Decent quality, flexible pianos for under 100 euros?

[TristezaOrange]

Damn. I thought I bought it but do they really have to make it such a hassle to get a 70 dollar piece of software?

This is the mail I got from the reseller:



You have placed an order on http://www.acoustica.com on 2010-10-27
(order reference number: xxxxxxxxx), order processed by Avangate as the
reseller of Acoustica, the merchant operating http://www.acoustica.com,
order paid with PayPal.

Your order is currently under evaluation by Avangate antifraud
specialists. We perform this verification to prevent unauthorized use of
your PayPal account and personal details.

In order to validate your payment and complete your order, please
provide us with the following documents during the next two business
days:

- a copy of a photo ID (identification card, driver's license or
passport) of the PayPal account holder.
- Proof of Valid billing address: Utility Bill.

All items must be legible and uploaded to our secure interface at:
https://secure.avangate.com/order
or faxed to 650-963-2973 (US/Canada) / +31 84 725 1599 (International).

Please make sure that the documentation you provide is valid and
legible. The name and address on your documentation must correspond with
the information registered in your order. Your documentation should not
be older than 6 months. Send only documents received by mail from the
Utility companies. Send all the information and documents required as
soon as possible to complete the review process.

In accordance with Avangate Security policies, your order will be
on-hold until requested documents will be received. The two business
days timeframe to comply can be extended upon your request in special
cases. Failure to comply, will result in canceling this order and
providing a full refund.

Should you have any questions, feel free to contact us by email at
support@avangate.com or by phone at +31 88 0000008.

Note: the information that you provide will NOT be shared to any 3RD
parties and will be only used for verification purposes only.

Thank you for your understanding.

Best regards,
Avangate Support Team
http://www.avangate.com
support@avangate.com
Phone: +31 88 0000008



This is what I replied with:



Antonis Tsagaris
to Avangate

show details 01:28 (0 minutes ago)

Hello,

Unfortunately, this is too much of a hassle for me, since I'm quite busy and sorting through bills of my home address and scanning my passport is not what I had in mind when I placed the order (not to mention that it won't make a difference, since most of that stuff is in Greek anyway). Instead, I expected the transaction to go as smoothly as it always has when I ordered software online through PayPal. I understand that this is done for security reasons but it still doesn't make it any less of a chore for what was an impulse buy for me. Please issue a full refund as soon as possible. I will contact Acoustica and ask if there is any other way for me to get the software.

Kind regards,

Antonis Tsagaris.




Seriously, we're just trying to be honest here and purchase the software we use instead of doing what a lot of asshats do daily on the internet. Do I have to go through f**king SECURITY CLEARANCE!??!?!?! FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUU.

It should be noted that this is none of Acoustica's fault but instead their reseller's.

[TristezaOrange]

Piss off mode OFF.

The e-mail did the job. Thank god because I really wanted this piano.

[shadoe42]

that is new. when I purchased mixcraft from them it went way smoother than that. But that has not been anytime lately as I am still using mixcraft 4.

[P.T.]

Kick me out the door, but I have listened to recorded piano sounds on rock (mostly terrible), pop ( a little better), jazz ( many free soundfonts and the pianos in Sampletank sound as good as most of these) and classical (who here is playing exposed piano works of that calibre?)

I don't get the fuss over these pianos.

[JPQ]

check Native instruments alicia keys. and use free kore player play it i understanded its possible.

[WOK]

Damn. I thought I bought it but do they really have to make it such a hassle to get a 70 dollar piece of software?

You have placed an order on http://www.acoustica.com on 2010-10-27
(order reference number: xxxxxxxxx), order processed by Avangate as the
reseller of Acoustica, the merchant operating http://www.acoustica.com,
order paid with PayPal.....

..... since most of that stuff is in Greek anyway).....

Maybe they know that Greece is bankrupt so they are overcautious?
 

[TristezaOrange]

Damn. I thought I bought it but do they really have to make it such a hassle to get a 70 dollar piece of software?

You have placed an order on http://www.acoustica.com on 2010-10-27
(order reference number: xxxxxxxxx), order processed by Avangate as the
reseller of Acoustica, the merchant operating http://www.acoustica.com,
order paid with PayPal.....

..... since most of that stuff is in Greek anyway).....

Maybe they know that Greece is bankrupt so they are overcautious?
 

[blueghost]

[quote="Sometimes you got to pay for something that adds just a little bit more to what you already have and I'm happy to do it.

.

I'm not telling folx not to buy stuff.

On the contrary - I want to make money as much as the next ghost. And there's a buyer for everything. But if I 'really need' something I will evaluate it first and re-evaluate it until I'm blue in the blueghost blue face.

Some other things you can buy if you possess the readies are Ferraris, ocean/forest views, even a trip into the stratosphere, and eventually the moon.

There are fifty radio stations at the touch of my finger tips - I can choose to listen to the Stones, the Floyds, the Zeppelins, the Jovis, the bananaramas, the Cockadoodledoos etc at virtually any time of the day or night

You saying I have to buy all those records for the privilege?

It's a little known fact that Jimmy Page is a bit of a musicologist and built a most comprehensive library of other people's music, and when my cousin was over for dinner Jimmy played an album of strange evocative mellifluous beauty - The Pearl.

When my cousin asked about it Jimmy explained and offered to burn Sarah a copy, 'Wouldn't that be stealing?'

'From Eno? He's the competition!'




I've bought The Pearl, taped it to preserve the quality of my investment, downloaded a digital copy because it was already digitised and, as it turned out, a better rendering than my cassette version, which I could have improved - but that's not what I'd paid for.

It's relative to when you were born - three thousand years ago and there were no recorded sounds to steal. But it was okay to steal the life from an animal in order to eat - survival of the hungriest.

The things is as an evolutionist you are all my brothers and sisters, and I'll borrow something from you today and happily lend you something tomorrow, and I'll even give it to you if I have no further use for it, with the proviso that you do the same for someone else when the time comes.

I often email Eno and Jimmy some of my music and ideas - its my way of saying thanks for the joy


As for buying samples - if they're what you want and need, go for it, you've got to spend some coin to get the best.

It's just that I'd rather spend my money on innovative synthesisers - and I mean donations whether they're requested or not.

If you've come up with a 303 clone and I happen to use it, would you really expect me to give full credit to it and you on the album cover? But if you come up with Majken's Chimera or Tal's Noisemaker then of course I'm going to praise it and share the profits.

Sorry to rave

[Mister Natural]

For acoustic piano - I didn't find anything better sounding than PM Grand by PureMagnetik (Ableton Plug) - it's $15 & sounds like a million

For EPianos - Dimension Pro has all kinds of excellent sounding Rhoades, Wurlis and Yamahas - think I paid $99. for that rompler

keep on rockin

[blueghost]

@ tristezaorange:

um, I just reread you original post.

Miscommunication, actually - I wasn't suggesting to sample The Pearl, just listen to it from a production angle

It's just that sometimes my words and concepts stream too fast out of my braincell.

I've had this 'problem' for many aeons

[flugel45]

Since I have an account at the Acoustica forums, I asked them about their use of "Avangate" and linked this page (about Tristeza's experience) so they could comment. Here's my post at their forum.

http://demon.acoustica.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=7295

We'll see what they have to say (if anything).

[flugel45]

Tristeza,

Acoustica's reply is that you don't have to go through Avangate - that there is a direct link to Paypal on the Pianissimo page. But my understanding (from your post) is that you got the Avangate email only after you completed the Paypal transaction. From my reading, Avangate makes it sound like they are "confirming" your Paypal credentials. Am I correct? (Just want to be sure before I respond to Acoustica).

JD

[flugel45]

Okay, Re: my earlier post, here's the official reply from Acoustica (and Avangate) about their process:

"Hi,

My point was that PayPal users don't have to go through Avangate at all. There is a direct PayPal link on the buy page for Pianissimo. If you go to that page, there's a blue "Buy Now" button, but there's also an orange PayPal button below it. If you click on the orange button, you're just dealing with PayPal. If you click on a blue buy button, you're going through Avangate, and they offer a PayPal option, so this must be what TristezaOrange did.

But I see what you're saying. Apparently, the order you're referring to did go through about an hour after the customer sent in feedback. I'll post Avangate's reply below.

Greg

Additional order verifications are sometimes required especially for electronically delivered orders. There are cases where the customer IP address does not match the billing country or if the order is paid with PayPal, the name and email address in the online order does not match the one in the Paypal account. This might be your case also.

All orders that are not delivered or delayed due to security checks are refunded. Refunds might take several days, depending on your bank procedures.

Please make sure that we are doing our best to avoid any unnecessary steps in processing your order, and online shopping security is one of our major concerns.

According to our records, your order has been processed 1 hour later after receiving your feedback. Note that most of the times a simple feedback with more details, can always lead to order review and delivered products.

In order to get in contact and clarify such future incidents, please contact us at abuse at avangate dot com. We also treat customer-care incidents very seriously and in due time and we are always improving risk-analysis procedures in order to avoid such unhappy incidents and delay in processing whilst keeping a strong-eye on online-security.

Thank you for taking the time to notify us,

Avangate"

The direct link to this thread at the Acoustica forum is here:

http://demon.acoustica.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=7295

JD

[ObsoleteAcc99]

[DELETED]

[freewayland]

Sorry to bump a 2 years old topic, hey, i wonder if this is my first time doing that ???

but the soundiron stuff used to have a similar process.. I am considering emotional piano, and am not going to go hunting around the house for ID then hobble to the scanner and bend down to kill my back to scan the id..

anyone know if they still do it this way? as in soundiron/8dio whatever they are called now?

This is Soundiron officially chiming in here. Nope, we don't ask for your passport or any of that nonsense. Paypal and Google Checkout have their own integrated fraud prevention, so we leave it to them to handle. If you're a student or teacher and you're requesting our Educational Discount, we do ask for a scan of your current student/faculty ID, but that's pretty normal. Other than that, it's all automated and you can just use your Paypal or Google Wallet account or just use a regular credit card, via Paypal's credit card processing option for non-members.

I'm not sure about 8dio, since we're not affiliated with them. When Tonehammer split in half, Peaslee (Soundiron) and Folmann (8dio) each went in completely separate and fully independent directions.