Official Arturia VCollection5 thread

[exmatproton]

A Synclavier that, if released by a company like U-he, would cost at least $199 on its own. Until you've dived into this beast you have no clue what it's capable of doing.

Well, a Synclavier, released on its own by a company like Arturia, costs – guess what?

Good guess: $199. Plus European VAT
/Joachim

Might also be noted that the U-He pricing references vs Arturia are not apples-to-apples:

Let me ask you a question. How many updates has Zebra 2 had? I can't recall any since I bought it 2 years ago. And I'm sure the next update is going to be Zebra 3 which I will have to pay for.

So what exactly is the difference?

I've had a lot of revisions...started at 2xxx and now up to 38xx. Dunno what you mean....

[lnikj]

The old GUIs are from an era when resolution was lower than now. The Minimoog V was initially released in 2004 and that kind of interface was fine at the time.

It's not strange a new GUI is a paid upgrade. Obviously I prefer when it's free but I'm fine with paying because this is something introduced after my initial purchase, it's a new requirement, it's part of the maintenance. It can be paid maintenance because they sold the software "as is" (and we purchased it as it was, knowing the GUI state), they didn't state the new gui in development was part of that purchase, so it's actually a new requirement (and they can charge for that). It should have been implemented way back, but that's another thing.

I'm fortunate I only have a few single items, so I didn't spend much this time (I upgraded them individually, I'm not interested in having all those keys in my setup).
Buying a full suite/bundle gives a lot for the money, with the drawback of being forced to upgrade the whole suite and not just the single items that are used. But that's the deal with every company.


If some companies don't charge for maintenance (or even new features), that's up to their business model (and kudos to them!), they do maintenance in order to keep their products on the market and get new customers (and that of course benefits existing customers).
As customers, we are only entitled to ask for what's been sold to us (both advertised as ready or as a future upgrade included with the purchase) and free bug fixes if that doesn't work as expected on the platform the software supported when sold. If we get something more, that's completely up to the developer.
Arturia, in my opinion, has adopted "the suite business model": make a lot of stuffs, sell them as a whole package, charge customers from time to time both for maintenance and to add a bunch of new stuffs in the suite, then repeat. It's the same as Komplete.

I'm going off topic...

+1

I have been a serial complainer about Arturia's interfaces, and actually sold V4 in the end because of them. I now own just 4 of the synths, which I have upgraded individually, and may pick up a couple more in due course.

I have no problem whatsoever about paying for those GUI upgrades. As Wagtunes said, I now own a Modular, Arp and CS-80 that I can actually program. My SEM was OK before, but those 3 were unusable for me. Makes me very happy.

[beely]

The old GUIs are from an era when resolution was lower than now. The Minimoog V was initially released in 2004 and that kind of interface was fine at the time.

Not only that, but people would *complain* when interfaces were "too big" because they took up screen space!

[beely]

Let me ask you a question. How many updates has Zebra 2 had? I can't recall any since I bought it 2 years ago.

Over Z2's lifetime, it had *loads* of (free) updates, new features and so on. Sounds like you jumped on board towards the later stages, when it was mostly mature and u-he were focusing on other things...

[murnau]

And I'm sure the next update is going to be Zebra 3 which I will have to pay for.

Not if you bought Zebra HZ ...

Exactly. Anyway to stay on topic. Arturia would better gave away only the updated bigger GUI's for free to their existing customers who aren't interested in new plugins (v5) nor the updated rest (v4). So everybody would be satisfied and nobody would bitch (amen to that). I doubt that they would lose money if they had done it that way: Instead we all would praise them for their sense of fairness.

[exmatproton]

And I'm sure the next update is going to be Zebra 3 which I will have to pay for.

Not if you bought Zebra HZ ...

Exactly. Anyway to stay on topic. Arturia would better gave away only the updated bigger GUI's for free to their existing customers who aren't interested in new plugins (v5) nor the updated rest (v4). So everybody would be satisfied and nobody would bitch (amen to that). I doubt that they would lose money if they had done it that way: Instead we all would praise them for their sense of fairness.

+ 3.14 i totally agree on that.

[lnikj]

Exactly. Anyway to stay on topic. Arturia would better gave away only the updated bigger GUI's for free to their existing customers who aren't interested in new plugins (v5) nor the updated rest (v4). So everybody would be satisfied and nobody would bitch (amen to that). I doubt that they would lose money if they had done it that way: Instead we all would praise them for their sense of fairness.

Why would they bother to do it? I see no reason why they shouldn't charge for it.

I have a long list of other devs whom I would like to produce updated GUIs for their plugins. Sending them the message that nobody thinks they should have to pay them for their development time is hardly encouraging.

[ghettosynth]

I bought the upgrade, I went from v3 to v5, and I am happy with what I paid for. I bought v3 when Arturia had a 50% discount, and now I could upgrade to v5 for 199 euros; extra instruments, VST3 plugins. Kudos to Arturia, for not forgetting their software customers.

Now that is a neat upgrade for sure

Going from V3 is a much better value as you are getting more instruments and a lot of updates. What I've learned from this is that it's best with Arturia not to upgrade every cycle just like with NI. I wish that I had skipped V4, then this wouldn't seem so bad.

[Daags]

you'd miss out on spark though, which isn't included in 3 (right?) and for some reason isn't included in 5 ... which may hold much more appeal to certain users than modelled pianos and organs.


I'm not happy about Spark being omitted from the Collection. it has a bit of a bait & switch feeling to it. Certainly if Spark continues to be updated with paid upgrades.

[4damind]

We should keep in mind: if Arturia has not changed this, the update offer with $9,99/$99 or $199 is only valid until June 30th.

In my account I see for the full update a striked out price of 499€/$ so this means that also existing customers must pay the same full price starting with July 1th?
I think this is something they should rethink... a special upgrade price for existing customers should have a constant discount.

I see also in my account that they removed the end date for the 99€/$ offer and added a description (this is the actual text):

Update your VC4 individual software instruments for 99 €/$.
!! This will only update the instruments your already own !!

So there is of course the question: have they forget to add the "valid until" stuff or is this now a constant offer for upgrading only V4 plugins to V5?

[JonSolo]

Ok...

Is there anyway to turn off that stupid click sound on the B3 when switching from slow to fast Leslie?

[Sequent]

I'm going to venture a guess that they may have 'paid a pretty penny' for that Synclavier source code, so they need to recoup a little. I'm not overly excited by the upgrade price (especially if mainly to fix the gui's), on the other hand I think it's okay. I'm thinking of it as $99 to update the collection and $100 for the Synclavier. Looking at it that way it's a pretty good deal.

[Daags]

We should keep in mind: if Arturia has not changed this, the update offer with $9,99/$99 or $199 is only valid until June 30th.

In my account I see for the full update a striked out price of 499€/$ so this means that also existing customers must pay the same full price starting with July 1th?
I think this is something they should rethink... a special upgrade price for existing customers should have a constant discount.

I see also in my account that they removed the end date for the 99€/$ offer and added a description (this is the actual text):

Update your VC4 individual software instruments for 99 €/$.
!! This will only update the instruments your already own !!

So there is of course the question: have they forget to add the "valid until" stuff or is this now a constant offer for upgrading only V4 plugins to V5?

ya, there is some fuckery & shenanigans afoot here.
they clearly want to incentivise early-adoption, but I didn't bother since $199 is the typical upgrade price ... other than getting a marginally better deal from a 3rd party.


in the email sent to me about my personal V5 offer ... they initially word it 'For a limited time, get the V Collection 5 for 199€ instead of 499€!' ... which leaves the door open for some 'oh well when saying 499 that's not an upgrade price, thats just the full price' kind of excuse. which is of course an absolute stretch. especially since it's a false dichotomy ... because as an existing v-collection owner (which is clearly indicated in the personalised email subject), there's no way I will be expected to pay the full 499 euro price for the v5 collection under any circumstance. later on though they explicitly say 'upgrade to V Collection 5 for the special price of 199 4̶9̶9̶'

notice that when saying 'upgrade' they don't also specifically say 'instead of 499' as they did earlier in the email... they simply present the figure 499 beside it, albeit crossed out like 4̶9̶9̶ ..and allow your imagination to make the erroneous leap that 499 is the 'regular' upgrade price and 'OMG 199 is a killer deal - better upgrade now, it's worth all the typical early-adopter bugs and teething problems for savings like this! zomfg!!! synclavier!!! hrrnnnnggggg!!'

basically they are engaged in some pretty underhanded manipulation... intentionally pushing the full retail price around in the personalised upgrade emails to compare to my upgrade offer instead of the 'regular' upgrade price.

this is surely bordering on criminal, in the EU at least.


as far as what the 'regular' upgrade price will be, there's no way it should be more than 199 anyway, but to justify all this 'for a limited time! get it now now now!' chicanery I can't see them charging above 50% full-retail price for the 'regular' upgrade. Currently the full-retail price is 399 (with the 'regular' full price indicated to be 499), and the upgrade is 199 ... so ... expect 'regular' upgrade to be 250 I guess.

and it occurs to me now that the initial line of the email that reads 'For a limited time, get the V Collection 5 for 199€ instead of 499€!' .... should in fact read 'For a limited time, get the V Collection 5 for 199€ instead of 399€!' .... since it is for a limited time, it should be compared to the limited time full price ... not the 'regular' full price. More wilfull manipulation. stay classy Arturia. Although, they shouldn't be citing full prices at all in this context ...but rather 'regular' upgrade prices. but still.

/ramble

[ke2041]

Kevin [@ Arturia]

Why is sustain control via sustain pedal (cc 64) still not supported on many Arturia's plugs in V5? This has been an outstanding request for years on synths like Solina and Matrix (Arturia support have responded in the past that it would be 'Added to the list').

Usability/Playability of these plugs is diminished by the lack consistent Midi behavior here. It even 'sounds' wrong when you try to sustain layered plugs (e.g. in Analog Lab) when one of the plugs does not support sustain pedaling.

I've requested an option for instruments like Matrix12V and Solina which do not respect CC64 and indefinitely sustain volume envelopes. Others users have repeated my request.

So why does Arturia resist this request?

Thanks, Regards,
Kevin L

Hi,
I am sorry that this has not been fixed for this update.
We will update the instruments in the upcoming months so it should be possible to do it.
Adding a setting is a very good idea indeed.

Kevin

[plexuss]

You all know that after these initial offers the prices will go DOWN. i dont believe artiura when they imply after the inital "sale" prices will go up. maybe for the collection but the upgrades will likely remain the same. then in some months we will see good sales on both the collection and upgrades, then permanently reduced prices, then V6 and the cycle begins.

Its always better to wait unless you just have to have it now. if you want it now you will pay more compared to waiting.

these days I just wait. unless its something I need right away and/or I am flush with cash.

It only takes about 6 months of getting into the plugin game to be subjected to the hairy world of inconsistent business practices from plugin devs, to learn, by losing money jumping on board too soon, to wait it out.

Example (non music software):
i purchased some previous software a photo software company sold during a sale. four months later they bundled them together and offered the bundle at a price about 1/2 what I paid on sale. The bundle was a paid upgrade for me. the software was updated a little bit. I complained and they gave me a discount on the bundle but it was still a lot than if I just waited. then 2 months later they dropped the price even more. it infuriated me. then they came out with a new package that they didnt add to the bundle. i was offered a slight discount. i emailed them telling them i dont trust them and i will wait. they kept enticing me with deeper and deeper personalized discounts down to 30% off. there has been no sale on this since as it is a good seller. i caved and bought it. then i had buyers remourse because i know they will deep discount it at some point. so i emailed asking for a refund and explaining i dont trust their pricing practices. refund was granted. now i will just wait.

I could have waited for the arturia upgrade sale that will likely eventually come but I ok with paying more now. I can make use of all the updates and additions but I know full well if I waited I would save money.