Soundtoys, where free = $39

[noiseboyuk]

I've been merrily installing all my plugins on a new Win 11 machine. Only one refusal out of the hundreds that I have - Little Microshift, a decent little freebie from several years back.

An administrator has blocked you from running this App - LittleMicroShift64_443.exe

Two other Soundtoys plugins installed fine so I wrote to support for help. I got the reply today:

It looks like you are trying to run our current software with a V1 MicroShift license. Unfortunately, our V1 software is no longer supported so you will have to upgrade to V5 in order to use this license on a new device. You should see an option to upgrade in your Soundtoys account on the Soundtoys.com website.

I hope this helps and please let me know if you have any other questions!

I duly went to look, and found the upgrade was $39.

To carry on using the free plugin.

What a little microshit.

Waves needs the WUP for a major OS update, but actually I installed their ancient v9 and v10 plugins just fine on win 11. So when everyone is bitching about Waves, just so as you know - Sountoys is worse.

EDIT 12/1 - a kind poster here PM'd me the oriignal installer which worked on Win 11 without a hitch. I didn't request it from support as their wording was clear (and innacurate) that I will have to upgrade for $39. Hopefully support will improve a little as a result - I've made them aware of the solution and will post here if I get a response.

EDIT 12/1 scroll to post on p4 to see Support's response - seems they misread what plugin I had.

[jens]

Did you run the original installer from back then?

[noiseboyuk]

Did you run the original installer from back then?

Good idea thanks, I'll have a rummage tomorrow and see if I still have it lying around anywhere.

[Razzia]

I mean, it's not actually a free plugin. You got it for free presumably because they were giving it away temporarily. I think you'd be a lot more justified in your grievance if you had actually paid for it, like the people who can no longer authorize their Reason 8 license.

Of course when a developer changes their licensing scheme and in order to authorize a piece of software you're required to upgrade it's beyond annoying, and in a lot of cases I think negligent or even underhanded. It flies in the face of the whole concept of a "perpetual" license.

That said, Soundtoys have been very generous with their customers. They routinely give away promotional copies of their plugins and add plugins to v5 bundle at no extra charge to existing owners. I bought v5 around five years ago, which is pretty close to when it came out I think. In that time they've added: Little Alterboy, Sie-Q, Little Plate, and Echoboy Jr. to my bundle for free, along with a bunch of updates and maintenance. Version 5.4 with Super Plate is the first time they've asked me to pay for an addition to the bundle. And that's without even taking into account that I upgraded to v5 from several licenses that they gave away on a pay-what-you-want basis for a charity event. In light of that, I'm less inclined to think of this as some greedy transgression.

[noiseboyuk]

That said, Soundtoys have been very generous with their customers. They routinely give away promotional copies of their plugins and add plugins to v5 bundle at no extra charge to existing owners. I bought v5 around five years ago, which is pretty close to when it came out I think. In that time they've added: Little Alterboy, Sie-Q, Little Plate, and Echoboy Jr. to my bundle for free, along with a bunch of updates and maintenance. Version 5.4 with Super Plate is the first time they've asked me to pay for an addition to the bundle. And that's without even taking into account that I upgraded to v5 from several licenses that they gave away on a pay-what-you-want basis for a charity event. In light of that, I'm less inclined to think of this as some greedy transgression.

Which is all great... so why throw up over all that goodwill by charging $39 for a user to keep using what they originally gave them for free?

A senseless reputation-killer.

[whyterabbyt]

so you got something free, and your complaint is that you dont also get all updates and upgrades free in perpetuity?

[noiseboyuk]

so you got something free, and your complaint is that you dont also get all updates and upgrades free in perpetuity?

Here's the thing. At no point did Soundtoys ever say to me "just a heads up - this thing is coming towards EOL, from here it's a paid product". At least Waves are upfront about what you're covered for and when - paid or free (yes they give free products too). They send a message when the WUP is about to expire. And if it does expire, they still give you acesss to legacy installers, so if you can install them on your OS - as I could only this week - you're good to go. (it was a faff, but it got done).

As it was, the first I heard about this with Soundtoys was an error message saying an administator has blocked me from installing my product. Unlock code - $39.

And yet Waves are the bad guys, and Soundtoys are wonderful.

[mothra]

You got a license for V1 for free, and can keep using that as long as you want. You weren't given V2, V3, V4, V5 for free.

[ghettosynth]

That said, Soundtoys have been very generous with their customers. They routinely give away promotional copies of their plugins and add plugins to v5 bundle at no extra charge to existing owners. I bought v5 around five years ago, which is pretty close to when it came out I think. In that time they've added: Little Alterboy, Sie-Q, Little Plate, and Echoboy Jr. to my bundle for free, along with a bunch of updates and maintenance. Version 5.4 with Super Plate is the first time they've asked me to pay for an addition to the bundle. And that's without even taking into account that I upgraded to v5 from several licenses that they gave away on a pay-what-you-want basis for a charity event. In light of that, I'm less inclined to think of this as some greedy transgression.

Which is all great... so why throw up over all that goodwill by charging $39 for a user to keep using what they originally gave them for free?

A senseless reputation-killer.

So, while I agree with Razzia here, Soundtoys has been great in the past, Sie-Q and Little-Plate are excellent, I also agree with you as well. The upgrade to the full bundle was pretty cheap at one point and offset by having all the free things that they gave away. My guess is that they are hurting for cash and the number of people who complain are small compared to those that have taken advantage of their offers to upgrade over the years.

[machinesworking]

I don't really understand your logic here? you got something that you usually pay for, for free, then the upgrade to use it on the latest version of Windows cost a whopping $39, and you're mad at them? You literally were given something free and to use it you have to upgrade to the full version, which includes Little Microshift as well.

Different people have entirely different attitudes I guess? In the same situation I would be thinking, "Well, I've been using their product for free forever, and $39 doesn't cover dinner for two anymore. No big deal." Then there's what you did here.

[Greenstorm33]

Can you go into your account and download the v1 installer? I only have v5 plugins but it lists them all and provides me with a download link for each. If you can't then that's pretty crappy. If you're going to charge for updates then you need to provide people with a way to download the version of the product that they payed for.

p.s. how old is that license? Soundtoys 5 came out in 2015.

[Razzia]

Different people have entirely different attitudes I guess? In the same situation I would be thinking, "Well, I've been using their product for free forever, and $39 doesn't cover dinner for two anymore. No big deal." Then there's what you did here.

This was my feeling with the 5.4 upgrade. God knows I don't need another plate reverb. I've got them from UAD, Black Rooster, Valhalla, Arturia, Pro R2 has a plate algo now, and so on. But I've been using this bundle for (correction to my previous post - time flies) 8 or 9 years now, and unless they substantially change their business practices I will probably get even more additions to the bundle down the road for the $29 upgrade price.

No disrespect or criticsm directed at noiseboyuk. I just don't really think this complaint has much merit. Most of the basis of the argument is revolves around being charged to update a free plugin, but it was never *actually* a free plugin. It was a paid plugin that they gave away for a while as a promo.

[gjunk]

I try to keep a copy of the installers for plugins since you don’t know for sure if you will be able to access the old installers in the future. Feels like a waste of space sometimes but gives some peace of mind

[Kypresso]

That said, Soundtoys have been very generous with their customers. They routinely give away promotional copies of their plugins and add plugins to v5 bundle at no extra charge to existing owners. I bought v5 around five years ago, which is pretty close to when it came out I think. In that time they've added: Little Alterboy, Sie-Q, Little Plate, and Echoboy Jr. to my bundle for free, along with a bunch of updates and maintenance. Version 5.4 with Super Plate is the first time they've asked me to pay for an addition to the bundle. And that's without even taking into account that I upgraded to v5 from several licenses that they gave away on a pay-what-you-want basis for a charity event. In light of that, I'm less inclined to think of this as some greedy transgression.

Which is all great... so why throw up over all that goodwill by charging $39 for a user to keep using what they originally gave them for free?

A senseless reputation-killer.

The only reputation getting killed here is yours, maybe you should change your name to whinyboyuk.

[revvy]

Doesn’t Soundtoys know who Guy is? Pretty shocked they’re not giving him a free upgrade