Ok, so who does decide to go with the subscription model? Remember, it's major updates only, thus bugfixes will be free of charge.
So the target consumer are professionals.
From this point of view, 170 bucks p.a. is a modest number for business software.

 

Don't expect to much costs for employees in Germany. This country has become a low cost and cheap wage country where a lot of skilled workers only do temporary work. Even in big industry companies most engineers are temporary workers. That's why Germanys industry is unbeatable at the moment. And IT programming pretty often gets outsourced to India or similar countries.

I really liked Bitwig from its starting point, but i prefer Reaper now for many reasons. I think Bitwigs productivity curve lost its dynamic some months ago. Some people here say, they hyped themselfes a little bit to much. And thats correct. I always visited their website from time to time, to look around and find the revolutionen started. But it was allways disappointing. I didn't read the new specs of the 2.0. But of course its a little bit pricey if you have to give 150€ just for the update. At least for a privat person. On the other hand my employer bought me Cubase two years ago and i even don't use it anymore because of Reaper. Thats pretty ineffective.

 

my Conversation with a BitWig rep, which begins at the bottom of the post:

Hi again,

not trying to convince you to change your mind here, I just want to draw up the big picture.

1) Can be debatable. ;)
2) That's the thing though, you don't need to upgrade until you see a new version you like. So when you do upgrade you get the new cool features.
3) We have received a lot of positive feedback regarding this, so what some people comment on Facebook and other platforms are not necessarily a good representation of the truth.

Wishing you all the best!


Best regards,

Fredrik

--
... Bitwig GmbH

Bitwig:
yes, in order to get latest software upgrades it is required that you have an activate upgrade plan. Please note that we will never force anyone to upgrade, and you can continue using the software even after the upgrade plan expires.


Me:
Yeh but still, I don't want too like many other people have expressed have to keep paying every year for a program , because my already expensive upgrade ran out. #1 it's not that serious #2 if you don't come out with a major upgrade That year I'm screwed #3 you may loose a large percentage of your loyal customers due t this unthoughtful decision. Good luck.



Hello Anthony,

yes, in order to get latest software upgrades it is required that you have an activate upgrade plan. Please note that we will never force anyone to upgrade, and you can continue using the software even after the upgrade plan expires.

Me:
So in other words,I have to pay for an upgrade again, after the 12 months , to have the Latest features and this goes on every time my upgrade runs out and the program is updated, in order to get the latest software version?


thank you for your e-mail.




bitwig:
I'm not sure I understand your question. So far we've released only free updates and upgrades. Bitwig Studio 2 will be a paid upgrade and we offer all customers an upgrade plan.

Me:
With the upgrade plan you will get all upgrades for free within 12 months. After that you can choose to continue using the current version of Bitwig Studio for free, or purchase another 12 months of upgrades. Should you decide to wait you can jump in at any time for the same price and get 12 months of upgrades from that point in time.

 

did anybody here with legit bitwig 1 sign up for the 2.0beta? or is it only for early 2.0 adopters?

 

Anyone with a valid Bitwig license can sign up. Just give them your registered email.

https://www.bitwig.com/en/17/beta-signup-form.html

 

One thing that I just thought of - and maybe this point has been raised before and I missed it - is that if your upgrade plan gets you all the latest updates, and your initial upgrade plan is only good for a year, then the fact that upgrading from BWS 1 to 2 is $170 is a little exploitative. It's like you're paying for the privilege to keep paying them more every year. IMO it would be more fair if you could choose to either pay a lump sum up front or pay less for an upgrade plan but pay yearly.

Like I said before, Ableton upgrades are expensive, but v9 came out in 2012 I believe... and look at everything that's been added for free since then.

If your upgrade to v2 doesn't grant you access to all the following v2 updates, they have no business charging you anything beyond the maintenance plan for the new features, since that is ostensibly the purpose of the maintenance plan. BWS is trying to double dip and it looks kind of sleazy.

 

Did BigWig at the least, add Rewire ???

 

no!

 

That dude is not enjoying himself at all. Did he really put his hands up in resignation..?
I don't know about you guys but when I'm using Bitwig, I'm grinning maniacally with wide-ass tweaker eyes and drooling.
And it's not even my DAW of choice. At least the modularity is coming along nicely if a little slow and maybe a little too primary colorful. I so want to play with those Math and Expressions modulators.

 

Not totally true, there is improvements and it includes the coming developements that will be added, so at least you know they won't hit you for a upgrade fee when something useful is added, but do agree it's a strange way to sell software.

 

watch at 1hr 23 minutes

 

also like the method

from 2:00 better at least you have to enjoy your own music

 

drop a Bidule as VST plugin into Bitwig and u can have ReWire instantly

 

ah i see rewire are shit because you dont need it . it does not mean that it is real useful for other people .

 

That's true but I want to be able to slave Bitwig to my Ableton master. Using the Bidule method you can only have Bitwig as ReWire master.

 

Have you tried Reaper on Linux with wine?

 

LoL, I prefer an aged asiago and apples with cabernet.

*Jokes aside, I bet reaper on linux runs like a bat out of hell. Its already hard to get reaper to max out cpu on my windows system.

 

Last edited: Feb 4, 2017