Rather good explanation there!
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Except it’s kind of bullshit. Plenty of companies offer you to surrender multiple licenses when upgrading to a bundle, and discount the bundle price for each individual license surrendered. As long as you know you surrender the licenses, and have the option which licenses to surrender as part of the bundle update, it’s no problem. You know you surrendered the licenses, if you want to sell the bundle, you’ll have to re-purchase the individual licenses you surrendered earlier. Nothing strange with that. References to how things worked in 2003 doesn’t really help, it was bad, but things have moved on since then.
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I just don’t agree that selling the license is the answer.
Rather than going back and forth on that point, I do have a much better answer.
I hope this will help someone in the future who happens to come across this thread.
If you own V Collection or FX Collection, DO NOT buy new instruments or effects when they first come out.
Seriously. Just. don’t. buy.
No matter how enticing the intro deal is, no matter how good Arturia makes it sound on their promo, if you buy that new shiny synth, you will be forced to buy it again when the Collection upgrade comes out.
If you have GAS like me and can’t help buying new shiny things, STOP subscribing to Arturia newsletters (already did). Delete all Arturia promo emails without looking. Just don’t look at new releases.
And if you somehow end up on a checkout page with that new synth release, remind yourself before you click that buy button. You’ll have to pay for it again.
Yes, you might get a little bit of a discount when you pay for it again. But dude, you’ll have to PAY FOR IT AGAIN!
Maybe your GAS is bad enough to resort to buying multiple copies and justify it with the hopes of selling it and recouping the cost later. If that’s the case, you should probably seek out professional help first.
Either way, just don’t buy new instrument/effect releases if you own V/FX Collection.
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I guess my problem with the price is a bit more basic.
In early '22, I upgraded from V7 to V8 for $99.
In late '22, I upgraded from V8 to V9 for $99.
Mid '23, upgraded from FX3 to FX4 to $69
And in late '23 the upgrade from V9 to VX is $199?!
I understand costs are up. But double the prior upgrade price?
At $99, I would have just upgraded at the first email without thinking.
At $199, I am choosing to not upgrade. I am probably not alone.
I neither need nor care about the Augmented instruments nor the Minifreak.
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I’m with you all, even on the deep discounted price my upgrade was $199 when I already own 90% of what’s in the new version it’s a rip off and I won’t be upgrading if it basically means paying for half the full price to receive a few extra instruments. I did the upgrade from 8 -9 and it was a rip off.
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You’re incredible, you lot.
Your attitude to paying a fair amount for upgrades is why some apps by. other developers stagnate for years and never get improved. IRL you want to be paid top dollar for whatever you do to earn your own living, but when it comes to paying software companies and app developers a fair price to update and improve their software, you want it all for peanuts.
And do you know what you get if you only pay peanuts? Chimps.
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I don’t think expressing whether we think something is a good deal or not is us saying we’re against paying a fair price, I explained in the OP why I personally felt it was too much and I stressed that I hope I’m wrong and loads of people buy the upgrade.
I also stand by my example at the end of it.
100 people upgrading for €299 = €29,900
1000 people upgrading for €150 = €150,000
I’m sure they have marketing bods that try to work out the best way of them making money, just saying how I feel.
I also don’t think those who have previously bought say the SQ80, should expect the price they paid to be deducted from the upgrade cost (unless they bought the product in say the last month). If you look at me, I bought the SQ80 in Sept 21, I’ve had access to it and used it for over 2 years, why on earth should I effectively expect a refund, that simply wouldn’t be fair, they are a business and I want them to continue to be a business.
That said, a small discount (even just €5) for early adopters, to me looks good from a locality pov although I know full well if they say gave us €5, people would be screaming “just €5, why bother”, so in some ways Arturia can’t win.
I’ve explained in my OP why for me, I can’t justify their upgrade price of €299. Others who have been after the new included stuff it may well be a different situation and to them a superb deal.
If I look at the 3 things I’d like to upgrade that are in VX (some were in v9, I’m still on v8), they are:
CS80
Piano V2
Mini
They cost €49 each to upgrade.
Part of me would happily pay the €147 now to upgrade, but I would still be on v8. While it’s true that if they did say a Black Friday deal next year where say it cost me €200 to upgrade to VX I would have had nearly a years use out of these three upgrades, while I’d like to have the upgraded versions, I am very happy with the existing versions.
So rather than upgrade those three now, it makes financial sense for me to wait and see what deals they offer in the coming year.
Not sure I’m explaining myself very well, all I’m trying to say is that from my point of view, the amount they are currently offering me to upgrade is actually stopping me spending money with them, but I do not and never have expected something for nothing.
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Personally, I think this whole bundle focus that seems to plague the plugin market is a huge problem, and leads to all kinds of badwill and pricing issues.
It’s often cheaper to buy the bundle than even a few individual plugins you actually want, and then it leads to all kinds of strange consequences, like the userbase having to wait/not wanting to purchase the latest plugin releases since buying individual licenses when owning the bundle will pretty much always be punished whenever the plugin is added to the bundle. It also leads to distractions and loads o plugins cluttering up your workflow. In some cases, it also prevents you from dropping/not paying for upgrades for plugins you’re not using because you would need an upgrade for OS compatibility for a few of the plugins in the bundle you actually use.
Systems like FabFilter’s, where you get discount for the next single plugin depending on the number of plugins already owned is, i m h o, a much much better system than any bundle.
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Fab filters way of doing things is very interesting.
While it’s true that by buying bundles, we can end up with a ton of stuff we never use (or even so much choice that we never get to learn one plug-in inside out), I have found things in both Arturia V collection and Komplete that I would never ever considered buying if they were only available as individual products, yet on trying them, I absolutely fell in love with them.
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Another way of mitigating some of the bundle problems is doing something Waves WUP-like, where a bundle purchase includes all coming releases up until the next bundle release. Kind of, makes sense for a “complete” bundle, and removes the problem with bundle owners being discouraged from buying the latest plugins on release. That, on the other hand, runs into problems with “I paid for this, and expected you to release more stuff I wanted than you did, I feel cheated”, or in case of WUP specifically, all kinds of other customer dissatisfaction and badwill.
Also, bundles kind of devalue the entire product portfolio. “We’re charging $199/plugin, but given the bundle price, we honestly only feel they are worth $29.”
Speaking of Komplete. I’ve heard things like:
- Oh, I really want this new NI plugin, but I can’t buy it since I’m on Komplete
- I’ll have to wait forever since I only upgrade every third version, due to “unfair” pricing for upgrading one version compared to several
- I wish I had stayed on a smaller Komplete version, or that I could downgrade. Now everything I use/want have dropped to a smaller Komplete, but I have to pay the more expensive upgrade for the big version to get it, together with loads of stuff I don’t want.
from pretty much everybody I know who owns a Komplete license.
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Hello,
I am returning to the discussion thread on this subject. To tell the truth, all the proposed elements on this evolutionary update are very interesting for me.
Many of these instruments pigment my musical curiosity.
I did a brief calculation if I had to add these individually, no less than €992.
So €199 is more than judicious and profitable.
Except that for the moment I’m going to wait.
I don’t want to be part of the news items to further draw on the family finances like “his wife kills him because of one too many purchases”,
so if by During this year the opportunity presents itself once again (in a good six months or at the end of 2024) I will not hesitate to pay this amount (of course if it is still current).
Having worked in commerce (I am not acting as a lawyer) I suspect that the driving force of a company is that it can benefit from its investment, regulate its salary base, the financial imperatives and then in certain cases Investors.
Otherwise it’s guaranteed bankruptcy, bankruptcy filings, layoffs, for us only sad memories and regrets.
The price is not always a sanction, and its competition is only for our good will but also so that quality and innovation in the field continue,
we are also there to contribute financially to its evolution and for me Arturia is worth it the candle, since I will never have had the opportunity to benefit from the quality of all these products musically speaking.
By the way best wishes for this new year.
Bonjour, je reviens sur le fil de discussion sur ce sujet. A vrai dire toutes les propositions d’éléments sur cette mise à jour évolutive est très intéressant pour moi. Beaucoup de ces instruments pigmentent ma curiosité musicale. J’ai fait un bref calcul s’il me fallait ajouter ceux ci individuellement, pas moins de 992€. Donc 199 € c’est plus que judicieux et profitable. Sauf que pour l’instant je vais attendre .Je ne veux pas faire partie des faits divers pour encore puiser dans les finances familiales dans le genre « sa femme le tue à cause d’un achat de trop « , donc si d’ici le cours de cette année l’opportunité se présente encore une fois (dans six bon mois ou en fin d’année 2024 ) je n’hésiterai pas à payez cette somme ( bien sur si elle est encore d’actualité). Ayant travaillé dans le commerce ( je ne me fait pas l’avocat ) je me doute que le moteur d’une entreprise c’est qu’elle puisse profiter de son investissement, régler sa base salariale, les impératifs financiers et puis dans certains cas les investisseurs. Sinon c’est la faillite assurée dépôts de bilan, licenciements, pour nous que de tristes souvenirs et de regrets. Le prix n’est pas toujours une sanction, et sa mise en concurrence que pour notre bon vouloir mais aussi pour que perdure la qualité et la novation dans le domaine, nous sommes aussi là pour contribuer financièrement à son évolution et pour moi Arturia en vaux la chandelle , vu que je n’aurai jamais eu l’occasion de profiter de la qualité de tout ces produits musicalement parlant .
Meilleurs Voeux pour cette nouvelle Année.
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The price of all the individual software bought separately isn’t really a real price.
OK. Someone could buy each one individually and it would cost them a fortune, but no music software company ever expects someone to do that, it’s just a form of marketing where we say get £992 worth of products for £199.
In a way it’s a meaningless figure. They simply expect most people to buy bundles but have individual prices for the people who want say just one of their products, or who say have Komplete standard but want one instrument from Komplete ultimate.
Attached is part of the receipt from Plugin Alliance, do I really think I got $2,043 worth of plugins for free, of course not. Sure if I bought each one at their full individual price it will equal that, but in the real world that never happens, always some sale/offer on, always bundles available.
Sure some people will honestly believe NI gave them an extra $2,043 worth of products for nothing, but most of us know it’s just marketing/advertising.
The reality is, if NI (and it applies to most plugin companies including Arturia) were really giving me over $2,000 of products for nothing, that the thing that would would bankrupt them.
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Hello,
yes of course I understood it well, but what is the real value of an operating license (because the product is licensed for lasting or limited use).
To return to NI which initially offered me €299 to upgrade from the Komplete 14 Standard to the Ultimate one a few weeks ago, today the difference between an upgrade and the one on promotion is only 0.50Cts , look for the error.
I purchased Fables and Lore for €99, as of today I have invested almost €500 between the update of Analog Lab V, Pigments, Collection V 9 and Banks of presets.
I know that this sum is very insignificant in terms of contributions to many of you, but a small retirement is very substantial.
I’m not complaining because it’s especially during promotions that I benefit from it. FL Studio was an investment but thanks to Black Friday I was able to access the full version. I was of course seduced by the aesthetic side of the Daw following the trial version but also by the free lifetime update of the product of course I am not fooled.
For Komplete 14 it’s the same as for Arturia, I will always have to put my hand in my pocket to stay up to date.
I dropped Samplitude from Magix, it’s always a race to the end, I understood that you can’t race with an old bike.
I will always have to justify such investments as an Amateur Musician and the frustration of always having a line in my hand for, in certain cases, compulsive purchases.
I ended up telling myself that the ones who are really doing well are not the musicians but those who sell all these products, confusing our heads with fluctuations in different amounts and promotions, but hey I would never have been able to take advantage of it.
Amitié Musicale.
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Yep, I agree.
I also purchased Fables, Guitar Rig 7 pro and Session percussionist and I know that they will be in Komplete 15 collectors edition whenever that’s released.
But reading up on them and watching reviews, I really wanted them like I really wanted the SQ80 when that was released.
Sadly there’s nothing apart from the rebuilt instruments that I really want from upgrading from V8 to VX, that’s not me saying that VX isn’t very good, just saying there’s nothing that I currently feel the need to have.
I could find when I do update that one of the new instruments in the V collection is superb, it’s happened before.
I definitely will update, but at the moment having spent a lot on other software and wanting to buy a new master keyboard, I simply can’t justify €299 at this time where as I could have justified less.
If when their next sale comes around, it’s the same price, I’ll probably give in and buy it anyway .
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Tomorrow I’m purchasing the Arturia Keylab 61 mk2
This comes with the Piano V which was a nice surprise.
Presuming it’s the current version, that’s one of the 3 that I wanted to upgrade.
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That’s an interesting question actually. I’m not sure whether you get the latest Piano V from VC9/VCX or one of the earlier ones.
Well I watched a YouTube vid from when the s61 mk2 was released, this did come with the old piano v2 version but it was June 2018.
I think v3 was released in 2022, so I’m hoping as it’s 2024, I get the latest version, I’ll find out tomorrow and let you know.
My Keylab 61 arrived today, glad I paid a little extra for the black rather than the white, looks beautiful.
I registered the hardware, under Keylab mk2 it said I had the following products
Analog lab 4
Analog Pro (not sure why they also included 4)
Piano V2
However Piano v3 also appeared on its own as an update for my keylab, so very happy, see attached pics.
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Wow great result!
Piano V3 is really where their modelled pianos are starting to sound great IMO. I wasn’t a fan of the original and V2, I would always have chosen a sampled piano in preference because, although they had a lot of features and customisation, to my ears they were clearly ‘work in progress’ in terms of authenticity. V3 is sounding really good, and to my ears is now sonically competitive with Modartt Pianoteq, where V1 and V2 just were not.
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Arturia might win this one lol.
It’s annoying that when I try to fully open up things like CS80 from Analog Labs it won’t let me as I only own the previous version.
So give it a few weeks and if the offer is still on, I will probably relent and buy it 