Tal J-8

[Agreed]

Acting as though customers who didn't know anything about the company or its business practices should have just somehow "known" that the price was too good, even though it is hardly a crazy price in plugin world, is being unfair. This whole thing is on TAL, because Patrick apparently agreed to run this promotion without reading the email thoroughly enough to understand what he was agreeing to. The panicked response of just shutting down licenses is about as ugly of a brute-force fix as you can get to such a situation but it does at least stop the bleeding and that was obviously the priority. Audio Deluxe is going farther to build goodwill in the aftermath of all this, even though it seems they were absolutely in no way responsible, and that has a look too.

Some of you have posted acting like it was "stupid" of them to think that TAL wanted to do this promotion, but here's the thing, pals, none of us (and none of TAL's current or former retail partners) are mind readers and so we rely on people to know what they mean when they say "yes, I will do that," and to do what they say when they agree to something. I'm not perma-pissed at Patrick for agreeing to something he wished he hadn't and taking the only way out of that he could. But, he definitely did that after the sales were made which he had told them to offer at that price in the first place, regardless of his understandable regret later when he realized that a more thorough reading would have lead him to have made a different decision.

TAL is clearly a beloved developer by some of y'all and I can appreciate the record of quality that would lead to such a fanbase's loyalty. That's cool, that's good and how it should be. But, it's not like anyone here who was trying to be a customer did anything wrong, and it's not like the storefront did anything wrong either. Not a great situation, here's hoping nothing like this repeats in the future.

[midi sentinel]

I wonder what the Venn diagram would be, of people defending TAL now and people earlier saying how iZotope/ADSR/NI/etc had to respect every order.

Incredible.

[elassi]

... none of us (and none of TAL's current OR now-former retail partners) are mind readers ...

Correct.

And therefore we don't know what they discussed internally since the issue became obvious to all (commercial) participants.

Just an idea: Could it be, that TAL didn't go public about this matter from the very beginning because of ongoing negotiations/problem-solving with AD and this still-unknown US-reseller?

Hmm?

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

This thread makes me want to buy TAL Drum at full price.

[Agreed]

And therefore we don't know what they discussed internally since the issue became obvious to all (commercial) participants.

Just an idea: Could it be, that TAL didn't go public about this matter from the very beginning because of ongoing negotiations/problem-solving with AD and this still-unknown US-reseller?

Hmm?

I have absolutely no idea, man, all we can really do is speculate on anything that does not actually stand revealed. Me personally I'd be coming up with a statement to address the matter (and prepping a 13% off sale as originally intended, for the web site, maybe with an additional courtesy voucher for "the trouble" that can be applied at checkout for another $5 off or whatever since direct sales can usually absorb that little of a discount and remain plenty profitable sans distribution overhead). I'd be looking at how to try to recapture goodwill from anyone who was serious enough to buy but soured because of the promotional debacle. But, that's just me, Patrick is the captain of the good ship TAL and it remains to be seen what if anything will be done to address the situation.

This thread makes me want to buy TAL Drum at full price.

Do it, Funkybot, buy ten licenses at full price even. Twenty! A hundred! Donate them to a local school, be the hero

[egbert101]

Here's an idea: don't sell something if it's not in stock (i.e., don't sell licenses when you don't possess them). Of course we were under the assumption that there were valid licenses (I asked this forum specifically if AudioDeluxe were legit).

[Agreed]

Here's an idea: don't sell something if it's not in stock (i.e., don't sell licenses when you don't possess them). Of course we were under the assumption that there were valid licenses (I asked this forum specifically if AudioDeluxe were legit).

There's a lot we don't know about how the distribution of licenses works behind the scenes - the only thing we know for certain is TAL issues them and can cut off that supply, but the usual route that sales take from retail partners to the U.S. distributor to TAL is not transparent just from what we've learned here. I'm not so sure it's abnormal to sell in advance of having the licenses - certainly, this is far from the only promotion where you buy the product and then wait for license delivery, and they're not lacking legitimacy, and certainly Audio Deluxe is a legit storefront that deals honestly in many products.

TAL just had the opportunity to force the sale to end immediately by refusing to deliver new licenses, which they did. Audio Deluxe had no way to know that they weren't going to honor the agreement until that happened. I know Patrick implies that they kept selling after TAL told them not to, but my personal experience suggests the window of time between the deal being valid versus the deal being invalid, and then the amount of time between the deal being invalid and the products being removed from the storefront entirely was very short indeed. They did not continue to sell it for some long time after shit hit the fan.

[zvenx]

I buy from audio deluxe all the time and have for years, so yes they are legit.

rsp

[funky lime]

well if anyone permanently swearing off TAL because of this wants to offload their TAL-Drum or TAL-Sampler license , feel free to hit me up

[audenso]

Majority of people bitching in this thread didn’t want to support TAL in the first place,

The question is, are customers OBLIGED to support every seller in the market? I’m using audio software from more than 9 different developers. If I “support” them all by buying at full price, I’ll be on my way to bankruptcy.

In the opposite case, if I go bust will those developers support me back? I’m sure that they couldn’t care less about my financial situation.

Why should I then?

Businesses care only about profit, some do also offer good support to make sure that their profit is even higher, others don’t.

I prefer to buy the best possible plugins for my needs at the lowest possible prices and I avoid obsessing with one single developer… don’t put your eggs in one basket.

[chk071]

Majority of people bitching in this thread didn’t want to support TAL in the first place, all they want is another plugin for cheap and probably forget about it when another deal comes around the corner .

All plugin sales "support" the developers, as the developers agree to the sales.

But, I don't base my buying decisions on whether a developer is worth of supporting, rather on whether or not I like and would make use of the product. This is no charity or anything.

[midi sentinel]

I support my family and friends.

I absolutely don't care about "supporting" audio plugin developers.

I do business with them.

[Ghost_Train]

Being a longtime TAL user it sucks to see this tension arise toward him. The dev is awesome. A very rare type of person doing this business. He's always been fast to respond to support requests, very humble, and seems to actually care about the users. Ive reported many bugs and watching him fix it over night and personally send me unreleased updated versions just to see if its working the way I wanted. No other dev has done this in my experience. And also very open to suggestions. Its unfortunate. But this is one of those devs I actually want to pay full price to just to support the biz. I have a feeling after this he might not want to partake in anymore 3rd party sales.

[Ghost_Train]

So if AudioDeluxe wants to buy licenses from resellers for let's say $35 (with the expectation the MSRP will be $60) then turn around and sell them for $11, they certainly should be allowed to. It's not like Patrick gets any less than if Audio Deluxe sold at full price. It should be AD taking the loss.

It de-values the product and TAL will have trouble selling J-8’s at full price moving forward. A good example of this is NI’s u-he sales.

This!!!
As a great fan of Patrick's work.. this does concern me.
rsp

Hoepfully it doesn't make too much of a mess. Thankfully it didn't go on for too long, but now it does show up in plugin price history trackers. As an existing customer im not personally shaken by it. I know his stuff is solid and worth the fair price. Black Friday is always good too direct from the official site. I'm hoping for all parties it can be "we messed up. lesson learned. lets do better and get back to business as usual"

[zvenx]

Couldn't have said it better.
Dsp wise in his roland stuff he is in the top tier to me.

rsp

Being a longtime TAL user it sucks to see this tension arise toward him. The dev is awesome. A very rare type of person doing this business. He's always been fast to respond to support requests, very humble, and seems to actually care about the users. Ive reported many bugs and watching him fix it over night and personally send me unreleased updated versions just to see if its working the way I wanted. No other dev has done this in my experience. And also very open to suggestions. Its unfortunate. But this is one of those devs I actually want to pay full price to just to support the biz. I have a feeling after this he might not want to partake in anymore 3rd party sales.