Too costly to upgrade

[arrakeen]

I'd love a new Ferrari... or even a new Kia EV. Can't afford one.

[machinesworking]

Bitwig is prohibitively expensive to upgrade.

Doesn't matter how many times you repeat a lie, it wont become true.

It is up to the user to manage their cost.

In the US, if you update every 2 years and buy it on sale it will cost you about $5 a month. That is an insignificant cost.

This is true of any software though, if I never upgrade it doesn't cost me. I kinda fell into this logic, but really, if you upgrade every year Bitwigs upgrade price is not cheap.

Skipping upgrades to keep the cost down is not unique to Bitwig, only some DAW companies charge more for skipping upgrades. If you want to have all the features of a DAW as they come out, Bitwig is essentially a subscription model. There have been three upgrades to DP for instance since 2012, that's $600 VS what would be $1,352 for Bitwig to be up to date. Roughly that would be $687 for Live in the same time frame.

With any of them there's the option to not buy the upgrade or update plan, and in all cases it prohibits you from getting the new features until you do.

[pdxindy]

This is true of any software though, if I never upgrade it doesn't cost me. I kinda fell into this logic, but really, if you upgrade every year Bitwigs upgrade price is not cheap.

Skipping upgrades to keep the cost down is not unique to Bitwig, only some DAW companies charge more for skipping upgrades. If you want to have all the features of a DAW as they come out, Bitwig is essentially a subscription model. There have been three upgrades to DP for instance since 2012, that's $600 VS what would be $1,352 for Bitwig to be up to date. Roughly that would be $687 for Live in the same time frame.

With any of them there's the option to not buy the upgrade or update plan, and in all cases it prohibits you from getting the new features until you do.

Of course it is the same for every DAW... I said the same thing myself. That is the point. Anyone can manage their own costs and Bitwig is no different. Every DAW is a deal.

If you buy Bitwig updates on sale and only upgrade when a new version is out, then Bitwig since 2012 would be about $1000 to always be up to date (not $1350). That works out to about $10 per month.

$10 per month is nothing for the central software in ones studio. $10 per month for support so it stays current with OS updates, deals with plugin issues and other connected gear like audio interfaces, controllers, and so on. Plus whatever features are added and bug fixing. It's a great deal.

And if someone is really poor, then just don't update. If it was Bitwig 4, or Live 11, or DP whatever is current, that is enough DAW for someone to fulfill their musical interests for the next decade without any updates!

Complaints about price are mainly from people who just want to get something for nothing.

[Hanz Meyzer]

I agree with the op, Bitwig is overpriced, and you don’t even know what you will get. No roadmap, often quite niche features. 169 for only an update is ridiculously expensive. There is no pressure for solid base features and performance anymore.

[machinesworking]

Of course it is the same for every DAW... I said the same thing myself. That is the point. Anyone can manage their own costs and Bitwig is no different. Every DAW is a deal.

Sure, I agree with that, initial cost aside, upgrades in general aren't murder. Unless we're talking subscription models that kill your ability to use the software when you don't pay. I think only Avid is doing that with Pro Tools.. because they can.

If you buy Bitwig updates on sale and only upgrade when a new version is out, then Bitwig since 2012 would be about $1000 to always be up to date (not $1350). That works out to about $10 per month.

I didn't include deals and ways to save on upgrades because almost all of them have some way. DP doesn't but Live has two upgrade sales a year normally.

$10 per month is nothing for the central software in ones studio. $10 per month for support so it stays current with OS updates, deals with plugin issues and other connected gear like audio interfaces, controllers, and so on. Plus whatever features are added and bug fixing. It's a great deal.

Sure I guess, but the point was that it's not cheap, more expensive than the competition etc. and it is.

And if someone is really poor, then just don't update. If it was Bitwig 4, or Live 11, or DP whatever is current, that is enough DAW for someone to fulfill their musical interests for the next decade without any updates!

Sure, but that's not the point. To stay current with Bitwig is expensive, that doesn't change because there are ways to deal with not being current.

Complaints about price are mainly from people who just want to get something for nothing.

Sure, but some of it is people wondering why it's more costly than Live, DP etc. etc? Reason Studios are raising their upgrade price and people are losing their minds about it, it's the internet.

[pdxindy]

I didn't include deals and ways to save on upgrades because almost all of them have some way. DP doesn't but Live has two upgrade sales a year normally.

The difference there is that if you buy Live on sale, then you are not always up to date. You have to not get the latest upgrade when it ships and wait until the sale comes.

With Bitwig, you can buy the sale priced upgrade anytime and then activate it whenever you want. This way you can always get the sale price and still be current. To me, the sale price is the regular price.

[david.djx]

Cigarettes are over priced. If I smoke a pack a day thats about $200 a week (maybe more depending on my brand). If I upgrade bitwig each year I spend about 1/50th of what I spend on cigarettes. Fortunately I dont smoke so I can even afford bitwig when its not on sale because by comparison its so damn cheap! Except I always get it on sale because I love a bargain. What a time to be alive!

[pdxindy]

$10 per month is nothing for the central software in ones studio. $10 per month for support so it stays current with OS updates, deals with plugin issues and other connected gear like audio interfaces, controllers, and so on. Plus whatever features are added and bug fixing. It's a great deal.

Sure I guess, but the point was that it's not cheap, more expensive than the competition etc. and it is.

My perspective is that they are all cheap, including Bitwig... $10 a month is nothing for what you get. Does $6 a month vs $10 a month really matter?

I guarantee you... let me look at the life of people who complain about the price and in 95+% of the cases I can find $4 a month that they waste on some useless crap of one sort or another. Probably a helluva lot more than that.

[bigbot]

I'm quite happy with the upgrade price. If I spread the $130 (bought on sale) over twelve months, that's just a little more than $10/month. That's a bargain (to me) considering how much fun I have using the software. As for not knowing their roadmap, It doesn't bother me. I'm always happily surprised by what they come up with. It may take me a while to realize the value, but that's on me. (I have to spend the time to learn the new stuff.) Take the grid for example. I didn't start using it until recently and now it is built into the template I start every project with.

I do sympathize with the op. We are on different points on the demand curve and that is not a value judgement. If I were in a different place in my life, I'd probably be frustrated too. The good news is as others have pointed out, you can still keep using the software after the support period has ended.

In addition to the joy I derive from using Bitwig, I'm happy to support the Developers. I want them to live happy lives so they feel motivated to create more great software. $10/month isn't bad at all when I consider what I get back.

[SLiC]

Software upgrades (across most products) seem to be constructed to devalue 'older' products.

You may have just paid $400 for V1 of your product, but as soon as as V2 comes out (also at $400) with a $150 upgrade cost from V1 to V2, your V1 software is effectively worth less than $250 (probably a lot less). This 'depreciation' is often more than the (much maligned) subscription routes...even if you don't update you suffer depreciation, so unless you keep the software for a long time without updating you may be loosing more than you think...Bitwigs model works the same way, no better or worse.

That's just the way it is unless you go FL Studio (free updates for life) or subscription (R+ etc)

[david.djx]

I just buy software I like to use everyday. I never think of it as a depreciating commodity. By the time the upgrade comes around I have already got my money's worth. I'm not losing anything. Of course I've wasted money on things that I never used much, but bitwig is not one of them.

[machinesworking]

I didn't include deals and ways to save on upgrades because almost all of them have some way. DP doesn't but Live has two upgrade sales a year normally.

The difference there is that if you buy Live on sale, then you are not always up to date. You have to not get the latest upgrade when it ships and wait until the sale comes.

With Bitwig, you can buy the sale priced upgrade anytime and then activate it whenever you want. This way you can always get the sale price and still be current. To me, the sale price is the regular price.

No that's wrong, LIve is always on sale when it first gets and upgrade.

I do like that you can save an update plan for later, that's what I did, but the yearly nature of it kinda makes that necessary, plus the update plan is not on sale typically when a new version comes out, so in order to get it cheap you have to plan it out a bit.

[andypryce]

In three years Live only updated with new features once. 10.1 and that's it.
So if you go by that logic wait 3 years to renew your license to Bitwig and you will get tons of more features than what Live did and also you get it for cheaper.

I just checked and Bitwig in the last 3 years (until Jul2021 V4) is updated from V2.3 with 2 major updates (V3 AND V4) (that is 2 major Ableton updates that cost $400) 7 big .X updates and tons of small updates.In total of $387 for 3 years if you renewed every year and bought your codes during sales.
So compare that to what did you get in Live 10s life cycle until you had to pay $200 again for Live 11

https://www.bitwig.com/previous_releases/

[machinesworking]

In three years Live only updated with new features once. 10.1 and that's it.
So if you go by that logic wait 3 years to renew your license to Bitwig and you will get tons of more features than what Live did and also you get it for cheaper.

Again, anyone can watch the rest of the world get new features and skip updates to save money.

I didn't update Reason for ten years, 2.5 to 10. The shear amount of updates you get if you do that doesn't diminish the fact that people complain that Reason doesn't get enough upgrades for the price of an upgrade. Plus it's hard to qualify what "tons more features" is, I suppose we could do a break down, but updates jump around for every developer, if you look at the jump between 7 and 8 with Live Suite with M4L etc. it's huge, but some other upgrade might not offer as much..

I just checked and Bitwig in the last 3 years (until Jul2021 V4) is updated from V2.3 with 2 major updates (V3 AND V4) (that is 2 major Ableton updates that cost $400) 7 big .X updates and tons of small updates.In total of $387 for 3 years if you renewed every year and bought your codes during sales.
So compare that to what did you get in Live 10s life cycle until you had to pay $200 again for Live 11

https://www.bitwig.com/previous_releases/

That's a convoluted way of expressing it, but I get it, you think Bitwig is a better value. That's not the point, it can't be, because if you love the Grid then of course it is, if you love Jitter, or value MIDI comping then Live is.

Again, to stay current with Bitwig is more expensive than other DAWs, there's not really a way around this except to look for bargains and get clever about it, only Pro Tools is more expensive if you update all the time. I'm not saying this to knock Bitwig, it doesn't really even bother me, and as you're pointing out, you get a couple new things a year usually. It's just math, there's no escaping it.

As people have pointed out, it's in the bigger picture not that expensive, and there are all kinds of methods to extend the value. I bought the update and waited an extra almost 6 months to apply it because apparently version 4 was around the corner. So I didn't upgrade until v4 dropped. All of this takes planning and luck though, I was able to stay current for an extra six months almost because my plan coincided with Bitwigs upgrade schedule

[dupont]

there are cheaper DAWs : logic X or Reaper