Wavefom 9 Upgrade, no grace period.

[gzappa]

I bought Waveform 8 just at Christmas, now I find it is already an obsolete version. The reason I bought it was because I wanted to get away from Sonar which I had already paid up front, with another 7 months of subscription remaining when they gave up. I feel very annoyed as yet again I have software that is obsolete. Most software vendors give some sort of free upgrade to people who recently bought the previous version, in the case of Traction, I can find no reference to that. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth now to think I jumped from a sinking ship, into another.

[pough]

I get that you would prefer a grace period and also that the grace period would extend back a full quarter of a year to just happen to include you, but it's difficult to read your post as anything other than a too-entitled whine. Tracktion sells their software pretty cheap, all things considered. They also do annual upgrades around March, something you easily could have discovered. These updates are also pretty cheap. Your software is not obsolete. It still works. I'm still on Tracktion 7. It still works.

So that bad taste is all yours to enjoy. Maybe it'll inspire some angry music or something.

I'll take Tracktion with no grace over most other companies. YMMV.

[jabe]

I bought Waveform 8 just at Christmas, now I find it is already an obsolete version. The reason I bought it was because I wanted to get away from Sonar which I had already paid up front, with another 7 months of subscription remaining when they gave up. I feel very annoyed as yet again I have software that is obsolete. Most software vendors give some sort of free upgrade to people who recently bought the previous version, in the case of Traction, I can find no reference to that. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth now to think I jumped from a sinking ship, into another.

There usually is a grace period, but I'm not sure it extends as far back as Christmas. For instance, anyone buying BioTek 1 now will get BioTek 2 at no further expense. As for Waveform 8, it's not obsolete. I'm still on it and it's not a sinking ship. It was a sinking ship when previous owners Mackie left it to fester for several years, but now it isn't. There are people using Tracktion 6 because it's free, and they're making music, and learning the bulk of how to use future versions. Future upgrades - and feel free to do it alternate years instead of every year - will cost just over half what you paid.

[chico.co.uk]

There was a cheap crossgrade offer specifically for Sonar users to migrate to Waveform at that time, if I remember right.... did you take them up on that?

[gzappa]

I didn't see any cross grade offer for Sonar at that time, it had only just been announced just before Christmas that Gibson was not going to develop anymore. I probably jumped ship too quickly. I bought a licence for Presonus Studio One at the same time, someone was selling their licence, which is legal and within Presonus licence agreements. I have not made up my mind which I will use as my main DAW, they both have a similar work flow, look and feel.

[clintmartin]

The Grace period was after NAMM. I asked support this question already.
Good news is...Tracktion Waveform 9 is worth the price, and Bandlab bought Cakewalk. So I'll get to have both into the future.

[jochicago]

> I bought Waveform 8 just at Christmas, now I find it is already an obsolete version.
I think I misunderstand. How is W8 obsolete? Did it stop working? Is it no longer supported by your computer? Did any of the features fail?

If your W8 is still operational, it seems to me you still have the exact same thing you bought a few months back, with the ability to keep it an use it for years to come.

Is it a question of wanting the latest version at all times? The upgrade fee is steeply discounted. Also, did you try sending an email to their sales department to state your case in a respectful way? It is not their fault that you chose to buy their current product while they were working on the next release. Perhaps if you give them a chance they might do something for you in terms of an additional discount.

[OSBooter]

It's obsolete in how it doesn't receive true/official online support, though I doubt they would not answer you, but the features are locked, bug fixes will have a lot lower chance of reaching the version

[pathworker]

with software experiencing increasingly rapid version updates, my guess is that ultimately there will be a shift in delivery methodology along the following lines.
1) subscription pricing model
2) the software is remotely hosted on the vendors servers, meaning you only download a link to, but not the actual software.
there are both advantages and disadvantages to this model as follows.
advantages.
a) project collaboration can be more readily synchronized( you log on to your product landing page and any additions made by other collaborators is automatically available).
b) software updates are for all intents and purposes live. so you get to use the latest build because you are effectively working on the same system as the developer.
c) in a well implemented system it will not matter what platform you are on, so you can start work in your studio, whip out your phone or tablet between venues and continue with your work.
d) if your computer or HDD dies on you, so long as you have your login details to hand you can continue where you left off.

now, there are some drawbacks to this model viz

1) not everyone can afford to work with a subscription model.

2) depending on the features of your chosen platform you may have consistency issues with the user interface.

3) if the server goes down due to malicious code( this is known to be an increasing problem) you are basically out of the loop unless you have a local copy of the software and all relevant material.
4) the vendor goes bust( again partially mitigated if you have a local copy).
5) rare, but not impossible, the internet as a whole becomes compromised, or a region of the internet is affected which impacts access to the vendors servers.
Ok so I strayed slightly out of the parameters of the thread but its a point worth noting.

[jabe]

There was a recent thread about surcharges and one of the TSC chaps posted a comment along the lines of "at least it's not a subscription". I think having it via a subscription would be a dreadful idea, and I would never use any software that is available only by subscription.

It's like the absurdity that is cloud storage. I want MY stuff on MY machines. If someone else wants to do differently, that's up to them, but feel free to come and watch me laughing when their internet connection disappears for hours on end at a critical time, or when all their data is lost when a cloud firm goes out of business with no warning.

[pathworker]

@jabe.
I'm 100% with you regarding cloud storage, its no different than the days when you had to lease a connection from a dumb terminal to get stuff done. hence my pointing out the pros and cons..
my big concern is vendors, ready to cash in on the cloud, have pitched their sales leveraging the convenience factor thus obscuring either intentionally or unintentionally. the immense weakness inherent in cloud computing. like yourself I much prefer to have my data on my system under my control rather than entrusting it to a third party no matter what their policies claim.