [High notes too? Interestingly, the RVC admittance seems to expand slightly with each statement.] The audio is described as 60-80% Maghni. They state that no other demonstration was edited in this way.
Crescendia cleans their hands of refunds, on the basis that they did not recieve, or had any control over, the original funds or rewards.
They state that Maghni AI was internally operated as a joint project between Misbah and VocaTone. [See also: my previous crashout.] It then became Misbah and Crescendia after VocaTone's departure, before being transferred entirely to Crescendia.
They aim to keep the original sound of the first version of the engine, where possible.
Because they are no longer associated, Crescendia intends to rebrand the current engine under a new name.
Yes, there will be a Discord server.
[Maghni AI is dead, long live Maghni AI!]
Barham Karim, the programmer coding the software, was asked to upload his code multiple times, and refused.
His work on the AI engine took longer than anticipated. Shmueli no longer had the funds to maintain his payments. Karim needed proof of financial support to maintain his immigration status in Germany (his place of residence during development).
The crowdfunding campaign was launched in partnership with Vocatone to enable Karim to continue working on the project. (These are significantly more precarious circumstances than were communicated to backers at the time.)
[Additional context: There were two crowdfunding campaign announcements, with the initial one in 2020 being cancelled due to criticism from the community regarding how little of the engine they had to show. Vocatone promised to push back the Kickstarter six months until they had a demo. Several years later, the crowdfunding campaign would launch in 2023, now on Indiegogo, with the infamous demo now known to have been enhanced by RVC.]
After the crowdfund, Karim's updates would often be delayed by months. Shmueli and a second unnamed developer purchased an AI training machine to be shipped to Germany to speed up the process.
Shmueli left the project for personal reasons, but remained available as Karim's contact. [Why did the remaining team not have his contact details?]
Karim ceased sending code after July 9th, 2025, and progress was halted. No code for Maghni had been uploaded except for the concatenative code and an inference script. This was the only time they received deliverables for the AI engine. [Oh my god. Four years of development with no work uploaded. Might need to add some sort of content warning for any producers reading this. and they just kept sending him money. top 10 vocal synth companies you wouldn't want to negotiate a hostage situation.]
The old code is no longer relevant, as the new engine uses new and improved technologies.
They reject the claims that output from Synthesizer V was used in Maghni's engine demonstrations. [Note: This is disputed by Suzie, who says she fed Synthesizer V output into RVC to create the spliced samples for Oliver's 'Right Where You Are' demo.]
They confirm RVC was used for Oliver's demo in both his consonants and high notes. [High notes too? Interestingly, the RVC admittance seems to expand slightly with each statement.] The audio is described as 60-80% Maghni. They state that no other demonstration was edited in this way.
Crescendia cleans their hands of refunds, on the basis that they did not recieve, or had any control over, the original funds or rewards.
They state that Maghni AI was internally operated as a joint project between Misbah and VocaTone. [See also: my previous crashout.] It then became Misbah and Crescendia after VocaTone's departure, before being transferred entirely to Crescendia.
They aim to keep the original sound of the first version of the engine, where possible.
Because they are no longer associated, Crescendia intends to rebrand the current engine under a new name.
Yes, there will be a Discord server.
[Maghni AI is dead, long live Maghni AI!]
Notable updates for backers:
- Maghni AI in it's current form has been worked on for less than a year. No timelines for release can be provided.
- Language scope officially reduced to English, French, Portuguese, German, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, and Polish until further notice.
- Development on Aurum, Audine, and Oliver has been halted. RVBY, Arctos, and Imani are planned for release.
- Current team members are Cocoa, Tart, and Aku-P.
- Third parties still on board are SoundCake Studio (Arctos, Imani), Vrilliant (RVBY), VirVox (Kotarou), and Altvox (TBA).
AURUM
AUDINE
OLIVER
LIMITED TEST LIBRARY 1
LIMITED TEST LIBRARY 2
UNKNOWN VOCATONE BEGINNER VOCAL
UNKNOWN VIBRANT VOCATONE VOCAL
GLASSIA
GABRIEL
DONOVAN
PROBABLY BIG AL
PROBABLY SWEET ANN
UNNAMED FEISTY VOCAL
UNNAMED GENTLE VOCAL
UNNAMED RESONANT VOCAL
Their sacrifice will be remembered.
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This is the kicker for me tbh, and it makes the whole situation fishy. If your coder is withholding deliverables, why are you not withholding payment? I could understand maybe a month or two, giving someone grace and all, but multiple YEARS? And only Natalia could contact him?
Something else must have been going on there, because I can't imagine this level of poor decision making. I can't imagine that someone with access to the amount of money that was used to fund the project making these kinds of decisions. There's mismanagement and then there's utter stupidity, and I really don't think the people involved are that unaware.
Barham should have been removed from the project when it became apparent there were no deliverables, you can't make a commercial project already on an unrealistic budget while throwing money away.
Also why is the current engine iteration less than a year old? Why would they scrap what they used for the Rvby tease?
I'm sad about Audine being a casualty. I really liked her design...
Also why would they keep paying someone that refused to show his work?? I sympathize with him struggling with immigration status, but like...you can't just coast along and not show your work?? Huh???
Also why would they keep paying someone that refused to show his work?? I sympathize with him struggling with immigration status, but like...you can't just coast along and not show your work?? Huh???
I fear what will result from a Discord server presence. Yeah it would be easier to update people on the project....but I can foresee the drama that could arise from it already.
Because the AI voice synth engine was taken hostage by Barham since the beginning, apparently. So Crescendia needs to develop an entirely new proprietary vocal synth engine from the scratch, perhaps few months later after Barham confirmed MIA since last contact in July 2025.
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Out of everything wrong with Maghni's development, Barham's behaviour and code withholding is what baffles me the most. Any reputable company would have some kind of employment contract clause where they would either withhold wages for no work, or just fire them completely, but this doesn't seem to have been the case between VocaTone, Mishbah and Crescendia? You can't run a dev team on just grace and good vibes.
No matter the circumstances now, the 'Right Where You Are' demo is now being tagged as misleading at best and a fraud at worst (think of how 'I=Fantasy' damaged SeeU's reputation in the long run). I've never been a huge Oliver fan, but I did like that demo when it came out, to the point where I saved it in my YT playlist for vocal synth songs. But learning about the SynthV/RVC allegations has put a nasty taste in my mouth, because some of it at minimum wasn't actually processed by the Maghni software at all.
EDIT: I decided to have a look for the demo on YouTube, and it's now marked as Unlisted, so you can't find it on there just by searching for it any more. But you can still access it if you had the link previously or saved it to a playlist, like I did.
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