Softube RE shop page owner/manager dead?

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DecafDreams
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04 Jan 2021

challism wrote:
04 Jan 2021
DecafDreams wrote:
04 Jan 2021
Just seen on Softube's own shop/site that the Tubetech bundle VST/AU/AAX version is currently available for the equivalent of just £202! And that includes the MKII revisions of those plugins too! I wish Propellerhead would follow suit and discount the RE version accordingly...
It's not up to RS, it's up to Softube to change their prices.
I got advised quite the contrary by Softube themselves. Softube don't seem to have any control over the prices. Softube support were unsure of the legal arrangement but stated that it's possible that the prices had been set by Reason Studios and Softube together at some point. But they said that as far as they were aware, Softube aren't in a position to change the prices at this point or offer discounts on their products in the Reason Studios shop.
Last edited by DecafDreams on 04 Jan 2021, edited 1 time in total.

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Loque
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04 Jan 2021

DecafDreams wrote:
04 Jan 2021
challism wrote:
04 Jan 2021


It's not up to RS, it's up to Softube to change their prices.
I got advised quite to the contrary by Softube themselves. Softube don't seem to have any control over the prices. Softube support were unsure of the legal arrangement but stated that it's possible that the prices had been set by Reason Studios and Softube together at some point. But they said that Softube aren't in a position to change the prices or offer discounts on their products in the Reason Studios shop.
Did i already mentioned something about the quality of Softube's support? Alone that statement, that they have no control over the price is ...oh dear...i cannot find words for this... :?
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DecafDreams
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04 Jan 2021

Loque wrote:
04 Jan 2021
DecafDreams wrote:
04 Jan 2021


I got advised quite to the contrary by Softube themselves. Softube don't seem to have any control over the prices. Softube support were unsure of the legal arrangement but stated that it's possible that the prices had been set by Reason Studios and Softube together at some point. But they said that Softube aren't in a position to change the prices or offer discounts on their products in the Reason Studios shop.
Did i already mentioned something about the quality of Softube's support? Alone that statement, that they have no control over the price is ...oh dear...i cannot find words for this... :?
Well, they said they couldn't offer me a discount or alter the prices; which I'm taking as it's out of their control now. They said I had to ask RS as it's their shop...

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guitfnky
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04 Jan 2021

I wonder if it’s possible they signed some kind of agreement when they were developing the stock guitar and bass amps, where RS controls the pricing or something.

BUT that seems highly unlikely, considering how often RS sells their own stuff at a discount. it doesn’t make much sense that they’d never put sales on stuff they control the prices for. given the bad experiences many seem to have had with Softube’s support, it seems more likely to me that they could just be passing the buck.
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miscend
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04 Jan 2021

I dont recommend buying the REs because they dont qualify you for any discounts towards the bundle.

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EdwardKiy
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04 Jan 2021

Loque wrote:
04 Jan 2021
Did i already mentioned something about the quality of Softube's support? Alone that statement, that they have no control over the price is ...oh dear...i cannot find words for this... :?
Very weird, right? But they answered pretty quick.
softube.JPG
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DougalDarkly
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04 Jan 2021

Loque wrote:
04 Jan 2021
Did i already mentioned something about the quality of Softube's support? Alone that statement, that they have no control over the price is ...oh dear...i cannot find words for this... :?
FWIW I think they're at least being genuine here - I reached out to another dev to ask about sale pricing etc, and they said the exact same thing - they have no control over the pricing of their REs - the only agency they appeared to have was that they were asked if they wanted their products included in seasonal sales or not.

This is just the way RS run the shop.

At least we know where to direct our fury at nonsensical pricing - straight at Reason Studios.

Edit to clarify: Reason Studios are harming Softube's reputation, not the other way round. I guess Softube can take solace in the fact that REs are such a teeny, tiny market.

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guitfnky
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04 Jan 2021

DougalDarkly wrote:
04 Jan 2021
Loque wrote:
04 Jan 2021
Did i already mentioned something about the quality of Softube's support? Alone that statement, that they have no control over the price is ...oh dear...i cannot find words for this... :?
FWIW I think they're at least being genuine here - I reached out to another dev to ask about sale pricing etc, and they said the exact same thing - they have no control over the pricing of their REs - the only agency they appeared to have was that they were asked if they wanted their products included in seasonal sales or not.

This is just the way RS run the shop.

At least we know where to direct our fury at nonsensical pricing - straight at Reason Studios.

Edit to clarify: Reason Studios are harming Softube's reputation, not the other way round. I guess Softube can take solace in the fact that REs are such a teeny, tiny market.
well, not really...you just said the other dev gets to choose whether or not their REs get included in the sales, which implies that RS doesn’t make that call either, for third party devs.

Softube didn’t suggest that RS was the company making those decisions. seems strange that they can only pass that on internally to their sales staff, and that they wouldn’t say who these mysterious “different companies” are. like they’ve completely handed off the products to Different Companies, LLC, and washed their hands of the whole thing, yet somehow they still get to keep their name on the plugs and presumably get a healthy cut of the profits.

that doesn’t make it sound more like an RS thing, IMO, it makes it sound much LESS like an RS thing.
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EdwardKiy
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04 Jan 2021

Would be interesting to have someone from RS comment on this, or a RE developer who can make heads or tails of this.

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EpiGenetik
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04 Jan 2021

DougalDarkly wrote:
04 Jan 2021
I reached out to another dev to ask about sale pricing etc, and they said the exact same thing - they have no control over the pricing of their REs - the only agency they appeared to have was that they were asked if they wanted their products included in seasonal sales or not.
Hmm... that might be a misunderstanding, or possibly an agreement that a specific dev is bound by.

What was the exact words that the dev/support used?

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challism
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04 Jan 2021

Perhaps a Dev with products in the RS shop can chime in here. As I understand it, Devs have 100% control over their pricing (with some basic parameters, for instance the lowest price a Dev can charge is $9, anything lower than $9 must be free). I'm fairly certain Devs set their own prices and RS takes a percentage.

From the RS developer site: https://developer.reasonstudios.com/lea ... e_and_sell
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Loque
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04 Jan 2021

EdwardKiy wrote:
04 Jan 2021
Loque wrote:
04 Jan 2021
Did i already mentioned something about the quality of Softube's support? Alone that statement, that they have no control over the price is ...oh dear...i cannot find words for this... :?
Very weird, right? But they answered pretty quick.

softube.JPG
There are 2 shops, which need to be synced manually. Thats all.

While i read the mail, i just thought, if i had read this in the past by someone else asked this to the support...maybe its just a dejavu.
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Loque
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04 Jan 2021

DougalDarkly wrote:
04 Jan 2021
Loque wrote:
04 Jan 2021
Did i already mentioned something about the quality of Softube's support? Alone that statement, that they have no control over the price is ...oh dear...i cannot find words for this... :?
FWIW I think they're at least being genuine here - I reached out to another dev to ask about sale pricing etc, and they said the exact same thing - they have no control over the pricing of their REs - the only agency they appeared to have was that they were asked if they wanted their products included in seasonal sales or not.

This is just the way RS run the shop.

At least we know where to direct our fury at nonsensical pricing - straight at Reason Studios.

Edit to clarify: Reason Studios are harming Softube's reputation, not the other way round. I guess Softube can take solace in the fact that REs are such a teeny, tiny market.
Without any evidence, you are just speculating.
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challism
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04 Jan 2021

Loque wrote:
04 Jan 2021
DougalDarkly wrote:
04 Jan 2021


FWIW I think they're at least being genuine here - I reached out to another dev to ask about sale pricing etc, and they said the exact same thing - they have no control over the pricing of their REs - the only agency they appeared to have was that they were asked if they wanted their products included in seasonal sales or not.

This is just the way RS run the shop.

At least we know where to direct our fury at nonsensical pricing - straight at Reason Studios.

Edit to clarify: Reason Studios are harming Softube's reputation, not the other way round. I guess Softube can take solace in the fact that REs are such a teeny, tiny market.
Without any evidence, you are just speculating.
I'm friends with (and in regular communication with) enough Devs to know that they have control over their pricing. Softube CSRs are making silly statements.
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DougalDarkly
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04 Jan 2021

Loque wrote:
04 Jan 2021
Without any evidence, you are just speculating.
I'm not sure it's OK for me to post which dev it was - or even if that's relevant - so I wont.

Here's a direct quote copied and pasted from their email though:

"I have absolutely no control over the Prop Shop, unfortunately. The only thing I can do is say no to a sale they'd like to include us in (which I never, ever do). I can't even change the pricing myself, or say when I want a sale..."

All I know is what I've been told by this dev, and I see no reason to suspect they're not being 100% honest.

Soeno
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04 Jan 2021

i think they really have other problems now, as all or most of their plug ins are c###ed at the end of the year

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challism
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04 Jan 2021

DougalDarkly wrote:
04 Jan 2021
Loque wrote:
04 Jan 2021
Without any evidence, you are just speculating.
I'm not sure it's OK for me to post which dev it was - or even if that's relevant - so I wont.

Here's a direct quote copied and pasted from their email though:

"I have absolutely no control over the Prop Shop, unfortunately. The only thing I can do is say no to a sale they'd like to include us in (which I never, ever do). I can't even change the pricing myself, or say when I want a sale..."

All I know is what I've been told by this dev, and I see no reason to suspect they're not being 100% honest.
Please see my post: viewtopic.php?p=533433#p533433

A copied screenshot from the RS developer page. It's public; you can go there yourself and read it. Devs can put their products on sale and they can set their own prices. I'm not suggesting that Dev is lying; maybe that Dev didn't understand how it works or something.
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EpiGenetik
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04 Jan 2021

DougalDarkly wrote:
04 Jan 2021
I'm not sure it's OK for me to post which dev it was - or even if that's relevant - so I wont.

Here's a direct quote copied and pasted from their email though:

"I have absolutely no control over the Prop Shop, unfortunately. The only thing I can do is say no to a sale they'd like to include us in (which I never, ever do). I can't even change the pricing myself, or say when I want a sale..."

All I know is what I've been told by this dev, and I see no reason to suspect they're not being 100% honest.
Unless you have signed a non-disclosure agreement with the dev, then you are legally ok to disclose. It’s up to you whether you are comfortable with it. However, you have said enough, regardless.

Either they have an agreement with RS which is radically different to everyone else, or they are bullshitting you. This might sound extreme, but it is tempered by the fact that bespoke business deals will be in place with a good number of developers. So it is possible that this is one of those developers, but I have to say that this bothers me. Those who are on special deals with RS would be highly unlikely to act in such a manner as to discuss these details with any old character fishing for info via email.

I’d say something is amiss, but this is still speculation. I can state as fact that developers have 100% control over their shop prices and bundle prices - unless otherwise agreed with RS - the default arrangement is 100% control in the hands of the developers. The only caveat to this is if the developers “go silent”; RS are allowed to put stuff on sale for any developers if they do not opt out of a sales period - so if the developers have gone quiet but are still in the shop then they can still be put on sale.

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buddard
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04 Jan 2021

DougalDarkly wrote:
04 Jan 2021
Loque wrote:
04 Jan 2021
Without any evidence, you are just speculating.
I'm not sure it's OK for me to post which dev it was - or even if that's relevant - so I wont.

Here's a direct quote copied and pasted from their email though:

"I have absolutely no control over the Prop Shop, unfortunately. The only thing I can do is say no to a sale they'd like to include us in (which I never, ever do). I can't even change the pricing myself, or say when I want a sale..."

All I know is what I've been told by this dev, and I see no reason to suspect they're not being 100% honest.
This is definitely not how it works for us.

We just log into our developer pages in the RS shop, where we can alter the pricing for each product in two different ways: Either the permanent price (which will take effect directly on approval), or a time limited sale. For the time limited sale we enter the start and end date/time, and the price tier for the discount. Then the discounted price will be shown next to the crossed-out original price for the duration of the sale.

Once we have updated our product page(s), we submit them to RS who just review and approve them, which can take 1-3 days depending on the workload.

So managing "public" pricing for individual products in the RS shop is super simple in my opinion!

DougalDarkly
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04 Jan 2021

buddard wrote:
04 Jan 2021
This is definitely not how it works for us.
Yeah, this does seem odd, either the dev was lying (unlikely), their 'deal' is different in some way (confusing), or they don't know how to manage their products on the RS shop - this third option is more likely(?), especially if you factor in the 'I don't really care about REs, because the market's too small' angle.

It seems a real shame - I was looking forward to the possibility of more REs from this particular dev, and they've responded positively, if vaguely, when the subject has been brought up - it seems he was just being nice.

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joeyluck
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04 Jan 2021

DougalDarkly wrote:
04 Jan 2021
buddard wrote:
04 Jan 2021
This is definitely not how it works for us.
Yeah, this does seem odd, either the dev was lying (unlikely), their 'deal' is different in some way (confusing), or they don't know how to manage their products on the RS shop - this third option is more likely(?), especially if you factor in the 'I don't really care about REs, because the market's too small' angle.

It seems a real shame - I was looking forward to the possibility of more REs from this particular dev, and they've responded positively, if vaguely, when the subject has been brought up - it seems he was just being nice.
Well their last RE was from 2014? And the softube amps included with Reason 9 was 2016 I think?

You'll find similar responses from some other devs we don't see anymore. It's like they don't have someone assigned to manage the REs and their support staff is not trained on it...and sometimes not even aware. I remember way back with Cakewalk—every time CA-2A was on sale, I would ask them, "What about RE-2A?" And they would have no clue. They would say, "We would if we could..." Lol. And I'd reply, "You can!" :lol: They eventually figured it out in the end (like 10 sales later) before they were acquired :)

This is where the RE platform is a double-edged sword perhaps? This whole future proofing of things means the REs work, but become out of sight and out of mind for some devs. All these other platforms they need to revisit to make updates, and this RE platform where things just continue to work, they don't bother to give it any attention. Maybe it's because it makes them much less money, or maybe because they naturally forget about it because it's not on the work list.

DougalDarkly
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04 Jan 2021

joeyluck wrote:
04 Jan 2021
Well their last RE was from 2014? And the softube amps included with Reason 9 was 2016 I think?
Sorry, I wasn't talking about Softube - the dev I was referencing published their last REs at the end of 2018 - apologies for the confusion, it's my poor quoting-thing!

I think your wider point is 100% correct though.

I think some of these devs were perhaps approached by RS to add a range of content (and recognisable names) to the shop, but have long (or maybe not-so-long) since stopped caring.

Like I said, it's a shame, particularly as I like their REs so much, but I'm also extremely grateful to the RE devs we do have that continue to make great REs that I want to buy, like Lectric Panda and Robotic Bean!

TBH, where I'm at right now, these two alone could keep me busy for the next couple of years... :D

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joeyluck
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04 Jan 2021

DougalDarkly wrote:
04 Jan 2021
joeyluck wrote:
04 Jan 2021
Well their last RE was from 2014? And the softube amps included with Reason 9 was 2016 I think?
Sorry, I wasn't talking about Softube - the dev I was referencing published their last REs at the end of 2018 - apologies for the confusion, it's my poor quoting-thing!

I think your wider point is 100% correct though.

I think some of these devs were perhaps approached by RS to add a range of content (and recognisable names) to the shop, but have long (or maybe not-so-long) since stopped caring.

Like I said, it's a shame, particularly as I like their REs so much, but I'm also extremely grateful to the RE devs we do have that continue to make great REs that I want to buy, like Lectric Panda and Robotic Bean!

TBH, where I'm at right now, these two alone could keep me busy for the next couple of years... :D
Agreed. Very appreciative of the awesome RE devs we have :thumbs_up:

Maybe RS could also update the RE shop to require a mandatory login once a year or even every two years. A RE dev would have to simply login and accept the option to keep their shop pages live. If they don't, the pages are hidden, but can be republished after logging in and resubmitting them. Then they might also entertain the idea of a sale while logged in lol.

DecafDreams
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05 Jan 2021

Perhaps Softube used a third party to code and publish the REs and they don't actually manage them at all? Perhaps they merely licensed their code and branding for this exercise? It's difficult to know exactly what's going on but it definitely seems like there is a real disconnect between the Softube official operation and the administration of the products which bear the Softube name within the Reason Studios shop...

DecafDreams
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05 Jan 2021

DecafDreams wrote:
05 Jan 2021
Perhaps Softube used a third party to code and publish the REs and they don't actually manage them at all? Perhaps they merely licensed their code and branding for this exercise? It's difficult to know exactly what's going on but it definitely seems like there is a real disconnect between the Softube official operation and the administration of the products which bear the Softube name within the Reason Studios shop...
I've found four videos that Softube did, seemingly in house, to promote the REs via their marketing manager:






It seems like they are an official product and they are responsible for them. Perhaps they've made the decision just to leave them for now (although they did discount FET last year at some point) and any emails from their support team replying to requests for discounts are simply polite rebuttals, even if they aren't actually accurate! :) As has been said in the past, these REs are world class quality effects and when you compare them to the price of the actual hardware they model; they are still a bargain!

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