The Venture Capital Buyout of Music Production (Benn Jordan)

[User 905133]

 

[Colin Nicholls]

Highly recommended; watched this last night with my wife and she recognized some of the names from my studio.

I had no idea about Melda.

[Byron Dickens]

They misspelled "vulture."

[mettelus]

I didn't realize about Melda either, which may explain some of the recent sale. The issue with a lot of the investment firms is often that only the investment part matters (not the company); make financial statements look good, then resell many times. When this includes a portfolio, the piece parts can be split off and told to become profitable or be liquidated.

[Colin Nicholls]

It makes it difficult to know which products are worth investing in.

(I mean, investment of time and expense as a tool we use to make music; not financial investment. )

We got incredibly lucky with Cakewalk/Bandlab, but I'm still very leery of any software that needs activation or phones home. (let alone "subscription")

Edited June 27, 2023 by Colin Nicholls

[craigb]

Notepad is still subscription free!!! ?

[mettelus]

Melda sorta concerns me in a way now. Of all the forums to experience "lifetime upgrades" and then have them taken away, this one would be top of the list. Some of the buy-in prices for MComplete seemed too good to be true, so if that was another "money grab before we bury you" trick, I am going to be on the irate end.

Edited June 28, 2023 by mettelus

[Grem]

Yes it was a good video. So was his "Streaming Will Fail" video.

[User 905133]

15 hours ago, mettelus said:

Melda sorta concerns me in a way now. Of all the forums to experience "lifetime upgrades" and then have them taken away, this one would be top of the list. Some of the buy-in prices for MComplete seemed too good to be true . . . .

With the unprecedented 65% off sale and the ridiculously low prices people were discussing as possible glitches in the "Melda 15th Anniversary Sale - 65% off bundles" thread, I also wondered. But I thought that maybe it was just a change of who had set up sale price calculation mechanics--that is, a technical change, not a "money grab."  

On 6/19/2023 at 4:35 PM, User 905133 said:

Maybe its not a glitch, but a change of ownership sale.

For more discussion of the sale to Image Line, see the KVR > MeldaProduction thread that begins sometime in February.  There is at least one post from Image Line confirming their recent acquisitions.*

As many know, a few months ago Cherry Audio also announced a "Not For Resale" purchase policy (going forward license owners would no longer be able to sell/transfer their purchases).  I couldn't help but wonder what was going on with that, too, including the possibility that Acoustica was trying to make the Cherry Audio product line more desirable to purchase (among other possible reasons).

With all that's been happening my concern has been that there is only Melda's good faith word backing up the "lifetime updates." We have no idea what the terms of the sale were.

When I posted my comment on 6/19/2023, I didn't want to be alarmist.  I still want to maintain a positive / hopeful attitude (all will be OK).  But with Benn's Op-Ed- style Commentary, and mettelus' concern, I might as well share some of my worries, too.

Some people say "You can't change City Hall," but as we know when it comes to the practices of Corporations, all rules, terms, policies, etc. are subject to change at any time.

Caveat Emptor!  

*ADDENDUM: The comment about Image Line's recent acquisitions including Melda is in a thread entitled "Image Line Acquires UVI." From the Image-Line post:

Quote

Yes UVI is now part of Image-Line.   Incidentally, so is Melda Production, WA Production and Producer Loops . . . .

Quote

We have positive and good things coming for both FL Studio and UVI customers and both businesses will continue to work independently from a product perspective.

From Vojtech:

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Hey folks, so , yes, it is true, not to worry - we are working basically independently, but it gives us more resources. So nothing is changing, just getting some opportunities.

I can't reveal any more details. Rest assured, it's a win win situation.

 

Edited June 28, 2023 by User 905133
fixed typos; addendum added

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

Where there's will, there's a way, even if that way involves punching people. In reality, we as consumers are responsible for that happening as we chose quality over quantity.