T-Racks CS . . . Some Good, Some Bad. My Rant.

[A.M. Gold]

TBH, I really don't get the T-Racks (*yes, I refuse to capitalize the S at the end) Custom Shop anyway. How many T-Racks are there going to be? The AT3 one makes sense because there are so many bits and pieces and a lot of them are small, like single cabs and mics, and can be sold for cheap. How does a similar concept apply to rack hardware emulations? Will there be cheap Behringer models or something?

[Brother Charles]

I just read your blog, BC. One thing you have to remember is that no one is forcing anybody to use their credits or to even give a single penny to IK Multimedia. Everyone is free to hang on to their gear credits until some sort of discount is offered.

Or if they can't control their GAS then they'll use them and (hopefully) be happy.

As far as the resale part of your rant, 100% agreed. Car dealerships don't get a cut when you sell your used car directly to a buyer. Or publishers for a used book. Or computer companies for used computers! But software makers have taken it upon themselves to abuse the locking mechanisms that software allows for and disallow reselling of their wares. Not cool.

@AudioGuy720: You're absolutely correct, friend, no one is forcing us to buy into the hyped mass marketing. That's why I didn't post my rant on this 3rd party public form. I totally agree with your car analogy. Imagine the outcry if Chysler tried to charge car-owners a "transfer" fee when they privately resell. Mind you, the government makes sure that they get a cut.

Thanx for taking the time to read my blog.

[braj]

BTW, I submitted a ticket for an install issue on Win 8, and the response was Win 8 isn't officially supported. While I understand this and actually got it installed just fine, it seems kind of dumb to me to not officially support the most current OS at launch.

What was your actual problem, and how did you fix it?

Uninstall/reinstall CS.

[A.M. Gold]

@AudioGuy720: You're absolutely correct, friend, no one is forcing us to buy into the hyped mass marketing. That's why I didn't post my rant on this 3rd party public form.

You have a point, though, if they had this big group buy and then raised all their prices immediately afterwards. I'll withhold accusation because I haven't had the energy to even install whatever rigamarole I have to to do to get this extra custom shop thing going, but if they did that, it has a sleazy ring to it. OTOH, we don't know about their future bargain basement sales, as AG720 pointed out.

[Brother Charles]

You have a point, though, if they had this big group buy and then raised all their prices immediately afterwards. I'll withhold accusation because I haven't had the energy to even install whatever rigamarole I have to to do to get this extra custom shop thing going, but if they did that, it has a sleazy ring to it. OTOH, we don't know about their future bargain basement sales, as AG720 pointed out.

Agreed. I'm not out to accuse IKM of anything unjustly. I admire and use many of their products. It's my personal views, which I suspect others also share. I do believe that it's important for we consumers to keep large companies, whom are industry giants, accountable with their choice of business model/tactics.

They didn't raise their prices - they've lessened the quantity of product. They've simply rearranged and reallocated. Thirdly, their closed, proprietary purchasing system prevents resale or "trade ins". It isn't forthright business practice. It's resorting to diversionary tactics. You know, flank on the left while you engage from the right.

In board rooms, decisions are white boarded and subsequently well implemented. Create a market, develop a substantial fan base, and then once many are boarded on the trains, lock the doors. I like the products, but I liked the sales model of the company itself when they still offered open, transferable products.

On my Win7 x64 system, the new version of the IK products that I own work well, and do indeed perform/sound better. It's the company's tactics that I take exception with.

I appreciate the "Krazy IK Deals". Most nearly all my new IK product purchases were made during these events. Their licensing is fair. They do provide good services. Perhaps we didn't mind the Custom Shop version of Amplitude, because the products are more reasonably priced. However, when a company applies the same model to single plugins costing $80 apeice (give or take), that's when negative opinion is formed.

[A.M. Gold]

[sarcasm]Well it's simply unprecedented for someone to start a thread questioning IKM's business practices.[/sarcasm]

[Brian @ IK Multimedia]

IK is trying to get around those types of laws by selling gear credits instead of direct software sales

This is just plain untrue. We began the Custom Shop and Gear Credits long before the EU case. In fact, we started developing it before in-app purchases existed in iOS apps... which, by the way, can't be resold. And neither can the apps. Or your mp3s.

[Smedberg]

I just read your blog, BC. One thing you have to remember is that no one is forcing anybody to use their credits or to even give a single penny to IK Multimedia. Everyone is free to hang on to their gear credits until some sort of discount is offered.

Or if they can't control their GAS then they'll use them and (hopefully) be happy.

As far as the resale part of your rant, 100% agreed. Car dealerships don't get a cut when you sell your used car directly to a buyer. Or publishers for a used book. Or computer companies for used computers! But software makers have taken it upon themselves to abuse the locking mechanisms that software allows for and disallow reselling of their wares. Not cool.

@AudioGuy720: You're absolutely correct, friend, no one is forcing us to buy into the hyped mass marketing. That's why I didn't post my rant on this 3rd party public form. I totally agree with your car analogy. Imagine the outcry if Chysler tried to charge car-owners a "transfer" fee when they privately resell. Mind you, the government makes sure that they get a cut.

Thanx for taking the time to read my blog.

If the company need to do a licence transfer they can of course ask something for it.
If that is not required a fee is of course not suitable...

[Brian @ IK Multimedia]

You have a point, though, if they had this big group buy and then raised all their prices immediately afterwards.

What we did was added more gear credit packs and made minor adjustments to the number of credits in some of the lower priced packs, in order to accommodate for the various T-RackS processor prices so users can buy them without having to buy more credits than necessary or be stuck with "left over credits."

We made these changes because this is what you all told us you wanted. Constantly. Over and over. In every Custom Shop related thread for the past year and a half on KVR. So we do our best to give you what you want, and now we get complaints in the opposite direction instead.

[Brian @ IK Multimedia]

Thanx for taking the time to read my blog.

Which is what this is really all about...
We here at IK know a thing or two about shameless self-promotion.

[tenshin111]

BTW, I submitted a ticket for an install issue on Win 8, and the response was Win 8 isn't officially supported. While I understand this and actually got it installed just fine, it seems kind of dumb to me to not officially support the most current OS at launch.

There is lots of other software from various companies that is not officially supported under Win 8 yet. It's nothing unusual - it takes time and effort to ensure compatibility/rewrite parts of code if necessary. Smaller companies with limited resources need to choose their short-term priorities and supporting a brand new OS (which is not very popular BTW) is not one of them. Besides, in such a spiecialized market as audio plugins how many engineers/producers would switch to the new OS because it was just released? Not many I guess and that's another good reason for an audio software manufacturer to wait a little.

There is also a lesson for you to learn - if you want trouble-free experience with a new OS then wait until it matures, at least 6 months maybe a year and then upgrade. In this particular case there is no reason to get Win 8 if you are already using Win 7 on your DAW anyway.

[Peter - IK Multimedia]

RIght, in this space we're certainly not the only ones without a full round of testing done to ensure compatibility and we have indeed tested - just not enough to deem our products fully compatible officially yet. The good news is that, since this is KVR and we're here, I can tell you that so far things look really good. What he have tested works very well, with minimal problems if any. So we continue to go forward and update our Specs pages when we feel the process is complete.

I agree with tenshin111 as I see many from all walks of recording "life" (if you can call it that) not jumping to a new OS for months. Now we've also argued the "Internet-connected" aspect quite a lot here on KVR and that one seems to be a little more hit or miss. I've been surprised at how many people I know making money making music can and do watch cat videos on their DAW machines... It may have to do with the term "professional musician" being somewhat of an oxymoron at times, though

[braj]

Sorry but when I worked in software development we tested on pre-release OS's and really tried to make sure any new OS was supported with any new release, we would be very careful to get it all covered. It isn't like it came out after CS, nor was trhere any message with the download that WIn 8 isn't supported yet. It took a tech support person to inform me about that. Not great. So while understandable that it isn't supported, it is still 'kind of dumb'.

[braj]

And it just happens to be a new laptop. There was no message "Do not use this on a new laptop." I guess with IK I should have know better. I should go back to a Core2 and 32 bit OS and then all my IK stuff will work. I will need a lower res monitor for Sampletank. 800x600 maybe?

[Teksonik]

Hell I'm still on WinXP here........everything works, drivers are solid, I don't need 64 bit. If it's not broke...

I used to to have two computers here. One connected to the net and one simply as a DAW switching between them with a KVM switch. But that got to be so much trouble trying to authorize programs, transferring downloads etc that I've just gone to one computer that's connected to the net and also serves as my DAW. Life is so much easier now......

Unfortunately WinXp is not immune to TRacks Custom Shop issues either:

And regarding the Windows XP, the issue is only with the CS application and the "Restore My Gear" because all the plug-ins work OK inside the shell, and the shell itself works OK too. The problem is that we cannot have the singles by the "Restore My Gear" option.

We are aware of the XP situation and are looking into it.