How come IK Multimedia can't be better?

[dalpozlead]

For the 3rd time in my life I’m super frustrated with IK Multimedia’s process to install VSTs…, I’ve gave up in the past when was trying to install syntronik and thought that after some years the Product Manger App got fixed… now (once again) I cant install my previous owned products or recently purchased (multiple errors installing, stuck setup, etc).

I’ll have to find another solution for a B3 VST and forget about the $99 spent…. What a day!

[Baldwin Funster]

Come over to the bright side. Reinstalling or adding ik mm b3x in iOS was as easy as going to the app store.

[Dockeys]

What are they like for updates lately? The B3X for Mac has never really been updated has it? I find they make some great products but installation and support/updates used to be quite poor. 

[J.F.N.]

Their installation process has always been kind of a mystery to me. I have a bunch of their plugins and every time I have installed a new computer for music use, I always end up having to contact their support to understand how to install all my different plugins, some can be installed from their installation software, others from their Amplitube "in app store" application. I probably will skip their software next time I install a computer again.

[JamPro]

It's the enshittification.  We typically speak of enshittification as a means by which an industry increases their profits by down-grading their products or services.  A good example is airlines making flying more unpleasant to goad consumers into paying more for legroom and other comforts.

 

It's more difficult to understand the profit motives for a business making software that doesn't install.  But perhaps the business wants to minimize their costs (and thereby boost their profits) by hiring fewer software developers and/or fewer testers and QC people.  Once you have handed over your money, the business cares little if it works on your computer or not.  Most customers don't notice or don't bother complaining; and for some companies, what they lose when one customer walks away is more than made up for with sales volume.  The marketing budget is huge; the customer service budget gets cut.

[dalpozlead]

7 minutes ago, JamPro said:

It's the enshittification.  We typically speak of enshittification as a means by which an industry increases their profits by down-grading their products or services.  A good example is airlines making flying more unpleasant to goad consumers into paying more for legroom and other comforts.

 

It's more difficult to understand the profit motives for a business making software that doesn't install.  But perhaps the business wants to minimize their costs (and thereby boost their profits) by hiring fewer software developers and/or fewer testers and QC people.  Once you have handed over your money, the business cares little if it works on your computer or not.  Most customers don't notice or don't bother complaining; and for some companies, what they lose when one customer walks away is more than made up for with sales volume.  The marketing budget is huge; the customer service budget gets cut.

 

exactly..., I'm sure I wont purchase new IK software for a looong time...

for the B3 VST... I found that UAD emulation sounds good..., will try it.

[HammondDave]

On 8/14/2024 at 6:47 AM, JamPro said:

It's the enshittification.  We typically speak of enshittification as a means by which an industry increases their profits by down-grading their products or services.  A good example is airlines making flying more unpleasant to goad consumers into paying more for legroom and other comforts.

 

It's more difficult to understand the profit motives for a business making software that doesn't install.  But perhaps the business wants to minimize their costs (and thereby boost their profits) by hiring fewer software developers and/or fewer testers and QC people.  Once you have handed over your money, the business cares little if it works on your computer or not.  Most customers don't notice or don't bother complaining; and for some companies, what they lose when one customer walks away is more than made up for with sales volume.  The marketing budget is huge; the customer service budget gets cut.

Your most effective “attention getter” is to give them a one star rating with an appropriate review on the Apple App Store. That usually triggers an immediate response. Same for Yelp when dealing with local businesses. A one star rating could be the death knell for small businesses.  

[Docbop]

32 minutes ago, HammondDave said:

Your most effective “attention getter” is to give them a one star rating with an appropriate review on the Apple App Store. That usually triggers an immediate response. Same for Yelp when dealing with local businesses. A one star rating could be the death knell for small businesses.  

 

Generally if I don't like something I might give a four out of five review on Amazon and typically worse I just won't review at all.   But a couple times a product was so bad I felt I had to let other know what I thought and gave a one or two star review.  Surprising to me the companies would contact me and beg me to raise the rating on  their product.   The one company was nice about it and listened to my issues and offered me a refund, so I deleted my review.    The other company got real nasty with me not realizing I can be as stubborn as can be and I never changed my review and left it up.    So yes those one or two star reviews get a companies attention. 

[Baldwin Funster]

Ik started their business model when cracked software was putting software companies out of business.

So they along with every one else had download and instalation managers and license limits so a user wouldn't buy 1 seat and sell the app or install 10 seats.

It's because there are no morals being taught and kids are rewarded for beating the system and cheating.

 

Anyways that's a diversion, back on topic.

 

Anyways operating systems constantly get updated by MS or Apple with no regard to how existing applications are rendered dead. And ik can't keep up with combing through every 10 year old app to get them back to functionality after operating  system updates. 

 

So now the OPs ik mm software manager no longer works and since it's been many years since the OP used it, it might be un fixable without a complete rewrite which they aren't going to do to help a reinstallion that isn't going to bring the cash of a sale in.

A disappointing attitude. Short sighted. Bad CS. Yes to all that.

 

But I got to say I had opened a ticket with tech support awhile back for iLectric Piano on Android which they eventually scrapped. The guy was quite responsive to me and very nice.

I'm not here to defend ik, I avoid buying any ik apps like syntroniks and would shut the door on them completely except that B3x is life changing for me. But I completely avoid the company otherwise.

[Docbop]

6 hours ago, Baldwin Funster said:

Anyways operating systems constantly get updated by MS or Apple with no regard to how existing applications are rendered dead. And ik can't keep up with combing through every 10 year old app to get them back to functionality after operating  system updates. 

This is not the responsibility of the Apple or MS.   I worked for major software companies and it's their job to become part of the developer support programs at Apple and MS so the get inside info on new versions are coming. They typically get developer kits and info so they can prepare for the update and start testing as soon as alpha and beta versions become available to software publishers.   One I worked for company Apple gave developers a warning a year ahead they were making major changes and to get ready.   Some software companies still dragged their feet.     The responsibility is all on  the 3rd parties software company.   

 

Think about this how many 3rd party companies make software for the Mac, not just audio, but all types of apps probably in the 1000's then different versions how is Apple suppose to test all that, they'd never get anything out the door if they did. 

[CrossRhodes]

B3X Installation was a breeze on both iMac and MacBook. Certainly no more complicated than dealing with Native Instruments libraries. Seems like most everyone has some kind of hoops you have to jump through these days.

[JoJoB3]

This is what can happen in virtual world :/. Devs have to stay with their products. The reality is some just cant.

 

That said IK 'should' be able to resolve your described issue. What are they saying to you?

 

Acoustic Samples B5 is better than B3-X (which I like btw) though. A wider scope and more realistic organ for a vst. Try that. $70-99 to boot.

 

PC only here though. **** Apple

[J.F.N.]

19 hours ago, Docbop said:

 

Generally if I don't like something I might give a four out of five review on Amazon and typically worse I just won't review at all.   But a couple times a product was so bad I felt I had to let other know what I thought and gave a one or two star review.  Surprising to me the companies would contact me and beg me to raise the rating on  their product.   The one company was nice about it and listened to my issues and offered me a refund, so I deleted my review.    The other company got real nasty with me not realizing I can be as stubborn as can be and I never changed my review and left it up.    So yes those one or two star reviews get a companies attention. 

 

I only do reviews if something is groundbreakingly stunning, or if someone takes the piss on me. Never felt like I need to review every little itty bitty thing I purchase or service I use, but in the extreme cases it's a bit more interesting and useful.

[J.F.N.]

10 hours ago, Docbop said:

This is not the responsibility of the Apple or MS.   I worked for major software companies and it's their job to become part of the developer support programs at Apple and MS so the get inside info on new versions are coming. They typically get developer kits and info so they can prepare for the update and start testing as soon as alpha and beta versions become available to software publishers.   One I worked for company Apple gave developers a warning a year ahead they were making major changes and to get ready.   Some software companies still dragged their feet.     The responsibility is all on  the 3rd parties software company.   

 

Think about this how many 3rd party companies make software for the Mac, not just audio, but all types of apps probably in the 1000's then different versions how is Apple suppose to test all that, they'd never get anything out the door if they did. 

 

Apple are definitely not helpful, not with their constant closing of OS doors backwards and not with their dev support either (very hard to get anything to priority with them unless you have a very good old contact in the structure...).

 

Always loved OSX, but stopped using it at 10.9 dead tired of the new upgrade race they started when iGadgets became their business model and the drive to get new models every year to market killed the stability and longevity of OSX.

 

Went Windows in 2017, not looking back, happy user. I'm about to buy a Mac Mini for the studio very soon though, but as soon as it's up and running installed and stable, the update buttons will be turned off once and for all.

[Docbop]

4 hours ago, J.F.N. said:

 

Apple are definitely not helpful, not with their constant closing of OS doors backwards and not with their dev support either (very hard to get anything to priority with them unless you have a very good old contact in the structure...).

 

Always loved OSX, but stopped using it at 10.9 dead tired of the new upgrade race they started when iGadgets became their business model and the drive to get new models every year to market killed the stability and longevity of OSX.

 

Went Windows in 2017, not looking back, happy user. I'm about to buy a Mac Mini for the studio very soon though, but as soon as it's up and running installed and stable, the update buttons will be turned off once and for all.

I agree with part of what your say where I disagree is Apple tried to support too many old versions of hardware/software.   Most the software companies I worked with only supported the current version and the previous version and that was it.  Way to costly to support further back than that.    

 

I worked for two of of the big 3rd party Mac software companies and Apple could get to be MAJOR  ahl0es is they did like your product.   The one company we made the best Mac development tools that even the original Mac developer used our stuff for their personal projects.  Apple loved us for that product. We also made a tiny little Mac utility program, basically something Apple should of done and didn't.   Apple went out of there way to break our utility with every update or patch they put out.  Sure we could fix it in a hour or two but was a major pain for the customer to have to download and update.    

 

Another 3rd party Mac and Window software company I worked for came up with a Mac network program that Apple said can not work the Mac OS isn't capable of that.   Yet we had thousands of customers using out product and networking Mac inexpensively and later we added Mac and Window computers networked.    Apple kept saying it can't be done tell us how you are doing it.   Since Apple had been slamming us from the beginning we refused to tell Apple how we did it.  This went on for years and Apple hiring away some of our engineers but they stuck to their NDAs and never told Apple our secret.   Eventually Apple hired a recent add  to our enalgineering team who broke his NDA and told Apple our secret.    Apple went nuts when they found out it  we were exploiting a bug in a compiler that gave us the ability to network on an OS not designed to support networking.   Apple's response was as expected they made the changed to the OS to support networking and included it in MacOS for free and killing our company.   Our company had been acquired by a very big company in the Unix world and Apple was ticked at them.   They had built I guess you'd call it virtual Mac's in software two version.   Our parent company never sold the the software, but  they were demoing it enough that it got bad to Apple.   Also the networking company also put out the first email program that could have both Mac and Windows clients.   Then a product for file sharing on Mac, Windows, and Sun workstations.   Apple should of liked up, but instead they choose to hate us with a passion.   What happened to these great developers they became part of the early days of Netscape creating Mozilla.   

[Anderton]

Apparently the B3X is still for sale, and also available as part of a bundle with AmpliTube and T-Racks Leslie. I did notice that under specs, IK mentions only Intel compatibility for the B3X, not Apple Silicon. I'm not sure if that's an issue, I primarily use Windows.

 

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I just check the installation manager periodically and download the latest elements of the Total Studio bundle. They give plenty of authorizations if you change computers or your system drive blows up. If you run out, contact support and they'll give you more.

 

I HIGHLY recommend contacting IK's support. In my experience with multiple companies, sometimes when I've found an issue and contacted support, it's about a problem they weren't aware of. They end up bring grateful it was brought to their attention so they can fix it. Software companies value feedback. They don't, and can't, test all possible configurations.

[J.F.N.]

1 hour ago, Docbop said:

I agree with part of what your say where I disagree is Apple tried to support too many old versions of hardware/software.   Most the software companies I worked with only supported the current version and the previous version and that was it.  Way to costly to support further back than that.    

 

I worked for two of of the big 3rd party Mac software companies and Apple could get to be MAJOR  ahl0es is they did like your product.   The one company we made the best Mac development tools that even the original Mac developer used our stuff for their personal projects.  Apple loved us for that product. We also made a tiny little Mac utility program, basically something Apple should of done and didn't.   Apple went out of there way to break our utility with every update or patch they put out.  Sure we could fix it in a hour or two but was a major pain for the customer to have to download and update.    

 

Another 3rd party Mac and Window software company I worked for came up with a Mac network program that Apple said can not work the Mac OS isn't capable of that.   Yet we had thousands of customers using out product and networking Mac inexpensively and later we added Mac and Window computers networked.    Apple kept saying it can't be done tell us how you are doing it.   Since Apple had been slamming us from the beginning we refused to tell Apple how we did it.  This went on for years and Apple hiring away some of our engineers but they stuck to their NDAs and never told Apple our secret.   Eventually Apple hired a recent add  to our enalgineering team who broke his NDA and told Apple our secret.    Apple went nuts when they found out it  we were exploiting a bug in a compiler that gave us the ability to network on an OS not designed to support networking.   Apple's response was as expected they made the changed to the OS to support networking and included it in MacOS for free and killing our company.   Our company had been acquired by a very big company in the Unix world and Apple was ticked at them.   They had built I guess you'd call it virtual Mac's in software two version.   Our parent company never sold the the software, but  they were demoing it enough that it got bad to Apple.   Also the networking company also put out the first email program that could have both Mac and Windows clients.   Then a product for file sharing on Mac, Windows, and Sun workstations.   Apple should of liked up, but instead they choose to hate us with a passion.   What happened to these great developers they became part of the early days of Netscape creating Mozilla.   

 

Then you for sure know what I am talking about, with every new version of the Mac OS there is a new version of Xcode released, which always cut backwards compatibility, every time, this is how they do it.

 

Luckily Windows doesn't have this flaw and is easy to keep backwards compatible with per design.

[Ibarch]

I am well past the point of believing that Apple make changes in their OS only to add new features or make things better. 

 

I also no longer believe that things get broken purely because backwards compatibility isn't important to them. 

 

Over the last few years I have become convinced that Apple set out to deliberately break and sabotage third party software running on their platforms. The evidence I see for this is overwhelming with systematic and sustained issues in their releases. No company could be so careless or incompetent so consistently. 

 

Moving into the realms of speculation, I wonder if this wasn't intentional to begin with. It was a byproduct of their decision not to lift a finger towards backwards compatibility. Then, their marketing dept began to notice that other companies took a PR beating every time Apple broke their software. Apple never got blamed,always the other party. So they used this to sow the seed that only Apple can make reliable software. Look how often other companies software breaks. Apple are so much better. Ant their faithful lapped it up. So now, Apple goes out their way to break things as often as they can, hiding in the lies about progress and improvements, whilst blackening the name of every competitor in the same breath. 

 

Even if that isnt exactly as it works, it may as well be, the effects are the same. There is a whole army of customer who won't touch anything none Apple in the belief that Apple is infallible and all other flawed. 

 

This isn't an idle moan. Apple's business practices cost me a significant amount of money every year. I have been sorely tempted to dump MacOS and iOS support from my products. It probably costs me more than it earns now. The only thing that stops this is that I believe strongly that it isn't up to me to tell my customers what they can and can't use. If they choose Apple products, they should be able to. I can't block their choices because of my personal opinions. I have to provide full support and full backwards compatibility as a fundamental part of how I do business, to the best of my ability. No matter how distasteful I find the business practices of the likes of Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc. 

 

 

[CrossRhodes]

On 8/13/2024 at 3:47 PM, dalpozlead said:

For the 3rd time in my life I’m super frustrated with IK Multimedia’s process to install VSTs…, I’ve gave up in the past when was trying to install syntronik and thought that after some years the Product Manger App got fixed… now (once again) I cant install my previous owned products or recently purchased (multiple errors installing, stuck setup, etc).

I’ll have to find another solution for a B3 VST and forget about the $99 spent…. What a day!

Just to clarify, are you on a Mac or a PC? 

[JamPro]

17 hours ago, Ibarch said:

I am well past the point of believing that Apple make changes in their OS only to add new features or make things better. 

 

I also no longer believe that things get broken purely because backwards compatibility isn't important to them. 

 

Over the last few years I have become convinced that Apple set out to deliberately break and sabotage third party software running on their platforms. The evidence I see for this is overwhelming with systematic and sustained issues in their releases. No company could be so careless or incompetent so consistently. 

 

Moving into the realms of speculation, I wonder if this wasn't intentional to begin with.

 

 

Yes - it is enshittification - making your product or service worse in order to increase your profits.

[Docbop]

1 hour ago, JamPro said:

 

Yes - it is enshittification - making your product or service worse in order to increase your profits.

 

I think it is also to control users and guide them to other products or now services.    Apple is a company that comes out with a good piece of software will lots of capabilities and over time starts removing features and bring the product down to a simple product.  Other software companies would start simple and then add features over time.   Because I used it a lot in my work in the church media department iTunes is a perfect example.   My media job I had two main functions one was editing audio and simple CD mastering for CDs we sold.  Also converting backing tracks for artists performing that our FOH system needed in different format    The other part of my job was the duplication of CDs and DVD and printing the labels on the disc.  We had the top of the line full color disc printer.    All of this equipment's software was Windows based.   At home I was running Macs for my home audio setup.   So iTunes was great it had a lot of feature back then for changing formats, create playlists and rearrange songs in a specific order, changing artwork,  I could rip my CD's into iTunes and they were treated like any other tune in iTunes and many other.  Best of all both the Mac and Windows versions had all those features.   Over time Apple killed off most of those features and it became just a place to buy song from Apple and play them.   Now its called Apple Music and just a basic music player.   Even OSX has lost features over the years.  

 

Apple starts off making something good then slowly chips off things to direct you to use other services.  

[dalpozlead]

On 8/17/2024 at 8:50 PM, CrossRhodes said:

Just to clarify, are you on a Mac or a PC? 

PC

[CrossRhodes]

26 minutes ago, dalpozlead said:

PC

 

Ah ok. I thought it had turned into an Apple bashing thread because you were on a Mac but looks like the thread went off topic from actually trying to help you. Hope you are able to get your issues sorted as the B3X really is a wonderful instrument. At the very least, perhaps you can reach out to IK and see if you can get your money back. Good luck!

[JoJoB3]

19 minutes ago, CrossRhodes said:

 

Ah ok. I thought it had turned into an Apple bashing thread because you were on a Mac but looks like the thread went off topic from actually trying to help you. Hope you are able to get your issues sorted as the B3X really is a wonderful instrument. At the very least, perhaps you can reach out to IK and see if you can get your money back. Good luck!

Correct, this is for a separate completely valid thread.

[CrossRhodes]

Good luck to the OP. Let’s make music fam!

[dalpozlead]

9 hours ago, CrossRhodes said:

 

Ah ok. I thought it had turned into an Apple bashing thread because you were on a Mac but looks like the thread went off topic from actually trying to help you. Hope you are able to get your issues sorted as the B3X really is a wonderful instrument. At the very least, perhaps you can reach out to IK and see if you can get your money back. Good luck!

yesterday I decided to have another try, and out of knowhere it worked... I was able to install the B3X in 2 minutes.... didn't make any changes on my Windows or other system... God knows...

[CrossRhodes]

7 hours ago, dalpozlead said:

yesterday I decided to have another try, and out of knowhere it worked... I was able to install the B3X in 2 minutes.... didn't make any changes on my Windows or other system... God knows...

 

Nice, enjoy!

[JoJoB3]

12 hours ago, dalpozlead said:

yesterday I decided to have another try, and out of knowhere it worked... I was able to install the B3X in 2 minutes.... didn't make any changes on my Windows or other system... God knows...

Bad/sketch USB cable or port?

[dalpozlead]

12 hours ago, JoJoB3 said:

Bad/sketch USB cable or port?

no... not a hardware problem, setup was kept the same... surely something about windows and/or how IK manager was trying to do..

[Ibarch]

Could be anything from the IK server side timing out/not available, a new update from IK to fix an issue with latest Windows / anti virus patches or updates to resolve known problems with certain hardware configs. Could be bandwidth issues in connections to remote resources. 

 

On your PC it may be new driver versions, antivirus updates or software patches have been installed on Windows or a software service that was previously running from an earlier session and conflicting, but no longer present after a reboot. It could be Windows resources like heap allocation in memory or resource handles were being locked by other apps and have now been freed. 

 

But from our perspective, nothing has changed. Yesterday it didn't work. Today it does. Tomorrow? Anyones guess.