… Same here.

It really doesn't look good now — Cf. linked image — for a high-priced products company.

The demo I've been running lately on my brand new Mac Studio clearly presents pops and glitches when I run even a small session. Compare to other software and libs, that's awkward; but maybe not… if you add Rosetta to the equation.

Now every time I want to buy a VSL product, I'm very hesitant: for instance, I could be on the verge of jumping for MIR … but… Will I regret putting an extra 1K in this company in 6 months?

No matter how hard I try I can't get my MIRX Synchron Stage available inside VI Pro, standalone/plugin in or out of Ensemble Pro, Logic… using the old installer, e-licenser (checked), or iLok (checked).

Nothing. It's been months now…

Could you please fix this?

Ok, I buy this.

Alright, but as soon as I hear "pro" it sounds like its price tag will get very far from "SE" 395 stereo-euros.

I mean SE is probably what I need, Pro might be overkill, thus overpriced for me ...

Though ?

It's been a long time VSL tends to give up on Mac OSX.

From some exchanges I had with one moderator a long time ago, it's seems that he (or some of the coders)

doesn't even like my beloved operating system at all ( they use their own windows view for V.I. making quick window switching impossible in Logic, They bypass core audio ... for some good reasons it seems). It sounds like with the coming of their dedicated PC workstations approach (mainly for ensemble and MIR) for "hollywood studios", this trend gets stronger and stronger.

Up to the point we're at now : no MIR SE for Mac platform.

I just want to say how sad I'am about this .

In my eyes VSL is by far the best symphonic library ever made, Mac is by far the best platform ever made

(I use both PC and Mac on a daily basis).

As for the MIR _pro_ OSX pseudo-announcement, I'm not sure this will fit my needs and budget.

I'm very interested in MIR SE (and I'm at the right place/forum though), I use VSL SE and Solo Strings to add some string arrangement to Pop -Rock and Metal  music,  I'm under Mac OSX and I don't wan't to fill one of my room with a cluster of PCs to get a string quartet sounding right.

So as a humble user of VSL can't I expect seeing VSL team keeping releasing their great tools and software for my platform, my budget and needs ? As they started with VSE ...

Is it too much to ask, or is it just me ?

Should be because of the needed 64 bits architecture.

But yeah, I will jump on it as soon as a Mac version is released. 

I spend so much time to get my orchestral arrangement sounding fine (barely) using standard reverbs that this piece of software might save me

a lot of time.

lol.
You guys are amazing ...
How to explain to people not living on the same planet... let me try this : for a company changing its mind might be, very, very, tricky.
especially after they start to sell the product, without a proposal to early buyers.
And by the way, that's why they never do it.


You're just ... irrationals, but only on a greedy way... and I'll never forget that.
Bye Bye.

Christian, I'm not blackmailing.
I just says that I'm very unpleasantly surprised by your price policy — that's something I never seen before in my life — although I thought you were fair before I start to buy your products (your "never buy a sample twice ..." moto).

You're the ones responsable of the image you give away, especially on those forum where users who cares try too communicate with you.
I've always said that I find that your products are amazing, I'm still thinking the same way, and that's the opinion I spread around me.
I think now that your price policy on SE is not respectful with early customers, I try, with other, to push you to understand that your behavior is very singular. If you won't change your mind, as you've made for other customers, I will add a huge "BUT" to my previous statement, and, of course stop buying your products. This is obvious.

This is not blackmail, this is just ... life.

Have a look here, that was your words:
http://community.vsl.co.at/forums/p/17727/126374.aspx#126374
So ? You didn't change your mind, do you ?

If I knew at that time that there will be a DVD release I will not have start to download SE Plus...

Right, hardware is a more tricky market, as the products can get cheaper when the production workflow makes breakthrough espacially at the component providers level for instance (chipset, displays, memory ... ). Market scaling up has the same kind of consequence on hardware products prices.

That's what happens with Apple iPhone, never the less early customers were very upset. Then Apple has made an offer to compensate the fall of its iPhone price.

But since we're talking about software the story isn't the same at all (And I know what I'm talking about here).

The important point in this story is that people at VSL have said on those forums that THERE WILL NOT BE a hard boxed package for SE upgrades, then they change their mind, and make it even cheaper all this in a monthly time-lapse, with no compensation at all.

Some companies are fair (ie Toontracks) some aren't at all and seem to behave erratically (ie VSL).


If VSL guys don't make us an offer in the next weeks, I'm done with this company.

When the future is around a one month time-lapse... a call it "be screwed".
And, for your information, we're not talking about hardware here.

Please, Jacopo, just don't make out of topic statements: It's not because you've chosen the wrong products that VSL people doesn't need to
respect their customers. That's not the point. I want VSL, I've chosen VSL, but don't want to be screwed.

I do agree.
Since I've bought SE — the product line we're talking about — last year I feel like I'm some kind of experimental marketing dummy for those people. They release and announce products and prices far before thinking of how to do so, then change their mind half way... I just can't believe my eyes!

But however why not ... Well the big issue here is that when they made up their minds they always pick the worst for me. Just another example :
the very last news I just get from another of their post is that SE Plus DVD box is 30 Euros shipper than the equivalent downloadable product (the one they ask me to stick with since I've started with it). Never seen that before, either: server HD space and bandwidth is more expensive for those people than a package box???

Guys from VSL its time to put yourselves together,
or you will have very bad press, very soon.
I assure you.


My advice: think before do, and don't screw customers.

(I don't believe I have to say that ... lol).

Best.

Manuel

Please CM, let it go with your easter and christmas comparaison.

Since I'm using VSL I'm trying to figure out the way, you, People of VSL, handle your product line and prices
especially for your SE editions. For "almost new customers" like me (SE oriented), there's a lot of bad news coming out all the time:



— weird price differences (I don't know how laws are made in Österreich but in US and France, you cannot turn your company into an improvised loan bank, even for your own products: see your monthly download offers)

— false announcements about your product line in your newsletter (again monthly download library)

— and now, no special discount for previous customers on what is obviously a product upgrade (SE plus & Ext)


You've got very good products, but let's cut the crap one and for all about your policy on SE: you don't have a clue on how to handle and define this product line, and make announcement at the right time.

So here I am now with my SE Extended library, and some pieces of upgrade I've downloaded (as SE Plus was not supposed to come out in a package — as you said on your forum — and Plus Extended wasn't announced some weeks ago )... and I don't know what to do anymore.

I do understand that you're trying to figure out how to manage a new product line, but please guys, if you're not good at it: don't make your first customers on those products pay the price for your lack of care !
This is, even for easter, a very, very, bad policy.

It seems that VSL does not propose, to the ones who have already bought downloadable parts,
to buy the whole SE Plus (& Ext) box without having to pay twice for those samples.
Am I right ?
So do you thing you will propose some kind of deal soon ?


I'd appreciate a lot, especially since you were saying some weeks ago, here and there, that there won't be anything like a hard package for those librairies.


Thanks.

Thank you Maya.
I appreciate your answers a lot and I can easily understand that, for some reasons, you've chosen to use your own engine.


here's 3 comments, and I'm done:


- during the loading (of the project, not inside the pseudo AU, under Tiger at least I've not tested under Leopard yet) ) you still have a problem of your alert window keeping the focus from the user, wich is a real pain. Please try to find a way to avoid that.

- Like most people, I really like to get an idea of where I am when loading my RAM with large amount of material. so I think a progress bar/feedback, even instrument by instrument, like EXS do, would be a good improvement during that phase (feedback is important and I guess that this, combine with the focus bug, explains why I find that the loading is so long...).

- this (app vs plugin) explains another issue, from what I remember : you can't switch from Logic window to VSL interface using usual shortcuts (command `). When you use a lot of plugins and instrument and let their window opened to play with it, like I do, this is boring. But knowing why now, I think there's nothings you could do, except maybe provide somewhere a preference to allow VSL instances to show up as real applications (and can be reached using command+tab).


Now, for sure, my needs are not those of a guy writing a movie score.


Thanks again.
Manuel



(As for DM33, as I don't know what to say ... I will not answer as asked...)

Well, that's exactly what I don't need.
How could I seriously ask someone to do something for you if I don't even have a name to provide ?
Imagine my mail:


"Hi, X
Excuse me to disturb you but I have a specific request for you :
I know a fabulous product that seems to get issues to plug with Logic... blahblah ...
do your possible by contacting : ."


I think we don't understand each other, at all, Christian.

Com'on don't be shy, get my email address out of that forum database and give it a try ... who knows you could be surprised.

I promise I will use this contact and mailbox just once.

Hi DM33,


I totally agree with your statements, except, of course, for your "arrogant, ignorant, and ungrateful" ... and I don't understand why you're talking about "Insult" here.


For the arrogant part I'm sorry not to be always "politically correct" but, beside the fact that my english vocabulary is poor (which can explain a part of it) when I state that VSL is the worth _PLUGIN_ experience (not product) I never have, I'm sorry but that's unfortunately true, I mean it, and I appreciate that VSL people are not considering arrogant the fact that I give us my time and feedback.


But maybe I have to explain this a bit more - as the topic of this thread is not clear:


- First I'm talking about the "loading" experience of VSL plugin at the launch of a logic audio pro and or the loading of logic audio pro project.
- Then just Let's compare with a plugin like Toontrack DFH superior (quite a similar product, I mean I use it to load the same amount of sample data as VSL, around 1GB inside a track) : when it loads the samples the plugin doesn't override all OS windows focus (one thing I've never seen among OSX applications, it looks like a very dirty hack in my eyes). I don't need to open one window first to go to the main plugin window... it seems - quote from the vsl online video - that this is just mac specific ... what does it mean ?
- Now let's compare to logic 7.x or Maya (usb key protected software) : they don't take between 10 and 20 seconds to check their licenses.

And I'm pretty unhappy with all that. Because I'm sure this can be avoided ...

DFH, or Maya has other kind of issues, my Line6 Gearbox plugin too, and because I love those products... I've told them.


For the Ignorant part : I'm actually ignorant, but aren't we all... in a way ? In the other hand I'm a very pragmatic user and have a pretty serious experience of all kind of media production software. And, another thing, concerning user experience and its design, my experience is that ignorance is bless on that very specific matter.
One other thing, I know for sure, is that most developers have that inclination that consist to hide some kind of laziness behind statements like "Behave correctly, as expected" or "That's the kind of thing user should not do" (i.e: write a mail while a software is loading... ) where everybody else on earth will see a bug. Why not just say ..."yeah I know that, it's not easy ...etc" instead ?



... as for the Ungrateful, you're totally wrong. I'm amazed by VSL work (quality and amount of samples, player performances, the usability, versatility and beauty of the vienna instrument software is really stunning). But, don't you think that "tickling somebody where it hurts" (french expression) is not always for doing harm ? (There's a beautiful "little bird" metaphor about it in "My name is nobody" movie, for the connoisseur. This metaphor is my credo).

So I've been a bit harsh, have I ?
Maybe, maybe not...



(by the way : I'm happy to learn that we're talking of a small developer team here, as I know for sure that small teams do the best products on earth. Give me some times, and, as I promise I will contact people here and there and try to convince them to be more understanding).

By Real I mean out_of_the_forum (I will not post personal information on a forum and I have to get an email address of somebody you might not want to put here either). And by fairplay I mean a serious contact, rather an _open_minded_ R&D_manager_ than the hotline guy (with no offense to him, and great respect to hotline people).


Manuel

Wrong, I'm talking even of the loading of small pieces of VSL (let's say cello legatos and some more stuff for about 500MB), I load larger amount of samples from Apple Jam Packs in EXS24 for instance (sometimes up to 2GB), and no issue here...

Why are you talking about professional here ... ? Do you think I am a professional (I'm a owner of the special edition that's all) ?
I representing here another kind of your customers.
FYI : I read and answer my mail while running final cut pro (while streaming far more enormous amount of data from my drives). I belong to the kind of customers that appreciates when obvious bugs are fixed.

Ok, but is it a good architecture choice ... ? I mean, again, for people using it just as a plugin here and there.
A lot a musiciens need to add to their pop/rock/RNB whatever production a good VSL track, that's all,
why can't you have 2 approaches (like VSL E for pro using dedicated hardware, and a smooth AU plugin for the others too ... )?

... a Good reason not to show a hard drive stream progress ? (your should be kidding here ... ).

My pleasure.
Just drop me the right e-mail address(es) in my REAL mailbox, I will put you through the right people and try to convince them to have a look. Take care to be fairplay when you pick those e-mail addresses, because I will.

I have no memory issues in my non-professional use of VSL. But loading/license-checking/focus behavior while loading (bug) issues and some desiderata about general UI. (Topic of this thread)

Thank you to admit you've got some improvement to do here and there (so easily).

Manuel

(I'd might be a bit out of topic here)
Same thing for me, but with an inside serial ATA hard drive for the VSL database (not my OS one of course): the plugin first takes a very long time to check its licenses (between 10 and 20 seconds, when other usb key protected softwares achieve it in a heart beat) then the loading takes a very long time (compare to ESX24 for instance... is the VSL compression involve ? If it's the case, I believe most people don't care about space anymore), but the very disturbing thing is that during the process the cheap VSL loading alert window try to keep the focus ... very very boring and bizarre under OSX : thus you can't even surf the web or type a mail during the long process.


From a general point of view, and apart from the fact that VSL is a very good product, the OSX/Logic implémentation is very very, very, poor (the fact that you have 2 steps, from your channel strip to that one-button window up to the VSL plugin UI inside Logic, is a good example of what I mean. There's a lot of plugin using their own UI toolkit too, and doing a good job). So I'm sorry to tell that VSL offers by far the worst plugin experience I ever had. Very bizarre knowing that CoreAudio/Au make things so easy to plug into OSX.


Maybe it could be time for VSL to hire people, or time, from Apple/Logic (just send me a mail if you want me to put you through).



My music workstation is (still) a PPC 2x2; 4.5GB RAM; VSL Special Edition; OSX Tiger (10.4.11); Logic Pro 7.x and 8.x.

Not poor, but not rich people, like me, makes counts when they buy things. I'm sad you didn't get the idea about the "loan" part of my post, probably my vocabulary is not right (you know: I'm talking about that thing... with rate of interest, that poor people - like me again - are using frequently to buy things they can afford in one shot, but painfully, after months or years... or maybe try to use your imagination when I'm talking about 11 months=5 packages/month vs 56 months=1 package/month final price).

I'm looking forward to buy the SE+ to complete my SE&ext anyhow.

Now christian, please, don't be so rude to people like me...
In return, I promise to stop spamming this forum with my stupid poor english-ed and cynical posts.

Bye.

The lack of difference between monthly rates is a bit weird in my eyes, because if you think in loan terms, you'd have to get a difference between a 11 months laon and a 56 months loan monthly paiement.

Of course if you add the possibility to shorten the loan, then all gets more complex but ... there's a lot of models out there that handle this kind of math very very well and smoothly.
As for the distributors point, common guys ... ! This might be a joke (as we say in french: "you cannot be easy with both the goat and the cabbage"). But maybe some guys from Best Services are not happy with VSL new services. Now if this is a point, VSL has made a choice : mistreat the customers rather than distributors... which is borderline ... kind of ... nowadays.


So for former VSL users I think we'd rather buy the download pieces in one shot: 72 euros, for the SE+, represents 15% of the price... this isn't nothing, especially for people from poor countries (think of all those north american guys and their weak currency... (sobs)).



First users are always frustrated and it's always interesting to see who really are behind those companies by how they handle this frustration.
What I hope is that using this new way to spread this wonderful library, VSL will make a lot of money in the next years, by selling much more. Thus if they multiply sells per samples significantly, I'm curious to see what would be the consequences ... bring the price of VSL libraries down ? ... feed more R&D development ? invest in a very good service with very specific online packages available on demand, at last (ho yeah! I'd like that!) ?



But first let them make money, and spread the world ! :)

I've done a funny math about the SE+ , I've done it very quickly (maybe I've made some error so those results are to be checked) :
if you buy the SE+ as a whole (460 euros) and knowing that the whole package is a 5.585 GB piece (to be checked) of material it gives you a price of: 460/5.585 = 82.36 euros per GB of samples.
The SE+Ext is around 10 euros per GB
and the Vienna Super Package is about 18.6 euros per GB of samples.

Now to be fair if you calculate using the number of samples,
one thousand (1000) samples is :

- 14.4 euros for the Vienna Super Package
- 10.8 euros for the SE&ext
- 14.3 euros for the SE+ (around 32200 samples)

If you buy it using the monthly purchase plan it goes up to 16.5 euros.
Of course, from my point of view the sample is the good unit to count the value of those pieces.
Anyway it is funny to notice that the SE+ is by - very- far the most expensive VSL library ... if you count
using a GB unit. :)

What are those "Additional packages for € 9.50". I don't understand ... are they additional licenses of the downloaded packages ... ?