It’s been a long time coming, but the month of January has brought more new ways to pay for music creation software than we’ve seen in a few years.
When you want to share a playlist with a friend, you can count on giving them full-length tracks with Spotify. (Sorry, Taylor Swift fans, but everyone else.) If you’re on a tight deadline to finish a video edit, you can pay a small monthly fee to use Adobe Premiere – and send it to the film composer knowing they can do the same, rather than having to buy it outright for a chunk of change. Not so with music production tools, which rely mostly on big one-time payments (sometimes north of a thousand bucks), often with additional copy protection and dependent hardware.
Just in the past few days, we’ve seen some new ways to solve the problem.
$1000 of Plug-ins – For Twenty Bucks?
The most ambitious comes from Gobbler, the cloud backup, sharing, and collaboration service. Gobbler as of this week are re-launching their platform under the tag “spawn.” (Right now, you get just a sign-up for the service.) Collaboration and shop alike will run on the new platform.
Gobbler already offered deep integration with your DAW for sucking up all your related files, backing them up for you, and making it easy to collaborate. But for producers with various mixes of plug-ins, collaboration can be a sticking point – the problem is, your collaborator almost certainly has a different plug-in arsenal than you do. The solution for many users, of course, was simply to either give up – or pirate whatever they didn’t have. (Propellerhead’s Reason is one notable exception to this.)
Spawn now offers a subscription service to make this work. Switch payments on and off on a month-to-month basis — think Spotify and not a membership in your local gym. Once you’re logged into a Gobbler account, your licenses are all activated.
Gobbler tell us they’ve got big plans here. But they’re starting with a damned fine case study: Slate Digital.
Steven Slate is one of the top names in production, bar none, to those who follow such things. (Oh, speaking of Taylor Swift? Yeah, her. Also, Black Eyed Peas, and the folks that help you unfriend people on Facebook, Nickelback.)
But more important than that, Slate Digital (which Slate makes alongside DSP whiz Fabrice Gabriel) make one of the best plug-in libraries you could hope to add to your arsenal. Their Trigger plug-in is one of the best ways to do drum replacement, and they have some formidable options for mastering and analog modeling. (The latter rivals offerings from the likes of Universal Audio, which means the next statement could make some waves – pardon the pun.)
Gobbler have convinced Slate to join their platform and give away their whole plug-in library – for US$19.99 a month, instead of over US$1000 all at once. (Smart money ups that to US$24.99 in order to add Relab Development’s Lexicon reverb emulation.)
That’s everything – now, in the present, and in the future, every tool and every update. The gamble is clearly that the subscription will earn more users, even from would-be pirates.
What’s the catch? Well, with Slate – though not necessarily with the Gobbler Spawn platform generally – you do need a dongle. iLok hardware is required to use the subscription, which I’m sure will scare off some who swore never to touch one again. At least Slate will give you one free with a new subscription, which is good, because I’m pretty sure I lost mine. We’ll see how that goes over and if others bite.
PACE does work software-only, though, which may be okay with more people.
Slate Mix/Master Bundle [slatedigital.com]
Click to Buy, Integrate with Collaboration
Not to be outdone, Gobbler rival Splice are also offering their own plug-in options. Interestingly, while Gobbler’s Spawn seems entirely focused on subscription fees – like adding HBO to your cable TV service – Splice is offering developers a menu of options.
In terms of developers, Splice has even trumped Gobbler, with not one but a swarm of top plug-in makers. There’s Xfer Records, Voxengo, Cableguys, Blue Cat Audio, FXpansion and Tokyo Dawn Records – a virtual who’s who of virtual.
We haven’t yet seen how the Spawn subscriptions integrate with Gobbler. But Splice are describing that the main feature of their new offering. You’ve ppened a collaborator’s project, and don’t have the plug-in? Easy: one click buys it. The emphasis here is more Apple App Store than Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. There’s a huge chunk of free plug-ins, too. (Free-to-play, with in-app purchases – hmm, did the future of plug-ins just flash before my eyes, Angry Birds style?)
It seems Splice are wielding two weapons here: content, and data. They’re assembling plug-ins in a central location, for one. We’ve sort of seen that with a site like dontcrack.com, but – okay, the name is terrible, sounding more like a public service announcement than a service, the site is ugly and unusable, and some of the biggest developers are missing. Splice is building something that looks far more like you’d expect a plug-in store to look.
In that location, they’re adding a lot of additional content. Community members and artists alike can add tutorials and tips and, because these is Splice, even whole DAW sessions demonstrating use of the plug-ins. (If Some Guy In His Basement isn’t appealing to you, Laidback Luke and Henry Fong are reportedly signed on.)
But remember, this is the Cloud – Big Data is there watching you. So Splice can examine who’s using which plug-ins, either overall or by artist, assuming that’s desirable. (I expect some people won’t want that shared!)
And they’re building an SDK platform, as are Gobbler, which they say will benefit both you and your plug-in developer, via:
- License mangement
- Instant access to installers for your OS
- Automatic updates when new versions appear
- Subscription and rental coming in an SDK update
Subscriptions aren’t there yet, but they’re coming. I’ll be interested to see if Gobbler does the reverse – offer one-click purchases instead of only subscriptions.
More: The Future of Plugins on Splice: 1-click Purchase, License Backup & More
If You Build It, They Will… Hey, Where Is Everyone?
To me, both Gobbler and Splice face the same challenge: they have to attract users to these platforms first. And I think users have reason to be reticent: startups with little proven track record may not seem the safest place to invest your plug-in collection. The simple fact is that, for all we use online services, we don’t always collaborate on them.
Gobbler’s Spawn, at least, doesn’t immediately dump you onto the shared Website, which I think is an advantage. In fact, if you were a Slate Digital customer, you might have barely noticed Gobbler at all. You just got a really cheap way to round out your Slate collection for $20 a month. (I expect you’re not so happy if you bought all their stuff, but that should be a relatively small group.)
At the same time, Gobbler and Splice are solving an important obstacle to people collaborating in the first place. Maybe unburdened from the plug-in requirement, more will share.
By the way, from the above description, you may wonder why I’m describing Spawn as more ambitious. The reason: Gobbler are reconstructing their entire collaborative platform with this stuff in mind. As I understand it now, Splice seems to be a plug-in store first; the store is integrated with the rest of Splice, but Splice itself seems not in the middle of a massive overhaul. (Of course, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.)
I have to say, right now, I think the Splice offering is more compelling on first blush. There’s a clear plug-in store, extra content and thus a reason to shop this way, loads of plug-in developers, and no reliance on PACE – with or without the hardware key, PACE dependence could be a deal killer for some users and developers. But each has promise, and we’ll see how this pans out.
Your DAW’s a Subscription, Too
Clarification and correction: The original version of this story claimed incorrectly that SONAR would be available as a paid subscription. That is not accurate. There are both per-month payment plans and a subscription offer that delivers additional content and updates within a time period. But you’re never renting the software, in that failure to pay doesn’t make the software suddenly stop working – so, think payment plans and memberships with bonus content and updates, not Netflix. (Avid Pro Tools, by contrast, is talking “rentals” a la Adobe Creative Cloud.) See full description below.
The above covers plug-ins. But DAWs won’t be far behind, it seems.
Since I wrote this article, Avid announced it would offer a “rental” model for Pro Tools. Just like Adobe’s
Cakewalk meanwhile unveiling memberships with the new version of SONAR. You can opt to pay a monthly payment plan – between US$9.99 and $49.99, depending on version – and then get the latest-and-greatest working on your machine. You can still choose to pay up-front if you prefer, and existing customers get a big break on monthly fees.
Here’s how it works:
If you do buy Cakewalk SONAR in the traditional way – paying all at once – you also get a 12-month Cakewalk “membership” in the deal. That includes updates, fixes, content, and new features for a year from Cakewalk.
If you don’t want to pay all at once, you can also opt for a per-month payment plan. $20 a month gets you almost everything Cakewalk makes, with the $50 a month option giving you the full-featured suite. (By contrast, Native Instruments customers routinely complain about Komplete upgrades – it didn’t have the mix of what they wanted, or they didn’t know if they really needed a particular version, or they just shelled out. A subscription rate gives a steady, flat cost to the user, and relieves them of the fear of missing out on key updates.)
After the 12 months, you can re-up for the “subscription” at a lower per-month rate and continue to get free updates and content for another year. Upgrade purchasers can choose a similar option.
This is a sort of third way between traditional paid purchases and updates and the rental model chosen by Avid and Adobe.
But others might follow Cakewalk’s lead here (so to speak). Cakewalk has been ahead of their time before. Apart from silently introducing a lot of DAW power features before anybody else, they were once the voice in the wilderness on Windows saying 64-bit computation and 64-bit memory access would benefit pro apps – leading not only music apps but serious PC software in general. A few years later, the idea of 32-bit seems antiquated on Mac and PC alike.
A bit like the monthly payment plans you might see for guitars, you can choose how to pay. And either way, subscriptions to Cakewalk memberships are sweetening the deal.
SONAR versions, compared [Cakewalk.com]
My money is on more subscription models of various kinds soon. If you want to bet whether I’m right, first put ten dollars each month into a pot while we wait…
Sorry. Obligatory.
Imagine a plug-in with the power to destroy humanity – and a producer insane enough to use it.
Imagine a Website on the verge of Creation.
Note: subscription service history is one that had me scratching my heads. Readers, which do you remember? One early pioneer – and still a stellar buy – is Harrison MixBus, the absolutely beautiful DAW console built around the open source Ardour, with some fantastic-sounding stuff added in. In fact, this means you’d have a pretty unbeatable mixing desk for about $9 + $19 a month with the two combinations here. Wow.
“If you’re on a tight deadline to finish a video edit, you can pay a small monthly fee to use Adobe Premiere”
only if you need an extra license – at least last I checked. They make you sign up for a years worth of service, which if you cancel early, you owe most of that years cost…
“If you’re on a tight deadline to finish a video edit, you can pay a small monthly fee to use Adobe Premiere”
only if you need an extra license – at least last I checked. They make you sign up for a years worth of service, which if you cancel early, you owe most of that years cost…
“If you’re on a tight deadline to finish a video edit, you can pay a small monthly fee to use Adobe Premiere”
only if you need an extra license – at least last I checked. They make you sign up for a years worth of service, which if you cancel early, you owe most of that years cost…
Subscription is the Devil. Period.
Soon no software will be owned. Everything will be rented. You stop paying one month and your computer becomes a useless empty box.
Just say NO.
Agreed, the day Ableton goes subscription is the day I start looking for a new DAW.
Depends. Cakewalk’s differentiator is that you own the software (or
have a perpetual license to use the software, like usual) after 12
months of subscription payments. Read: it doesn’t brick if you stop paying
after that, you just don’t get updates or official support. 12 months subscription is roughly equal to the normal cost of the software. I don’t see the problem there.
The good-for-consumers part is that you can pay for a year, stop paying, make some music and at any time in the future pay ~$20 to try an upgrade. Like it? Keep paying for another 11 months. Don’t? Only cost you 20 bucks. Slippery slope here that I imagine Cakewalk is betting on: Have the average version and want to test out the whizbang version? No problem, extra 20 bucks. End of the month, they’re hoping you can’t live with out feature Y and they’ve got a new upgraded customer.
Other benefits to this sort of subscription transition is that DAW makers can start releasing usable features quickly/regularly instead of stock piling them for big releases so they get covered on the likes of CDM. That stock piling leads to bugs. Web development is to blame here: with web development the general mantra for the last 10 years has been “release early and often”. Get features out to customers as quickly as possible and limit the scope of bugs by shipping micro updates all the time.
And…, in Cakewalk’s case anyway, the subscription delivery mechanism will allow a user to roll back to any release at any time. Latest update break a critical plugin for you? No problem, roll back with a few clicks (or so they say, we’ll see) and you’re back in business.
(OSX user here, no skin in Cakewalk’s game. I just don’t think subscriptions are by definition bad.)
I paid upfront and I agree that subs aren’t bad, but we don’t actually know how it works if you pay for just a month and then what gets rolled back. Cakewalk haven’t been clear on it. so for Platinum 2 in 2016, if I pay a month and then decide ‘nah, not worth it’; i’d have to assume that while i’d loose any feature of platinum 3, i’d still get to use everything from platinum 1. but will they still have iterations? if there is no Platinum 2 and everything just gets added to platinum 1, what happens when I drop payments a month into 2016? it’s an interesting question that isn’t answered yet.
Really? From trolling their forums after the announcement, I thought you’d roll back to whatever the last thing you paid for was. So if in 12/15 you have Platinum v15.12 and then pay for a month in January (getting v16.1 if available) and then decide ‘nah, not worth it’, you’d roll back to v15.12.
I’m not Cakewalk, obvi, so I could be way off here.
They have answered everything ad nauseam. For starters, they have made it clear that THIS IS NOT SUBSCRIPTION. They call it MEMBERSHIP, the difference being that in the subscription model you never get to own the license. In Cakewalk’s model, you own the license forever if you pay a full license fee upfront, or if you pay at least twelve consecutive months. After that, you are free to stop paying and keep the license and the last twelve months of upgrades, new features, and extra content. If you keep monthly payments without interruption after initial twelve months, you are also entitled to ownership of everything you download. OTOH, if you cancel membership for a period of time and then you renew, you get current again but you do not get ownership of the new version and content until you pay a new upgrade fee upfront OR twelve consecutive months of membership. If you cancel again before that your software version gets rolled back to the last version you actually own. By the way, something that seems confusing for some people is that if you keep on paying after those twelve months you do not need to pay for another 12 month “block”, but you own everything you download as long as you do not interrupt your membership.
Is software ever owned? Usually you just purchase the license to use said software. Personally I much prefer the lease model for commercial software; You pay for the current iteration of the software when you need to use it, and nothing more. I’ve never been the type that insists on the big box apps, which quite frankly are a waste of packaging, even the contained CD-ROM is usually out of date by the time it gets to you. Having said that, I’ve always been a sucker for a physical manual.
There are subscriptions models that don’t have any of these properties at all. Subscribers to Ardour (and everyone else, for that matter) can get the actual source code of the application. You’re not renting anything there, just financially supporting continued development of the software. Being a subscriber means we make it easy for you to update and also to participate in beta testing.
Disclaimer: I am the lead author of Ardour.
Subscription is the Devil. Period.
Soon no software will be owned. Everything will be rented. You stop paying one month and your computer becomes a useless empty box.
Just say NO.
Agreed, the day Ableton goes subscription is the day I start looking for a new DAW.
Depends. Cakewalk’s differentiator is that you own the software (or
have a perpetual license to use the software, like usual) after 12
months of subscription payments. Read: it doesn’t brick if you stop paying
after that, you just don’t get updates or official support. 12 months subscription is roughly equal to the normal cost of the software. I don’t see the problem there.
The good-for-consumers part is that you can pay for a year, stop paying, make some music and at any time in the future pay ~$20 to try an upgrade. Like it? Keep paying for another 11 months. Don’t? Only cost you 20 bucks. Slippery slope here that I imagine Cakewalk is betting on: Have the average version and want to test out the whizbang version? No problem, extra 20 bucks. End of the month, they’re hoping you can’t live with out feature Y and they’ve got a new upgraded customer.
Other benefits to this sort of subscription transition is that DAW makers can start releasing usable features quickly/regularly instead of stock piling them for big releases so they get covered on the likes of CDM. That stock piling leads to bugs. Web development is to blame here: with web development the general mantra for the last 10 years has been “release early and often”. Get features out to customers as quickly as possible and limit the scope of bugs by shipping micro updates all the time.
And…, in Cakewalk’s case anyway, the subscription delivery mechanism will allow a user to roll back to any release at any time. Latest update break a critical plugin for you? No problem, roll back with a few clicks (or so they say, we’ll see) and you’re back in business.
(OSX user here, no skin in Cakewalk’s game. I just don’t think subscriptions are by definition bad.)
I paid upfront and I agree that subs aren’t bad, but we don’t actually know how it works if you pay for just a month and then what gets rolled back. Cakewalk haven’t been clear on it. so for Platinum 2 in 2016, if I pay a month and then decide ‘nah, not worth it’; i’d have to assume that while i’d loose any feature of platinum 3, i’d still get to use everything from platinum 1. but will they still have iterations? if there is no Platinum 2 and everything just gets added to platinum 1, what happens when I drop payments a month into 2016? it’s an interesting question that isn’t answered yet.
Really? From trolling their forums after the announcement, I thought you’d roll back to whatever the last thing you paid for was. So if in 12/15 you have Platinum v15.12 and then pay for a month in January (getting v16.1 if available) and then decide ‘nah, not worth it’, you’d roll back to v15.12.
I’m not Cakewalk, obvi, so I could be way off here.
They have answered everything ad nauseam. For starters, they have made it clear that THIS IS NOT SUBSCRIPTION. They call it MEMBERSHIP, the difference being that in the subscription model you never get to own the license. In Cakewalk’s model, you own the license forever if you pay a full license fee upfront, or if you pay at least twelve consecutive months. After that, you are free to stop paying and keep the license and the last twelve months of upgrades, new features, and extra content. If you keep monthly payments without interruption after initial twelve months, you are also entitled to ownership of everything you download. OTOH, if you cancel membership for a period of time and then you renew, you get current again but you do not get ownership of the new version and content until you pay a new upgrade fee upfront OR twelve consecutive months of membership. If you cancel again before that your software version gets rolled back to the last version you actually own. By the way, something that seems confusing for some people is that if you keep on paying after those twelve months you do not need to pay for another 12 month “block”, but you own everything you download as long as you do not interrupt your membership.
Is software ever owned? Usually you just purchase the license to use said software. Personally I much prefer the lease model for commercial software; You pay for the current iteration of the software when you need to use it, and nothing more. I’ve never been the type that insists on the big box apps, which quite frankly are a waste of packaging, even the contained CD-ROM is usually out of date by the time it gets to you. Having said that, I’ve always been a sucker for a physical manual.
There are subscriptions models that don’t have any of these properties at all. Subscribers to Ardour (and everyone else, for that matter) can get the actual source code of the application. You’re not renting anything there, just financially supporting continued development of the software. Being a subscriber means we make it easy for you to update and also to participate in beta testing.
Disclaimer: I am the lead author of Ardour.
Subscription is the Devil. Period.
Soon no software will be owned. Everything will be rented. You stop paying one month and your computer becomes a useless empty box.
Just say NO.
Agreed, the day Ableton goes subscription is the day I start looking for a new DAW.
Depends. Cakewalk’s differentiator is that you own the software (or
have a perpetual license to use the software, like usual) after 12
months of subscription payments. Read: it doesn’t brick if you stop paying
after that, you just don’t get updates or official support. 12 months subscription is roughly equal to the normal cost of the software. I don’t see the problem there.
The good-for-consumers part is that you can pay for a year, stop paying, make some music and at any time in the future pay ~$20 to try an upgrade. Like it? Keep paying for another 11 months. Don’t? Only cost you 20 bucks. Slippery slope here that I imagine Cakewalk is betting on: Have the average version and want to test out the whizbang version? No problem, extra 20 bucks. End of the month, they’re hoping you can’t live with out feature Y and they’ve got a new upgraded customer.
Other benefits to this sort of subscription transition is that DAW makers can start releasing usable features quickly/regularly instead of stock piling them for big releases so they get covered on the likes of CDM. That stock piling leads to bugs. Web development is to blame here: with web development the general mantra for the last 10 years has been “release early and often”. Get features out to customers as quickly as possible and limit the scope of bugs by shipping micro updates all the time.
And…, in Cakewalk’s case anyway, the subscription delivery mechanism will allow a user to roll back to any release at any time. Latest update break a critical plugin for you? No problem, roll back with a few clicks (or so they say, we’ll see) and you’re back in business.
(OSX user here, no skin in Cakewalk’s game. I just don’t think subscriptions are by definition bad.)
I paid upfront and I agree that subs aren’t bad, but we don’t actually know how it works if you pay for just a month and then what gets rolled back. Cakewalk haven’t been clear on it. so for Platinum 2 in 2016, if I pay a month and then decide ‘nah, not worth it’; i’d have to assume that while i’d loose any feature of platinum 3, i’d still get to use everything from platinum 1. but will they still have iterations? if there is no Platinum 2 and everything just gets added to platinum 1, what happens when I drop payments a month into 2016? it’s an interesting question that isn’t answered yet.
Really? From trolling their forums after the announcement, I thought you’d roll back to whatever the last thing you paid for was. So if in 12/15 you have Platinum v15.12 and then pay for a month in January (getting v16.1 if available) and then decide ‘nah, not worth it’, you’d roll back to v15.12.
I’m not Cakewalk, obvi, so I could be way off here.
They have answered everything ad nauseam. For starters, they have made it clear that THIS IS NOT SUBSCRIPTION. They call it MEMBERSHIP, the difference being that in the subscription model you never get to own the license. In Cakewalk’s model, you own the license forever if you pay a full license fee upfront, or if you pay at least twelve consecutive months. After that, you are free to stop paying and keep the license and the last twelve months of upgrades, new features, and extra content. If you keep monthly payments without interruption after initial twelve months, you are also entitled to ownership of everything you download. OTOH, if you cancel membership for a period of time and then you renew, you get current again but you do not get ownership of the new version and content until you pay a new upgrade fee upfront OR twelve consecutive months of membership. If you cancel again before that your software version gets rolled back to the last version you actually own. By the way, something that seems confusing for some people is that if you keep on paying after those twelve months you do not need to pay for another 12 month “block”, but you own everything you download as long as you do not interrupt your membership.
Is software ever owned? Usually you just purchase the license to use said software. Personally I much prefer the lease model for commercial software; You pay for the current iteration of the software when you need to use it, and nothing more. I’ve never been the type that insists on the big box apps, which quite frankly are a waste of packaging, even the contained CD-ROM is usually out of date by the time it gets to you. Having said that, I’ve always been a sucker for a physical manual.
There are subscriptions models that don’t have any of these properties at all. Subscribers to Ardour (and everyone else, for that matter) can get the actual source code of the application. You’re not renting anything there, just financially supporting continued development of the software. Being a subscriber means we make it easy for you to update and also to participate in beta testing.
Disclaimer: I am the lead author of Ardour.
The Slate Subscription when is it available I can’t seem to get it on there site
ProTools is now doing the same thing with V12…and I agree with Dadada – subscriptions SUCK for most cases. At least the Adobe model (year contract minimum requirement) is great for some post houses who only need to expand in certain parts of the year – getting the new licenses when they need it, fails in other ways.
For Audio in Post, I used PT v7 until 9 came out. now we are using 10 until our computers can’t hold it any more.
For Adobe, I had a small personal graphics project to make images for a small music release. I wanted to use their software because I understood it from previous versions. I never owned it before though. So I had to pay for a year, even though i only needed it for 3 months. On top of that, my years worth of money gone, and now so is the software! I can’t open the project back up without signing up for another years worth of monthly payments. At this rate I could have purchased the software originally, and had the ability to play around with it as long as my computer was not upgraded (which in the audio world, I rarely do anyway – when it’s working…why mess with it?).
I would have GLADLY purchased some adobe software so I did not loose the ability to open projects at the time I payed for the subscription….but that was not even an option anymore.
As with plugins – I can’t imagine EVER paying a subscription. Ok, so I only needed that one plugin for this one job. But in a year when I need to go back to it..will the new version of the plugin even be compatible with the old version that was in my session? If I owned it, it wouldn’t matter – it would still be on my system and authorized (as long as I didn’t upgrade my system). I’m going to do what I can to never have to do that again (there are plenty of free alternative…)
It’s a nice theory…but I can’t imagine allowing anything I rely on to be rented. Now, I’ve rented hardware before (mostly tape decks for layback) – but renting software seems like a hard sell for me.
The Slate Subscription when is it available I can’t seem to get it on there site
ProTools is now doing the same thing with V12…and I agree with Dadada – subscriptions SUCK for most cases. At least the Adobe model (year contract minimum requirement) is great for some post houses who only need to expand in certain parts of the year – getting the new licenses when they need it, fails in other ways.
For Audio in Post, I used PT v7 until 9 came out. now we are using 10 until our computers can’t hold it any more.
For Adobe, I had a small personal graphics project to make images for a small music release. I wanted to use their software because I understood it from previous versions. I never owned it before though. So I had to pay for a year, even though i only needed it for 3 months. On top of that, my years worth of money gone, and now so is the software! I can’t open the project back up without signing up for another years worth of monthly payments. At this rate I could have purchased the software originally, and had the ability to play around with it as long as my computer was not upgraded (which in the audio world, I rarely do anyway – when it’s working…why mess with it?).
I would have GLADLY purchased some adobe software so I did not loose the ability to open projects at the time I payed for the subscription….but that was not even an option anymore.
As with plugins – I can’t imagine EVER paying a subscription. Ok, so I only needed that one plugin for this one job. But in a year when I need to go back to it..will the new version of the plugin even be compatible with the old version that was in my session? If I owned it, it wouldn’t matter – it would still be on my system and authorized (as long as I didn’t upgrade my system). I’m going to do what I can to never have to do that again (there are plenty of free alternative…)
It’s a nice theory…but I can’t imagine allowing anything I rely on to be rented. Now, I’ve rented hardware before (mostly tape decks for layback) – but renting software seems like a hard sell for me.
The Slate Subscription when is it available I can’t seem to get it on there site
ProTools is now doing the same thing with V12…and I agree with Dadada – subscriptions SUCK for most cases. At least the Adobe model (year contract minimum requirement) is great for some post houses who only need to expand in certain parts of the year – getting the new licenses when they need it, fails in other ways.
For Audio in Post, I used PT v7 until 9 came out. now we are using 10 until our computers can’t hold it any more.
For Adobe, I had a small personal graphics project to make images for a small music release. I wanted to use their software because I understood it from previous versions. I never owned it before though. So I had to pay for a year, even though i only needed it for 3 months. On top of that, my years worth of money gone, and now so is the software! I can’t open the project back up without signing up for another years worth of monthly payments. At this rate I could have purchased the software originally, and had the ability to play around with it as long as my computer was not upgraded (which in the audio world, I rarely do anyway – when it’s working…why mess with it?).
I would have GLADLY purchased some adobe software so I did not loose the ability to open projects at the time I payed for the subscription….but that was not even an option anymore.
As with plugins – I can’t imagine EVER paying a subscription. Ok, so I only needed that one plugin for this one job. But in a year when I need to go back to it..will the new version of the plugin even be compatible with the old version that was in my session? If I owned it, it wouldn’t matter – it would still be on my system and authorized (as long as I didn’t upgrade my system). I’m going to do what I can to never have to do that again (there are plenty of free alternative…)
It’s a nice theory…but I can’t imagine allowing anything I rely on to be rented. Now, I’ve rented hardware before (mostly tape decks for layback) – but renting software seems like a hard sell for me.
No mention about the very affordable subscription plan that came out with Max 7?
subs are an inevitability – for me the weirdest thing is that when you make a studio or an audio suite, it’s generally a very permanent fixture in the professional world. Whereas your video editor pool will expand and contract depending on the seasons.
A lot of the larger post facilities will happily put a year on year cost against a studio and can happily plan expenditure for the next five years with a yearly plan. Casual users are the ones who will get a tough deal in this set-up.
@dadada – you’re mad if you think you ever “own” any of the software that you’ve purchased.
I disagree…except for the video comment. Small facilities who don’t need to upgrade software over years of operations see the short end here…
and we don’t think we ‘own’ it…but when a software is purchased, and I boot up the same computer 2 years from the purchase date, the software will probably still be working and able to open projects. If I ‘rented’ the software…that will be impossible without repaying – if the company is even still in existence to get the newer license.
If you’re making money you should be budgeting for your OpEx – otherwise you’re going to run into some trouble at some stage. That’s completely regardless of the size of your business.
Big, and buggy version updates are a nightmare, and maybe companies like Camel don’t go out of business if they’re able to adopt a payment plan where they’re able to budget more easily with a regular income stream.
End users need to see the relative value in regular updates, but a subscription is not that much different to paying out for another version of Komplete, 12 months after the last one, is it?
As for opening old sessions – Even tape gets damaged. Save it in three places and adopt a format that’s not specific to any single DAW. You never know what will happen, and I’d rather be in control of my own IP, rather than entrusting it on someone else’s.
The biggest difference, again, is what happens when I need to open that session that used that piece of software that does not even exist anymore? If I purchased the license outright and didn’t update my computer since then, it will work.
With the new licensing model? Most likely not. Yes, tapes got damaged…and saving it in three places does nothing when the software needed can’t be gotten anymore. What we got from software was the beauty of total recall…even years away from projects. I can still open PT projects from 2005. I still have the computer I used then with the plugins installed from then. I do not own updates of most of those plugins. If I need to get into that session, I can boot up the old computer and get it. If I had to rent the software…that is now impossible.
I agree…render it all out, save all the stems, etc etc…but that’s not the point.
“””If you’re making money you should be budgeting for your OpEx – otherwise you’re going to run into some trouble at some stage. That’s completely regardless of the size of your business.”””
It’s also regardless of subscriptions.
What he said is that a lot of subscrictions raise your operating expenses if you run a small business that doesn’t renew it’s software with every release.
Having to “budget for your OpEx” is orthogonal to not liking/wanting your OpEx to be raised by some new subscription payment scheme.
@a_mugsgame I don’t think dadada is mad …. I can still pull out old disks for my Comodore Amiga and Atari ST those companies and systems are now long defunct but I can still load the the software and use these old tools. As long as you can download and back the installer and serial all is good but companies come and go.
No mention about the very affordable subscription plan that came out with Max 7?
subs are an inevitability – for me the weirdest thing is that when you make a studio or an audio suite, it’s generally a very permanent fixture in the professional world. Whereas your video editor pool will expand and contract depending on the seasons.
A lot of the larger post facilities will happily put a year on year cost against a studio and can happily plan expenditure for the next five years with a yearly plan. Casual users are the ones who will get a tough deal in this set-up.
@dadada – you’re mad if you think you ever “own” any of the software that you’ve purchased.
I disagree…except for the video comment. Small facilities who don’t need to upgrade software over years of operations see the short end here…
and we don’t think we ‘own’ it…but when a software is purchased, and I boot up the same computer 2 years from the purchase date, the software will probably still be working and able to open projects. If I ‘rented’ the software…that will be impossible without repaying – if the company is even still in existence to get the newer license. If AVID folded tomorrow, I’d still be able to open my PT projects years from now with my working computer. If I was only renting the software – they would all become worthless.
I’m glad I wasn’t forced to rend Camel Audio’s plugs. My Alchemy plugin will work until I need to purchase a new machine or upgrade my working machine….if we were renting….then it would disappear now that they are gone.
If you’re making money you should be budgeting for your OpEx – otherwise you’re going to run into some trouble at some stage. That’s completely regardless of the size of your business.
Big, and buggy version updates are a nightmare, and maybe companies like Camel don’t go out of business if they’re able to adopt a payment plan where they’re able to budget more easily with a regular income stream.
End users need to see the relative value in regular updates, but a subscription is not that much different to paying out for another version of Komplete, 12 months after the last one, is it?
As for opening old sessions – Even tape gets damaged. Save it in three places and adopt a format that’s not specific to any single DAW. You never know what will happen, and I’d rather be in control of my own IP, rather than entrusting it on someone else’s.
Yes, budget money for upgrades…but it is completely different when every year you need to save X amount or not needing to upgrade every year, and being able to get by until made more money than usual (or need the upgrade for another technical reason), and you can afford to spend extra on a nice system upgrade. In the audio world, we do not need to upgrade every year. Maybe every 2…most likely every 3 or 4… (there are still professional audio studios using PT 7.5. how old is that now?) and to upgrade a professional suite like our takes a TON of money, especially since this PT upgrade (to 11) will also require a huge hardware upgrade… The next time we have an extra windfall of cash we may do it. Until then, we can work well in the current software.
The biggest difference, again, is what happens when I need to open that session that used that piece of software that does not even exist anymore? If I purchased the license outright and didn’t update my computer since then, it will work.
With the new licensing model? Most likely not. Yes, tapes got damaged…and saving it in three places does nothing when the software needed can’t be gotten anymore. What we got from software was the beauty of total recall…even years away from projects. I can still open PT projects from 2005. I still have the computer I used then with the plugins installed from then. I do not own updates of most of those plugins. If I need to get into that session, I can boot up the old computer and get it. If I had to rent the software…that is now impossible.
I agree…render it all out, save all the stems, etc etc…but that’s not the point. The point is if I owned a license to the software, I know if I don’t upgrade the computer…I can run the software years from now. With subscriptions…that is impossible to know. Maybe I’ll be able to..but even if I can get a new subscription, will I need to get the NEW software? Will the subscription even work with the 3 year old version that I need to get this project working? These things have yet to be answered.
And you’ve been able to rent PT plugins from avid for a while now.
“””If you’re making money you should be budgeting for your OpEx – otherwise you’re going to run into some trouble at some stage. That’s completely regardless of the size of your business.”””
It’s also regardless of subscriptions.
What he said is that a lot of subscrictions raise your operating expenses if you run a small business that doesn’t renew it’s software with every release.
Having to “budget for your OpEx” is orthogonal to not liking/wanting your OpEx to be raised by some new subscription payment scheme.
@a_mugsgame I don’t think dadada is mad …. I can still pull out old disks for my Comodore Amiga and Atari ST those companies and systems are now long defunct but I can still load the the software and use these old tools. As long as you can download and back the installer and serial all is good but companies come and go.
No mention about the very affordable subscription plan that came out with Max 7?
subs are an inevitability – for me the weirdest thing is that when you make a studio or an audio suite, it’s generally a very permanent fixture in the professional world. Whereas your video editor pool will expand and contract depending on the seasons.
A lot of the larger post facilities will happily put a year on year cost against a studio and can happily plan expenditure for the next five years with a yearly plan. Casual users are the ones who will get a tough deal in this set-up.
@dadada – you’re mad if you think you ever “own” any of the software that you’ve purchased.
I disagree…except for the video comment. Small facilities who don’t need to upgrade software over years of operations see the short end here…
and we don’t think we ‘own’ it…but when a software is purchased, and I boot up the same computer 2 years from the purchase date, the software will probably still be working and able to open projects. If I ‘rented’ the software…that will be impossible without repaying – if the company is even still in existence to get the newer license. If AVID folded tomorrow, I’d still be able to open my PT projects years from now with my working computer. If I was only renting the software – they would all become worthless.
I’m glad I wasn’t forced to rend Camel Audio’s plugs. My Alchemy plugin will work until I need to purchase a new machine or upgrade my working machine….if we were renting….then it would disappear now that they are gone.
If you’re making money you should be budgeting for your OpEx – otherwise you’re going to run into some trouble at some stage. That’s completely regardless of the size of your business.
Big, and buggy version updates are a nightmare, and maybe companies like Camel don’t go out of business if they’re able to adopt a payment plan where they’re able to budget more easily with a regular income stream.
End users need to see the relative value in regular updates, but a subscription is not that much different to paying out for another version of Komplete, 12 months after the last one, is it?
As for opening old sessions – Even tape gets damaged. Save it in three places and adopt a format that’s not specific to any single DAW. You never know what will happen, and I’d rather be in control of my own IP, rather than entrusting it on someone else’s.
Yes, budget money for upgrades…but it is completely different when every year you need to save X amount or not needing to upgrade every year, and being able to get by until made more money than usual (or need the upgrade for another technical reason), and you can afford to spend extra on a nice system upgrade. In the audio world, we do not need to upgrade every year. Maybe every 2…most likely every 3 or 4… (there are still professional audio studios using PT 7.5. how old is that now?) and to upgrade a professional suite like our takes a TON of money, especially since this PT upgrade (to 11) will also require a huge hardware upgrade… The next time we have an extra windfall of cash we may do it. Until then, we can work well in the current software.
The biggest difference, again, is what happens when I need to open that session that used that piece of software that does not even exist anymore? If I purchased the license outright and didn’t update my computer since then, it will work.
With the new licensing model? Most likely not. Yes, tapes got damaged…and saving it in three places does nothing when the software needed can’t be gotten anymore. What we got from software was the beauty of total recall…even years away from projects. I can still open PT projects from 2005. I still have the computer I used then with the plugins installed from then. I do not own updates of most of those plugins. If I need to get into that session, I can boot up the old computer and get it. If I had to rent the software…that is now impossible.
I agree…render it all out, save all the stems, etc etc…but that’s not the point. The point is if I owned a license to the software, I know if I don’t upgrade the computer…I can run the software years from now. With subscriptions…that is impossible to know. Maybe I’ll be able to..but even if I can get a new subscription, will I need to get the NEW software? Will the subscription even work with the 3 year old version that I need to get this project working? These things have yet to be answered.
And you’ve been able to rent PT plugins from avid for a while now.
“””If you’re making money you should be budgeting for your OpEx – otherwise you’re going to run into some trouble at some stage. That’s completely regardless of the size of your business.”””
It’s also regardless of subscriptions.
What he said is that a lot of subscrictions raise your operating expenses if you run a small business that doesn’t renew it’s software with every release.
Having to “budget for your OpEx” is orthogonal to not liking/wanting your OpEx to be raised by some new subscription payment scheme.
@a_mugsgame I don’t think dadada is mad …. I can still pull out old disks for my Comodore Amiga and Atari ST those companies and systems are now long defunct but I can still load the the software and use these old tools. As long as you can download and back the installer and serial all is good but companies come and go.
This is really all about recurring revenue streams. For most businesses this is key in attracting investors. I think this is what is really driving the prevalence of the subscription model these days. People look at the business model for cell phones, and think “gold mine.” I have seen this cycle happen a number of times before but maybe without the amount of traction that it is getting this time around. I am not happy with being unable to pay for and own a perpetual license to Adobe products that don’t require my computer phoning home to Adobe before use. Like other posters, I would rather have a product on my machine that continues to work regardless of whether I am paying my monthly dues to a software company.
I think the thing a lot of people are missing is that a subscription model using tools that become essential to your workflow leaves you 100% at the mercy of the software vendor. If their latest version dictates that you upgrade your OS which in turn forces you to upgrade your hardware, you are out of luck and are stuck with a substantial outlay just to continue using a product.
Additionally, you get to have the “privelege” of being data mined. Not to sound like a Luddite, but does every aspect of our lives and profession need to have a recurring expense and opportunity for loss of privacy? I think when you sit down and total up the costs associated with all your subscriptions you’d be suprised at the annual cost of all of this. I do this on a biannual basis, just to make sure I’m paying for what I really want. It’s far to easy to loose track of all those small subscription fees which really end up being a decent chunk of change.
For my primary tools, I would rather do a lot of research, save up and pay outright for a license to to right tool for my workflow. The subscription model might be okay for testing and exploring, but if it’s an essential tool, I need to know that it will always be in my toolbox when I need it.
Recurring revenue streams also make projecting a heck of a lot easier.
You are so right and I no longer use Adobe products.
This is really all about recurring revenue streams. For most businesses this is key in attracting investors. I think this is what is really driving the prevalence of the subscription model these days. People look at the business model for cell phones, and think “gold mine.” I have seen this cycle happen a number of times before but maybe without the amount of traction that it is getting this time around. I am not happy with being unable to pay for and own a perpetual license to Adobe products that don’t require my computer phoning home to Adobe before use. Like other posters, I would rather have a product on my machine that continues to work regardless of whether I am paying my monthly dues to a software company.
I think the thing a lot of people are missing is that a subscription model using tools that become essential to your workflow leaves you 100% at the mercy of the software vendor. If their latest version dictates that you upgrade your OS which in turn forces you to upgrade your hardware, you are out of luck and are stuck with a substantial outlay just to continue using a product.
Additionally, you get to have the “privelege” of being data mined. Not to sound like a Luddite, but does every aspect of our lives and profession need to have a recurring expense and opportunity for loss of privacy? I think when you sit down and total up the costs associated with all your subscriptions you’d be suprised at the annual cost of all of this. I do this on a biannual basis, just to make sure I’m paying for what I really want. It’s far to easy to loose track of all those small subscription fees which really end up being a decent chunk of change.
For my primary tools, I would rather do a lot of research, save up and pay outright for a license to to right tool for my workflow. The subscription model might be okay for testing and exploring, but if it’s an essential tool, I need to know that it will always be in my toolbox when I need it.
Recurring revenue streams also make projecting a heck of a lot easier.
You are so right and I no longer use Adobe products.
This is really all about recurring revenue streams. For most businesses this is key in attracting investors. I think this is what is really driving the prevalence of the subscription model these days. People look at the business model for cell phones, and think “gold mine.” I have seen this cycle happen a number of times before but maybe without the amount of traction that it is getting this time around. I am not happy with being unable to pay for and own a perpetual license to Adobe products that don’t require my computer phoning home to Adobe before use. Like other posters, I would rather have a product on my machine that continues to work regardless of whether I am paying my monthly dues to a software company.
I think the thing a lot of people are missing is that a subscription model using tools that become essential to your workflow leaves you 100% at the mercy of the software vendor. If their latest version dictates that you upgrade your OS which in turn forces you to upgrade your hardware, you are out of luck and are stuck with a substantial outlay just to continue using a product.
Additionally, you get to have the “privelege” of being data mined. Not to sound like a Luddite, but does every aspect of our lives and profession need to have a recurring expense and opportunity for loss of privacy? I think when you sit down and total up the costs associated with all your subscriptions you’d be suprised at the annual cost of all of this. I do this on a biannual basis, just to make sure I’m paying for what I really want. It’s far to easy to loose track of all those small subscription fees which really end up being a decent chunk of change.
For my primary tools, I would rather do a lot of research, save up and pay outright for a license to to right tool for my workflow. The subscription model might be okay for testing and exploring, but if it’s an essential tool, I need to know that it will always be in my toolbox when I need it.
Recurring revenue streams also make projecting a heck of a lot easier.
You are so right and I no longer use Adobe products.
To clarify Cakewalk’s approach is not necessarily a subscription service but more of giving users various ways to pay for the software. They can either pay one price up front or break the payments down monthly depending on the version they opt in for.
MEMBERSHIP
What they are calling Membership is the added bonus of receiving free content as well as program updates, fixes and new features that will be introduced every month. This is a big change in that patches typically are released at longer intervals in a product cycle. Now they will be released monthly.
PAYMENT OPTIONS
Monthly
If someone chooses the monthly payment route and cancels before completing 12 payments then SONAR will revert to demo mode. All previous projects will playback normally and the user can pick up the payments again and complete the remaining payments when they can.
Up Front
When you pay up front you get full use of the program as long as you want and come next year you can choose not to renew the membership and keep everything up to that point.
After the initial 12 months
You could also let’s say pay up front and then after the first 12 months go on a month to month and whenever you choose to stop you would keep all fixes, additional product add ins, etc. you had payed for up to that point.
Cakewalk is doing away with the idea of releasing new versions each year and this is a very interesting way to approach it. Everything is handled in the new Command Center where you can install, update, remove, reinstall and manage your complete SONAR installation.
You can always download the individual installations from your Cakewalk User Account as well.
Hope that helps clarify some things,
Simeon
To clarify Cakewalk’s approach is not necessarily a subscription service but more of giving users various ways to pay for the software. They can either pay one price up front or break the payments down monthly depending on the version they opt in for.
MEMBERSHIP
What they are calling Membership is the added bonus of receiving free content as well as program updates, fixes and new features that will be introduced every month. This is a big change in that patches typically are released at longer intervals in a product cycle. Now they will be released monthly.
PAYMENT OPTIONS
Monthly
If someone chooses the monthly payment route and cancels before completing 12 payments then SONAR will revert to demo mode. All previous projects will playback normally and the user can pick up the payments again and complete the remaining payments when they can.
Up Front
When you pay up front you get full use of the program as long as you want and come next year you can choose not to renew the membership and keep everything up to that point.
After the initial 12 months
You could also let’s say pay up front and then after the first 12 months go on a month to month and whenever you choose to stop you would keep all fixes, additional product add ins, etc. you had payed for up to that point.
Cakewalk is doing away with the idea of releasing new versions each year and this is a very interesting way to approach it. Everything is handled in the new Command Center where you can install, update, remove, reinstall and manage your complete SONAR installation.
You can always download the individual installations from your Cakewalk User Account as well.
Hope that helps clarify some things,
Simeon
To clarify Cakewalk’s approach is not necessarily a subscription service but more of giving users various ways to pay for the software. They can either pay one price up front or break the payments down monthly depending on the version they opt in for.
MEMBERSHIP
What they are calling Membership is the added bonus of receiving free content as well as program updates, fixes and new features that will be introduced every month. This is a big change in that patches typically are released at longer intervals in a product cycle. Now they will be released monthly.
PAYMENT OPTIONS
Monthly
If someone chooses the monthly payment route and cancels before completing 12 payments then SONAR will revert to demo mode. All previous projects will playback normally and the user can pick up the payments again and complete the remaining payments when they can.
Up Front
When you pay up front you get full use of the program as long as you want and come next year you can choose not to renew the membership and keep everything up to that point.
After the initial 12 months
You could also let’s say pay up front and then after the first 12 months go on a month to month and whenever you choose to stop you would keep all fixes, additional product add ins, etc. you had payed for up to that point.
Cakewalk is doing away with the idea of releasing new versions each year and this is a very interesting way to approach it. Everything is handled in the new Command Center where you can install, update, remove, reinstall and manage your complete SONAR installation.
You can always download the individual installations from your Cakewalk User Account as well.
Hope that helps clarify some things,
Simeon
Avid is doing this as well with Protools.
Avid is doing this as well with Protools.
Avid is doing this as well with Protools.
I make music often but mix a project rarely. Paying 40 bucks to have access to the Slate suite while I mix over a couple of months sounds pretty boss.
I make music often but mix a project rarely. Paying 40 bucks to have access to the Slate suite while I mix over a couple of months sounds pretty boss.
I make music often but mix a project rarely. Paying 40 bucks to have access to the Slate suite while I mix over a couple of months sounds pretty boss.
Some of this sounds a bit like banking and the credit card business: low teaser entry to get you going and then you’re ending up paying premium once you’re hooked. And of course total surveillance added and
the privacy gone too.
Some of this sounds a bit like banking and the credit card business: low teaser entry to get you going and then you’re ending up paying premium once you’re hooked. And of course total surveillance added and
the privacy gone too.
Some of this sounds a bit like banking and the credit card business: low teaser entry to get you going and then you’re ending up paying premium once you’re hooked. And of course total surveillance added and
the privacy gone too.
Cakewalk has managed to thoroughly disappoint me with Sonar. I’ve been a loyal Cakewalk customer for 10 years. I’ve gone from using their semi-pro versions of Sonar all the way to X-2 Producer. Sonar’s price for upgrade from X-2 to X-3 was $149. Given the fact that I had spent about $400 over 18 months to get my hands on X-2 producer, decided to pass on the X-3 upgrade, particularly because I didn’t see enough of a difference between the versions to justify the cost, even though I tend to be somewhat compulsive in these matters. Now we have “Sonar Platinum” which would cost between $200-240 to upgrade from X-2. To add insult to injury, Cakewalk has changed their accounting system, so everyone has to create a new account. There doesn’t seem to be any easy way to access replacement copies of software that you’ve already paid to use. I’ve tried a few times to get to sample packages I purchased from Cakewalk only to be stonewalled by their account changes. Requests for assistance from Cakewalk have *not* been answered. At this point, starting over with Ableton seems like an expensive, but more viable path for me. I think I would rather do business with anyone but Cakewalk at this point.
Upgrade to Sonar Platinum from ANY Sonar Pro version is $199. I don’t know where you get those $240 from. About the accounting system, I don’t know what happened with yours, but I did not have to create a new, I just followed the migrating directions and all my licenses since last century appear there. If you created a new account instead of migrating the old maybe that’s why you do not see your licenses. If I were you I’d pick up the phone and call them. It’s worked for me every single time I’ve had a problem, a couple of times in over 16 years. I remember that when Greg Hendershott was still CEO, shortly after Roland took over I emailed him personally on a problem with Roland Iberia (I live in Spain) and I had a personal reply from him within two hours, followed shortly after by another email from Roland Iberia product manager with copy to Roland Japan, and a phone call by a very caring local sales rep who solved my problems right away. Maybe things have changed, but I was impressed.
$199 if you pay in one lump sum, $19.99 per month for 12 months if you go that route. I’m no math expert, but I think that works out to about $240.
Ah, but then you are not only paying for the upgrade, you are also paying for Cakewalk financing your purchase, don’t you? 🙂
Cakewalk has managed to thoroughly disappoint me with Sonar. I’ve been a loyal Cakewalk customer for 10 years. I’ve gone from using their semi-pro versions of Sonar all the way to X-2 Producer. Sonar’s price for upgrade from X-2 to X-3 was $149. Given the fact that I had spent about $400 over 18 months to get my hands on X-2 producer, decided to pass on the X-3 upgrade, particularly because I didn’t see enough of a difference between the versions to justify the cost, even though I tend to be somewhat compulsive in these matters. Now we have “Sonar Platinum” which would cost between $200-240 to upgrade from X-2. To add insult to injury, Cakewalk has changed their accounting system, so everyone has to create a new account. There doesn’t seem to be any easy way to access replacement copies of software that you’ve already paid to use. I’ve tried a few times to get to sample packages I purchased from Cakewalk only to be stonewalled by their account changes. Requests for assistance from Cakewalk have *not* been answered. At this point, starting over with Ableton seems like an expensive, but more viable path for me. I think I would rather do business with anyone but Cakewalk at this point.
People typically will choose ownership over any other form of license. The vast preponderance of human history has shown that we tend to equate ownership with economic freedom and licensure with servitude. It’s curious that the software industry works very hard to ignore this fact. Why not consider a model where we purchase the core DAW package outright, then purchase what we need as we go? Software companies seem to view this model as subversive, but ownership is an easy choice over leasing or rental for most people.
Upgrade to Sonar Platinum from ANY Sonar Pro version is $199. I don’t know where you get those $240 from. About the accounting system, I don’t know what happened with yours, but I did not have to create a new, I just followed the migrating directions and all my licenses since last century appear there. If you created a new account instead of migrating the old maybe that’s why you do not see your licenses. If I were you I’d pick up the phone and call them. It’s worked for me every single time I’ve had a problem, a couple of times in over 16 years. I remember that when Greg Hendershott was still CEO, shortly after Roland took over I emailed him personally on a problem with Roland Iberia (I live in Spain) and I had a personal reply from him within two hours, followed shortly after by another email from Roland Iberia product manager with copy to Roland Japan, and a phone call by a very caring local sales rep who solved my problems right away. Maybe things have changed, but I was impressed.
$199 if you pay in one lump sum, $19.99 per month for 12 months if you go that route. I’m no math expert, but I think that works out to about $240.
Ah, but then you are not only paying for the upgrade, you are also paying for Cakewalk financing your purchase, don’t you? 🙂
Cakewalk has managed to thoroughly disappoint me with Sonar. I’ve been a loyal Cakewalk customer for 10 years. I’ve gone from using their semi-pro versions of Sonar all the way to X-2 Producer. Sonar’s price for upgrade from X-2 to X-3 was $149. Given the fact that I had spent about $400 over 18 months to get my hands on X-2 producer, decided to pass on the X-3 upgrade, particularly because I didn’t see enough of a difference between the versions to justify the cost, even though I tend to be somewhat compulsive in these matters. Now we have “Sonar Platinum” which would cost between $200-240 to upgrade from X-2. To add insult to injury, Cakewalk has changed their accounting system, so everyone has to create a new account. There doesn’t seem to be any easy way to access replacement copies of software that you’ve already paid to use. I’ve tried a few times to get to sample packages I purchased from Cakewalk only to be stonewalled by their account changes. Requests for assistance from Cakewalk have *not* been answered. At this point, starting over with Ableton seems like an expensive, but more viable path for me. I think I would rather do business with anyone but Cakewalk at this point.
People typically will choose ownership over any other form of license. The vast preponderance of human history has shown that we tend to equate ownership with economic freedom and licensure with servitude. It’s curious that the software industry works very hard to ignore this fact. Why not consider a model where we purchase the core DAW package outright, then purchase what we need as we go? Software companies seem to view this model as subversive, but ownership is an easy choice over leasing or rental for most people.
Upgrade to Sonar Platinum from ANY Sonar Pro version is $199. I don’t know where you get those $240 from. About the accounting system, I don’t know what happened with yours, but I did not have to create a new, I just followed the migrating directions and all my licenses since last century appear there. If you created a new account instead of migrating the old maybe that’s why you do not see your licenses. If I were you I’d pick up the phone and call them. It’s worked for me every single time I’ve had a problem, a couple of times in over 16 years. I remember that when Greg Hendershott was still CEO, shortly after Roland took over I emailed him personally on a problem with Roland Iberia (I live in Spain) and I had a personal reply from him within two hours, followed shortly after by another email from Roland Iberia product manager with copy to Roland Japan, and a phone call by a very caring local sales rep who solved my problems right away. Maybe things have changed, but I was impressed.
$199 if you pay in one lump sum, $19.99 per month for 12 months if you go that route. I’m no math expert, but I think that works out to about $240.
Ah, but then you are not only paying for the upgrade, you are also paying for Cakewalk financing your purchase, don’t you? 🙂
I think that ideally both full price and subscription models should co-exist. If you’re doing client, work, sure, you’ll probably welcome the flexibility of subscriptions. And for other users, I think it’s a cool way to demo things, because there aren’t any demos of things like big sample libraries, anyway.
But if you’re like me and just messing around with music, unless it’s software you constantly use, like your DAW – well, let’s just say that the idea of having to fork over money to open a plugin I rarely use doesn‘t appeal very much to me.
I think that ideally both full price and subscription models should co-exist. If you’re doing client, work, sure, you’ll probably welcome the flexibility of subscriptions. And for other users, I think it’s a cool way to demo things, because there aren’t any demos of things like big sample libraries, anyway.
But if you’re like me and just messing around with music, unless it’s software you constantly use, like your DAW – well, let’s just say that the idea of having to fork over money to open a plugin I rarely use doesn‘t appeal very much to me.
My biggest peeve with cloud software is that if you want to open old files and you’re not currently on a subscription, you gotta pay to open things you created.
I think that ideally both full price and subscription models should co-exist. If you’re doing client, work, sure, you’ll probably welcome the flexibility of subscriptions. And for other users, I think it’s a cool way to demo things, because there aren’t any demos of things like big sample libraries, anyway.
But if you’re like me and just messing around with music, unless it’s software you constantly use, like your DAW – well, let’s just say that the idea of having to fork over money to open a plugin I rarely use doesn‘t appeal very much to me.
My biggest peeve with cloud software is that if you want to open old files and you’re not currently on a subscription, you gotta pay to open things you created.
Subscription will not be in my future … the day they start that is the day I find a new way to do things.
Subscription will not be in my future … the day they start that is the day I find a new way to do things.
Subscription will not be in my future … the day they start that is the day I find a new way to do things.
Slate has marketed these for professionals up to this point. The subscriptions should allow hobbyists to have access to these as well and that is great. I was afraid at first buying into Adobe CC, but I’ve been happy with it. I actually prefer it now. There’s a lot of EULAs that do not allow transfers, it’s a pain to sell or you end up almost giving away software you try to sell. If you don’t like the program or want to use something different you can, you aren’t stuck. Software companies will work harder to provide updates and bug fixes because they know you can walk away because the financial handcuffs are gone.
Slate has marketed these for professionals up to this point. The subscriptions should allow hobbyists to have access to these as well and that is great. I was afraid at first buying into Adobe CC, but I’ve been happy with it. I actually prefer it now. There’s a lot of EULAs that do not allow transfers, it’s a pain to sell or you end up almost giving away software you try to sell. If you don’t like the program or want to use something different you can, you aren’t stuck. Software companies will work harder to provide updates and bug fixes because they know you can walk away because the financial handcuffs are gone.
Slate has marketed these for professionals up to this point. The subscriptions should allow hobbyists to have access to these as well and that is great. I was afraid at first buying into Adobe CC, but I’ve been happy with it. I actually prefer it now. There’s a lot of EULAs that do not allow transfers, it’s a pain to sell or you end up almost giving away software you try to sell. If you don’t like the program or want to use something different you can, you aren’t stuck. Software companies will work harder to provide updates and bug fixes because they know you can walk away because the financial handcuffs are gone.
iLok. I go bye bye now.
iLok. I go bye bye now.
iLok. I go bye bye now.
“The timing comes as several players in music making software look to new models” Isn’t this all related to the fact that DAW’s are now more or less of a commodity? They hardly differentiate in base functionality, all cool plug-ins are available for all platforms, etc. This has lead to a downward price spiral, with Logic as a caricatural €200 example. While each DAW has its own followers, in the end even the most conservative traditionalists will follow the money. Predicted first victim: MOTU’s Digital Performer, followed by Cubase.
“The timing comes as several players in music making software look to new models” Isn’t this all related to the fact that DAW’s are now more or less of a commodity? They hardly differentiate in base functionality, all cool plug-ins are available for all platforms, etc. This has lead to a downward price spiral, with Logic as a caricatural €200 example. While each DAW has its own followers, in the end even the most conservative traditionalists will follow the money. Predicted first victim: MOTU’s Digital Performer, followed by Cubase.
“The timing comes as several players in music making software look to new models” Isn’t this all related to the fact that DAW’s are now more or less of a commodity? They hardly differentiate in base functionality, all cool plug-ins are available for all platforms, etc. This has lead to a downward price spiral, with Logic as a caricatural €200 example. While each DAW has its own followers, in the end even the most conservative traditionalists will follow the money. Predicted first victim: MOTU’s Digital Performer, followed by Cubase.
With my daw license file (Reaper) and installers burned to a 10-cent DVD, I’ll always be able to create.
If a subscription authorization site goes down or the company goes under, you’re toast.
I will never buy subscription software.
With my daw license file (Reaper) and installers burned to a 10-cent DVD, I’ll always be able to create.
If a subscription authorization site goes down or the company goes under, you’re toast.
I will never buy subscription software.
With my daw license file (Reaper) and installers burned to a 10-cent DVD, I’ll always be able to create.
If a subscription authorization site goes down or the company goes under, you’re toast.
I will never buy subscription software.