Re Bundles - poke in the eye with a sharp pastellfiskar

[stfual]

This had been discussed to death on the previous forum but it seems timely to raise it again.

The Propellerhead policy on RE bundles is not only unfair it is silly. (I used a stronger word but this forum is supposed to be nice)

The way it should and does work for most other things software and hardware.

I buy Adobe Photoshop or NI Guitar Rig enthusiastically at full price (I did)
Later as competition emerges or the market matures or early enthusiasm fades that product is discounted (they were).
I dont get a refund on the difference - thats life for an early adopter.
That product is then offered as part of a larger bundle eg Adobe Creative Suite or NI Komplete to try and extract more cash from the market (they are).
As a user of my primary product I might see the other bundled products as less valuable to me but also might get hooked in. (I've never used indesign but found Illustrator to be occasionally useful). These aren't products I'll give blow jobs behind the dumpster for but given the right incentive and a prod to my compulsive completism I'll buy them. (I did buy Creative Suite and have been tempted by some amazing deals on NI Komplete)
Usually as a loyal existing user I am given some credit against the bundle.
Even if I am not offered a credit, I can buy the bundle and sell or give away what I already own thus getting financial or karmic credit.

Propellerhead policy
No credits on bundles and not allowed to sell or transfer Re's.
If I buy a bundle in Reason I pay to re-buy what I already purchased at full price AND I can't do anything with those additional products or give them away.

Of course Propellerhead can do what they want . They choose not to offer credit against bundles.
I can also do what I want. I choose not buy bundles where I already own products in the bundle.
Seems like lose lose to me.

[CharlyCharlzz]

This had been discussed to death on the previous forum but it seems timely to raise it again.

The Propellerhead policy on RE bundles is not only unfair it is silly. (I used a stronger word but this forum is supposed to be nice)

The way it should and does work for most other things software and hardware.

I buy Adobe Photoshop or NI Guitar Rig enthusiastically at full price (I did)
Later as competition emerges or the market matures or early enthusiasm fades that product is discounted (they were).
I dont get a refund on the difference - thats life for an early adopter.
That product is then offered as part of a larger bundle eg Adobe Creative Suite or NI Komplete to try and extract more cash from the market (they are).
As a user of my primary product I might see the other bundled products as less valuable to me but also might get hooked in. (I've never used indesign but found Illustrator to be occasionally useful). These aren't products I'll give blow jobs behind the dumpster for but given the right incentive and a prod to my compulsive completism I'll buy them. (I did buy Creative Suite and have been tempted by some amazing deals on NI Komplete)
Usually as a loyal existing user I am given some credit against the bundle.
Even if I am not offered a credit, I can buy the bundle and sell or give away what I already own thus getting financial or karmic credit.

Propellerhead policy
No credits on bundles and not allowed to sell or transfer Re's.
If I buy a bundle in Reason I pay to re-buy what I already purchased at full price AND I can't do anything with those additional products or give them away.

Of course Propellerhead can do what they want . They choose not to offer credit against bundles.
I can also do what I want. I choose not buy bundles where I already own products in the bundle.
Seems like lose lose to me.

These Bundles are almost pure promotion , the devs and props dont get much on this so it is just like that I guess .
I got a bundle and it had synchronous in it , I already had synchronous so I lost a RE on the Deal ....so what ?!?! it's a 199bucks bundle wich is -%70 sale but now it's 150bucks 80+ %sale .
at the end of the day I still get a great deal .
but I know what you mean anyway , could always be cool to get credits or to be able to give it away .
credits for the next upgrade would be a good trade .

[eusti]

I agree with ChrlyCharlzz: Just look at the numbers as unemotional as possible: Is what you're getting still a good deal or not?

D.

[joeyluck]

I'm hoping by next sale there is something implemented in the shop for a 'create your own bundle' in which you can piece together REs of your choosing that are offered as part of the promotion.

For instance, take everything available in all the Rig Bundles, and step the user through it:
"Choose 1 of these or any 2 of these"
"Now choose any 2 of these or any 3 of these"
etc.

But until then, you just have to weigh whether or not a certain bundle saves you money or not.
Don't think of it as paying a second time for something if you are barely paying once for something else.

I'm in the boat in which I have just enough from each bundle to make the bundles not worth while.

[tt_lab]

I hope thay give us the right(that we should have already) to sell our full reason license REs inside.
I don't want to sell Reason (not now anyway) but I feel a bit trapped and I feel that the money I put on REs is throwaway money(like it is go to the cinema) It's money I spend for fun but not money I spend as a work invesment.
All my other licenses are transferable. The only ones that are not transferable are the ones from App Store, but Iguess that's the point of apps being so cheap to begin with.

[satyr32]

Although your critique is justified I still prefer the Props model to Adobe. At least it is (not yet) subscription based. If they intend to do this in the future I leave Reason and will never look back.

[zakalwe]

I've bought too much crap full price to see it discounted to the extent that i should just announce what I'm buying in the RE forum as an incoming sales alert. it can tend to make you a bit bitter.

as a result i assume that anythign over 39 euros is overpriced and softtube is never worth buying outside of sales.

but then in general i'm just not spending money on reason because there's just better value out there right now. i guess i have a stake i keeping my licence though.

[shredmiyagi]

I like the idea of a credit system. Give us some points if you buy at full price; maybe they're only redeemable for PH racks, but it's pretty frustrating seeing a $50+ product thrown in for free with a much larger bundle.

Ultimately, I simply think REs are too expensive to not allow transferable licenses. For a feature packed synth like Antidote, i'm fine paying the sale price... But it's really hard to justify $50-80 for a reverb, compressor, EQ or other utility effects. Especially since PH has not updated their core racks since over 10 years ago; Logic rehauls their FX engines and brings a lot of new stuff to the table each update. They didn't make you pay $120 for the Alchemy synth, or $50 for a freaking Rotary effect.

I've used Reason since 2003; it was my first serious music software, so I'm attached to the workflow, but they've lost me in a few ways. For one thing, I made it a point to never buy a PH RE again. I'll invest in RP or Synapse, but not any 1st party racks. I'm also going to probably skip the R8 update and use 7 as long as I can.

I still like the company, but come on... Stop making $50 rack extensions for what should be free updates in Reason. Synchronous and Pulsar, for example...

[platzangst]

I still like the company, but come on... Stop making $50 rack extensions for what should be free updates in Reason. Synchronous and Pulsar, for example...

Not sure what you mean, because those devices were free - if you updated within certain windows of time.

[zakalwe]

there's also the closed system aspect to it. if i buy a zebra 2 licence from u-he i get AU/VST2/3/AAX versions and even if i can sell it i probably wouldn't because it's useable in practically any DAW. they even have linux beta builds that run on renoise and work with my key.

it's less of an issue with unique instrument RE like antidote, which i can still use via rewire for the great patches, but i kind of regret some mastering tool purchases becuase they would have been more versatile as VST/AUs for my current workflow.

which all makes expensive RE purchases a bit uncomfortable

[InavigableHeart]

I bought the backline bundle, had a couple of the REs already, but all I feel now is joy... no pokes in the eye

[jonheal]

I finally looked up that word "pastellfiskar." Very humorous.

[Data_Shrine]

Their RE policy as a whole is silly. We should be able to re-sell them. This prevents me from buying anything that I consider too pricey.

[platzangst]

This prevents me from buying anything that I consider too pricey.

I've said this many a time before, but:

In my opinion, if you're buying music software thinking about how you'll try to re-coup that money down the line, you probably shouldn't be buying it in the first place. Music software is a tool for making music - one ought to be investing in their own craft, not using plug-ins as some kind of demented savings account. If you can't afford to say goodbye to that money, don't spend it! If you don't know whether a virtual bit of gear is going to be valuable to your digital workspace, maybe you should hold off instead of making a bad impulse buy just to feel good about having the newest toy - only to never use the thing and then try to dump it on someone else just to salvage some fraction of the money you spent.

The quoted statement above was said as if it was a bad thing, but that's how a sensible person should operate!

[Skullture]

I'm hoping by next sale there is something implemented in the shop for a 'create your own bundle' in which you can piece together REs of your choosing that are offered as part of the promotion.

This needs to happen indeed!

[zakalwe]

This prevents me from buying anything that I consider too pricey.

I've said this many a time before, but:

In my opinion, if you're buying music software thinking about how you'll try to re-coup that money down the line, you probably shouldn't be buying it in the first place. Music software is a tool for making music - one ought to be investing in their own craft, not using plug-ins as some kind of demented savings account. If you can't afford to say goodbye to that money, don't spend it! If you don't know whether a virtual bit of gear is going to be valuable to your digital workspace, maybe you should hold off instead of making a bad impulse buy just to feel good about having the newest toy - only to never use the thing and then try to dump it on someone else just to salvage some fraction of the money you spent.

The quoted statement above was said as if it was a bad thing, but that's how a sensible person should operate!

it's pretty common in the industry to permit resale of licences. reason itself is permitted for resale.

but it's difficult to call RE an investment when they're not crossplatform. the unique/cheaper ones make absolute sense much like any useful iOS app does for $15 but when they're expensive ports completely tied to a platform with no multiformat licence people will want a way to recoup value when they find they no longer want to use that platform.

or just not buy them as you say. i find </=$39 is a completely justifiable expenditure and i've had some great stuff like etch red in that range, offsale as well. i don't think i'll ever buy another $100 RE though.

[jonheal]

All this talk, but has anyone here actually gone through the trouble to resell their VSTs?

[eusti]

All this talk, but has anyone here actually gone through the trouble to resell their VSTs?

Valid point, although sometimes it's more about what you could do instead what you would do...
So, if nobody really does it, then it wouldn't be an issue for the Props to implement, no?

D.

[zakalwe]

i had looked into it when money was a little tighter but I only had zebra 2 at that point and i didn't really want to part with it.

i'd mainly sell my FET and GQ-7 RE as i just have no use for them now. they're really good plugins but for rewiring it just makes sense to process on the DAW side. most of my other RE like instruments and filterbank effects i would keep.

[ezelkow1]

All this talk, but has anyone here actually gone through the trouble to resell their VSTs?

Alot of people do. Id say a good 2/3 of my collection were bought second hand. I have sold a few on various forums and that was usually because I had just gotten a new vst that covered that particular ones area much better and then some

In many cases it also greatly helps lessen the blow on large packages, i.e. komplete. I had owned a couple NI instruments bought second hand and also had a free license of absynth4 someone gave me. Well NI occaisonally does a crossgrade sale to komplete for owners of any of their synths. So in that instance I sold off all of my NI synths except for my free absynth4 copy, used that to crossgrade, basically getting the entire komplete collection for ~150. If I wasnt allowed to do that I would have been out all of the money I had spent on those other NI synths that were already a part of komplete

[jonheal]

Well, the situation is what it is.

But complaining about it here does no good. Write Propellerhead personally and tell them you are voting with your wallet. Get all your Reason-using friends to do the same. If they hear enough negative feedback from their actual users, and if the current policy becomes an obvious business disadvantage to them, they'll be more inclined to change it.

[KEVMOVE02]

Delayed gratification and getting regular "anti Gear Acquisition Syndrome" booster shots, have greatly reduce my capital expenditures on non essential software and hardware purchases, thus raising my profitability. I have no clue why I would need half of the rack extensions in existence, so I am able to wait to buy them until I discover the need, usually at a significantly lower price.

[platzangst]

it's pretty common in the industry to permit resale of licences. reason itself is permitted for resale.

Sure, but that's kind of besides the point. If you're a carpenter, and you buy a hammer for your job, you can resell that hammer. But there are only a few conditions where it makes sense to do so. Suppose you build a cabinet or something with that hammer, and when you were done, you sold the hammer off (probably at a loss). Then someone orders a second cabinet from you, so you go out and buy a new hammer and start over again. That wouldn't make any sense, would it? And you wouldn't sell your hammer just because you happened to buy a screwdriver later. Even if you bought a second hammer, a carpenter might keep a spare tool just in case. It would only make sense to sell the hammer if one was retiring from carpentry altogether, or some other situation where the hammer became entirely useless. If you were a carpenter continually buying new hammers and selling old ones to balance your budget, your wisdom could easily be called into question.

But some people don't question at all the idea of buying up all the latest VSTs and trying to sell older ones...

[ezelkow1]

you cant really equate a physical product to digital though. That hammer is useful, or can be used as a backup when buying a new one that may be better and have more hammer-esque features and in case it breaks you have a backup. In the digital world you dont need a backup of a vst, its not like all of sudden your filter plugin is just going to break and now you have to resort to your back up filter until you can get your vst repaired. If your new filter sounds better in every way and has more features there is not much sense in keeping around the old one, the only reason to keep it around is if it has some specific feature that is not duplicated in any way

[zakalwe]

it's pretty common in the industry to permit resale of licences. reason itself is permitted for resale.

Sure, but that's kind of besides the point. If you're a carpenter, and you buy a hammer for your job, you can resell that hammer. But there are only a few conditions where it makes sense to do so. Suppose you build a cabinet or something with that hammer, and when you were done, you sold the hammer off (probably at a loss). Then someone orders a second cabinet from you, so you go out and buy a new hammer and start over again. That wouldn't make any sense, would it? And you wouldn't sell your hammer just because you happened to buy a screwdriver later. Even if you bought a second hammer, a carpenter might keep a spare tool just in case. It would only make sense to sell the hammer if one was retiring from carpentry altogether, or some other situation where the hammer became entirely useless. If you were a carpenter continually buying new hammers and selling old ones to balance your budget, your wisdom could easily be called into question.

But some people don't question at all the idea of buying up all the latest VSTs and trying to sell older ones...