iZotope discontinues many plugins (iZotope and Exponential Audio)

[machinesworking]

First and foremost -- I still think that "Soundwide" is actually a holding type situation (like "InMusic" for companies like AKAI, Sonivox and Air Music Tech -- or the "Music Tribe" for Behringer, Klark Teknik, Aston Microphones, tc.electronic/tc.Helicon, Tannoy, etc). However, the page is still as vague as it can be. The one company that talked about Soundwide the most, was actually Plugin Alliance. However only iZotope had an article by CEO Mark Cattini (who previously worked at "Clickforce", and prior to that for 8 years at "Autotask Corp"). Native Instruments kept things "fairly neutral" (a lot has happened with them since 2017 as well).

I like you am not aware of all the details, but it's not a stretch to say that NI, Pluginalliance and iZotope are now beholden to investors, that's the least that has happened. With that comes deprecation, almost every time. Look at what has happened with Air with InMusic or Sonivox VS AKAI. that's the kind of "attention" products get when it's not a small company with developers that care about their legacy products.

Second, PSP Audio did drop the occasional plugin, or rather haven't updated them in quite a while. IK Multiumedia did deprecate certain standalone amps and suites, however incorporated them into upgrades (Amplitube, T-Racks, etc).

I can't think of any PSP products that have been dropped? I've owned Vintage warmer since 2004 or so. Some still have not been updated for modern GUIs, yeah that's the case, but they're slowly going through their line and updating them from what I've witnessed.

[jens]

I also rather not "Hail Waves". While they do indeed keep their code updated, the way they handle things is just as abhorrent. Because their WUP is calculated upon the MSRP, not what their tools usually sell for. There is a "capped maximum fee", but there is no "flat fee" for upgrades -- and they start to do the "forced years upgrade" thing as well. Something that should also be called out IMHO.

nah - in all these many years since I bought my first Waves plugin I didn't have to WUP even just once and all my Waves plugins still work flawlessly on my current machine... (I'm on Windows, so your mileage may vary)

"forced years upgrade"? What do you mean with that? Google was of no help at all and also to this day Waves licences are perpetual so I am really utterly clueless what that could be about...

However -- this isn't about Waves... this is about iZotope.

Well, I wouldn't have brought it up if I wouldn't deem it relevant, don't you think?

It makes up for a nice counter-example where a major player who's much longer in the game than Izotope
and who also has a released many more plugins is able to keep them all up to date and available for the newest systems...

so... Izotope aren't just liars without much evidence of the slightest sense of business ethics, they are also comparatively rather poor at project-management and code hygienic.

[xalama qo]

Urgh, just heard about this. Does anyone know if a breaktweaker license bought here on KVR buy & sell can still be registered? And the sample content downloaded?
Would appreciate any insights, thanks.

[aMUSEd]

Actually I have officially put in a complaint through support - they should be offering us Exponential Customers reasonable or even free cross grades to Stratus and Symphony - I paid for my products well before they started bargain basementing them - which was their choice.

[masterhiggins]

Actually I have officially put in a complaint through support - they should be offering us Exponential Customers reasonable or even free cross grades to Stratus and Symphony - I paid for my products well before they started bargain basementing them - which was their choice.

Not to mention the early reflections are completely different between R4 and symphony as well as between nimbus and stratus. If they at least allow us to use them in stereo that wouldn’t be so bad.

[aMUSEd]

Actually I have officially put in a complaint through support - they should be offering us Exponential Customers reasonable or even free cross grades to Stratus and Symphony - I paid for my products well before they started bargain basementing them - which was their choice.

Not to mention the early reflections are completely different between R4 and symphony as well as between nimbus and stratus. If they at least allow us to use them in stereo that wouldn’t be so bad.

You can’t use them in stereo?

[Jmf1928]

Just give the original plugins back to Carnes. They’re better than any of the derivatives.

[eerie_audio]

Dear Customers,
We’re writing to let you know that iZotope products Iris 2, BreakTweaker, and Trash 2 will no longer be available for purchase from iZotope.com. Support for these products will remain in effect for 12 months from your date of purchase.

If I own one of these products, can I still use it?
Yes. Your product will not be deactivated or change from its current state.

Will I still get maintenance updates?
If you have purchased these products through iZotope.com within the last 12 months, we will continue to provide you with technical support and updates to address critical issues that arise for up to 12 months from your purchase date. The support period for these products will end on October 27, 2023 for all users. We will not actively test compatibility of these products on new operating systems or host application versions after October 27, 2022, and the current system specifications for these products will not change. For a list of the product system requirements go here.

Why are you discontinuing these products?
iZotope is continually developing new products, services, and solutions to enable and innovate on journeys in audio production. We occasionally need to retire older products in order to focus our resources and development efforts on building new, innovative products and features.

Will I still be able to download the product from your website?
Yes. You can still download, install, and authorize these products. Installers can be downloaded using Product Portal or our Legacy Downloads page. Your purchased serial numbers will continue to authorize these products. You can find your serial numbers in the Purchase History section of your Account page, or use Product Portal to install and authorize them when you are logged into your account.

We sincerely appreciate your support and regret any inconvenience this action may cause you.
If you have additional questions, please feel free to reach out to our Customer Care team.
—Your team at iZotope

This part seems a bit disingenuous:

Why are you discontinuing these products?
iZotope is continually developing new products, services, and solutions to enable and innovate on journeys in audio production. We occasionally need to retire older products in order to focus our resources and development efforts on building new, innovative products and features.

I believe what this truly means is, they don't want to or don't know how to keep maintaining an older product and bringing it up to today's standards and requirements, because they plan to sale you new products, in which they can generate more revenue from.

So basically, expect a new distortion plug-in, a new synthesizer (VocalSynth 2 is now on sale for $39, next $29, then $10) and a new drum sequencer. I guess the new red flag is, when one of their products hits the $10 mark, be ready for it to be discontinued a year later?

[whyterabbyt]

I guess the new red flag is, when one of their products hits the $10 mark, be ready for it to be discontinued a year later?

pretty sure Iris and Trash have done that multiple times over the past few years though.

[billcarroll]

and yet Trash 2 is still listed on plugin alliance for $99. Halloween sale knocks it down to $27.99. Grab it while it's hot ... I mean discontinued.

https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/prod ... ash-2.html

[GaryG]

I believe what this truly means is, they don't want to or don't know how to keep maintaining an older product and bringing it up to today's standards and requirements, because they plan to sale you new products, in which they can generate more revenue from.

As I said earlier, that could quite be the case especially if the plug is written in an older framework, original devs have moved on etc. Legacy code can be a nightmare to support (I've had to do it...)

If they're not making much on these plugs then, yeah, I understand them not wanting to spend considerable resources/cash on getting devs to update them. If you have an EULA stating they'll maintain them to be compatible with whatever comes along in the future then fair enough, I see your point, but in the real world things progress to the point that legacy code has to be let go of occasionally. At least there's a chance the windows versions will be good for a while (I still have 20yo plugs that still work fine on windows).

[eerie_audio]

So in the end, it all boils down to, screw the customer we have profits to generate.

[tappert]

They should be forced to open source every abandoned software. It would allow users to find and fund maintainers

[masterhiggins]

Actually I have officially put in a complaint through support - they should be offering us Exponential Customers reasonable or even free cross grades to Stratus and Symphony - I paid for my products well before they started bargain basementing them - which was their choice.

Not to mention the early reflections are completely different between R4 and symphony as well as between nimbus and stratus. If they at least allow us to use them in stereo that wouldn’t be so bad.

You can’t use them in stereo?

Sorry, no I misrepresented it. You can’t use them in any configuration. I just mean I know that stratus and symphony they’re intended for surround configs, which might explain why they decided to exclude a majority of the reflection patterns from r4 and nimbus. Maybe they don’t work well in surround. But symphony and stratus are also available in stereo, so I was hoping that they could at least let us use them in stereo.

[Compyfox]

I like you am not aware of all the details, but it's not a stretch to say that NI, Pluginalliance and iZotope are now beholden to investors, that's the least that has happened. With that comes deprecation, almost every time. Look at what has happened with Air with InMusic or Sonivox VS AKAI. that's the kind of "attention" products get when it's not a small company with developers that care about their legacy products.

Actually... here is the fun part...

AKAI Software, Sonivox, Air Music Tech... if you dig a little bit, you will find out that these are all the same developers. Though granted, "Transfuser" could see a visual uplift (and UI resize features). Not to mention, finally a user account that keeps me updated on software updates.

nah - in all these many years since I bought my first Waves plugin I didn't have to WUP even just once and all my Waves plugins still work flawlessly on my current machine... (I'm on Windows, so your mileage may vary)

As you know, so I am. But you can't tell me that you're still using Waves Installers since what... V6 or V7 even? You know, 32bit plugins? (well, Reaper loads them without issues... so I get it).

In order to even get the "updated code", you need to invest in WUP. Granted, you can install multiple versions in parallel. But that's a PITA, unnecessary bloat and this does not give you more recent code versions (as in: VST3 or native x64).

"forced years upgrade"? What do you mean with that? Google was of no help at all and also to this day Waves licences are perpetual so I am really utterly clueless what that could be about...

"Forced Yearly Upgrades", as in... if you want to continue your old plugins with "updated code", and get certain new releases on top of that.

In my case... if I were to use certain plugins without investing in WUP, I'd need to install V9, V10 and V14 to be able to use all the plugins I paid for (I recently bought "Harmony", that is V14+ only). Or "pay for upgrades". And Waves "force upgrades" on the dot... current record is 9 months life-span of a major version.

So as nice as your counter example is in terms of maintaining code, which is all good and fine. It's not as "clean cut" as it may look like.

and yet Trash 2 is still listed on plugin alliance for $99. Halloween sale knocks it down to $27.99. Grab it while it's hot ... I mean discontinued.

https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/prod ... ash-2.html

Oof... yikes...

Yeah... on top of that... this is now the lowest "all plugin sale" by Plugin Alliance.

I just checked my account. From the 20-or-so licenses I have, about half of them are not "M1 compatible" (haven't been updated since MacOS11), yet the Windows versions are. So... yeah...

All the promises that have been made in April (by all Soundwide companies)... and considering what happened with Native Instruments a couple of weeks ago with Komplete 14, and what happened the other day with iZotope and their reasoning for dropping plugins...

Huge red flags for me currently.