Musikmesse 2012: Propellerhead to share "exciting news"

[Meffy]

*shrug* I think Reason's great too, as I do Sonar and lots of VSTs and VSTis. They're not mutually exclusive. Feel free to reply, just try to keep things in perspective. Might help to remember that nobody's mind is likely to change due to arguments in a Web forum. :-}

Few things have saved me more online time than remembering that one XKCD comic, "Duty Calls."

[EnochLight]

(and won't bother replying to his latest rant about how great PH stuff is...)

That's a pity. Was looking forward to a level headed response from you. Oh well!

As a side note, if it looked as if I was stating PH stuff is great, that was not my intention. My intention was offer an alternative viewpoint to your scathing and often incorrect accusations.

[headquest]

As someone who has bought all the PH products and updates for the last decade I'm entitled to an opinion, and to share my experiences and close observations of them, even if we disagree or our experiences have been different

But as I mentioned earlier, if their customer service had helped me politely and if they offered a good ongoing upgrade path for their loyal customers, then my attitude would probably be more generous. We are all biased in our own way, after all.

If you search back in KVR history you will find threads over many years where I was the only person on KVR who defended PH and was often attacked by people for doing so, lol. How times have changed.

[christianmusicmaker]

] The failure of Record (a tailor made product for their own userbase) must make devs more than a bit cautious. Re could work but then again it could go the same way as Record in a few years, it is a gamble.

I realize it must be easy to see Record as a failure, but every single one of its features (including GUI and workflow) lives on in Reason currently.

The existence of features from a product pulled from a developer shop for good, but then found in another sibling product does not mean the product somehow succeeded. Records features were desirable to many but in the wrong product.That IMO was the key reason why the product failed.

If it was a success Propellerhead would still be selling it (separately). There are a business and it would make no sense at all to release a product with so much fanfare only to pull the product completely and then roll the features into it's sibling product. It failed as a standalone product. It did not sell enough copies to justify it's existence.

It is in no way necessarily a bad thing to have a product fail as it can (in the case of Reason) lead to another product being enhanced as a result. But IMHO...Record still was a failure and likely at some cost to the Props. A surprising failure at that, as it was a tailor made product for the Reason user base.

From the way I interpret it, Record was merged with Reason probably because Reason was being looked at as a lesser product since you had to buy Record just to have audio recording and the far superior SSL mixer. I think Propellerhead made the conscious choice to eliminate Record as a separate product since Reason had been their flagship for a decade.

Only the Props really know but as business you have to get a sustainable return on any investment to sustain the development of a product. Props simply did not get enough of that with Record. I am 99% certain Props would have got Re out of the door instead of Record if they had known Record would have failed.

Cakewalks Project 5 was also a failed product. Sonar has inherited many of it's features that does not mean P5 did not fail. Neither Project 5 or Record exist because neither product was deemed successful enough to be supported and developed any further. This is a harsh reality for any business. Some things work out and some simply do not.

The response from the user community has been overwhelmingly positive, and I don't think I've ever read a review on Reason since Record was merged with it that portrayed it in a negative light (aside from the usual notes of missing MIDI out and no VSTi).

Positive reviews? Yes. I think Reason is a far better product with Records features.

Still, as the only other separate product to emerge post-ReCycle/ReBirth (aside from Balance), I can see how the elimination of Record as a standalone product might make people think.

It is something that could be stumbling block for the Props. I suspect any dev considering Re should start with apps / plugs not present in Reason Essentials (but present in the full R6) and code a single unique product. A relatively simple but also very cheap plugin for Re ($10 or so). See how that sells then add a second plug if they are happy with the results. Pushing huge dev resources in Re too early, especially if it goes the way of Record could be a very costly mistake.

[EnochLight]

As someone who has bought all the PH products and updates for the last decade I'm entitled to an opinion, and to share my experiences and close observations of them, even if we disagree or our experiences have been different

But as I mentioned earlier, if their customer service had helped me politely and if they offered a good ongoing upgrade path for their loyal customers, then my attitude would probably be more generous. We are all biased in our own way, after all.

If you search back in KVR history you will find threads over many years where I was the only person on KVR who defended PH and was often attacked by people for doing so, lol. How times have changed.

I don't think we were talking about upgrade options or customer service; we were talking about feature requests and your accusations that Propellerhead does not listen to their customer's feature request. But, if you want to switch subjects - that's fine.

I've only had to deal with customer service a few times. Twice I had almost instant resolve to my issue. Once it took a few days because they were back logged after a new release. I'd still rate my experience as positive. YYMV. Regarding upgrade paths for their loyal customers?? You can't be serious, right? Every version that has come out has been offered at a substantially discounted rate to users who had a previous license. Maybe our idea of affordable is different, but I've always felt the price they asked for upgrades between major versions was fair and affordable.

We should probably just agree to disagree and go our separate ways. As the mod said, opinions are unlikely to change from either camp. ;^)

[EnochLight]

] The failure of Record (a tailor made product for their own userbase) must make devs more than a bit cautious. Re could work but then again it could go the same way as Record in a few years, it is a gamble.

I realize it must be easy to see Record as a failure, but every single one of its features (including GUI and workflow) lives on in Reason currently.

The existence of features from a product pulled from a developer shop for good, but then found in another sibling product does not mean the product somehow succeeded. Records features were desirable to many but in the wrong product.That IMO was the key reason why the product failed.

If it was a success Propellerhead would still be selling it (separately). There are a business and it would make no sense at all to release a product with so much fanfare only to pull the product completely and then roll the features into it's sibling product. It failed as a standalone product. It did not sell enough copies to justify it's existence.

It is in no way necessarily a bad thing to have a product fail as it can (in the case of Reason) lead to another product being enhanced as a result. But IMHO...Record still was a failure and likely at some cost to the Props. A surprising failure at that, as it was a tailor made product for the Reason user base.

From the way I interpret it, Record was merged with Reason probably because Reason was being looked at as a lesser product since you had to buy Record just to have audio recording and the far superior SSL mixer. I think Propellerhead made the conscious choice to eliminate Record as a separate product since Reason had been their flagship for a decade.

Only the Props really know but as business you have to get a sustainable return on any investment to sustain the development of a product. Props simply did not get enough of that with Record. I am 99% certain Props would have got Re out of the door instead of Record if they had known Record would have failed.

Cakewalks Project 5 was also a failed product. Sonar has inherited many of it's features that does not mean P5 did not fail. Neither Project 5 or Record exist because neither product was deemed successful enough to be supported and developed any further. This is a harsh reality for any business. Some things work out and some simply do not.

The response from the user community has been overwhelmingly positive, and I don't think I've ever read a review on Reason since Record was merged with it that portrayed it in a negative light (aside from the usual notes of missing MIDI out and no VSTi).

Positive reviews? Yes. I think Reason is a far better product with Records features.

Still, as the only other separate product to emerge post-ReCycle/ReBirth (aside from Balance), I can see how the elimination of Record as a standalone product might make people think.

It is something that could be stumbling block for the Props. I suspect any dev considering Re should start with apps / plugs not present in Reason Essentials (but present in the full R6) and code a single unique product. A relatively simple but also very cheap plugin for Re ($10 or so). See how that sells then add a second plug if they are happy with the results. Pushing huge dev resources in Re too early, especially if it goes the way of Record could be a very costly mistake.

This is true. That said, if both Record and Project 5 truly FAILED as a product, we wouldn't have seen their features appear in each companies' flagship product. They did fail as standalone products though.

[eXode]

...just bear in mind if youi buy one of their beds, you will be trapped buying your mattresses and bedding from their store forever. They have their own bespoke bed sizes that are incompatible with everyone else in the world ;)

This is funny because IKEA as you know is swedish, just like myself. And the beds from IKEA follow the same standard as every other bed manufacturer in sweden, afaik.

Also, IKEA's most expensive beds have repeatedly won different tests here in sweden against other bed makers whose beds cost five time as much.

How about that for useless information? :)

[darsho]

...just bear in mind if youi buy one of their beds, you will be trapped buying your mattresses and bedding from their store forever. They have their own bespoke bed sizes that are incompatible with everyone else in the world

This is funny because IKEA as you know is swedish, just like myself. And the beds from IKEA follow the same standard as every other bed manufacturer in sweden, afaik.

+1

The beds they are selling here in Germany have the same sizes as those of other manufacturers as well.
I don't think that's useless information, btw.
Most people need beds and are likely to buy new ones every once in a while, so it could be helpful to know.

I don't have an IKEA bed, btw, nor do I work for that company

[Meffy]

I refuse to buy any mattress that requires a dongle ("do not remove under penalty of law").

And yes, I happen to enjoy sleeping on floorboards. Good for the back. Builds character. *nod* *aches* :-}

[hotmitts]

So you can get beds on the Propellerheads webstore now? Will they be compatible with existing Duvet technology or will I need an upgrade?

[Meffy]

Your duvet will have to be stuffed with fibRefill, but that's the best kind anyway.

[liquidsound]

I refuse to buy any mattress that requires a dongle ("do not remove under penalty of law").

And yes, I happen to enjoy sleeping on floorboards. Good for the back. Builds character. *nod* *aches* :-}

specially the inflated ones from Sweden

[headquest]

LOL. So now I've upset the IKEA fans too?

In the UK and USA mattress sizes are different from the Swedish standard. As a more general observation, some companies develop their products to the international markets they trade in (for example, which side shall we put the steering wheel?) while others just do what they do.

Nothing wrong with that of course, at least when it comes to beds

So long as UK customers understand the restrictions. And so long as they don't go to trade shows and spout BS about their competitors. "What's the worst thing that can happen in the middle a sleeping session? That's right - the bed crashes".

[liquidsound]

[bmrzycki]

I bought a bedframe from IKEA, it's a (US) standard queen size. I didn't have to buy anything special, but your YMMV.