The Null Device Blog

First, despite three emails, including one from the president of the company, exhorting that I don’t need to have any physical boxed software shipped to me because I only need the upgrade license, EastWest/Soundsonline charged me for shipping and shipped me a box of discs that I already have.  Apparenlty there was a special box I needed to check on the order, and numerous personal emails and requests go unheeded if you don’t have the box checked.

I found out yesterday that RobPapen Blue, a synth I use a lot, just had an upgrade to v1.8.  Great, I went to download it…and they’ve changed their login and user database stuff around since the 1.7 upgrade.  Fine.  I set up a new login, and it asks for my Blue serial # (which I ahd stored for my old login) and…well, I can’t find it, because it was printed on the inside of the box, which was one of the only casualties of the last basement flood.  Hopefully they’ll have pity on me and be able to recover my old serial.

Sigh.

Score one for EastWest, and score one for me.

As detailed in my previous post, I was really annoyed that EWQLSO Silver didn’t contain the stuff that was in the old version of Silver.

I pointed out in the support forums that I was completely blindsided by this.  Their response was to mention that this had been discussed in their forums before. 

Because, yeah, everybody reads their support forums diligently.  I pointed out that not everybody reads their support forums on a daily basis, and they get enough traffic that older posts “fall off” after only a few weeks, so if you missed it, you missed it.

They responded with a mention that it was also in the emails.  I dug up the emails, and they read as follows:

Silver up graders should be aware the PLAY version is not compatible with the NI version, so use the NI version for past projects, and the PLAY version for new projects. This was necessary to provide a smoother upgrade process. The Silver PLAY version includes chromatic samples, unlike the NI version, so the sound quality is significantly better.

Note that it says the new vresion is incompatible, and sounds better.  Nowhere does it mention that incompatible also means  “your samples won’t be there.” 

Within minutes there’s a reply – the upgrade offer is re-extended, and if I want to upgrade to gold at the vastly reduced price, I can.  So instead of paying $450, I get to upgrade for…$50.

That’s pretty good custmer serivce.  Took a little prodding, and I still suggest that they make all this stuff blindingly clear for future upgrades – not just forum posts.  But that pleases me.

Now all I need is a computer that can run it.

I rely a lot on sample libraries of acoustic insturments – since it’s just impractical for me to squeeze a 40-piece string orchestra or find a small taiko ensemble, I rely on some of the higher quality libraries from places like Big Fish Audio or EastWest/Soundsonline.

There are two libraries from EastWest that I use specifically – the renowned RA and the industry-standard Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra.  Because the EWQLSO comes in different tiers, I naturally picked the cheapest when I first bought it – I bought SO Silver.

Eventually I added Silver XP to it, because they sent out some memo saying if I wanted to qualify for the lower upgrade price when the released the next version, I’d need both Silver and SilverXP.  Fine.

Around this time, the company that made their sampler engine dropped support for the engine in question.  Native Instruments decided there wasn’t any point to customized versions of Kompakt anymore, so they stopped making it.  A lot of these smaple libraries are based around a custom Kompakt player.  This affected me surprisingly little, since I already own Kontakt, the big-brother sampler, which does everything Kompakt could do and then some.

Some companies scrambled.  Some picked a new third-party product like IK Sampletank, others went back to making sampler-specific libraries.  EastWest decided they were going to roll their own.  Their new sampler, called PLAY, is now the basis for their new libraries. 

I was given the opportunity to upgrade from Kompakt Silver to PLAY Silver – kind of a necessary upgrade since there may come a time when I won’t even be able to install Kompakt on a future machine, meaning I can’t unlock the sample banks for use with Kontakt.  Irritating, but I got a cheap upgrade.  I could’ve spent more and gotten the upgrade to “SO Gold” but I didn’t need the extra stuff in Gold before, so I shouldn’t now, right?

Okay, here’s why I’m irked.  They changed it.  A lot.  Silver no longer has the same stuff it used to.  Gone are the “18 violins” section.  Oh, it’s got a beautiful 11-violin legato section, but if I need a wall of orchestra this doesn’t cut it.  “6 french horns” gone – replaced with solo horns.  3 oboes?  Flute section? Nope.  Sure, there’s about 85 more articulations for all these new ones and there’s no denying they sound great, but I basically just spent money to lose most of the capability I needed, in the name of compatibility.  Thankfully my existing software still works but I fear what’s going to happen a computer or two from here.  Oh, I could’ve upgraded to Gold for an extra $50 or whatever, but…man, when I pay to upgrade a product, I shouldn’t lose capabilities I already had.  I’ve recently been informed that the producer discussed this loss of capability long ago on one of the support forums, because they weren’t planning on having a “Silver” version of the new one in the first place.  Now, I dunno about everyone else, but I don’t generally spend time reading support forums for every single piece of music software I own, least of which sample libraries.  Also, given their website says “Original and Pro XP expansion combined into ‘complete’ PLAY version” I took them at their word.  I should’ve read the fine print and noted on the full insturment list that there were a bunch of asterisks. 

And then there’s PLAY itself.  The UI is confounding.  Pretty, but confounding.  Particularly the file browser – it’s trying to look like the mac file browser, and failing.  Performance on my G5 is asstacular, since apparenlty it’s “optimized for a 64-bit system” which also means “we’ve got every conceivable effect running whether you need it or not” and  “we don’t care if your computer is more than 18 months old.”  The manual has tips for performance optimization, using the settings screens – which don’t actually match the manual.  I go to the performance screen and there’s one editable box for something called “engine level”, whereas the manual shows buffer settings and the like.  No idea what “engine level” means, or whether a higher or lower number is better for my needs.  Also, it has a “check for upgrade” feature – I clicked it, and my version 1.0.79 shows no upgrade available, even though “version 1.0.83 out now!” is splashed all over their website.  Their sample format is proprietary and closed.  The software requires an iLok dongle (we hates dongles – I’ve got limited USB ports as it is).

So I’m feeling kind of ripped-off right now.  As I said, it does sound great, when I can get it to work.  But that’s sort of beside the point.

I’m worried that the next version of my core-system RA is going to do something similar – I’ll buy the upgrade I can afford rather than the full platinum edition or whatever they decide to sell for $500 and find out that my tablas are gone in favor of 35 new ney articulations.

The question now becomes do I continue to give these guys my money because, despite their rather asstacular support and my twitchiness at the fact that I’d become reliant on a non-software-company’s software, or do I switch to another, likely inferior, set of libraries out of spite?

I’ve developing a somewhat unholy love for amp simulators.  I prefer using them subtly – just to add a little bit of grit and punch to a signal, but, man they’re handy to have around.  And cheaper and easier than owning a few dozen amps (I’ll leave that to Dan).

What does somewhat bum me out is that there seem to be about 8500 different amp sim packages for guitar amps models, but about 6 for bass, and they’re always pretty scant on the features. 

Logic’s built-in sims are surprisngly competant.  The presets on guitaramp do suck, though, so it requires a fair bit of tweaking.

I’ll eventually have to break down and get GuitarRig SE.

Snoop Dogg took my idea.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7549301.stm