So as most of us know, Yamaha has made some BIG acquistions. First they scooped up Steinberg.
That worried me a bit as I am somewhat invested in Steinie and the last time such a merger
happened it did not end well....i.e....Roland/Cakewalk. That deal did, for awhile, spawn some
interesting hardware.....most of which are now boat anchors. Yamaha/Steinberg is going
ok so far but they have announced the end of Syncrosoft/e-Licenser activation by the end of
this year and getting rid of that, while probably a good thing in the long run will mean some
users, (like me), will no longer be able to activate/de-activate any software that depends on
that system. Thankfully, I have scene releases so I wll still be able to use software I bought
and paid for.

BUT....as you may also know, Yamaha has also purchased Line 6. Even while Line 6 was still
a US company, their habit of requiring you to own a hardware interface to use their software,
and then having to use Line 6 Monkey and License Manager to activate all of it was a PITA.
Many times the Monkey had problems connecting to Line 6 servers and various other and sundry
snafus. Well now they have announced they are also retiring THAT system by year's end.
Yamaha is becoming more "hands on" with all their acquistions. Ok, it's bad enough, that
I wouldn't be able to use my PODX3, DI Gold & POD Farm2 together after year's end but Yamaha
has jumped the damn gun. They BROKE The Monkey. It will NOT connect to the servers any longer
and, while I can still use the PODX3 as a standalone FX unit, it can no longer be used with
GearBox which is needed to edit patches. The same story with the DI Gold interface. It works
with other software as a standard audio interface but it can no longer be properly activated
and be used with PODFarm 2 or GearBox. I also own ALL the model packs for POD Farm but can
no longer activate those on a pc. I've never used R2R's release of PODFarm2 2.5.9 because I never
needed to as I own it. So I thought I'd give that try. Guess what? Line 6 drivers for PODX3 & DI Gold
BREAK that release. So yeah, I can use the R2R release of PodFarm but not in a Line 6 ecosystem. As for upgrading?

Yeah, I don't think so. Helix sounds ok, but OMG I loathe the interface. PODFarm's GUI was one of the things I liked best about it. They had a good thing. I don't understand why threw the baby out with the bathwater. I guess to make it more comaptible with Helix hardware...which I am also not likely to buy. And frankly, why would I spend more hard earned money with a company that just screwed me?

Like Soooo many other big corporations, it seems that Yamaha is determined to force longtime
loyal users onto the upgrade highway. They have even already put up a replacement for Line 6
Monkey/License Manager they call Line 6 Central. BUT....it doesn't include some of the older
harware, (like mine!), and the damn thing won't even launch on the Win10 & Win11 machines
I tried it on.

Now maybe I'm being foolish expecting to be able to use software & hardware that I paid for and was still running just fine on both Win10 & Win11 machines. I understand that companies often discontinue support for discontinued products. And, I'm ok with that. BUT many companies are yanking the drivers for older products....c'mon it costs them nothing to host them on their servers. And THAT is bad enough but to actively BREAK things to force you to upgrade? That's just immoral and wrong IMHO.

Ok.....I'll get off my soapbox now....LOL!!

 

Metallurgy has a nice GUI too...

 

Yamaha are the EA of music production.

 

Yes it does....the Ampeg Suite is nice too...tho I think they've re-branded
it Yamaha as they also own Ampeg too. Back in the day I lived near the
original Ampeg factory in Linden, NJ. A bud that owned a local guitar shop
introduced me to Ken Fischer. Ken was a former Ampeg tech and founder
of Trainwreck Amps. Really great guy and generous with his time and knowledge.
He taught a lot about tube amps....and offered me a Trainwreck for just 1K.
Probably worth ten times that now but too rich for my youngblood back then.

No doubt!

 

Last edited: Jul 17, 2024 at 6:38 PM

That is confusing, as Roland acquired Cakewalk 4 years after Yamaha took over Steinberg.

And as for the rest, I'm not too familiar with this Monkey thing, but it's not a Yamaha product. It was replaced with the Line 6 License Manager in 2011. Line 6 was bought by Yamaha in 2014. Not sure if Yamaha is to blame here.
However, Yamaha is not exactly the company with the longest support of its products, indeed. There are extreme cases, like the i88x studio interface or the 01x mixer that didn't even survive a single Windows version (released in 2003/2004, didn't work with Vista x64 in 2006).

The worst thing here is probably that Yamaha discontinued their own software with the acquisition of Steinberg.

 

Keeping old computers (or buying them for peanuts 2nd hand), and keeping backups of old, fully functioning systems, is a great, if not the only way to fight the planned obsolescence bs all these corporations and companies wage against our wallets and our sanity.

It's also a good idea to avoid any software with funky security protection, and subscriptions. But also hardware you can't use without a computer - software. it will become obsolete in 5 or maybe 10 years, and then you can only use it if you have an old, working computer. I must say I don't find this problematic that much.

I now own two laptops, a mac pro, and 2 desktops of which one serves as NAS. Nothing is really new, nor expensive. They all work nicely. I have firewire on two laptops and one is a Mac Pro... lol that was hard to find even 10 years ago, let alone nowadays.

 

and workflow skills and creativity and what not .

 

Generalizing here a lot ... but ... what do you expect? Backwards compatibility to Win 3.11, ATARI TOS 1.01 and AMIGA Commodore? OTOH it is expected that everything is going forward as fast as possible (updates, bugfixes, overhauled versions, new inventions), OTOH there shall be universal software and/or hardware compatibility backwards until the stone age. I think we can't have it both ways.

But musicians are baffling good at one thing ... whining. You know that there are fans of Win XP out there? And some of them believe that music made with such systems sounds better ... well ...

 

Yamaha Legends !

 

Not at all. While that statement is true, it's also true that Roland immediately began injecting it own DNA into Cakewalk with a barrage of, (now mostly obsolete), hardware. Yamaha was mostly, (until recently), hands off.

Line 6 Monkey was NEVER replaced by Line 6 License Manager. They are two seperate products and perform different functions. Line 6 Monkey is still available for download and it was working just fine until about a week ago. Oh and BTW.....the final version of Line 6 Monkey 1.77 was released on 6/20/2018 AFTER Yamaha bought Line 6. Furthermore, the final version of Line 6 License Manger 1.10 was released on 7/23/15 nearly three years BEFORE the last release of Line 6 Monkey, (and again after Yamaha's acquistion). So tell me again how it "replaced" Line 6 Monkey? You said yourself "I'm not too familiar with this Monkey thing" so maybe you should get your facts straight before pontificating on a subject you're not familiar with.

In that at least, you are correct. Yamaha's mLan was an unmitigated disaster. Not only did it affect their own products but also those of other companies that made the mistake of buying into that protocol. It nearly destroyed Presonus as their, (then), flagship interface, the Firestaion, relied on it. Aside from the fact that it didn't work because of mLan, the Firestation might have been the greatest interface ever made in the US. Instead it nearly sunk the company. The build quality was mindblowing and the preamps were stellar. As a matter of fact, I used to work for Presonus and they gave me a Firstation as they had some laying around......it made a great standalone preamp.

I'm not talking about backwards compatibility. I'm talking about purposefully BREAKING functioning software/hardawre BEFORE the announced end of life date to force users to upgrade sooner. And XP?? REALLY?? Cut me a f#cking break. NO OS "sounds better". Only a complete moron would entertain such a notion. I work mainly in 10 & 11. I have long sice retired XP but I do maintain a legacy Win7 machine because the software editors for several very expensive hardware synths I own require that OS. So what? Am I supposed to shit-can my hardware synthesizers because I can't run the editors on the latest OS? And I'm not "whining" I'm bitching about shitty corporate business practices. Big difference.

 

You cannot be worried about a "last time", when this last time is actually in the future.

Line 6 writes:

.No idea if you're confusing them. But that's the official Line 6 statement.

 

I'm not confusing anything. This just confirms what I already said. They are two seperate products and have been for several years. They are BOTH necesarry if you want the Line 6 hardware and software that is tied to them to be able to fuction together properly. If you owned such products. Or knew anything about Line 6 Monkey, which you admitted you did not in your first post, you'd know this. I'm tired of your BS. I'm out here.

Have a Wonderful Life!

 

I still own 3 amigas and they work fine... a tool is a tool. I've never upgraded the software on my hammer or added more memory to my hand saw, and they both work fine.

I have a Boss microcube guitar fx/digital guitar amp, works fine.

Buy a spare computer or 3, they are cheap insurance. clone them or make them separate workstations. You don't have to do everything on one computer. its okay to use one as a sampler and one as a Daw or whatever lines of demarcation you want to make to build redunancy into your music workflow.

Its about people becoming paranoid about losing their music production investment. Try not to invest in things easily made unusuable. Cracked software is a godsend to break the ties these "captive systems" that bind you. Its hardware/software blackmail. Don't be a hostage.

Its inevitable that the big fish will eat the small fish, you can't win that battle, you can only choose not to play their game.

 

I couldn't agree more. I have nearly a dozen. Nearly all are purpose built. I can, in fact, still use my Line 6 hardware/software in combination on several of my machines that were built and authorized with Line 6 before Yamaha started this latest BS. I'm not really so pissed that they are moving on. What I'm mad about, and why I started this thread in the first place, was the fact that they announced an end of life date....and then lied about it, either by breaking the software or denying access of the software to their servers before the stated date.

I belived their lies and thought I had time to build a new machine for live performance and incorporate my Line 6 stuff. Not the end
of the world. I have plenty of other options and workarounds. Yamaha has every right to discontinue support for legacy products.
I just don't appreciate being lied to about it.

 

I don't think they have a right to discontinue support, but they will do as they may. I doubt its intentional it was just some guy in accounting saw he could save 300$ a year by turning off a server.
I never trusted computers, thats why I spent years working with them so i could understand how they would be used against me.

But yeah the corporate cannibalism eventually leaves nothing but corpses and dissastified customers. its troubling on many levels.

 

They have a new "monkey" called Line6 Licence Manager or something similar it will handle all Line6 licences

 

So basically it is something that we have to get used to, or rather we should have become used to already. Companies will be created and companies will be destroyed, or they will simply disappear, merge or go bankrupt.
I do agree that companies should make sure that their products are supported as long as possible, but the system that we live in, doesn't support that. Then again, we have to realize that it is our fault, because we are the system. If people would only support brands that treat their workers right, that support their customers and that protect the environment, the system would adjust accordingly.