Which of the large software developers treat their customers fairly? (Not a deal)

[RSMcGuitar]

2 hours ago, Brian Walton said:

I was going to mention Boz, but his lack of developming the pro-channel PanKnob which should be an easy addition to the product line makes me sad.  Otherwise he treats customers well.  

I think the market share of people using the prochannel is probably extremely small.

[RSMcGuitar]

2 hours ago, Brian Walton said:

They wanted something like $300+ for people to upgrade to Superior Drummer 3 even if they purchase 2 in the last year and only even offered that outrageous pricing for a few months then took away the upgrade option. 

Man, that is a wild price for an upgrade.

[Brian Walton]

1 minute ago, RSMcGuitar said:

I think the market share of people using the prochannel is probably extremely small.

I'd agree, but at the same time I also don't think it is more than a day or two of work to make it (I've asked for it for a couple years now).  He already has the plugin on the market and clearly knows the pro-channel workings as he is one of the only developers that already created some 3rd party ones, including one that was bundled with the program.  

Given Bandlab has talked about the overwhelming response to new users using Cakewalk now.  This is a plugin that is also very affordable and ripe for a budget concious DAW user.  

[RSMcGuitar]

1 minute ago, Brian Walton said:

I'd agree, but at the same time I also don't think it is more than a day or two of work to make it (I've asked for it for a couple years now)

Yeah, that's probably true. I would assume most of the work would already be done.

[antler]

4 hours ago, Brian Walton said:

They wanted something like $300+ for people to upgrade to Superior Drummer 3 even if they purchase 2 in the last year and only even offered that outrageous pricing for a few months then took away the upgrade option.  

I do remember upgrades being a limited-time thing, but I think $300 might have been the full price (rather than upgrade); my upgrade was ~$170.

[antler]

2 hours ago, Anxiousmofo said:

Toontrack treats existing customers like crap and tries to fleece them. I got rid of everything I had from them , which was quite a bit.  I despise them.

Ironically, the worst way that you could have 'punished' them was to keep it - by selling it on (assuming you did), whoever you sold it to would probably continue to support them based on what you sold to them.

I think the limited time upgrade thing wasn't cool, but I don't think they try to fleece people significantly more than any other company - they have 50% sales (or maybe its 40% - can't remember) on their drumkits usually at least once a year. They also have previously done 12-days-of-Christmas sales where they offer some stuff at good discounts - I managed to pick up EZKeys Classic Electrics for ~£20.

[chris.r]

In terms of quality customer support I have to mention UJAM, excellent experience even if they didn't have a direct solution for my Cakewalk issue it's still very rewarding.

And another vote against online-only authorization method here.

[Anxiousmofo]

1 hour ago, antler said:

Ironically, the worst way that you could have 'punished' them was to keep it - by selling it on (assuming you did), whoever you sold it to would probably continue to support them based on what you sold to them.

I think the limited time upgrade thing wasn't cool, but I don't think they try to fleece people significantly more than any other company - they have 50% sales (or maybe its 40% - can't remember) on their drumkits usually at least once a year. They also have previously done 12-days-of-Christmas sales where they offer some stuff at good discounts - I managed to pick up EZKeys Classic Electrics for ~£20.

I wasn't trying to punish them.  I wanted to sell it and try to recoup my investment in a crap company whose products were angering me every time I even thought of them.  Had I not sold them, they would have sat unused with no further benefit to me whatsoever.

[Paul_in_wales]

melda, image-line, spectrasonics and fabfilter also get my vote.

I'd add rob papen to the mix -  had some excellent deals based on being an existing customer.

 

[Marshall]

OP again...

Waves - my biggest investment. I bought a lot of their plugins five years ago, and so far have avoided spending one cent on WUP. I guess this is because I have not changed my PC in that time, or I have been lucky. If I do get stung, I will be really hacked off, but I use a lot of their stuff. I promise myself I will look for alternatives one day, but at least they are not on the subscription trail yet. 

Izotope - don't like the sound of the sub emphasis 

Presonus - ditto. I am invested in Studio One Pro but currently feel like a second class citizen because I'm not in their monthly club. 

Celemony - generally positive, but I don't like the way they treat owners of Melodyne Studio, i.e. zero discounts whilst offering deals to those with the more basic versions.

Spectrasonics - excellent all round

IK - no investment so I don't know

Native - so far so good, but I have an issue at  present which is taking an age for their support to resolve. 

Toontrack - I am fine with them - I rely on their stuff, and have no issues. 

As I approach retirement my fear is that the subscription model will become the norm. I recognize that from time to time upgrades will be necessary, but I simply cannot afford to add a lot of extra monthly direct debits just to maintain my music making. 

There were some names mentioned above like Fab Filter and Melda where I own nothing. I guess when I do eventually have to buy a new computer, that will be the time to really assess which companies I am best using in the future. At present, the indispensable ones for me are Presonus, Waves, Toontrack and Celemony. 

 

[Fleer]

Another great one: 

Embertone

[Lamenace]

The worst thing I think of is Sonokinetics.
Comments are blocked on their YouTube review.
Because they are afraid of writing from disgruntled users like me.
I regret spending $550 on a useless instrument
It was a silly idea to be able to make music with sample phrases.

[Starship Krupa]

Of the biggies, only Waves stick out as far as not being cool. It's about single-seat licenses and grubbing for WUP fees. I'm not scared about my v.11 plug-ins being "unsupported," if they work fine now it's likely they'll work fine in the future.

Charging more than $10 to transfer a license is unnecessary, so Plugin Alliance takes a hit for their $20 fee. Otherwise, hey, good discounts, 3-seat license, what's not to like?

I'll chime in with Meldaproduction love, the one hitch is that there's no discounted upgrade path for individual plug-ins in a bundle. For instance, if I wanted to upgrade my Essentials Bundle MSpectralDynamicsle to the full version, I have to pay whatever the going rate is for it. Whatever, I've benefited greatly from their generous upgrade policies and referral credits to get some really great top quality plug-ins.

[paulo]

Difficult question to answer in some cases as they are good and bad at the same time.

Izotope - great products/service/fairness but anyone who ever buys any of their products at launch price has to be kicking themselves 6 months later.

NI - products good, prices reasonable (again if bought at right time) HD versions of Komplete a total waste of money. Support is Steinberg levels of useless in my experience.

AAS - Not sure if they qualify as "large" but up there with the very best all round.

Spectrasonics - I have a minor gripe re upgrade policy, but other than that pretty faultless. I consider their "expensive" products to be among the best value for money that I have ever spent on this kind of stuff.

Toontrack -  their now or else upgrade policy means they will never need to trouble themselves again with taking any money from me.

Celemony  - very good in my experience. No complaints really. The step up from Editor to Studio version is too expensive IMO, but I don't really need it anyway.

Musiclab - again not sure if it qualifies as large, but they basically stole my old licences meaning that when my computer died I would not be able to re-install products that I had paid for. They have since partially made up for that, but they should never have done it. I also hate the way their new demo versions overwrite your existing version.

UJAM are also guilty of the demo overwrite thing. Purely a tactic to try and force you into buying when the demo expiry renders what you already had inoperable without uninstall/reinstall. Decent products, support very good  but like Izotope they are quite fond of offering big discounts not too far into a product's life, so I wouldn't buy anything from them outside of a "sale."

IK - something about them just turns me off (and I thought that long before I ever heard of Larry  ). They're quite generous with freebies given that I have bought very little from them, but in honesty although decent for a freebie if had bought them I would feel a little disappointed. When it's on offer the big bundle thing can look tempting, but ultimately I always come back to the thought that it is mostly a collection of things that others do better.

[Brian Walton]

46 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

Of the biggies, only Waves stick out as far as not being cool. It's about single-seat licenses and grubbing for WUP fees. I'm not scared about my v.11 plug-ins being "unsupported," if they work fine now it's likely they'll work fine in the future.

Charging more than $10 to transfer a license is unnecessary, so Plugin Alliance takes a hit for their $20 fee. Otherwise, hey, good discounts, 3-seat license, what's not to like?

I'll chime in with Meldaproduction love, the one hitch is that there's no discounted upgrade path for individual plug-ins in a bundle. For instance, if I wanted to upgrade my Essentials Bundle MSpectralDynamicsle to the full version, I have to pay whatever the going rate is for it. Whatever, I've benefited greatly from their generous upgrade policies and referral credits to get some really great top quality plug-ins.

Only thing I'd point out is that doesn't Melda have something like a 20% of retail transfer fee?  So many of the standards would be $23 or more for a transfer.   TurboComp for example would be about $47.  

[Bapu]

1 hour ago, Starship Krupa said:

Of the biggies, only Waves stick out as far as not being cool. It's about single-seat licenses.

I put my license on a USB stick and I can install on as many computers as I want. I can work on my PC and if I need to switch to my Mac I move the USB stick from the PC to the Mac.

However unlikely it is, I can go to any studio in the world install all the Waves bundles I own and plug in my USB stick and I'm off and running.

For me that is a close to multiple-seat licenses as I need to get without paying for it.

 

1 hour ago, Starship Krupa said:

Waves ... grubbing for WUP fees.

I've always felt that I got my money's worth from WUP for all the new plugs I've gotten every year in Mercury. My only gripe is that new Abbey Road plugs come at cost (usually quite small though). I'm perfectly happy to pay my WUP.

[Starship Krupa]

50 minutes ago, Bapu said:

I put my license on a USB stick and I can install on as many computers as I want

Waves score points for using a non-proprietary dongle, for sure. It does make up somewhat for the single-seat license. And I, too have shelled out (WavesHell loading system is another PITA) money to WUP a few plug-ins, first to 10 to bring them into the Windows 10 era, then again to 12 to get the scaly gooeys.

I didn't mention single-seat iLok'd companies now that I have a fiiiiiine iLok2 to use with them.?

(Next time I go to LA I think I'm going to get a chain to wear my iLok around my neck)

[PavlovsCat]

Developers of all sizes I've had very positive experiences with include Izotope (A++), Native Instruments, XLN Audio, Splash Sound, 8Dio, Sampletekk, Tronsonic, Puremagnetik...I'm sure there are more, but those are the first that come to mind, developers where I had an issue or inquiry and they were really responsive, helpful and friendly. 

As far as customer unfriendly polices, I agree that IK's policy of charging customers to redownload products is pretty awful as well as Toontrack's pulling of upgrade pricing. Both of these companies really are poor at showing loyalty to their customers. I'm still using Superior Drummer 2 because of my distaste for Toontrack's lack of decent pricing for loyal customers. 

[Bapu]

3 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

I'm still using Superior Drummer 2 because of ... lack of ... new features.

Fixed

 

 

[Fret Flintstone]

On 4/4/2021 at 6:16 AM, Bapu said:

I put my license on a USB stick and I can install on as many computers as I want. I can work on my PC and if I need to switch to my Mac I move the USB stick from the PC to the Mac.

However unlikely it is, I can go to any studio in the world install all the Waves bundles I own and plug in my USB stick and I'm off and running.

For me that is a close to multiple-seat licenses as I need to get without paying for it.

 

I've always felt that I got my money's worth from WUP for all the new plugs I've gotten every year in Mercury. My only gripe is that new Abbey Road plugs come at cost (usually quite small though). I'm perfectly happy to pay my WUP.

Amen Sir

As for 'single seat' you have the USB stick mentioned above, plus any new plugin you purchase gives you WUP for a year plus a second License, so 2 'seats'. Keep up your WUP and all your plugs will have 2 'seats'

WUP? $19 a week at the most, pffft, and you don't even have to pay it unless you want to, I've personally never seen the problem, never seen the problem with the installation and auth either, easy as, never had a issue.

Waves first plugin, Q10, 1992, still rockin' as strong as ever, how many OS changes has it gone through? how many Windows component changes has it gone through?

One thing about Waves is that it's Plugins will work no matter how old they are, because they keep supporting them, and don't just dump them.

Best support I've ever come across, I had a shop problem, emailed them on a Sunday, had a reply and fix within an hour.

 

But lets wait for the definitive and final word on all things Waves to turn up, shouldn't be long.

 

Edited April 5, 2021 by Fret Flintstone