unlocking essential instruments collection 2

boaz65 · Post by **boaz65** » Tue Feb 12, 2008 1:33 am

With all of the "vague-ness' of wording at Ableton, I question that myself!!! I believed that what I was doing was an upgrade from Live Lite 6 to Live 7 for $389 plus shipping. Now, for me to actually USE, not PREVIEW (which is what they should call it) the EIC2, how many more branches do I have to take from the money tree that Ableton thinks that I have growing in my yard?
Although the actual product seems to be fantastic (Live 7) it's sneaky little BS things like this that may make me and/or others not be so eager to recommend the program to others...this transaction was like an online version of 3 Card Monte!

divisional · Post by **divisional** » Tue Feb 12, 2008 1:40 am

arkoenig wrote:

Can I ask... when you ordered your boxed version, was it an upgrade or not?
Yes it was.

In order to order it as an upgrade, I first had to register the previous version. After I ordered the upgrade, the (different) serial number for the new version appeared on the account page.

So if I am reading you right here, you purchased the boxed upgrade to Live 7, and the new live 7 serial and the EIC serial number appeared in your "manage my account" settings? You got them both for the price? If true, something is strange here. I was told directly that the upgrade does NOT include a serial to use EIC. Just the disc to "demo" it.

Hmmmm... Maybe you got lucky '-)

I will give customer support a call again in the morning.

Thanks for the info!

arkoenig · Post by **arkoenig** » Tue Feb 12, 2008 1:43 am

boaz65 wrote:With all of the "vague-ness' of wording at Ableton, I question that myself!!! I believed that what I was doing was an upgrade from Live Lite 6 to Live 7 for $389 plus shipping. Now, for me to actually USE, not PREVIEW (which is what they should call it) the EIC2, how many more branches do I have to take from the money tree that Ableton thinks that I have growing in my yard?

Before you do anything else, perhaps you should be sure of just what it is that you paid for. Unfortunately, it does not seem to be easy to figure out upgrade prices from the ableton.com website, because when you log in, it tells you what upgrades are available from your current configuration.

However, I believe that when I upgraded from Live 6 LE, the difference between the download edition and the boxed edition was approximately USD 100, and when I bought the boxed edition, it included full use of EIC.

boaz65 · Post by **boaz65** » Tue Feb 12, 2008 1:52 am

My initial Ableton product was Live 6 Lite, which came with my purchase of an M-Audio Axiom 25. I was hoodwinked and bamboozled to Live 7. When I check my user account, it shows the original serial number for Live Lite 6 and then my current serial number for the Live 7 upgrade purchase.

divisional · Post by **divisional** » Tue Feb 12, 2008 1:53 am

arkoenig wrote:
boaz65 wrote:With all of the "vague-ness' of wording at Ableton, I question that myself!!! I believed that what I was doing was an upgrade from Live Lite 6 to Live 7 for $389 plus shipping. Now, for me to actually USE, not PREVIEW (which is what they should call it) the EIC2, how many more branches do I have to take from the money tree that Ableton thinks that I have growing in my yard?
Before you do anything else, perhaps you should be sure of just what it is that you paid for. Unfortunately, it does not seem to be easy to figure out upgrade prices from the ableton.com website, because when you log in, it tells you what upgrades are available from your current configuration.

However, I believe that when I upgraded from Live 6 LE, the difference between the download edition and the boxed edition was approximately USD 100, and when I bought the boxed edition, it included full use of EIC.

When I purchased my upgrade (recently) the download version was 119, and the boxed version was 179, so 60 dollars difference USD. If your difference was 100, maybe they were offering something different at the time. What peaves me is the whole (paraphrased) "the boxed version of Live 7 includes the Essential Instruments Collection playable right out of the box!"

So you get your box, you open the manual, follow the installation instructions and wait for that big thing to install, and the manual tells you, look in your Ableton box for your license number. You look... no license number. You think, well thats okay. Mistakes happen... I will call in the morning - only to find out that you still have to purchase, for full price mind you, the EIC "license." "Playable out of the box" meant DEMO.

If you are sending a DEMO version of EIC with your Ableton Live 7 upgrade, then SAY SO.

Just my 2 cents.

I am enjoying version 7 though... it's just the whole EIC thing left a bad taste.

boaz65 · Post by **boaz65** » Tue Feb 12, 2008 2:00 am

When I purchased my upgrade (recently) the download version was 119, and the boxed version was 179, so 60 dollars difference USD. If your difference was 100, maybe they were offering something different at the time. What peaves me is the whole (paraphrased) "the boxed version of Live 7 includes the Essential Instruments Collection playable right out of the box!"

Wow, you got your upgrade for $179? Hell, I paid $389, just based on price alone, it should have qualified as a NEW purchase and it should have included a serialized, FULLY FUNCTIONAL version of EIC!!!!! I'm calling them tomorrow and see what happens when I plead my case!

divisional · Post by **divisional** » Tue Feb 12, 2008 2:09 am

boaz65 wrote:When I purchased my upgrade (recently) the download version was 119, and the boxed version was 179, so 60 dollars difference USD. If your difference was 100, maybe they were offering something different at the time. What peaves me is the whole (paraphrased) "the boxed version of Live 7 includes the Essential Instruments Collection playable right out of the box!"

Wow, you got your upgrade for $179? Hell, I paid $389, just based on price alone, it should have qualified as a NEW purchase and it should have included a serialized, FULLY FUNCTIONAL version of EIC!!!!! I'm calling them tomorrow and see what happens when I plead my case!

Dude. 389 for an upgrade? Maybe you also purchased Operator or Sampler, or Tension or something also? 389 surely got you more than a 6 to 7 upgrade. From whom did you buy this upgrade?

I know it is more expensive to upgrade from a lite version to full version...

boaz65 · Post by **boaz65** » Tue Feb 12, 2008 3:12 am

I got it right from the Ableton website! In the box with my Axiom25 was a little green card from Ableton, telling me the serial number to the Live Lite 6 that came with the keyboard and a link to their site for "special upgrades"
www.ableton.com/specialversions. When I originally went to this site, it showed the boxed upgrade INCLUDING EIC2. When you check on this link now, it states "does not include EIC2" which definitely was not printed there when I ordered the upgrade. It gave the opinion that the advantage of buying the boxed version over the download version was that you get EIC2 "ready to play fromthe box, etc" I think they have so many questions and complaints about the wording that they've subsequently went back to the site and "cleared up the wording". I hate the fact that I got played into purchasing this version but I really want to use the EIC2 and will have no choice but to pay for something that was implied to have been included. The price is $119 from their site, correct?

divisional · Post by **divisional** » Tue Feb 12, 2008 3:18 am

boaz65 wrote:I got it right from the Ableton website! In the box with my Axiom25 was a little green card from Ableton, telling me the serial number to the Live Lite 6 that came with the keyboard and a link to their site for "special upgrades"
www.ableton.com/specialversions. When I originally went to this site, it showed the boxed upgrade INCLUDING EIC2. When you check on this link now, it states "does not include EIC2" which definitely was not printed there when I ordered the upgrade. It gave the opinion that the advantage of buying the boxed version over the download version was that you get EIC2 "ready to play fromthe box, etc" I think they have so many questions and complaints about the wording that they've subsequently went back to the site and "cleared up the wording". I hate the fact that I got played into purchasing this version but I really want to use the EIC2 and will have no choice but to pay for something that was implied to have been included. The price is $119 from their site, correct?

Yes - as of a few weeks ago, the download price for a Live 1 thru 6 full version upgrade to Live 7 full version was 119 USD. I didn't look at what it is for an upgrade from any of the "lite" versions, but 389 seems kinda high to me. I upgraded mine from Live 5, the website did NOT say that EIC was not included... it said quite the opposite - included and "playable right out of the box."

Good luck.

boaz65 · Post by **boaz65** » Tue Feb 12, 2008 4:20 am

Ok, so here's a question for you....if I pay the $119 online for EIC2, being that I already have the CD/DVD which was "included" with my Live 7 upgrade, do you think they would immediately email me a serial number or license, which ever is needed? That way I can just insert the numbers and use immediately. OR, do you think that they would charge me the additional $9.90 shipping fee to ship me a disc that I already have, bringing the total to $128.90?

logic_user99 · Post by **logic_user99** » Fri Feb 15, 2008 1:28 pm

Dang. Pissed.

I bought the boxed ver. for EIC2 and now it's not playable properly unless you pay for it? Pfft... What a jip.

Any way to get a refund and get the d/l-only version? I might as well just get a couple more NI Products rather than pay to use Live's versions.

RIP!

logic_user99 · Post by **logic_user99** » Fri Feb 15, 2008 1:32 pm

divisional wrote:
boaz65 wrote:When I purchased my upgrade (recently) the download version was 119, and the boxed version was 179, so 60 dollars difference USD. If your difference was 100, maybe they were offering something different at the time. What peaves me is the whole (paraphrased) "the boxed version of Live 7 includes the Essential Instruments Collection playable right out of the box!"

Wow, you got your upgrade for $179? Hell, I paid $389, just based on price alone, it should have qualified as a NEW purchase and it should have included a serialized, FULLY FUNCTIONAL version of EIC!!!!! I'm calling them tomorrow and see what happens when I plead my case!
Dude. 389 for an upgrade? Maybe you also purchased Operator or Sampler, or Tension or something also? 389 surely got you more than a 6 to 7 upgrade. From whom did you buy this upgrade?

I know it is more expensive to upgrade from a lite version to full version...

My 'upgrade' was £250 (3..something...something euro). I was upgrading to 7-Full from 6-M.Audio version.

Still can't get over the EIC 2 fiasco...pfft.

istlota · Post by **istlota** » Mon Feb 18, 2008 1:34 pm

Ableton makes a great product and, even @ $499 to get EIC 2, it is not priced unreasonably. It is unfortunate that Ableton feels it is necessary to mislead Live Lite customers to convince us to upgrade to Live 7. The con is that we get a "heavily discounted" price to upgrade to Live 7. The truth is that we are not getting any discount at all. The only way we can get the full Live 7 package, with EIC 2 that "works", is to pay the same $499 that someone who has never owned an Ableton product before has to pay.

Even worse, Ableton resellers are parroting Ableton's misrepresentation about the boxed Live Lite to Live 7 upgrade on their own web sites.

There is some good news, however. After waiting two days [now into my third day] with no response from Ableton support, I started loading the EIC 2 packs one at a time and I found that there actually are two that work without the EIC 2 SN and actually sound pretty good:

EIC-LE.alp
SessionDrum-ColdTightRoomLE.alp

This, presumably, is the poorly documented EIC LE that Ableton advertises as being included with Live LE. It makes sense that Ableton would give Live 7 boxed upgraders this for "free" since Live LE users, who pay $190 less, are getting it.

boaz65 · Post by **boaz65** » Mon Feb 18, 2008 9:08 pm

After pleading my case via a few emails to Christian and Robert, we came to a very agreeable resolution! I did inform them of how the wording was very misleading and that many others have mentioned the same on these forums.

Long story short, they agreed to give me a serial to unlock at a very generous discount, which I immediately agreed to accept. The transaction was completed via PayPal and I am now using my EIC2.

Those of you in this same situation, I recommend emailing customer care and pleading your case. It will take a few to several days to get it done, but it will be worth the wait and the effort spent! I am pleased that I did not have to pay anywhere near the full price for EIC2!

case closed.....good luck and I wish you the same outcome

unlocking essential instruments collection 2

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