I does not currently own any VSL products, but have been eyeing the VSL SE for quite some time. This change of policy does not affect me at all but I still wanted to express how I feel for the people affected by it. I currently own the EWQLSO Gold XP and I would be absolutely shocked if one day, I found out that I could no longer upgrade to Platinum. We see a similar situation here with some of the VSL users not being able to upgrade to the Cube after a certain date. Only difference is that the VSL costs thousands of dollars. Music libraries ain't cheap. Esp. not the VSL ones. Top-notch quality but costs a ton. I believe that for both professionals and hobbyists, these libraries are a huge investment.

Yes, introducing upgrade plans for the SE folks is great. But WHY abbandon the First/Pro Edition users that have been with the company for such a long time?! Do you expect people to just shell out thousands of dollars to upgrade in a few months so that they can "protect their investment"?? Though I am not affected but this, I can't belive how ridiculous of a move a company can make on its loyal customers. People buy your smaller/cheaper packages in hope that when they could afford it, they can keep adding to their collection to eventually own the whole thing. You cut them off suddenly and they're left with "nothing", as far as the upgrade goes. I honestly feel really bad for them.

And here's some food for thought. Why would a prospective customer like myself be interested in the SE now that I'm not sure when you would take away my upgrade path?? I don't know if this move by VSL is an attempt to quicken the upgrades of some of its users or what. But it's doing no good convincing new customers to buy their products either. With this change of policy, none of your upgrade promises in the future would feel the same.

As customers, the only real way to express how we feel is with our wallets. Unfortunately, some users have already invested thousands of dollars in VSL's products and is now tied to this whole scheme. I honestly feel that those users might as well hold on to their current sample libraries, treat them as "as-is" products and move on to other alternatives as oppose to chasing this ever-changing upgrade path. And though I did have vast interest in "investing" in the SE, I no longer feel safe investing in VSL.

I really hope that VSL would reconsider their change of policy. 

@tommalm said:

I think what Shredordead meant, is that everyone on this thread is upset

Thanks for clarifying.

@herb said:

All future updates of the Vienna Instruments software will be for free.

New major features of the Vienna Ensemble software like the resently published crossplatform network version (VE3)

will be with costs.

Thanks Herb,

Honestly, I don't mind paying a reasonable fee for software upgrades and I think it might be better long-term business for us all.  This way, we can expect to get software updates and VSL gets fairly compensated.

Why not consider making a good business-sense concession to the outcry from existing users to extend their upgrade options?  As you can see from my e-mails, this only really affects me in the sense of knowing VSL will be a stronger business when all users are happy (I have no financial gain in this request).  Plus, since you're raising prices (at least here in the U.S.), you can offer users a nice discount from the new higher prices and upgraders will be pleased and you get the same remuneration that I would pay buying today - everyone's happy!  In addition, you could then offer steep discounts as you did with the previous Horizon sale and generate business from new customers as well.   This way, we're all  pretty much paying the same price which seems fair to all.

Well anyhow, thank you for the reply and giving me a little confidence to become a new VI customer.  I just think you can really find a way to please almost everyone else as well too.  Really its the only good solution so please give it your serious consideration. 

Seems like a win-win situation that would rectify this current fiasco.[Y]

Best regards,

Gregory D. Moore 

Herb,

With all due respect, sir, you have made a mistake. There are very few people here agreeing with your decision, if any. You are about to lose many dollars, and good will, from people who's patronage helped build your company. It seems to me that offering an extra 3 months, while you feel this is genorous, is a second slap in the face. Your previous marketing mentions a life long investment, VSL's commitment that one will never pay for the same samples twice. I wonder how many less packages you would have sold if the marketing said "You will pay for the same samples twice" Even if you had said this at least people would have known what to expect. This seems to be a case of bait and switch.

I suppose you have the right to do what you want. You could raise the price to $10,000,000 or give it away for free. However time will tell if you you are losing more here than you are gaining. I believe the former, you are losing way more. Even if you reverse your decision and let these guys upgrade at their leisure the reality is you have done some serious damage to VSL's good will. Perhaps it would be best to say "In light of the comments made on this forum we are reconsidering our decision" It seems to me this is the only way to retain some of the customers and re-establish the good will.

With all due respect,

Darren

(a potential customer) 

darren, can i merge your three empty accounts? please notify me about your preferred email address ...

btw: interesting to read your understanding of the term *patronage* and your expressing of solidarity - it seems you are one of the potential users who are intending to purchase the full super packege and so do not care about future upgrade paths from the smaller libraries to the big collections.

christian

@herb said:

 

 

Hi Marsdy,

 

if you upgrade till July 15th 2008 you will get your upgrade price. (plus free extended libraries)

@herb said:

 

 

I don't think so:

- Most of our users are excusively Vienna Instrument users, never licensed a Sample Library from us.

- Most of our Sample Library users have already upgraded

- A lot of users like to get the "Free Extended Offers" with this final upgrade sale

- all users who really want to upgrade but do have problems with the funding, could contact their distributors  to make a setup

 

So finally there are all users, who prefer their Kontakt, Giga, EXS platforms, and don't want to make a change,

but they also don't want to loose their theoretical upgrade option.

I'm sorry, that I don't have a convincing solution in this case.  

 

best

Herb

 

 

 

 

 

@steff3 said:

... for the samples you already own

licensed, steff, licensed ... samples are owned by VSL ... just to have that said agin ...

my 2c here: the VIP program has initially been instanciated as upgrade path from the first to the pro edition. later horizon series products have been included offering several upgrade paths (and you might remember we had a long winding discussion about why there is no upgrade path from the first edition to opus 1)

more than 2 years ago the upgrade paths have been expanded even to the Vienna Instruments where we could now start some academic discussion if this are the *same samples* as in the legacy sample libraries products ...

strictly speaking they are not - they are created out of the same master material but new re-sampled, re-edited, re-mapped.

actually they are now *Virtual Instrumts* and no longer *mapped samples*.

but as said: we _could_ but VSL never had, on the contrary: the Vienna Instrument products have been configured in a way which expands the sample base, the ease of use, the audio quality, the efficiency and allows the transition without too much hassle. for three more months. as herb posted in a way actually 6 more months. better things are the worst enemies of the good things.

VSL as inventor of the Performance tool had to recognize, that simple midi processing is on its end of life and usefulness. additionally the support and mainenance of the performance tool is realistically no longer possible ... (how to integrate into GVI, teleport solutions, how to cushion logic inconveniences regarding EXS, get kontakt scripts on the same level, HALion could never use scripted programs and midi routing has always been a mess, mach V would have required a completely new format, how to integrate in garage band or other newer hosts ... just to mention a few points)

the whole step to Vienna Instruments became neccessary (and in my opinion there was not even a breath of another option considering the various limitations of existing samplers) to make this huge amount of samples usable again on a daily and reasonable basis.

according to a more modern product range (starting from the ORCHESTRA special edition sections, over the upcoming single instruments libraries to the big collections) there is clearly a demand for new upgrade schemas so continuing the tradition of the VIP (Vienna Innovation Program), just based on the newer product format and configuration.

there have been countless complaints about how unclear, unfair, not reflecting the needs the old upgrade paths have been (more precisely: have become, because VSL tried to integrate all newer sample libraries into this schema).

now - and lets face it - there are already more VI users than sample library users and the possible upgrade paths have to reflect that ...

christian

@cm said:

now - and lets face it - there are already more VI users than sample library users and the possible upgrade paths have to reflect that ...

And does the fact that there are more VI users than sample library users justify the fact that the upgrade paths of the sample library users should be wiped out if they don't shell out thousands of dollars in the next 3-6 months? 

@Enlighten said:

And does the fact that there are more VI users than sample library users justify the fact that the upgrade paths of the sample library users should be wiped out if they don't shell out thousands of dollars in the next 3-6 months?

am i supposed to answer to someone who does neither provide his real name nor address information, but just a throw-away email address, does not have any products registered and 2 posts?

enlighten me please, christian

@Errikos said:

How many times are we expected to spend thousands for your 'copied'-'pasted' onto DVDs same sounds that we have already licensed? Not for new sounds, not for extra articulations, but for the thousands of samples that we already have

with all due respect and noticing your particular situation - it is far away from beeing copied&pasted ...

christian

@Another User said:

now - and lets face it - there are already more VI users than sample library users and the possible upgrade paths have to reflect that ...

I'm still not sure that I fully understand the difficulty of maintaining both upgrade paths. I have to admit that I don't understand the whole minefield of the individual instruments coming out, and I can see that there is a potential nightmare in allowing customers to mix and match upgrade paths. For instance I can see where a customer might say 'I have the Pro Library, and I've now bought the individual downloadable trumpet; how much do I get off the Brass I VI now?'

But what if you were to just keep the two routes entirely separate i.e. those with the Giga libraries can continue to use them to upgrade to complete VI extended collections, but no other products can be taken into account to produce a further discount. I had every intention of upgrading to all the complete collections. Nothing else was ever promised as I bought my libraries, and I don't expect to be included in anything else (other than offers for the users of the complete collections that I buy). If this were made clear now then there shouldn't be a problem. If, for instance, someone has the Pro Library, and does buy the individual trumpet, and then asks how much to upgrade to the whole of Brass I, the answer is either the price of the upgrade from the Pro Library, or the price of the upgrade from the downloadable trumpet - but not a combination. 

The only flaw I see is if there are many customers who have already bought the Pro Library, and then bought SE, but I can't see that many would have gone down that route at all.

@Another User said:

the whole minefield of the individual instruments coming out

*minefield* - that fits pretty well to what is approaching ... you actually continued with some examples .. but honestly: shouldn't we expect exactly the same arguments we have read in this thread again then ... despite of any possible related announcement (choose upgrade path)

christian

@Pingu said:

I wouldn't go down that route Christian

read ahead my post ... i wrote *VSL does not*

Sorry, you're quite right, I did miss that.

@Enlighten said:

And does the fact that there are more VI users than sample library users justify the fact that the upgrade paths of the sample library users should be wiped out if they don't shell out thousands of dollars in the next 3-6 months?

am i supposed to answer to someone who does neither provide his real name nor address information, but just a throw-away email address, does not have any products registered and 2 posts?

enlighten me please, christian

I already mentioned in my first post that I don't currently own any VSL products and that I've been interested in the SE. What a nice way to treat your potential customers.

@Enlighten said:

I already mentioned in my first post that I don't currently own any VSL products and that I've been interested in the SE.

@steff3 said:

... for the samples you already own

licensed, steff, licensed ... samples are owned by VSL ... just to have that said agin ...

@herb said:

I don't think so:

- Most of our users are excusively Vienna Instrument users, never licensed a Sample Library from us.

- Most of our Sample Library users have already upgraded

- A lot of users like to get the "Free Extended Offers" with this final upgrade sale

- all users who really want to upgrade but do have problems with the funding, could contact their distributors  to make a setup

So finally there are all users, who prefer their Kontakt, Giga, EXS platforms, and don't want to make a change,

but they also don't want to loose their theoretical upgrade option.

I'm sorry, that I don't have a convincing solution in this case.  

best

Herb

Dear Herb and Christian,

Thanks for replying. It's good to know that you're looking in on the thread and reading what we're saying.

I think you can probably tell from looking at my account that I'm don't prefer the Giga library and have every intention of upgrading. I've bought 4 VI's (3 of them upgrades) since December 2007 and it would have been more over the last year and a half if only you'd warned me that the upgrade path was time limited. I made my buying decisions based in part on the knowledge that I could upgrade at any time.

I'm happy to accept the Pro Ed is old(er) technology. If VSL want to reduce the value of our discounts to reflect that then I'd be happy with that too. I'm interested in looking at any options that would enable VSL to get around cutting off upgrades for the old libraries for as long as possible. If that means accepting some depreciation of our investment so be it - thus is the nature of technology.

I'm not making demands, or issuing ultimatums. I'm not ranting about betrayal or saying I'm never buying VSL again. I'm just a user who has already started upgrading and I'm politely asking if there's any chance of the management at VSL reconsidering the time limits on this policy.

Please guys - help us find a way around this if at all possible.

Regards,

Martin