FL Studio over Reaper?

[N__K]

Well, a DAW is literally means of production. Some users rely on it daily, as essential part of (work)life. Having means of production out of private control [of users] is getting rather worrisome, albeit deliciously cyberpunk-ish in a dystopian way.

Imagine having to sign into a hammer to use it - or, more likely, into a drill or some other power tool. I'm sure that at least one generation of humans will be OK with that, for a while.

"You have exceeded the maximum number of activations allowed for this tool. You have a license limited to a single user within confines of a set geographical area. For the possibility of further activations of this tool, please authenticate with your fingerprint and your retinal scan to ensure that you aren't loaning this tool to another person, and submit an explanation of your abnormal usage."

^ I'm sure that something like the above will happen for some power tools, within the lifetime of many here. In case of software, allowing for some stretch of imagination, that kind of thing already happens with Ableton Live and FL Studio, for example.

For what it's worth, it took me a long while to realize the implications of vendors having the ability to gatekeep my usage of software and hardware tools. But I seem to have learned the lesson.

[liquidsound]

Well, a DAW is literally means of production. Some users rely on it daily, as essential part of (work)life. Having means of production out of private control [of users] is getting rather worrisome, albeit deliciously cyberpunk-ish in a dystopian way.

Imagine having to sign into a hammer to use it - or, more likely, into a drill or some other power tool. I'm sure that at least one generation of humans will be OK with that, for a while.

"You have exceeded the maximum number of activations allowed for this tool. You have a license limited to a single user within confines of a set geographical area. For the possibility of further activations of this tool, please authenticate with your fingerprint and your retinal scan to ensure that you aren't loaning this tool to another person, and submit an explanation of your abnormal usage."

^ I'm sure that something like the above will happen for some power tools, within the lifetime of many here. In case of software, allowing for some stretch of imagination, that kind of thing already happens with Ableton Live and FL Studio, for example.

For what it's worth, it took me a long while to realize the implications of vendors having the ability to gatekeep my usage of software and hardware tools. But I seem to have learned the lesson.

Obviously it’s an issue that you can prevent before buying the software or dealing with the dilemma if the policy changes “after” the purchase. The dilemma is only really experienced if the worse scenario eventually unfolds while you are using it.

So you either switch “now” to prevent something that “will” or “will not” happen, or you switch later when the dilemma comes into existence.

So… why switching earlier (without facts) rather than when it’s real?
The outcome is the same but one is based on speculations.

[Carbonboy]

I strongly dislike FL nowadays for anything.

It keeps getting better. And you like it less.

Strange times.

[apoclypse]

Well, a DAW is literally means of production. Some users rely on it daily, as essential part of (work)life. Having means of production out of private control [of users] is getting rather worrisome, albeit deliciously cyberpunk-ish in a dystopian way.

Imagine having to sign into a hammer to use it - or, more likely, into a drill or some other power tool. I'm sure that at least one generation of humans will be OK with that, for a while.

"You have exceeded the maximum number of activations allowed for this tool. You have a license limited to a single user within confines of a set geographical area. For the possibility of further activations of this tool, please authenticate with your fingerprint and your retinal scan to ensure that you aren't loaning this tool to another person, and submit an explanation of your abnormal usage."

^ I'm sure that something like the above will happen for some power tools, within the lifetime of many here. In case of software, allowing for some stretch of imagination, that kind of thing already happens with Ableton Live and FL Studio, for example.

For what it's worth, it took me a long while to realize the implications of vendors having the ability to gatekeep my usage of software and hardware tools. But I seem to have learned the lesson.

I mean cars are now doing subscription services for heated seats. So we are almost here. The car has the ability built in but you have to pay for the privilege to use it. That’s wild.

[Carbonboy]

I mean cars are now doing subscription services for heated seats. So we are almost here. The car has the ability built in but you have to pay for the privilege to use it. That’s wild.

Yes that's BMW, and its going to end. All it takes is someone to say - Hey free heated steering wheel included. Lifetime free update!

Oh look FL Studio.

[N__K]

I mean cars are now doing subscription services for heated seats. So we are almost here. The car has the ability built in but you have to pay for the privilege to use it. That’s wild.

Yes that's BMW, and its going to end. All it takes is someone to say - Hey free heated steering wheel included. Lifetime free update!

Oh look FL Studio.

FL Studio has become - as Ableton Live and many others - an app which has to be activated online, per each computer. It's getting closer to that BMW example, not further.

Speaking of the lifetime free updates policy, here it is from IL themselves:
https://www.image-line.com/fl-studio/li ... e-updates/

At the moment of posting this, they outright spell it out as "life of the product/s", and the defintion of that lies solely with the company. As far as I know, there are no laws about such things specifically, even in the EU - not yet, anyway. So in the legal sense, IL can redefine those product/s anytime they want, in any way they want.

Meanwhile you will probably continue to encode, via FL Studio, your intellectual property into proprietary .flp files. It's an old thing in the software industry to have a proprietary, undocumented - in the sense of documentation being available in public - file format in order to increase chances of [locking a company's customers into] vendor lock-in.

The .flp files used to have documentation for decoding user-generated information from them: up to v3.x it was included with the install of the app, and up to v11 or so, the lead developer posted format documentation on Looptalk. But these days the company line has changed, and since v21 some of the user-generated information saved inside the .flp files is intentionally obfuscated.

***

If you did not understand much of that, nor do you wish to, that's no problem of mine. Go ahead, be OK with what IL of today offers you - including the company having control over your ability to use the app - and accept any marketing copy as a form of post-purchase rationalization, while (re)formulating it in any way that makes you feel comfortable.

Heck, I'll admit to having been there when I was younger; looking back, it's an interesting (if depressing) condition to observe.

I cannot resist the temptation to paraphrase Nietzsche here: "Who cannot obey themselves will be commanded". There are so many ways to make people believe things which are not really in their advantage. After that, they may go to their graves - sometimes literally - to defend those beliefs. As every propagandist with some knowledge of neurobiology will (not?) tell you, neural paths once formed and continuously reinforced will not disconnect easily.

Perhaps people who don't look enough after their own interests do, in fact, exist to be (ab)used? "Who am I to disagree", indeed.

[...]
I mean cars are now doing subscription services for heated seats. So we are almost here. The car has the ability built in but you have to pay for the privilege to use it. That’s wild.

Yep. Though humans have accepted such things for many hundreds of years, in the form of renting property instead of owning it. Nowadays it's accepted on the cultural level to such extent, that even speaking of the absurdity of it is almost futile.

[...]
Obviously it’s an issue that you can prevent before buying the software or dealing with the dilemma if the policy changes “after” the purchase. The dilemma is only really experienced if the worse scenario eventually unfolds while you are using it.

So you either switch “now” to prevent something that “will” or “will not” happen, or you switch later when the dilemma comes into existence.

So… why switching earlier (without facts) rather than when it’s real?
The outcome is the same but one is based on speculations.

If I understand you correctly, you suggest to wait and see if a bad thing happens to you, instead of trying to prevent it?

If so, I can think of a country right now in which, for the last 30 years, people seem to have thought along those lines. Now they are learning the hard way about the importance (and various meanings of) being an independent state, capable of looking after and defending their own interests within their internationally recognized borders.

Supposedly, a wise person/tribe/etc. would want to avoid getting into arrangements which are not beneficial to them, instead of waiting for unpleasant things to happen to them.
Albeit, nowadays I seriously wonder whether a large portion of any human population is somehow unavoidably predisposed to short-term stupidity and herd mentality comparable to that of prey animals; with capacity to learn (in the sense of acquiring long-term wisdom) tied to having personally experienced various downsides of life - if even then.

[Frankie.T]

Back in time i played an online browser game, with a fair subscription price.

Then this company was aquired by another one, that was silent for a while, till they realized a newer version of the game. Unfortunatly was full of crap and pay2win. For a while they keept up both versions, denying new users registration for the older version, then they decided to close the older one.

In music industry subscriptions let companies to make more money, that's a fact. Fortunatly not every company take that route, but sometimes they does.

Nothing stops IL, or a bigger company that even partially aquire IL to create IL Studio, a newer version of Fl Studio (that will be discontinued) to be subs only, but no worries, you can still open your flp inside IL Studio.
If you don't want to switch to the new IL Studio cause you don't wanna pay, you can always use your Fl Studio, that won't be updated anymore.
"The reason behind that decision is simple, we had to rewrite the whole code, and more needs to be done, so IL Studio have nothing to do with Fl Studio, since every piece of code is rewritten. Then even with our C/R crackers find a way to spread illegal copy at the same speed we had before with the reg.key. So to keep our software live and to give you all the best you may want from a DAW, we decided to make that change.
With this new DAW you also have lots of newer features you asked from long time, like ARA, midi editing in playlists (write what you like) and last but not least a cloud powered IA to assist you in your productions"

Does this sound weird to you? Cause a move like this sounds very natural in a world we are living today.

As someone already pointed out, most DAWs and i'd also say other software too, have a kind of locking feature. Everything it's usually toward to cloud too.

I still want to remember Waves. Lots of people potentially get out of their own purchases and projects, just beacause of an external decision, while i'm still able to load i.e. Melda and FabFilter regardless.
If you go in the effect section you can see a topic about Waves Diamond or something like that, with a good offering, and people seems to have forgotten what Waves did.

Sometimes people seems very fool, and companies feel more free to do whatever they want, since if what they do it works everything is fine, otherwise they are still free to make a step back, and to achieve later what they trying to, with another excuse, or as companies do to achieve that, with a killer feature.

[vurt]

this thread is awesome!

[liquidsound]

[...]
Obviously it’s an issue that you can prevent before buying the software or dealing with the dilemma if the policy changes “after” the purchase. The dilemma is only really experienced if the worse scenario eventually unfolds while you are using it.

So you either switch “now” to prevent something that “will” or “will not” happen, or you switch later when the dilemma comes into existence.

So… why switching earlier (without facts) rather than when it’s real?
The outcome is the same but one is based on speculations.

If I understand you correctly, you suggest to wait and see if a bad thing happens to you, instead of trying to prevent it?

If so, I can think of a country right now in which, for the last 30 years, people seem to have thought along those lines. Now they are learning the hard way about the importance (and various meanings of) being an independent state, capable of looking after and defending their own interests within their internationally recognized borders.

Supposedly, a wise person/tribe/etc. would want to avoid getting into arrangements which are not beneficial to them, instead of waiting for unpleasant things to happen to them.
Albeit, nowadays I seriously wonder whether a large portion of any human population is somehow unavoidably predisposed to short-term stupidity and herd mentality comparable to that of prey animals; with capacity to learn (in the sense of acquiring long-term wisdom) tied to having personally experienced various downsides of life - if even then.

The only minor difference here, based on your essay, is that we are talking about a DAW rather than the destiny of civilization.

Many of us left the plane while those companies are still here giving activations.

Relax…

[vurt]

past you forgot to call him/her "oh wise one".

[Dunbar]

Except for Reaper all the DAWs I own/used to own require a license file that is made for the current computer and OS to be downloaded to function. Live, Bitwig, Studio One. I don't see anyone having a problem with that.

This + this means otoh there aren´t any other alternatives anyway... so either you choose Reaper or you have to deal anyway with a product which goes broke together with the company ... so why worrying... you cannot change it.

MuLab has customer friendly activation, just a reg-code. No need to involve someone else's computer.

I use Plogue Bidual as a host for sequencers and VSTs, when I'm not using Reaper. Bidual also doesn't need someone else's computer to function fully.

[vurt]

i like bidule.

[elassi]

But does it provide mail/femail connectors?

[vurt]

it is fully modular.

[elassi]

Cool. I like Mödularhead.