Software subscriptions revisited. What has worked out for you, and what has not?

[RABid]

I did the Propellerhead Reason offer to current owners of Reason, one year at a discounted price. Not only did I not renew the subscription, I found that I stopped using Reason in that time. I wonder if it was psychological, a resistance to the process that subconsciously pushed me to avoid the product. Let's face it, music creation is very mental and you have to be in a good frame of mind. The big issue for me, the price. I consider the $20 a month cost too high for someone that already has a bunch of the instruments that are included with the subscription. At $10 a month I would have kept it and been happy. It didn't help that recent releases of Reason have had lots of problems.

 

The purchase of a hardware device included a free 6 months of the Roland Cloud middle version. I let it drop and then later signed up for the Ultimate level. I am doing it because there are some real quality instruments included. I'm trying to use Zenbeats. It is fun on iPad and handy on iPhone when I am on a trip, but it is not yet a serious creation tool. I'm hoping it continues to develop into something that will let me create stems to import into Live. Ultimate is the same price as the Reason subscription. So why go with Roland and not Reason? I don't already own any of the Roland software instruments.

 

I finally subscribed to Plugin Alliance, the middle plan. Reasoning, it was going to be a headache to get my UA plugins going on my M1 Air. I bought a couple plugs during the 4th of July sale. ($17.76 was a really good price for many of those VST's.) Finally decided to join the $15 a month level. After 12 months I get a $199 voucher that can be used on sale items. So, I get to try a bunch of stuff for a year and then buy the items I like, with bonus bucks. THIS is how subscriptions should work.

 

I've considered a few other subscriptions. The Studio One offer would be nice but I don't need Studio One. I use Live and Logic. For someone that does not have a good DAW this would be good. There are also some effects subscriptions from other companies that would be nice, but they don't offer to let you use your investment to buy products.

 

So, have you tried any subscriptions.

[David Emm]

I have a single and very positive experience with the Cloud D-50, which I've described enough on the Keyboard side. I'm wary of the subscription idea, because its too easy for your hosts to knock you off your pins. This one has worked well, though. I have to enter my password if I don't play it for a couple of weeks, but its always popped right back into place. I bought a Lifetime Key for it, so we'll see which of us craps out first.

 

I've been Autosampling a lot of it, but certain complex or evolving sounds defy that avenue. Its like any other synth you learn to slot into place over time. IMO, the best buy of the lot is the XV-5080. While stylistically dated in places, its a major treasure chest of meaty basics and Roland history.

 

BTW, the Cloud D-50 sounds a bit brighter to me than the hardware I recall. Sounds like they cleaned up the "D-to-A" convertors.  

[Anderton]

1 hour ago, RABid said:

The Studio One offer would be nice but I don't need Studio One. I use Live and Logic. For someone that does not have a good DAW this would be good.

 

If I was a kid starting out and didn't have a lot of bucks, $15 a month for everything PreSonus has, including plug-ins, sample libraries, and an interactive space for collaborations would be awesome.

 

I think the thing they also got right is that you can still just buy the program. So if already have a bunch of instruments and libraries you've collected over the years, you can go for the DAW, and call it good.

 

What DAW subscriptions need to do, though, is go into read-only mode when your subscription expires. I think it's cruel to leave people with nothing ("hey, all that work you did with our program? Thanks! Now go eff yourself!"). I'd be fine with a subscribed program if you couldn't record into it, but you could open it up, export files to import into a different DAW, and play back mixes you'd already done. I think that would allay the fears among potential buyers that if for whatever reason they didn't want to continue with a subscription, it would be as if they work they did never existed.

 

One of the reasons I like Live for live performance (aside from the fact that the only way to get it to crash is to drop your laptop from 20 feet onto concrete or into a body of water), is that I always knew in a worst-case situation I could download the demo, load my files into what's essentially a read-only mode, and the show would go on.

 

As to Reason...not sure where the company is at these days, but I think their problem is that they came too late to a lot of parties. I trace the start of the decline to when they introduced Record instead of integrating it into Reason, along with using a dongle no one else really seemed to use. And now they've abandoned ReWire, which is leaving a lot of companies (and users, myself included) in a lurch. I don't think that helped their public-facing image. Was it really that difficult to come up with a ReWire library for Apple Silicon? I don't know.

 

 

[RABid]

21 minutes ago, David Emm said:

IMO, the best buy of the lot is the XV-5080.

I was surprised to learn how many MPC hip hoppers use the 5080 and I7 as their main sound source while making loops for the MPC.

[KenElevenShadows]

For audio, I don't have any subscriptions. I do like Craig's idea of a read-only model of a subscription, though.

 

The only software subscription I have is for Lightroom and Photoshop. 

 

As an aside, over twenty years ago, I somehow got a lifetime subscription to Rolling Stone Magazine, which they've honored. Okay, I've gotten way off topic here. I'll stop.

[Anderton]

2 hours ago, KenElevenShadows said:

I do like Craig's idea of a read-only model if a subscription, though.

 

Seems like a no-brainer, doesn't it? Besides, someone opens up the program a year later, thinks "wow, maybe the grass wasn't greener on the other side after all, maybe I should get back into this again...I'll rent for a month, and see if I still have the same chemistry...especially since the program I replaced it with hasn't fixed some really frustrating bugs..."

 

It could happen.

[Bill Heins]

I've got the Photoshop/Lightroom subscription due to the fact that you can't buy the software any more but it's cheap so no biggie Trying to decide whether to go all in on Adobe or not!

 

On the music side I have an EW Composer Cloud Plus subscription, 20.00 a month seems like a good deal to me( I do own the EWSO Platinum Plus, EWSC and VOTA expansioin, and EWQL Pianos Platinum).

 

I'd rather own but these two subscriptions are working well for me!

Bill

 

 

[spokenward]

15 hours ago, David Emm said:

[excerpted]

 

BTW, the Cloud D-50 sounds a bit brighter to me than the hardware I recall. Sounds like they cleaned up the "D-to-A" convertors.  

 Before the Cloud version there was the  V-Synth / VariOS version and people noted something like that.

 

https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/roland-vc1-v-card

 

Quote

Running this code on the V-Synth produced a much cleaner sound than the original D50, because the D-A converters of the V-Synth are better than those of the D50 (not surprising when you consider how technology has marched on since 1987). To get around this, the card offers a 'D50 mode' for those that want it, which restores some of the grunge and aliasing of the original. 

 

[Anderton]

The first time I heard the virtual Korg M1, it sounded sooooo much better because it used my studio's D/A instead of whatever they stuck in the hardware at the time.

 

But back to subscriptions. I have a Perpetual Pro Tools from years ago that still works, but in May I got a subscription to the Artist version for a tips-oriented eBook I'm writing - I wanted the eBook to be up to date. It remains to be seen how much Artist will be updated in the months ahead, although there's already a June version I haven't downloaded yet. 

 

For $10 a month ($99/year), it's a good deal, and will take care of most peoples' needs. It has more plug-ins than my perpetual version, and the UI has been tidied up a bit. I can see this helping to keep Avid's position in the educational space. Pro Tools is still the best way to explain concepts like busing because of how it leans so heavily on the hardware mixer paradigm, and it doesn't get too fancy. Although it's missing some essentials, there are so many free plug-ins to fill the gap that someone getting started with Pro Tools in school will likely want to stay with it once they graduate. They may not even need to go to the next level ($299/year) unless they need surround and Atmos, or use a lot of tracks.

[Anderton]

Although not musical, I'm very happy with Office 365. For $7/month, being able to access all my stuff on all my computers, along with 1 TB of cloud storage, is tough to beat.

[RABid]

51 minutes ago, Anderton said:

Although not musical, I'm very happy with Office 365. For $7/month, being able to access all my stuff on all my computers, along with 1 TB of cloud storage, is tough to beat.

When I retired 4 1/2 years ago I kept a license code for Office just in case. Tried to use it a few months ago but could not find a download for a version that old. Ended up getting that same subscription. I also do the Adobe Photography subscription.  I let it drop when they doubled the price, then picked it up again when they adjusted the price back down. They came out and said they were testing the market with the new price. Guess they discovered that the market was not willing to pay double.

[Anderton]

2 hours ago, RABid said:

When I retired 4 1/2 years ago I kept a license code for Office just in case. Tried to use it a few months ago but could not find a download for a version that old. Ended up getting that same subscription. I also do the Adobe Photography subscription.  I let it drop when they doubled the price, then picked it up again when they adjusted the price back down. They came out and said they were testing the market with the new price. Guess they discovered that the market was not willing to pay double.

 

I'm not good enough with graphics to need Adobe, GIMP does the job. I also use Vegas to do photo editing, no law says the images have to be moving. I can pile on some cool effects and then render the frame.

[KuruPrionz]

12 hours ago, Bill Heins said:

I've got the Photoshop/Lightroom subscription due to the fact that you can't buy the software any more but it's cheap so no biggie Trying to decide whether to go all in on Adobe or not!

 

On the music side I have an EW Composer Cloud Plus subscription, 20.00 a month seems like a good deal to me( I do own the EWSO Platinum Plus, EWSC and VOTA expansioin, and EWQL Pianos Platinum).

 

I'd rather own but these two subscriptions are working well for me!

Bill

 

 

The Adobe subscription comes to about the same amount as upgrading when new versions come out used to cost. Of course, they are updating incrementally all the time now. 

I've never used Lightroom, started with Photoshop version 1.07 in the early 90's. The current version of Adobe Photoshop Elements can be purchased and last year's version would be even less expensive. If you are a deep diver doing professional retouching or you prep files for 4 color offset then Photohop by subscription is the way to go. If you enjoy making your photos look better, creating composites and all manner of other fun stuffs, Elements is more than op to it in Advanced mode and the newer versions feature AI scripting. 

I've got PShop Elements 2021 and if I've taken a photo of a human I can go to the Select tab, click on Select Subject and it will "think" for a minute and make an excellent selection of the human in the photo. You may have to adjust a couple of small things it misses but mostly it's done and very accurately. 

 

Worth a look anyway, there is probably a free program that can more or less do what Lightroom does if you need that too. I plan on getting a few years out of it, cost per month will be insignificantly low. 

[David Emm]

7 hours ago, spokenward said:

 Before the Cloud version there was the  V-Synth / VariOS version and people noted something like that.

 

https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/roland-vc1-v-card

 

 

 

The V-Synth GT in particular is a massive instrument. I don't think you can make a virtual version because so much of it happens in R/T. With the range and options of the touch pad, it almost seemed Minimoog-like in terms of "keys on one hand, controllers under the other." The E-mu Morpheus offered a similar behavior. With all of the hollering over MPE, those are the two most uniquely fluid gems I ponder. Both of 'em cry out for a Seaboard/Linnstrument/etc. as the playing surface. What a starry eyed hippie hoagie.

[RABid]

12 minutes ago, David Emm said:

With the range and options of the touch pad

It had my favorite touch pad implementation by far. I cannot imagine myself enjoying a software version without that pad.

[zeronyne]

Reason is my main DAW and has been for a very long time, but I will not sign up for the subscription, and if they go to that 100%, I will stop using it.

I have an Adobe CC subsciption (the full deal), but I will let that lapse as I alsready hav full access for work.

Apart from that, I still don't like the idea of not owning software outright for the same reasons that Craig has.

 

I think the worst subscription models are what Roomba, Cricut, and Elegoo tried to do. Canceling subscriptions with them means having a completely fine piece of hardware that's a brick. That's not just bad for the customer, it's cynical and evil.

 

And I'm not against subscriptions. Everything from movies to medication is on a subscription.

[Anderton]

Talk about timely...yesterday Mixonline.com published my July Open Channel column, The Subscription Kerfuffle. I'd be very interested in opinions from anyone following this thread.

 

I tried to be as objective as possible...

[mcgoo]

I did EW's Composer Cloud Plus for a few years (I already own a handful of their libraries, but wanted to try it all). I never really bonded with Hollywood Orch, which to me was the main attraction. Ended up dumping it, but bought their convolution reverb which is really nice. 

 

I'm really leaning towards getting the UVI Sonic Pass. Lots of great stuff in there. The sound design / sound fx stuff in there looks / sounds like it could be a big asset for my day gig. Roland Cloud looks tempting, but lots in there I just don't need. 

 

I also have the MS Office 365. No Brainer great deal as far as I'm concerned. 

[Anderton]

The thing about subscriptions to instruments+stuff...NI Komplete and IK Total Studio are both perpetual licenses. Seems to me either one has most of what you want, and if you have both,  that's pretty much everything you could want. And then there's the Arturia collections for VIs. I think a lot of the subscription options are superfluous if you own multi-faceted programs that already exist.

 

Subscriptions to DAWs are a whole other animal...

[KuruPrionz]

1 hour ago, Anderton said:

The thing about subscriptions to instruments+stuff...NI Komplete and IK Total Studio are both perpetual licenses. Seems to me either one has most of what you want, and if you have both,  that's pretty much everything you could want. And then there's the Arturia collections for VIs. I think a lot of the subscription options are superfluous if you own multi-faceted programs that already exist.

 

Subscriptions to DAWs are a whole other animal...

Apparently it's a niche market but the last time I checked, NI Kontakt was the only Native Apple Silicon software in their offerings and IK Multimedia only had SampleTank 4, Amplitube 5 and Syntronix 2. 

That leaves a LOT of Komplete and Total Studio that I do not want until (if/when) it's updated. They both seem to be working on coming up with new software that is Native Apple Silicon and it is certain that quite a few titles will just be Windows friendly from now on, with "replacement" software for M1 computers being a new sales opportunity. 

 

When I compare that to Eventide, Cherry Audio, Arturia and quite a few others who are already 100% Native Silicon friendly, all I can really say at this point is "Buh Bye for now". I won't say I'll never return but it's entirely possible that I will just ignore these companies, both of whom have been having sales of (to me) obselete software that I do not want. Eventide, Cherry and Arturia all allowed me to update to new, usable versions without charge - that's how you keep customers. Plugin Alliance is converting and by sheer luck almost everyting I own of theirs has already been offered as a free update. They are working in the right direction, no dings. 

 

Neither NI or IK seem to have sufficient staff to update some of the not-very-old titles  or stand by softwares but they do have the resources to put those things on sale and to create new, compatible titles. They can keep it, all of it. I'll just gravitate to those who care about a significant chunk of the market instead. 

[KuruPrionz]

10 hours ago, Anderton said:

Talk about timely...yesterday Mixonline.com published my July Open Channel column, The Subscription Kerfuffle. I'd be very interested in opinions from anyone following this thread.

 

I tried to be as objective as possible...

I read your column, plan to go back and read the others posted on that page, nice work!

 

I haven't used many DAWs and only one for quite a while. I'm pretty adaptable, we had to use 7 different softwares for various documents that came in and everybody could have brought Acrobat (.pdf files). Then we could have used 1 software. 

Same is true for digital recording sessions. Save the mix as individual .wav files and you should be able to drop those into any DAW on Windows, OS or Linux, true?

Fewer problems if/when moving from one DAW or computer (or both) to another.

 

I'm used to working how I work now but I've considered that I should see what's easy on another DAW, Logic probably. Seems like it could be around for a while, maybe it becomes a subscription. I agree with the cost of upgrades equals the cost of a subscription, that was true of Photoshop before Adobe subscriptionized it. Now there is a constant upgrading of every feature and new features as they are developed. Is good.

[Anderton]

11 hours ago, KuruPrionz said:

Apparently it's a niche market but the last time I checked, NI Kontakt was the only Native Apple Silicon software in their offerings and IK Multimedia only had SampleTank 4, Amplitube 5 and Syntronix 2. 

 

I'm out of my depth here, because I have no idea how well these software titles run under Rosetta. NI basically says all their stuff runs under Rosetta. If it's a 5% hit, then I'd be able to cope while waiting for the company to get their update act together. If it was 30%, I'm be really upset that native versions weren't available. 

 

I also wonder if this speaks to a potential advantage to subscriptions. If people have subscriptions, I think the customer expectation would be higher that updates would happen in a timely fashion, since the customers are paying in a timely fashion. The more I think about it, the more I believe how a company handles subscriptions is key. If a company treats the subscription as an opportunity to be more interactive with customers and implement feature requests more expeditiously, then people will end up preferring subscriptions. 

[Anderton]

11 hours ago, KuruPrionz said:

I read your column, plan to go back and read the others posted on that page, nice work!

 

I suspect In Praise of Things that Destroy Music will be your favorite   Although I personally like the Renaissance one a lot too.

[KuruPrionz]

9 minutes ago, Anderton said:

 

I'm out of my depth here, because I have no idea how well these software titles run under Rosetta. NI basically says all their stuff runs under Rosetta. If it's a 5% hit, then I'd be able to cope while waiting for the company to get their update act together. If it was 30%, I'm be really upset that native versions weren't available. 

 

I also wonder if this speaks to a potential advantage to subscriptions. If people have subscriptions, I think the customer expectation would be higher that updates would happen in a timely fashion, since the customers are paying in a timely fashion. The more I think about it, the more I believe how a company handles subscriptions is key. If a company treats the subscription as an opportunity to be more interactive with customers and implement feature requests more expeditiously, then people will end up preferring subscriptions. 

To be honest, I'm having sync problems and I've been chasing down potential culprits but I've reached the point that I am prepared to "nuke and pave" and start with a clean slate. I plan on diving in later today, backups are done and a complete list of passwords and logons is in a few different drives as well as the instructions for proceeded. I suspect some software from firmware/drivers of previously used or tested audio interfaces that simply refuses to comply with Apple approved removal processes. Starting from scratch will remove everything and I also have a comprehensive list of plugins showing which ones are fully Native. The rest will not be installed this time around, I'll track them later on my Intel powered 2014 laptop and if/when they are ready I will install them. 

 

It is known that having one plugin in your mix that requires Rosetta makes that a Rosetta session. 

Some stuff that is touted as "Native Apple Silicon" may not be completely written that way, the Pluginfo app that I linked in another thread on your forum showed me that 2 of the many modules for RX9 were "Intel only" which means Rosetta. I deleted them for now and will keep an eye on Izotope, they are transitioning but may not be there yet. 

 

The SSL 2+ I purchased recently is not only USB Class Compliant with zero software needed for Mac, it sounds fantastic and has a very ergonomic layout. 

Bang for the buck if a 2 channel interface is all you need and most of the time, it is for me. 

[KuruPrionz]

38 minutes ago, Anderton said:

 

I suspect In Praise of Things that Destroy Music will be your favorite   Although I personally like the Renaissance one a lot too.

All are good in their own way. 

I remember well into the 2000's photographers were complaining that "Photoshop was destroying Photography". And, it was. It was also improving it but you can only polish a turd and expect to have a shiny turd. A great start is 90% finished. 

That said, considering that I'd worked in film based photo labs and maybe 1 out of 1,000 photos was worth a crap in the first place (and not always taken by a good photographer either, sometimes you just "have to be there" to get the shot), I opposed these views. Photoshop is simply a tool. You can use a hammer to assist in building a beautiful cabinet or you can use it to smash mayonaise jars on the sidewalk, none of this is the fault of the hammer. 

 

I LOVE the modern tech. I do agree that we often have too many choices. Having done it myself, I would highly recommend to anybody learning to record and mix their own music that they go on Metapop or a similar site (if there is one) and do some re-mixes on material that is not your own or in your wheelhouse. 

Do terrible things and then do terrible things to the terrible things you've done. I spent hours doing that and without the emotional baggage of caring what the results were since it was not my music in the first place, I learned some amazing things. 

 

It's a poor craftsman that blames his tools - that is an old proverb that will ring true eternally. 

[Anderton]

20 minutes ago, KuruPrionz said:

A great start is 90% finished.

 

That's a great line.

[KuruPrionz]

1 hour ago, Anderton said:

 

That's a great line.

Vintage wisdom, maybe mis-quoted a bit but the meaning holds true

[RABid]

If you have thought about the Roland Cloud this is the time to try. During July they have a special, buy a year of Ultimate for $200 (normally $20 a month) and get two lifetime keys. The Jupiter 8 key is $149. Not sure if I will choose the Zenology Pro, JD-800 or something else as second choice. I'll be careful not to choose something that is included in the basic membership. For that bonus I will convert to a yearly subscription.

 

Edit: If you choose the cheaper, Pro level for $99 you get to choose one lifetime key.

 

Comparison chart for the Cloud membership levels.

[Anderton]

I see there's a free account with Zenbeats app and Zenology Light. Are they worth the download and time to learn?

[RABid]

7 minutes ago, Anderton said:

I see there's a free account with Zenbeats app and Zenology Light. Are they worth the download and time to learn?

Zenology Light actually has some nice patches. Roland has done a really good job creating Zenology. To me, Zenbeats is almost there but not quite. I've tried to like it because it can run on iPad and iPhone, but I am not yet flowing with it.