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

[kultschar]

The bizarre thing is without a statement each post they do will continue to be smashed with negativity and criticism.
I would of thought they would say something regardless if they are backtracking or continuing as is. Their advertisements on Twitter / Instagram / Facebook / YouTube don't exactly make them look good for any potential new customers!!

[zambal]

It's possible that you're right but I highly doubt it. Eg. seeing them already lowering the price of these Spectral add-ons from $99 (full) /$79 (sale) to $30 (if you buy it together with your subscription update plan) it tells me they completely miscalculated the potential user reactions and misjudged the situation and it's financial consequences.

They already had the 'buy it together with a subscription plan for $30' deal from the moment they released the spectral add-ons.

[SLiC]

The bizarre thing is without a statement each post they do will continue to be smashed with negativity and criticism.
I would of thought they would say something regardless if they are backtracking or continuing as is. Their advertisements on Twitter / Instagram / Facebook / YouTube don't exactly make them look good for any potential new customers!!

I don't know why people are surprised, we did this already when the upgrade plan was introduced (without warning) and caused an awful lot of unnecessary confusion (you will still see people now asking if Bitwig still works when the subscription runs out!)

Bitwig are not good at consultation or communication- It's their vision, their way- take it or leave it, sometimes that work, sometimes that doesn't...seems like this time it was the straw that broke the camel's back.

[BobDog]

I think you have this right here, at the beginning of the UP most people were getting it every year, now they are not. In the future I guess there will now be even less.

Maybe time to move to paid "normal" major releases (yearly like cubase) and separate paid device packages (multiple per year maybe, run in any version of BW).

So Bitwig will cost $170 per year for a normal annual paid upgrade... sounds familiar

Its not familiar really, with cubase you get a new version with new features, then you get free fixes/updates for that version until the next version (and beyond for a while). They don't add anything new.

You know, like how software used to be sold.

[SLiC]

Personally, I just like the idea of all Bitwig users on the latest version having access to the same tools...once you do an optional add on it's a multi-tiered system and you may not have cross project compatibility etc

[] Peter:H []

Personally, I just like the idea of all Bitwig users on the latest version having access to the same tools...once you do an optional add on it's a multi-tiered system and you may not have cross project compatibility etc

That's btw why I started to use Bitwig for a collab ... collab long gone, but I got stuck on BW until now. Glad I still have Cubase Pro in parallel.

[ollie.rollover]

Why haven't they spoken to the community yet?!?

[Benutzername]

Why haven't they spoken to the community yet?!?

According to Polarity on discord they will release a statement soon but we shouldn't expect a change in direction.

[ollie.rollover]

oh dear.

[MrRodent]

Why haven't they spoken to the community yet?!?

According to Polarity on discord they will release a statement soon but we shouldn't expect a change in direction.

I was never really expecting a change, just an answer.

[SLiC]

I don't care about the answer/excuse, just sight of the update we are due that 'is' included in my update plan.

[ThunderHeart]

A Warning from the Reason Studios World :
One of the things that bothers me most is that this could be the start of Bitwig becoming more like Reason.

The Spectral Suite add-ons, and presumably future add-ons, are not VSTs, if I understand correctly. So, Native Devices, sort of like Reason Rack Extensions.[REs from here on].

Tied to the "Native add-ons" concept is the question of transferability.
Every year Reason release, during the year, quite a few new REs, which combined, cost more than the annual update fee, if you buy a couple of them. They usually look very good, and are STRONGLY marketed, and whatever some might say about not "being forced to buy them", we all know that many do.
[These things are very hard to resist, if well designed, well integrated, and heavily marketed.
If it were easy to resist, why are we all so familiar the term "GAS". Let's not be naive].

Looking on the forums, especially when high profile REs were released, they are obviously purchased by many. I saw many posts where people admitted feeling trapped in the system, as they had spent thousands of Dollars/Euros on RE's over several years. All lost money, if they changed to a different DAW.

I bought a copy of Reason, second-hand, a few years ago, and the seller, who couldn't have been nicer, had many REs, which he described as amazing, which he simply could not transfer to me, neither by gift, nor by sale. He had spent far more on REs than he had on Reason itself, over the years, and he was very upset that it was, now, money down the drain. Also, think how much more he could have sold his copy of the DAW for if all of these REs had been included.

I also agree with everyone here, who feels that Bitwig were very underhanded, even sleazy, in the way they did all of this, right after the the big push with U-HE, and sneaking in a change to their Conditions, and more, but I think what I've mentioned, above, could easily be the biggest cost to us, in the medium, and long term.

[Dostoyevsky]

I don't think the decision makers at Bitwig really thought through how much their undefined/intertwined/uncommunicated "add-ons are new products" concept undermines the value of their upgrade plan subscription.

I'm not sure why people assume they are amateurs. It's quite banal: They actually had thought it through […]

No, even if they had thought it thru, they executed it as if they were braindead idiots.

You ignore the possibility that they might attach less importance to communicating their decisions to their customers than we all would like them to do. It's a company founded in 2009 and they have, well, experience with these situations. Assuming they possibly learned a thing or two over the years they still decided to sweep aside any concerns and just wade through the potential mess.

Here's the thing. They know their product and are confident about it. They made a bet it will be hard for many of their customers to let Bitwig Studio go. Obviously they do accept that they alienate a few loyal customers but will nevertheless *cough* flourish in the long run. Doesn't sound that far fetched. IMO. Despite all the banging and shouting I doubt a critical mass of people will "switch DAWs". Be real, it's mostly an empty threat.
It might be a rather small company, but the publicly available reports suggest them to be healthy. Not bathing in money, sure, but I don't see any desperation. In fact, I can't imagine them to perform such a stunt without some existing financial cushioning.
As mentioned earlier, the u-he campaign a few days prior to announcing their policy change (while not losing a single word about it) might have been run to mitigate the transitional effects. This suggests they expected their customers to be irritated and less willing to spend money for a while on an upgrade as it has become even less clear what you are actually paying for. In any case the idea of investing into development by buying a plan is dead. Supposedly this is, too, already priced in as Bitwig has matured and is no longer lacking big features (please refrain to list MSEG and piano roll).
Thus, to me the message is: Take it or leave it.

[SLiC]

I don't think it's about existing users switching (they may just update in retrospect rather than in advance) but it may put off a lot of new potential users...there is a lot of bad press, i doubt it will encourage new purchases.

[catamorphism]

I understand that all updates to Bitwig are included in the subscription, but these are different devices (and devices that are in no way essential to anyones work), so makes sense to offer them as an addon.

I think maybe they should have established a fake company and then sold the same thing as native devices. People would probably pay for these gladly.