Output - subscription based loop player!

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I don't care if it permits me to hear the voice of God.

I will not use a subscription ANYTHING. I'll pay money for the program, and I don't object to a license check over the net. But subscriptions have a horrible danger: You shut down business, and ALL the work I've done becomes locked up and useless since I cannot run your program anymore.

Too many times I've been burned by companies selling me a product and then closing down. Camel Audio is one. Prodyon is another. Now you're asking me to give you money every month, and when you shut down all the programs I've been paying for will stop working. At least I got programs that still work for my money before -- this guarantees I won't even get that!

If you guys find some way to have multiple subscription servers, so one company closing down doesn't leave me stranded, THEN I'll consider getting subscription programs. Today, I pay and pay and then lose everything when I stop paying or the company folds. No thanks. I've already lost enough money through the years that I could buy a TRITON -- I'm not interested in something with many times greater odds of leaving me with absolutely nothing for my money spent.

You guys, I'm a programmer too. I get it. You expect to get paid. You have bills and spouses and sick dogs. Don't we all? But just as you expect to be paid for your product, I expect a product when I pay. And going to subscription which guarantees the instant you close down, I'll have absolutely nothing for all my cash, is going to make me close my wallet. I've been burned enough. You guys find a way that a third party can be a subscription server so that your closing down doesn't leave me empty handed, and I'll be more apt to accept subscription. But my losing everything when you close the doors without so much as a Last Call Gents (and I'm looking at YOU, Camel...) is not going to convince me to spend a nickle on your product.

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[quote="BONES"]Of course it should, that's where 99% of people will install applications to. That's certainly where all mine go these days, as does my content. It's just easier.
[quote]

I suspect most people don't put their content on their C drive, many people use an SSD as a program drive and cheaper methods for mass storage. I also have a MS Surface 256 SSD, I put my main instrument samples on a micro SD but I have over 1 TB of 'other' stuff (Komplete Ultimate, SD 3, CCC PLAY Libraries, STEAM Libraries AKAI MPC Libraries etc etc you would never get that all on one SSD drive and you need SSD really for the OS and fast sample loading in programs like Keyscapoe)

There should always be a choice as to where the content is loaded (although with Spectrasonics its manual and you have to move it and put a shortcut- is this not possible or is it part of the protection to keep it within the program?)
X32 Desk, i9 PC, S49MK2, Studio One, BWS, Live 12. PUSH 3 SA, Osmose, Summit, Pro 3, Prophet8, Syntakt, Digitone, Drumlogue, OP1-F, Eurorack, TD27 Drums, Nord Drum3P, Guitars, Basses, Amps and of course lots of pedals!

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Shockwave77598 wrote:I don't care if it permits me to hear the voice of God.

I will not use a subscription ANYTHING. I'll pay money for the program, and I don't object to a license check over the net. But subscriptions have a horrible danger: You shut down business, and ALL the work I've done becomes locked up and useless since I cannot run your program anymore.

Too many times I've been burned by companies selling me a product and then closing down. Camel Audio is one. Prodyon is another. Now you're asking me to give you money every month, and when you shut down all the programs I've been paying for will stop working. At least I got programs that still work for my money before -- this guarantees I won't even get that!

If you guys find some way to have multiple subscription servers, so one company closing down doesn't leave me stranded, THEN I'll consider getting subscription programs. Today, I pay and pay and then lose everything when I stop paying or the company folds. No thanks. I've already lost enough money through the years that I could buy a TRITON -- I'm not interested in something with many times greater odds of leaving me with absolutely nothing for my money spent.

You guys, I'm a programmer too. I get it. You expect to get paid. You have bills and spouses and sick dogs. Don't we all? But just as you expect to be paid for your product, I expect a product when I pay. And going to subscription which guarantees the instant you close down, I'll have absolutely nothing for all my cash, is going to make me close my wallet. I've been burned enough. You guys find a way that a third party can be a subscription server so that your closing down doesn't leave me empty handed, and I'll be more apt to accept subscription. But my losing everything when you close the doors without so much as a Last Call Gents (and I'm looking at YOU, Camel...) is not going to convince me to spend a nickle on your product.
I can't agree with you more.

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BONES wrote: Right now, on Day 1, there are 14 Lines, each with around 30 Kits, with each kit containing 15 loops. That's well over 6,000 loops. With the promise of "new content every day" it should be more than 8,000 loops by the time you have to starting paying (a kit being the smallest new thing they can add) and you don't think all that is worth $10? Seriously?

Here you go, one gig of free world class loops no subscription, now that's good value :D

https://www.loopmasters.com/users/sign_up?bid=2757

Loopcloud is also free and lets you try any of millions (not 8000, Millions, and available now, not in the future!) of loops tempo synced etc in your DAW free and you can just buy them individually if you want them and and keep forever the ones you want. Saves a LOT of hard drive space! Run them through FX (Momentum, Turnado, Tantra etc if you want that Arcade sound, you can do it whilst you audition for free)

https://www.loopcloud.net/
X32 Desk, i9 PC, S49MK2, Studio One, BWS, Live 12. PUSH 3 SA, Osmose, Summit, Pro 3, Prophet8, Syntakt, Digitone, Drumlogue, OP1-F, Eurorack, TD27 Drums, Nord Drum3P, Guitars, Basses, Amps and of course lots of pedals!

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these mega sites have so much high-quality content that it is impossible to compete for price
(arcade is much cheaper per loop available because the number of loops in arcade is tiny)).

On the other hand, with the big loop sites you pay only for the loops you really want in
a format that is yours for ever.

So, Arcade is more akin to a cheap subscription to a second-tier cable channel package
whereas more premium and permanently owned loop content is like buying blue rays or
buying an amazon HD digital stream license for life.

Regardless, I second the down votes on subscriptions and deeply despise the idea
of loop assemblage as music making or creative process in general. Any 5-year old
likes assembling images and putting stickers on them, that does not make them a painter.

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Shockwave77598 wrote:I don't care if it permits me to hear the voice of God.

I will not use a subscription ANYTHING. I'll pay money for the program, and I don't object to a license check over the net. But subscriptions have a horrible danger: You shut down business, and ALL the work I've done becomes locked up and useless since I cannot run your program anymore.

Too many times I've been burned by companies selling me a product and then closing down. Camel Audio is one. Prodyon is another. Now you're asking me to give you money every month, and when you shut down all the programs I've been paying for will stop working. At least I got programs that still work for my money before -- this guarantees I won't even get that!

If you guys find some way to have multiple subscription servers, so one company closing down doesn't leave me stranded, THEN I'll consider getting subscription programs. Today, I pay and pay and then lose everything when I stop paying or the company folds. No thanks. I've already lost enough money through the years that I could buy a TRITON -- I'm not interested in something with many times greater odds of leaving me with absolutely nothing for my money spent.

You guys, I'm a programmer too. I get it. You expect to get paid. You have bills and spouses and sick dogs. Don't we all? But just as you expect to be paid for your product, I expect a product when I pay. And going to subscription which guarantees the instant you close down, I'll have absolutely nothing for all my cash, is going to make me close my wallet. I've been burned enough. You guys find a way that a third party can be a subscription server so that your closing down doesn't leave me empty handed, and I'll be more apt to accept subscription. But my losing everything when you close the doors without so much as a Last Call Gents (and I'm looking at YOU, Camel...) is not going to convince me to spend a nickle on your product.
Indeed with the current state of the
industry even a perpetual software license is highly problematic
in case a company goes under or decides to not support OS updates
in order to force clients to move to new product/versions.

When a company goes under, however, there is typically a period in which the
software can still be used until OS changes and need for re-licensing
(eg porting to anew machine) occurs.

But a subscription is 100x worse because the effects on the client
(if the client either cannot pay the monthly bill, or the company folds,
or the company drops the service), are immediately catastrophic and there
is NO time to plan for transitioning to other options.

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msorrels wrote:I signed up, thought I'd give it a try. UI isn't resizable. On my 4096x2160 monitor it's very small. The installer doesn't let you pick where the content is stored, you can only do that inside the plugin itself, which it then copies all the content it stuffed on your C: drive to the location. The installer does let you pick some directories but what it ended up doing was putting copies of the vst2 and vst3 plugins in the dir I specified. And it also put those same things in the standard vst3 location as well as C:\Program Files\VstPlugIns instead of reading the registry and putting them in my 64 bit vst2 directory. Perhaps they should think about what their installer needs to do and have it let the user pick those things. Ie directory to install VST2 plugin. Check box for installing VST3 plugin. Directory to install content to. And it really shouldn't default anything to C:\

It crashed twice in about 10 minutes under Cubase 9.5 (Windows 7 64bit). Once trying to load a kit, the second time while playing a loop and adding some effect keys. No crash handler, no crash reporting. The crash on kit load happened again, though never on the same kit. Though I could be wrong, the kit names are so generic and bland I'm not sure I was trying the same thing twice.

I really like Signal and REV, but the sounds they have right now in Arcade just aren't all that good, or that many really. The player features seem complex and powerful until you actually try using them. The effects workflow is just kind of painful. It may be able to do great things but I found it mostly just annoying and unproductive.

The downloading kits/loops seemed kind of slow (on 150mb FiOS), you'd press the download button and the progress would get to half way and it would just wait for a long time then suddenly finish. Then you had to press the load button to get the kit into Arcade. Even the previews seem awkward, had to keep clicking on sound icons. When using loops I really like a much, much, much faster audition process.

The crashes make it somewhat unsuitable for serious use. The laptop sized unresizeable GUI makes it a total fail. Maybe it will get better. I've added an event on my Calendar to make sure I cancel before September. For this to be worth $120/year they will need to expand the content a lot and fix a bunch of software development things.
NOVAkILL : Asus RoG Flow Z13, Core i9, 16GB RAM, Win11 | EVO 16 | Studio One | bx_oberhausen, GR-8, JP6K, Union, Hexeract, Olga, TRK-01, SEM, BA-1, Thorn, Prestige, Spire, Legend-HZ, ANA-2, VG Iron 2 | Uno Pro, Rocket.

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This loop synth is wicked! Really digging it!
Not sure yet if I'll subscribe as I'm not into subscription plans...but I guess it depends on how often this makes it into my tracks.

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BONES wrote:Oh, Dog! Another idiot who thinks a 4k monitor is meant to run at something less than 200% scaling and then complains because his application UIs are too small. Spare me days! Are you sure Cubase is resizing the GUI to whatever scaling you're using? I know Albleton doesn't. I very much doubt it's Output's problem. A 4k monitor is nothing but a con.
Scaling isn't resizing. They are two completely different issues. I run true 4k at 100% scaling because I'm happy with small text and small icons. I have no problems with the scale of Output Arcade. My problem is that since the window isn't resizable I can only see 6 and half loops in the list and it doesn't seem to support any keyboard navigation. If I could make the window bigger I could see a whole lot more content. Cubase is quite happy at 4096x2160.
Right now, on Day 1, there are 14 Lines, each with around 30 Kits, with each kit containing 15 loops. That's well over 6,000 loops. With the promise of "new content every day" it should be more than 8,000 loops by the time you have to starting paying (a kit being the smallest new thing they can add) and you don't think all that is worth $10? Seriously?
Actually there are more than 15,000 loops but they have only put together 500 kits and 15 "lines". Some of the loops must be shared between lines though, since by adding up the loop counts for the lines I get 19916 loops, but Arcade's loop list shows 15025 loops. The 500 kits each with at most 15 loops means they have only used about half of the loops in the full collection. Based on the storage for what I've downloaded they don't appear to be compressing anything (using some sort of encrypted IFF type file format).

I estimate the entire loop collection is about 45gigs. Just the loops I've bought from The Loop Loft clocks in at 46gb and in a year subscription to Noiiz I downloaded 361gb of loops.

The effects engine and loop operations didn't seem all that amazing. Nothing I haven't seen before (Stutter Edit and Sugar Bytes products are good examples of plugins that do everything Arcade does), but perhaps I missed the amazing ground breaking features.

If your getting musical zen out of Arcade, that's awesome. That's really all that counts.
-Matt

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cfanyc wrote:On the other hand, with the big loop sites you pay only for the loops you really want in a format that is yours for ever.
Can people not read and/or understand English? The site very clearly tells you that everything you download is yours to keep, even if you cancel your subscription. As yo ucan also use your own loops, it's possible to take all those free loops and use them in Arcade for free anyway, so WTF is the problem here?
So, Arcade is more akin to a cheap subscription to a second-tier cable channel package whereas more premium and permanently owned loop content is like buying blue rays or buying an amazon HD digital stream license for life.
Not even close. It's more like the difference between purchasing a TV show through iTunes for $10, where you download it and it's yours to keep, as opposed to spending hours at a video store trying to find something worth watching. Your time may have no value, mine does not (which is why I only do this on work time).
Regardless, I second the down votes on subscriptions and deeply despise the idea
of loop assemblage as music making or creative process in general. Any 5-year old
likes assembling images and putting stickers on them, that does not make them a painter.
You know. for people dabbling in a such a creative field, it never ceases to amaze me how close-minded you idiots can be. To dismiss anything as being beneath you is unbelievably arrogant and makes you look like a prime tool.
NOVAkILL : Asus RoG Flow Z13, Core i9, 16GB RAM, Win11 | EVO 16 | Studio One | bx_oberhausen, GR-8, JP6K, Union, Hexeract, Olga, TRK-01, SEM, BA-1, Thorn, Prestige, Spire, Legend-HZ, ANA-2, VG Iron 2 | Uno Pro, Rocket.

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GRRRRR! indeed Mr Bones!

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BONES wrote: Can people not read and/or understand English? The site very clearly tells you that everything you download is yours to keep, even if you cancel your subscription. As yo ucan also use your own loops, it's possible to take all those free loops and use them in Arcade for free anyway, so WTF is the problem here?
One of the problems is that Output have yet to confirm this or explain how it will work. The question has been asked on every forum (see Gearslutz etc) as 'IF' that statement is true, you can log in for free, take 100 days to download everything and then unsubscribe without ever paying and use the product free forever without subscription (strange business model).

As has been mentioned numerous times, the FX engine is no different from Movement, EGO, Turnado, Tantra etc etc, so if you can have all of the samples for free and use them without subscription, why subscrivbe? (Oh, and if you want to stay current just log in with a new email address once a year and download all the latest stuff with a new free trial) - something just doesn't make sence to me, it woudl have been so much simer if they sold or gave a way the player with a limited pack (like thwey do with REV loops) and then sold the 'packs' for 10 bucks a pop and brought a new pack out every month....


I dont think the argument on putting loops together being a non musical or skilled activity holds water (Live is based on that and is a very popular DAW) and there are a ton of VSTs as mentioned above that already do what Arcade does, so its nothing new (although some people may think it sounds better as the source material is good and it its tuned to play nicely together). For me the arguments is all about why does this particular type of software need to be subscription, how will it benefit the user, how will it benefit Output and what is the difference between subscription and selling 'packs' (like Maschine etc) that give the user choice. If all of our usual vendors went subscription it would be costing users 100's or even 1000's per months....I am not sure this is good for the industry or good for variety and choice, I like a little bit from lost of differetn companies, I dont want 'everything' from all of them.
X32 Desk, i9 PC, S49MK2, Studio One, BWS, Live 12. PUSH 3 SA, Osmose, Summit, Pro 3, Prophet8, Syntakt, Digitone, Drumlogue, OP1-F, Eurorack, TD27 Drums, Nord Drum3P, Guitars, Basses, Amps and of course lots of pedals!

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BONES wrote: You know. for people dabbling in a such a creative field, it never ceases to amaze me how close-minded you idiots can be. To dismiss anything as being beneath you is unbelievably arrogant and makes you look like a prime tool.
I reported you to the forum admins as you are not able to use your brain and articulate properly but continue to offend people.

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I might well be wrong, but
https://output.com/arcade/quickstart
subscription section states

"If you cancel your subscription you will be logged out, and will not be able to log in again until you re-subscribe.

Even when logged out, Arcade will plany any MIDI data sent to it, and any old sessions will sound exactly as they were left".

I interpreted that as "if you unsubscibe, we lock the gui. Any midi sent will play with the current loaded settings, but you won't be able to change anything (other than editing the automation midi data directly). So old songs will play, but you won't be able to edit it at all. Nor use the gui for your own samples for free.

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