Survey = What's the most -annoying- demo restriction?

[JackDark]

So I'm working on my next "killer app" ( note self sardony), and I'm thinking of doing something besides "presets" only, but I need to know what'll hurt my potential user's feelings the least... so... please tell me what's the "most annoying demo restriction" so I won't do that.

(Hey and maybe other devs'll read this and won't do it either anymore .)

[kylen]

I like demos that give me full functionality or near to it (sound-wise anyway) for 30 days. 4Front does that I think...If I hear beeps every 20 seconds I can't really tell what I'm doing. I tried punching a bunch of choices on your poll but I only get one choice, so I picked "other" - they all mostly tick me off except the one I mentioned...Thanks for asking!

[Hovmod]

I would vote for 'all of the above'.
The best demo restriction is in energyXT: You can do everything you want and save your songs and presets, you just can't open them again. So to revisit your fantastic work you have to buy it. That's brilliant. You're not treated like a thief, you're able to test everything and anything, and it gives you an incentive to buy it.
And a low price is a good idea as well.

Almost all other schemes make me angry. I've never bought anything where the demo made bursts of noise.

[arke]

It surprises me that nobody ahs made an ati-burst wrapper ... that means, it loads like 3 instances of the plugin, and when one instance does white noise it'll have another one plaz, ettc......

[ugo]

noise bursts are definitely the most annoying to me. if a dev feels they must choose that...i find that occasional, low-moderate volume, soft noise is the easiest variant for me to endure. loud, harsh noise (and any beeps) can become sales deterrants. its one thing to protect your product and try to 'encourrage' people to buy it instead of mooching. its another to annoy the hell out of them to the point that you run the rist of driving them away from the product.

It surprises me that nobody ahs made an ati-burst wrapper ... that means, it loads like 3 instances of the plugin, and when one instance does white noise it'll have another one plaz, ettc......

i would not recommend the creation of such a thing. it would at least tripple the cpu load, might interfere with many kinds of audio (drums, pads that use noise sweeps, etc.), and would immediately be used as a less cpu effecient alternative to warez.

-ugo

[Meffy]

Hisses. Random or periodic doesn't matter to me; my time sense is altered when working with music.

I have bought synths after trying a hissy demo. But it wasn't as enjoyable trying the demo.

[Breeze]

I find noise bursts and tones, periodic or not, to be completely rediculous when evaluating the sound quality of a processor or generator. Your mind is concentrated on some low level phenomena and then WHAM, your hearing gets assaulted.

It makes no sense, unless... it's intentional

Breeze

[Sickle]

Noise beeps can be a real pain in a complex FX chain..literally..

[RChler]

I would vote for 'all of the above'.
The best demo restriction is in energyXT: You can do everything you want and save your songs and presets, you just can't open them again. So to revisit your fantastic work you have to buy it. That's brilliant. You're not treated like a thief, you're able to test everything and anything, and it gives you an incentive to buy it.
And a low price is a good idea as well.

Almost all other schemes make me angry. I've never bought anything where the demo made bursts of noise.

agreed...perhaps in combination with a XX-day-restriction...

Sudden or Periodic Sound-bursting sucks !!

[shamann]

I've actually come to dislike hidden controls the most, especially in cases where almost all controls are locked. You simply can't tell if something is worthwhile without adjusting parameters. I have purchased a plugin that had that restriction, and once unlocked, I just didn't find the quality was fantastic when adjusting settings.

Noise bursts or beeps are the worst if they are significantly louder than the rest of the audio, mostly because of the pain inflicted.

The saddest is the time limit in minutes. Not annoying to the point where I won't consider buying it, just makes you sad because it often cuts off just as things are getting interesting. I was demo'ing Frantic Filter last night since it is on sale, and its time limit is only 3 minutes or so. Every time I get somewhere I liked and thought "What if I do this now," it would go silent.

[kangul]

@RChler - there's no need to have "XX-day-restriction" if there's no way to load the project. I've downloaded eXT demo more than a 1,5 month ago. I had a chance to test almost all that I need to work with, and now I'm going to buy it within a week... Fantastic demo restriction, because there's no things that you can't test with it.

But I must say that the demo restrictions of Zynewave Podium (randomly sowed nagscreen, periodic silence) was not very annoying for me. There's also "X amount of days until demo dies" restriction, but it means only that you must go to the official site and download the updated demo

Anyway, it seems that JackDark askes about the plugin demo restrictions, and we're talking about hosts

[foosnark]

I voted for locked controls. The worst combination is locked controls and exactly one preset... you have no idea what range of things the plugin is capable of, whether it responds well to automation, etc.

Noise bursts only bother me if they're terribly loud and obnoxious, and both noise and silence annoy me if they are *too* frequent. People got a kick out of MicroTonic's polite spoken nag/reminder

[RChler]

@RChler - there's no need to have "XX-day-restriction" if there's no way to load the project. I've downloaded eXT demo more than a 1,5 month ago. I had a chance to test almost all that I need to work with, and now I'm going to buy it within a week... Fantastic demo restriction, because there's no things that you can't test with it.

But I must say that the demo restrictions of Zynewave Podium (randomly sowed nagscreen, periodic silence) was not very annoying for me. There's also "X amount of days until demo dies" restriction, but it means only that you must go to the official site and download the updated demo

Anyway, it seems that JackDark askes about the plugin demo restrictions, and we're talking about hosts

ok, you're right... but i thought about a "can't reload after XX-days"...but i didn't say that clear enough, i know...

[sonicfire]

periodic TONES!!!

http://cablemodem.fibertel.com.ar/consu ... lpiano.htm

the most annoying demo protection i´ve ever come across

[kevink]

Noise bursts and tones are annoying, but at least you have some idea of what's happening. It's the random volume changes and silences that drive me crazy, because I can't help wondering if something's gone wrong in my host/driver/audio hardware.