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

[Phil B]

When did this conversation change over from a community sharing why they felt betrayed by Bitwig's new policy to a bunch of thin skinned ass kissers telling people they should keep their mouth shut because some fact pattern that applies to nobody isn't true?

Betrayed. Is a very strong word. Quite accusatory. Quite blaming. Somewhat irrational perhaps.

I agree with many of the underlying points. But.

For me... there's too much mean spirited and quite nasty rhetoric being sent Bitwigs way. I really feel for the Bitwig team. I'm believe they have good values and best intentions, and have just misjudged and miscommunicated these plugs ins. They do not deserve this fierce response at this stage imo.

I actually think the responses have been pretty straight up and thoughtful overall and the ones that are over the top are easy for any adult (well, most adults, it seems) to spot and ignore.

It's your right to believe whatever you want. Same as everyone else.

You have written several times: people shouldn't buy plans with an expectation of receiving features, they should just buy when there's enough already there, like you do. But, I don't actually see anyone saying that's what they did. I see a lot of people saying that they kept the money flowing to Bitwig (faster than you, apparently!!) because they wanted to support a fledgling company and join them on the development ride. The only rule was that your money only bought you one year rides. Can you accept that some people here acted that way, or do you deny that?

If you can accept some of us acted in that manner, then when it turned out Bitwig saw it differently ... they took the money, but didn't think they had to actually share everything they made ... are you saying it's an invalid emotion to feel betrayed? Or abandoned, deceived, misled, jilted, disappointed, used, abused, or whatever word you want to use? Are you saying because people didn't go about it in the stingy way you did, that they have no right to feel like they feel? Or they should at least keep their mouth shut about it?

[Benutzername]

Such a lovely name " Paywig" it is what it is........it will not change i'm afraid.......

I love "Lootwig". Sounds more German too...

[excuse my arrogance!]

I've been reading this since yesterday and at first I was upset like most people are. I don't think this was handled properly but honestly I don't care anymore. Earlier today I loaded up Bitwig I remembered why I like it so much and want to see it keep growing and leveling up to the final form DAW many of us envision it will become. Maybe this whole fiasco and backlash will be a good thing and they'll course correct development and be more careful with their users and supporters in the future. I want to give them a chance and see what comes next before completely melting down over a piece of software.

yes give them a chance but they need to correct it with a big gesture.....

[gExpectations]

I've been reading this since yesterday and at first I was upset like most people are. I don't think this was handled properly but honestly I don't care anymore. Earlier today I loaded up Bitwig I remembered why I like it so much and want to see it keep growing and leveling up to the final form DAW many of us envision it will become. Maybe this whole fiasco and backlash will be a good thing and they'll course correct development and be more careful with their users and supporters in the future. I want to give them a chance and see what comes next before completely melting down over a piece of software.

pretty much same.

i was merely trying to point towards how a customer unfriendly marketing decision resulted in a spiraling discussion with a moralistic underpinning (aka "they are bad people for doing this, mount the public resistance!").

[dayjob]

In all seriousness, because of the language change on their website- could there be legal action against Bitwig, at least for those who had an active subscription purchased before Sept. 23 that was still active when this “suite” dropped?

would be a huge waste of time and money and there's likely no legal recourse. even if there was.. who has time to deal w/something like that? or the money to do it? for most people it's so low on the priority list of things to be pissed off about.

anyone w/enough money and time to do some legal maneuver doesn't care and has paid the $80 for spectral suite and is working on music and not hanging out in forums complaining about stuff.

Laws in Germany are very pro consumer and many people have legal insurance just for cases like this. I guess Bitwig thinks just like you, but I hope someone at least talks to a lawyer to see what's up.

yeah.. as someone who lives in the USA that's my take. sounds like Germany has better laws to protect consumers.

regardless, we'll see. if someone has time and the know how to pursue this legally i wish them luck but have no expectation that someone will be inspired to go that route. i'd be really surprised if someone took time to speak to a lawyer and doubly surprised if they thought it was actionable. but again.. as someone in the USA that's my perspective. over there it might be different. shrug.

[spiritlev]

In all seriousness, because of the language change on their website- could there be legal action against Bitwig, at least for those who had an active subscription purchased before Sept. 23 that was still active when this “suite” dropped?

would be a huge waste of time and money and there's likely no legal recourse. even if there was.. who has time to deal w/something like that? or the money to do it? for most people it's so low on the priority list of things to be pissed off about.

anyone w/enough money and time to do some legal maneuver doesn't care and has paid the $80 for spectral suite and is working on music and not hanging out in forums complaining about stuff.

Laws in Germany are very pro consumer and many people have legal insurance just for cases like this. I guess Bitwig thinks just like you, but I hope someone at least talks to a lawyer to see what's up.

In the UK it's very easy and cheap to bring a consumer rights case if you are willing to read up on the law and fight the case yourself. iirc it costs about £130 and you'll get that back if you win plus whatever it is you believe you had a right to, plus any reasonable costs you incurred.

I brought a case against a scammer company and won. Took about 8 months from start to finish although I probably only spent a week actually working on it, quoting relevant points of law from the Consumer Rights Act and submitting my case. The company fought it and it ended up going in front of a judge who ripped them apart haha. It was an interesting experience.

In my totally non-expert but minimally experienced opinion from going through that, I reckon someone would have a good chance of winning in this instance. There seem to be many angles from which to legally question what they have done and very few defences for it that would stand up to scrutiny. Defences like "it's an add-on not an update" would likely not go down well with a consumer rights judge here in the UK at least imo.

[pizzatime]

When did this conversation change over from a community sharing why they felt betrayed by Bitwig's new policy to a bunch of thin skinned ass kissers telling people they should keep their mouth shut because some fact pattern that applies to nobody isn't true?

Betrayed. Is a very strong word. Quite accusatory. Quite blaming. Somewhat irrational perhaps.

I agree with many of the underlying points. But.

For me... there's too much mean spirited and quite nasty rhetoric being sent Bitwigs way. I really feel for the Bitwig team. I'm believe they have good values and best intentions, and have just misjudged and miscommunicated these plugs ins. They do not deserve this fierce response at this stage imo.

We all want to believe they have best values and intentions.. I have supported them the best way possible with having an active plan for the last few years. It is not hard to understand people's frustration and I think even a bit of anger is fair enough. We don't owe them our money, they are not a charity, but they owe us a year of free upgrades if we paid them for it, that was the deal.. To spell out the obvious, the problem is they have broken that agreement completely out of the blue especially when we were all thinking a new update was probably imminent. Even worse it seems that they were using the money we paid in good faith to develop add ons they now want to charge us for.. also at present IT SEEMS (don't bust my balls) they are acting like a big corporation and with a short, bland statement on their website thinking this will just blow over, that we will moan and grumble but this endless consumerism, this need to fill the void will prevail and we will all be buying the updates the next time there is a big sale or new features.. now either they are short of money or they don't really give a shit about the people supporting them and want to make a bit more money - it's simple. But the yearly updates with everything included was their business model that we paid into and what they have just done is not right, the fact that it seems the majority of people online have been complaining shows this. Unfortunately Bitwig deserve this negativity towards them right now but hopefully they may put it right. Either way I don't want them to fail as that would be bad for me as I have invested a lot of time in Bitwig.

[JsinOwl]

Not a single person in this thread has said they want Bitwig to fail as a company. Those of us who are upset have very valid reasons to be so. When people are upset they use exaggerated language, because they're humans and have emotions. All of us who are pissed just want Bitwig to honor the terms under which we purchased our upgrade plans. Is that unreasonable? Is that wanting Bitwig to crash and burn? I don't think so. Does that mean we all break the necks of puppies in our free time? I can't speak for everyone, but I love my dogs. No one is speaking gibberish here. There are no crazies. Just upset people making very cogent arguments with some colorful language thrown in for good measure.

Maybe some people have a connection to Bitwig that renders them biased, and unable to look at this objectively? Because it seems pretty understandable why people would be upset. So understandable that even if you disagree, you should be able to get where people are coming from and back off.

[MegaPixel]

In the end it comes down to this... It's not rocket science people... It can work the same way as it always has, you just have to stop the sub till you want something.

Bitwig is a great DAW, with a user base whom are more loyal to it than all the others. Not to mention it can do things none of the others can. I too feel a bit pissed by this move but I will still keep on using it. So from here on in I will take it out of their hands to supply me with updates and new features by doing the following:

1. Do NOT renew your subscriptions after it runs out, not until there is a new feature or a bug fix that is wanted or needed that is included with the subscription renewal.

2. Buy addons as you see fit, as when needed or wanted, as you do with other DAWs (does it matter they are for Bitwig only?)


They should have just told everyone when Bitwig 5.0.0 comes out we will be changing to:
1. Buy bitwig and all patches that are not major (major.minor.patch) are free till next version for existing features only.
2. Buy addons as you see fit and 3rd party developers are welcome with maybe a 1 off fee.

If they need more money to stop them from going under, then they should have told us they need to raise prices and we would have understood. Their users are very fond of their software, bugs and all, it's something rare to have from a software company these days eg Amiga. If steinberg or presonus done something like this, it's very unlikely we would have a 60+ page thread on kvr and other forums etc.

If they wanted to make more money out of need, then they should have made these modules VSTs which are capable of being used in other DAWs and docking in Bitwig as bitwig modular components. Also allowing 3rd parties to build them with maybe a fee or free but instead if they want to promo their plugin with a bitwig release as a trial (no save or time limit use or intermittent noise).

I would be fine with this, it may even allow someone to build the things we have been wanting for such a long time that are missing from bitwig which they don't seem to think are worth bothering about eg MSEG modulator. But they should really start to focus on core features / existing feature and fix and improve them, their piano roll is shait fair play... If only I cloud use FLStudio's or Cubase or even Studio One 5 Pro's (6 is not worth the upgrade lol), in Bitwig it would be a god send better. But we been asking for this stuff for years, so don't expect these kind of improvements.

Bitwig rocks, just use your wallet more wisely, and renew your subscription when you want or need something from the next version.

[SLiC]

I dropped the £100 on the Studio one V6 upgrade as it suddenly seemed quite reasonable compared to the Bitwig add on’s….so Presonus got my money!

[astralcurrents]

I've been reading this since yesterday and at first I was upset like most people are. I don't think this was handled properly but honestly I don't care anymore. Earlier today I loaded up Bitwig I remembered why I like it so much and want to see it keep growing and leveling up to the final form DAW many of us envision it will become. Maybe this whole fiasco and backlash will be a good thing and they'll course correct development and be more careful with their users and supporters in the future. I want to give them a chance and see what comes next before completely melting down over a piece of software.

yes give them a chance but they need to correct it with a big gesture.....

Yeah, I don't expect they'll back down now and suddenly give Spectral Suite to people for free (even people who just got baited into renewing their plan with the recent uhe promotion), but I do think that after this they'll be very careful about which future "add ons" get held aside as DLC instead of making their way into a numbered update. I don't think they're out to screw us and if anything I wonder if this new model is more a sign of Bitwig actually doing well for themselves financially instead of hurting for money as people are saying.

They didn't go about this the right way but I've been seeing it more as a company that's got some ideas up its sleeve and wants to overall move Bitwig out of the perception of just a smaller DAW with a loyal (rabid?) user base into something that is really beginning to stand on its own alongside Live or Studio One or the other big boys.

Maybe they thought introducing more 'premium add-ons' would slowly level up Bitwig into something that's really sought after like Live Suite and maybe even lay the groundwork for getting rid of this upgrade/subscription plan once and for all. Not sure if it was the right move but I don't think people would take Bitwig seriously at $799 in its current state. But after a couple years of cool devices like Spectral Suite, and not losing focus with the usual numbered updates we've come to expect from them, who knows?

[MegaPixel]

I dropped the £100 on the Studio one V6 upgrade as it suddenly seemed quite reasonable compared to the Bitwig add on’s….so Presonus got my money!

Bad move, Presonus are well known for making a major version jump for minor feature changes or minor new features. V6 changes are an insult. I like to use Bitwig and Studio One 5 Pro but I wont upgrade for that piss take of new features / enhancements V6 includes.

Now for the Bitwig people who don't know about Studio One V5 to V6 changes, NOW THATS A PISS TAKE.

My post about that was:

Has the bar been set so low that this is considered a major version change?
You don't just bump the major version because you have 30 or so minor new features / enhancements to drop. The video editing looks interesting but again shouldn't have been a major version change, should have been a paid addon, the rest is pretty minor. Remember Version Major.Minor.Patch / Breaking.Feature.Fix (v5.9.200). If Epic with Unreal Engine, Blender and many others bumped version like this Unreal Engine would be on version 4000 by now lol).

[Held]

In the end it comes down to this... It's not rocket science people... It can work the same way as it always has, you just have to stop the sub till you want something.

[...]

Bitwig rocks, just use your wallet more wisely, and renew your subscription when you want or need something from the next version.

That is fine and all, but it would have been nice to let people know in advance about this change.

People aren't upset that Bitwig changed its business model, they are upset that Bitwig is doing this while people have active upgrade plans that have been devalued by this change.

[pdxindy]

You have written several times: people shouldn't buy plans with an expectation of receiving features, they should just buy when there's enough already there, like you do.

I always buy an update with the expectation of receiving features... that is the whole point of getting 12 months of updates.

[Phil B]

Bitwig is suddenly not good enough anymore?

The "fact pattern" here would be "Because of what Bitwig has done with this add-on stuff, I no longer think Bitwig in its current form is a good product and I am going to switch DAWs"

The number of people on the internet that have claimed that fact pattern or anything remotely like it applies to them? Zero