[Fixed in 4.4] Weird bug: latest "Spectral Suite" update not included in upgrade plan

[slackhead]

Does anybody know what happens when Bitwig (or the liquidator) shuts down the activation server?

Hopefully they will open source the code like Claes did with Surge.

[excuse my arrogance!]

well I'll make sure they see it. I've just written to them.

" I'm bit surprised that Spectral Suite isn't included in a .x release update and therefore included in the update plans. It seems comparible to the vocoder or convolution plugin and less than the Grid. Why is it a seperate item? And why so expensive? I thought the implied contract was "you pay us upfront for development, we then give you the fruits of that development with no extra cost". You seem now to be going in a different direction - maybe you need to let your customers know what that is?

It's not like Cubase where you can see what you are buying before you upgrade.

It seems I am not alone in that opinion, several threads have appeared on KvR, including this one. viewtopic.php?t=587607"

This is the same thread you are writing in

[Buckster]

I too have emailed them

Will also be looking at Ableton 11 later

[navin.neu]

Extremely lame move from Bitwig, no two ways about it.

I, like many others here have, year on year, dutifully handed over our upgrade plan fees and kept our purchase up to date.

It should be kept in mind that we handed over that money IN ADVANCE, with no knowledge or specific expectation of what would be delivered in the following year.

Why on earth did you do this? Why would you buy future features blindly? WE did not do this. YOU did. And no offense but it’s a silly way to buy things. Instead you should buy things you actually want. Is it really that hard to hold on to your money and wait until there are features you actually want to pay for and then give your money?

There is no duty here. If you felt a duty to blindly give a company money once per year regardless of what you get, then that’s on you.

People who renew their subscription readily accept that they may not personally care for the updates that Bitwig releases within their subscription period. They know the value proposition for a year of updates is uncertain, but they renew because Bitwig is a relatively small company who are building an incredibly forward-thinking DAW that we all want to see grow.

Your take would be reasonable if we were talking about bitwig releasing some update that no one actually asked for. Subscribers might be upset but, hey, thats the risk they took. But thats not at all whats happening here.

At at the end of the day, people who buy the yearly renewal have 2 baseline expectations:

1) That Bitwig will release more than 0 updates during that renewal period.

2) That when those updates release, they will be entitled to them.

You might chastise people for renewing their license without knowing specifically what updates they’d receive, but I think its hard to argue that these two expectations are unreasonable or naive. Its literally just expecting what was advertised.

With this move Bitwig is completely failing to meet even those baseline expectations though. Regardless of the legality of it, its a blatantly unethical and anti-consumer move, and it says a lot about how they view those customers who have supported them knowing the risks.

[excuse my arrogance!]

I too have emailed them

Will also be looking at Ableton 11 later

It really is a good choice years for solid updates to come but slow and without fancy new stuff but solid building and refining work flows

Ableton Live 11.2 is rock solid and contains all effects and instruments no matter what style

Altough not as flexible as Bitwig Studio, especially the changes in update policy

[Buckster]

Hopefully we will see a 4.4 update in next few weeks that would make this look like a small update in comparison. Presumably a beta is near if they've had time to also work on these add-ons ...

[loungepanda]

If we start comparing the DAW business models there's a big difference.
Bitwig charges an annual renewal fee. Let's compare it to the DAWs with subscriptions:
Studio One - subscription fee (price is similar to Bitwig's annual renewal plan) includes ALL Presonus add-ons + extra software + extra libraries + cloud service.
ProTools - subscription includes all Avid plugins + some great stuff like full version of Falcon
Reason - optional subscription that includes ALL rack extensions that Pheads team releases

And only Bitwig promised All bitwig studio updates for the renewal plan fee and now releases new functions (those devices extend core functions of Bitwig, it is like multiband FX, it is not a sample library) for the extra charge. BTW I'm totally fine if tomorrow Bitwig comes with a collab with Spitfire and offers a special add-on of some of Spitfire libs native to Bitwig.

What happens when your subscription to Presonus, ProTools or Reason+ runs out? You lose access to everything.

You don't with the BW license plan. You might be forced to renew for OS compability, but that's really it.

[cthonophonic]

I tried to be polite, but I do feel a little bad for using the words "cynical cash grab" in my email to support. To be fair, it could instead be a *desperate* cash grab. Not sure which explanation I prefer...

[billcarroll]

Mattias @ Morningdew Media is about to host a discussion livestream on YouTube about this ...

THEY DID WHAT!? Bitwig 4.3.9 Spectral Suite Plugins LIVE STREAM

[Enrize]

Going back to Logic Pro. I won't buy anything from Bitwig ever.

[skiltrip]

This is so bad I heard Pro Tools users are taking up donations for the Bitwiggers.

[justin3am]

I can understand the way a lot of you feel but I guess it just doesn't bother me. I feel like I get what I paid for. I certainly don't take it personally when a company makes a business decision I don't like.
With all that said, they could stop adding features and I'd be fine with it. Bitwig does what I need it to do. I understand that I'm an outlier in that regard. I can't speak for anyone else.

[machinesworking]

Sent them an email. This has to be one of the dumbest least thought out roll out of new add ons that cost separately that I've ever seen. If they're using third party tech, fine, tell us, no one could logically get mad about that, but they literally said, they were taking all their time on these new plug ins holding up DAW development so they could introduce plug ins we have to pay for...

Just killed their status as a small indie DAW that needs extra love and moved into the Steinberg, NI, Avid realm of been counting in mine and obviously hundreds of other customers minds.

[liquidsound]

This is way beyond repair. Why?
Once they get away with this, who knows what's next.

Maybe they hired (unknowingly) a new marketing specialist from Ableton

[Dionysos]

they literally said, they were taking all their time on these new plug ins holding up DAW development so they could introduce plug ins we have to pay for...

Did they literally say that, and if so, where?