Another annoyance with software!

[Adam Burgess]

So, after I paid a decent sum of money to IK Multimedia last year for Total Max 3.5… I have to pay them another fee to download stuff that (I thought) I'd bought to put on another Mac.
Not a subscription that has to be renewed - but it seems that's the way it is every six months. Only 10EUR but, really?!?!?!

It was a bad enough ball ache installing the original content and not being easily able to put even the installers on an external drive and having to babysit the whole process, one module at a time. Made even more annoying by an 'immediate download' after I'd paid them, becoming a week's wait until the software appeared in the (buggy) download manager. This stuff (as mentioned in a recent thread) is just ridiculous. Let me put content and samples where I want, and just let me select that drive/folder! Point to it from within the (yes, buggy) product manager app! I doubt I could be bothered now to try manually moving gigs and gigs of data and hoping the app will find them!

I don't have the inclination to waste space for all the installer files on a hard drive which I also paid for - that space is being used with the content!
They obviously still have them on their servers, waiting to go, but they want more money to unlock my own downloads, too? I have all the content, but these installers are soooo picky where stuff is. GRRRRRRRR!

Rant over!  🤯

[Jose EB5AGV]

Yes, I also took an offer last year and, by buying an IK controller, I got a bunch of software. I think I have downloaded and kept everything. But is a PITA to be limited to 180 days and then pay again if you are not willing to use GB of local storage or perhaps forgot to download something. Just nonsense 🤯

[bill5]

There are some companies I avoid entirely due to their install/registration/upgrade/etc ways. IK is one of them

[analogika]

2 hours ago, Adam Burgess said:

Not a subscription that has to be renewed - but it seems that's the way it is every six months. Only 10EUR but, really?!?!?!

It was a bad enough ball ache installing the original content and not being easily able to put even the installers on an external drive and having to babysit the whole process, one module at a time. Made even more annoying by an 'immediate download' after I'd paid them, becoming a week's wait until the software appeared in the (buggy) download manager. This stuff (as mentioned in a recent thread) is just ridiculous. Let me put content and samples where I want, and just let me select that drive/folder! Point to it from within the (yes, buggy) product manager app! I doubt I could be bothered now to try manually moving gigs and gigs of data and hoping the app will find them!

 

Counter-example. 

I was initially confused by their approach, but they did notify me several times that I had XX remaining time to download the sample content that came with my Syntronik purchases. 

 

The installer DMGs are in ~/Documents/IK Multimedia/IK Product Manager/ and you can move them to wherever you like from there (I keep them on external archive disks). I find it annoying that they hide them there — eating 8GB without telling me is kind of annoying. OTOH, at least they didn't delete content that I wasn't going to be able to just download at will indefinitely. 

I have my internal drive partitioned and keep all sample libraries on a dedicated volume to keep them available to all users on the machine. I pointed the IK multimedia app to the appropriate folder ONCE in every user, and stuff has just worked since then — even after migrating to a new machine (and setting up an identically-named partition). 

[Baldwin Funster]

I too avoid IK. However unfortunately the best soft B3 right now is an IK product. I also got ilectric Piano EP edition which is pretty good and if you buy one IAP you have some selection of EPs, clavs, and layered strings so it was worth a little more $ and time. Otherwise I don't like the overblown copy protection and expensive instrument packs.

[analogika]

I really like their Sunset Sound studio rooms/reverb. It's my go-to reverb plugin for a bunch of stuff.

[David Emm]

In a business setting, Friction is the amount of time and effort required for the customer to access your product or service. Too much of either sours people on your brand. Convoluted installs are less necessary now than ever before, so when a company shoves one in your face, it sucks like a quartet of black holes. Let's hear it for manufacturers who just send you a .PKG file so you can get up to speed readily.

[RABid]

I was very close to buying Max during the sale. I have enough IK products and IK Bucks that Total Max was only going to cost me $99. But after looking back at how long it has been since I used any of those products, plus the charge for downloading after a short time, I backed out.

 

I have to say that IK is not the only company doing this. Akai's MPC store gives you a short time to download and then your link is gone. I think that is crap and have stopped buying their packs.