Zebra 3 and Zebra Legacy

[faultyline]

There is no logic behind this move.

Strangely, no-one has objected to this concept when we sent newsletter to our customers, posted it on social media and on forums. We have reached tens of thousands of people.

The logic is very simple: By not offering an upgrade path we keep the resale value of a "real" Zebra license high. We do not devalue the investment of our loyal customers.

It's a principle that goes against marketing practices that value fast money over sustainability. Our greatest capital is our user base.

How many readers have actually had? Sending out newsletters is not the same thing as people having read them.
How many of those who read has been existing customers that don't care that newer customers will be left off, thus not impacting themselves negatively?


At least in the past you have had sales. Every time someone is able to pick up something at sale, it can come off as slightly unfair to those who purchased before or after. But people have come to expect this, so there is nothing strange with it, and you will not hear a lot of complaints about it. there is a certain other company that has dropped the prices of their products massively, that has gotten a lot of criticism for that, and most of the negative focus.


You say that you keep the resale value, but how many transactions or old licenses with an upgrade path vs new licenses without has been sold in the past couple of days, and what does the statistics say about the price level for resales?


You have posted similar posts to this before in this thread, so this is not the first time you have heard criticism. Just because you perhaps did not see any people commenting on it, when you first released your plan, through newsletters, mostly to existing customers, but also re-posted in threads, mostly reaching engaged fans, does not mean that the strategy is brilliant.
When you get feedback now, you could be humble about it.
It is not until now that you are actually reaching potential and new customers with this information. And you will sell licenses to people that are not aware of this limitation, that will not feel great about it, when they find out that others get a huge discount that they do not get, that drama will come when you release Zebra 3, and not know, since it isn't common knowledge among your new customers that this is the case. Don't you want your new customers to become part of you loyal user base?
Like I said, sell two different products, then you can solve the issue, by informing customers, also getting customers to pay a bit more if they know that it will get them on an upgrade path. That way you don't have to increase the lowest price or add an upgrade path that you had no planned to add for people purchasing at that price.

Perhaps you made a mistake, thought that you had reached enough potential customers that would engage if they did not think this strategy was a good idea, but then be humble about it. Criticism that comes up now, is more valid than not hearing anything in the past. People criticizing you today, are not to be blamed for not being reached by your newsletters of the past. And customers that will only find out in the future, aren't either.

The process was communicated clearly and fairly. The zebra legacy page was put up on the 15th as promised and there is no requirement to state that it is not upgradable to zebra 3 as the cut off date has gone. Stating that would cause even more confusion.

[Urs]

Sending out newsletters is not the same thing as people having read them.

Reread my statement. We have tens of thousands of subscribers to our newsletter, an open rate of over 60% on average and a click rate in the ten thousands. We have built up this exceptionally loyal user base by doing business how we do - sustainably, communicating openly and offering great support while never* putting existing customers at disadvantage over new ones.

I have already acknowledged that a hint on the Zebra Legacy page may not hurt. So when we update it next there's a good chance it'll calm the outrage. Or not. Who knows.


* unless of course, circumstance...

[medienhexer]

In my experience, it‘s often times people who don‘t buy your products who invest a lot of time and effort into explaining to you why your business practices are in general bad for every potential customer.

The reality is that no change in business practices would make them buy and they don‘t represent any relevant number of potential customers.

Their insights turn out to be opinions.

There are good reasons why you don‘t exclusively talk to experts in market research. If you want to learn anything of significance, you need to involve enough people so you can apply statistical methods.

10.000s fulfills that criterium.

[nedrob]

In the patch notes it says Ctrl A or Ctrl B. Where do I find these? I don't see any macro controls.

Update: Never mind, I figured it out.

[Double Tap]

In my experience, it‘s often times people who don‘t buy your products who invest a lot of time and effort into explaining to you why your business practices are in general bad for every potential customer.

The reality is that no change in business practices would make them buy and they don‘t represent any relevant number of potential customers.

Their insights turn out to be opinions.

Yes I'm quite bored of people who have had 15 years to buy Zebra 2 explain why buying it now, along with every official upgrade and soundset for half the original launch price, means they should get Zebra 3 for the same price as the people who spent at least three times as much as they did.

[glokraw]

My experience in buying audio software, is buy what you will actually use, and watch for sales on things you'll need to learn and want to use in the future. I've bought many useful/enjoyable items from U-he, IK, NI and BlueCat. In each case, prior purchases led to both future $$$benefits$$$ and immediate


There are so many great sounds in the Legacy collection, I need to stop being such a recluse,
and find some new human/divine inspiration. My music is based on life experiences, it seems
pointless to noodle about in the ether, without relationship. But others may be rightfully energized on the merits of great sound, (or earning paychecks/royalties) which is great fun even without fellow cave-dwellers present
Cheers

[tasmaniandevil]

In the patch notes it says Ctrl A or Ctrl B. Where do I find these? I don't see any macro controls.

Ctrl A+B are two user definable MIDI CCs that can be assigned to parameters in the preset.
By default they are set to Breath (CC2) and Expression (CC11), but you can set them to any CC you want, globally (in the preferences), and per plugin instance (on the MIDI table page).

[andesiro]

Sending out newsletters is not the same thing as people having read them.

Reread my statement. We have tens of thousands of subscribers to our newsletter, an open rate of over 60% on average and a click rate in the ten thousands. We have built up this exceptionally loyal user base by doing business how we do - sustainably, communicating openly and offering great support while never* putting existing customers at disadvantage over new ones.

I have already acknowledged that a hint on the Zebra Legacy page may not hurt. So when we update it next there's a good chance it'll calm the outrage. Or not. Who knows.


* unless of course, circumstance...

Hi Urs, that's exactly how it is!

But, maybe you should give the horse a different name. Just as others in this treat have already indicated. Counting up could always make someone believe you could update and yes, who always reads the small print...

The new Zebra is a different "technology" (I guess), where the soundsets will not be compatible (I suspect too). It's just a new "product" (with similar DNA), if this is clear, nobody will believe (finger cross) to be able to update... also probably... so as a proposal

So there's a Zebra Legacy and then there's a Zebra XYZ... someone will find a cool name

[Urs]

I think people would find it extremely misleading if we dubbed Z3 with some other name

None of this would be any issue had we released ZL and Z3 at the same time - the information would be on the Z3 website. However, we have our reasons to do the transition to Zebra Legacy now.

I guess the main thing we should communicate is

- Z3 is a completely new synth
- Once Z3 is out, Z2 will continue to work as Z2 next to it
- "The catch" of the 99€ offer for a formerly 500+€ value is the lack of a discount towards Z3

[WatchTheGuitar]

Zebra 3 Legacy Free

call it that just to troll everyone, Urs!

[BSB]

Bump, little worried that U-he staff are overlooking functionality questions about Legacy here, maybe it's this pricing debate...ahem.

I'm asking these before upgrading to Legacy to make sure there are no workflow issues or anything has changed that would disrupt projects, etc. Thank you.

2nd try...

- How are other third party sound sets (ie The Unfinished) behaving in these new versions of Zebra and Zebra HZ ?

- Will installing Legacy upset. overwrote patch folder structure in any way ? -Will you keep for lack of a better word the old library structure of previous custom folders/sounds in the new versions ?

-Is there a way to have old and new versions running at the same time until we are sure the new version fit workflow, work ok, etc ?

[vurt]

Bump, little worried that U-he staff are overlooking functionality questions about Legacy here, maybe it's this pricing debate...ahem.

I'm asking these before upgrading to Legacy to make sure there are no workflow issues or anything has changed that would disrupt projects, etc. Thank you.

2nd try...

- How are other third party sound sets (ie The Unfinished) behaving in these new versions of Zebra and Zebra HZ ?

- Will installing Legacy upset. overwrote patch folder structure in any way ? -Will you keep for lack of a better word the old library structure of previous custom folders/sounds in the new versions ?

-Is there a way to have old and new versions running at the same time until we are sure the new version fit workflow, work ok, etc ?

legacy is just the name of the bundle, it's not different builds of the synths.
if you have eg the latest zebra2 installed already before legacy, you only need the hz and the soundsets.

[Urs]

Zebra Legacy contains the same installers that were previously separate downloads. The soundsets have been worked on but great care was taken to not overwrite previous sounds from installations, in case people have their own edits, tags and favourites there.

[dayjob]

Zebra Legacy contains the same installers that were previously separate downloads. The soundsets have been worked on but great care was taken to not overwrite previous sounds from installations, in case people have their own edits, tags and favourites there.

yeah.. i dragged the soundsets to the UI as instructed and have had no issues. all my existing sounds and favorites etc are all there where they've always been.

[fsciarra62]

Mmmmmm... Honestly, I find this little debate about Legacy not being upgradeable to Z3 quite offensive.

I bought Z2 quite in 2018, years ago... Expressely to have The Dark Zebra. Then after a year, I bought a Stratosphere soundset... in total more than 300€...
What makes you feel like you can complain because you got Zebra2+TheDarkZebra+Stratosphere+ **ALL THE OTHER SOUNDSETS** for 99€ ??? Are you kidding me???

I'm missing this...

And, as a loyal customer who has the clear perception that what has been bought is really a "synthesizer" and not only some messy lines of C code in an editor, I would be pretty p+++d off if the value of my synths were now a few shitty €...

So, again, I thank you so much U-He for keeping the value of what I've bought in high consideration.

And my loyalty is shown by the fact that, in the meantime, I've bought **ALL** U-He effects and synths...

Because they care!

And consequently, so do I...

Cordiality,

Fabrizio

PS. for the others... Please pardon the rant...