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

[flori89]

The DAW itself isn't really the topic here. It's the communication strategy of the company behind the product, and that is pretty awful right now. Even if we put aside that there is a possible case for fraud here, but what the radio silence since then is starting to do serious damage.

Venus Theory was now forced to cut ties with them, that has to hurt because he is a very prominent influencer for this DAW. I follow a lot of people on the YT audio world, the amount of people using Bitwig is already limited as it is.

As soon as they saw this unfold, they should have reacted with damage control. Every day they stay silent they burn bridges that will be hard to rebuild. This should be a minor mistake, easily corrected: "We are really sorry, this was a mistake, everyone who has the subscription will get the new features for free, but in future this is what we will do ...".

They are now banking on people to just forget this, but this is a pretty big gamble.

In the case that your assumption about them banking on people to forget this is right (and honestly, we don't have the data available right now to make that assumption), if history is anything to go by, they're absolutely right.

The freak out may not have been as large, but people lost their minds when they launched their pricing plan in the first place. Bitwig didn't change strategies with it, they didn't even communicate better, they just released a bunch of updates over time and people either forgot or made peace with it. I would not be surprised one iota if the reason they haven't said anything yet is because somebody said "why would we publicly say anything about it? we didn't do that last time"

Well, that's exactly the definition of gambling. Maybe the people forget, maybe not. There are plenty of examples where they did, and plenty where they didn't. Reason Studios isn't exactly on a good path, and people seemingly aren't forgetting at all what happened there.

[flori89]

Communication strategy definitely needs work, but things are not always as obvious as they may seem from the outside. This may have been a necessary plan to raise revenue, it may have been 'sold' as a plan to private capital providers or even banks...'turning off' a forecast additional revenue stream may not be that easy, it may not be belligerence or ignorance, it may be internal and 'external' agreement which isn't necessarily immediate.

I am not making excuses for them, it's a cock up whatever way you look at it, but there may be mitigation and complexities that we are not aware of...once you have VC or even an overdraft you are not completely in control of what your business does...see Reason Studios or Ni as a prime example...you have to sell the promise of future revenue growth to your investors just to keep going!

All fair points. I have dealt with investors before though, they are also humans and usually not completely stupid. A public shitstorm is usually also not something they want as it's bad for business and therefore profits.

[ozonepaul]

Communication strategy definitely needs work, but things are not always as obvious as they may seem from the outside. This may have been a necessary plan to raise revenue, it may have been 'sold' as a plan to private capital providers or even banks...'turning off' a forecast additional revenue stream may not be that easy, it may not be belligerence or ignorance, it may be internal and 'external' agreement which isn't necessarily immediate.

I am not making excuses for them, it's a cock up whatever way you look at it, but there may be mitigation and complexities that we are not aware of...once you have VC or even an overdraft you are not completely in control of what your business does...see Reason Studios or Ni as a prime example...you have to sell the promise of future revenue growth to your investors just to keep going!

I agree with most of what you're saying but saying "Communication strategy definitely needs work"... you are extremely kind and generous there.

I'm not as kind as you're so:
It's not only that they don't have a "communication strategy", they completely refuse to communicate! And not just this time. They did not communicate with their users when they introduced their unique subscription model, they abandoned all platforms and music/gear related websites/forums like Gearslutz, vi-conntrol etc.
For Gods sake, we're having this conversation on their own official support area on KVR, on the 106th page of a thread that has got nearly 1600 replies and more than 51000 views, and not a single word from them. There is not a single investor with a brain bigger than a pea who would ever suggest to behave/communicate like this.
This is clearly the fault of the Bitwig team. It has got nothing to do with their financial situation. There is not a single "business for dummies" book where good communication with your own customers is not mentioned on the very first page.

+ Good communication is pretty much the only thing that's free in the type of business Bitwig is in. A business where hardly any purchase is impulsive, where you need to build a long-term, loyalty and trust based community around your extremely sophisticated, hard to learn (hence huge user dependency creating) product.
Purely from a business/investor point of view: abandoning your own official support web page (where you've got a direct channel to communicate with your user community) is complete insanity.
Purely from a business/investor point of view, abandoning your youtubers doesn't makes much sense neither. In the middle of this flak storm, loosing those who regularly bring in brand new customers for you, whom some of your users are religiously following for tutorials etc, whom can introduce you to potential customers who never ever heard about your product,.. so basically abandoning your own free working "marketing stuff", who are happy to work for you for a bloody NFR license... it doesn't make any sense. Again, this has got nothing to do with Bitwig's financial situation it's just the result of their disastrous communication, a result of amateur, incompetent business decision making.
And looking at the recent Plugin Boutique message posted here: it seems the shitstorm reached the resellers as well.
So purely from a business/investor perspective: It's a disaster that could have been easily avoided/mitigated with some basic/honest/effective communication practices.

[slackhead]

they abandoned all platforms and music/gear related websites/forums ...

They even got rid of their own "Bitwig Answers" section of their website which was a valid and useful way of getting feedback for the short time it existed.

[SLiC]

Communication strategy definitely needs work, but things are not always as obvious as they may seem from the outside. This may have been a necessary plan to raise revenue, it may have been 'sold' as a plan to private capital providers or even banks...'turning off' a forecast additional revenue stream may not be that easy, it may not be belligerence or ignorance, it may be internal and 'external' agreement which isn't necessarily immediate.

I am not making excuses for them, it's a cock up whatever way you look at it, but there may be mitigation and complexities that we are not aware of...once you have VC or even an overdraft you are not completely in control of what your business does...see Reason Studios or Ni as a prime example...you have to sell the promise of future revenue growth to your investors just to keep going!

I agree with most of what you're saying but saying "Communication strategy definitely needs work"... you are extremely kind and generous there.

I'm not as kind as you're so:
It's not only that they don't have a "communication strategy", they completely refuse to communicate! And not just this time. They did not communicate with their users when they introduced their unique subscription model, they abandoned all platforms and music/gear related websites/forums like Gearslutz, vi-conntrol etc.
For Gods sake, we're having this conversation on their own official support area on KVR, on the 106th page of a thread that has got nearly 1600 replies and more than 51000 views, and not a single word from them. There is not a single investor with a brain bigger than a pea who would ever suggest to behave/communicate like this.
This is clearly the fault of the Bitwig team. It has got nothing to do with their financial situation. There is not a single "business for dummies" book where good communication with your own customers is not mentioned on the very first page.
+ Good communication is pretty much the only thing that's free in the type of business Bitwig is in. A business where hardly any purchase is impulsive, where you need to build a long-term, loyalty and trust based community around your extremely sophisticated, hard to learn (hence huge user dependency creating) product. Purely from a business/investor point of view: abandoning your own official support web page (where you've got a direct channel to communicate with your user community) is complete insanity.

I agree and am only suggesting there may be mitigating circumstances as the necessary course of action seems so obvious and so immediately needed that I keep thinking there must be more to it...is where a Managing Director or CEO would earn his money and step up...

[ThereatGrumbleMorn]

they abandoned all platforms and music/gear related websites/forums ...

They even got rid of their own "Bitwig Answers" section of their website which was a valid and useful way of getting feedback for the short time it existed.

Given all this I wonder in what universe this seems like a sound business decision. Not mad, just puzzled.

[slackhead]

Perhaps the selling of the add-on was to raise funds to pay for a Communication Manager?

[Benutzername]

they abandoned all platforms and music/gear related websites/forums ...

They even got rid of their own "Bitwig Answers" section of their website which was a valid and useful way of getting feedback for the short time it existed.

Last posts from the official moderator team in the official forum:

kurasu: Thu Jun 13, 2019 8:43 pm

volker@bitwig: Wed Dec 18, 2019 12:05 pm

dom@bitwig: Thu Feb 07, 2019 5:31 pm

[Redukt]

Is Dom even with Bitwig anymore? He always was really helpful and nice, both here and via email.
Also he used to voice the official videos, which he also hasn't done for a long time.

[ozonepaul]

they abandoned all platforms and music/gear related websites/forums ...

They even got rid of their own "Bitwig Answers" section of their website which was a valid and useful way of getting feedback for the short time it existed.

Last posts from the official moderator team in the official forum:

kurasu: Thu Jun 13, 2019 8:43 pm

volker@bitwig: Wed Dec 18, 2019 12:05 pm

dom@bitwig: Thu Feb 07, 2019 5:31 pm

Yeah, it just doesn't make any sense.

Perhaps the selling of the add-on was to raise funds to pay for a Communication Manager?

[Phil B]

I think original post was just another veiled "complaining about complainers" post. Another grumpy ol' neighbor who isn't interested in the topic

Yeah, I'm looking forward to hearing something. But let's just take it as it comes!

I think this is what it's all about and why I have more posts here in the last few days than the last 14 years combined!

Are you sure you know the meaning of grumpy? Cause I'm not making more posts in the last few days than in 14 years .. as a bitwig user I'm definitely interested in where this goes, but also think it would've been blown a bit less out of proportion if more ppl had taken a more considered approach about when to update instead of doing it every year.

My posts have largely been about trying to sort out the EULA and related topics, hopefully with a bit of a sense of humor too. So not emotional at all, in my opinion. The substance of the back and forth has been very interesting, and that’s why I’ve been posting. But I don’t know why a third of this thread has to be people complaining about consulting adults trying to have a discussion, and telling us we’re wrong to have the discussion because they like bitwig - that’s the super annoying noise part

[Onya Malloy]

4.4 Released with Spectral stuff

[Dostoyevsky]

Bitwig 4.4 is up
New Spectral devices, for all Bitwig Studio customers!

[xbitz]

https://www.bitwig.com/stories/to-our-community-218/

[Be_Lebowski]

Really happy with Bitwig’s response. So glad they’ve done this.