[OT] - does IP exist?

[Mike]

Jb Wrote:

> Whether this is just somthing that's particulary bad in the audio software 
> industry I dont know, but of all my musician freinds I cant think of any who 
> would pay for software when they can get it for free. I can remember getting 
> "huh.. you piad for it??" quite a few times when telling them about some new 
> plugin / app i bought.

Example: I've bought Ableton Live version 1.5 and upgraded to 5. But I sure as hell won't shell out more money for later versions. Why? They finally put in some much needed features which were lacking before (like External Instrument), but in no way are worth the upgrade price; instead they spend all their time and effort developing their own plugins and charging money for it. As if there weren't enough plugins already. Excellent free ones. As if the time wouldn't be spent better on finally delivering much needed features like track folders or bezier automation or ... maybe ... FIXING THE DAMN BUGS! OR SOME MODULARITY! Why has every damn instrument its own filters? Its own overdrive? Its own base waveforms which CAN'T BE USED WITH OTHER INSTRUMENTS! Has nobody ever thought that I could want to use the 24db high pass with AutoFilter or one of Operator's waveforms in Simpler maybe, just for fun?

Oh no, we can't do that ... BECAUSE WE FUCKING CHARGE EXTRA FOR EVERY MODULE.

The other companies aren't much better. It's just bloat after bloat, feature creep and pretty, blinking, useless interfaces with UI metaphors that worked on a tape machine in the 70ies but don't translate well to a keyboard/mouse interface. They never have.

Or take Reason: Now come on! Spend some time delivering a USEFUL ReWire standard with more than two apps at the samt time or ... crazy things like ... AUDIO IN ... and stop wasting time on the 5000th vocoder plugin and, let me tell you, I'm sick of the damn wires. And I'm sick of sitting in front of perfect screen replicas of analog hardware interfaces, because it's a pointless waste of effort. At least Ableton has understood that, but Steinberg does this all the time too.

I'm entirely sick of it. Yeah, I torrented the last versions of Live, Reason, Cubase; but after all I've given up anyway. I never reached the productivity I had on my Yamaha RS7000 with any audio software; in fact I stopped making music effectively (this dawned on me some day). Recently I dusted off the RS7000 ... what a pleasure. And I've now switched to Ubuntu anyway, I'm finished with paying for software upgrades that are 10% essential and 90% bloat.

Phew. Now I feel better. Sorry for the rant, but I just wanted to explain this former paying customer's reasons for - at least some time - pirating audio software.

-Mike