Ableton Forum

This is the email I sent Ableton.

"Your current upgrade pricing is an insult to long term supporters of Ableton. Apparently you have given discount coupons to "long term" users who "upgraded to version 7 from an older full version of Live." This means that somebody who bought Live 6 for $600 and upgraded to 7 for $160 ($760 total) gets to upgrade for less money than someone like myself who bought Live 3 for $400, upgraded to 4 for $120, upgraded to 5 for $120, upgraded to 6, for $120 (also $760 total)?

If Live is being run on a yearly subscription model with penalties if you don't stay up to date, then you should just say that upfront. Most other major software developers allow upgrades from the last few versions without a price penalty. After all, I haven't been using the Live 7 features for the past year, so why should I pay more?

The only reason I would even consider an upgrade is the addition of the new Looper, a feature which arguably should have been added several versions ago. There is something a little absurd about being asked to pay $250 for a proprietary plugin that only works in a single host. And the most exciting, groundbreaking development, Max for Live, is a separate program which will have it's own hefty pricetag and most likely a separate yearly upgrade treadmill?

Despite the fact that I didn't get the benefit of your "longtime user" perks, I AM a longtime user of Live. But given the direction of Ableton's development in the past couple of years, I'm starting to wonder whether I really want to continue down this path."

You'll get your coupon. Achieve Zen by staying with live 6! and checking out augustus looper, a vst you would be free to use in the host of your choice.

http://www.expert-sleepers.co.uk/augustusnewv2.html <--new features in augustus looper 2

I took my time to read all the thread,
and I have something to add:
The European Shop @ Steinberg:

Cubase 5 full = 604 Euro look https://shop.steinberg.net/cgi-bin/pp?lst=L101001
Cubase Upgrade = 200 Euro from 4 or SX3 look https://shop.steinberg.net/cgi-bin/pp?lst=L101008
Ableton Live Suite Full 549 Euro as Download Edition is http://www.ableton.com/pricing
Ableton Live Suite Full Box 699 Euros
Ableton Live Suite Full Upgrade starts at 279 Euros and it's personalized based on products owned.
Ableton Live 7 to 8 Upgrade 149 Euros
Ableton Live 1-6 to 8 Upgrade 199 Euros
Ableton Live 7 to 8 Upgrage (for Live users unlocked after Live 8 announcement) 49 Euros
All prices for download

My Live Story starts with a Live 4 LE to Live 5 Full, Operator, Live 5 Full to Live 6,Live 6 to Live 7 Boxed Suite
so now I'm offered an upgrade price of 149 Euros from Live 7 Box Suite to Live 8 (thus retaining all the
content of the Boxed Suite which I have license) and 179 Euros for Live 8 Suite (which brings Collision & Latin Percussion)
The Boxed Suite is as much as 209 Euros. (add 30 Euros for Manual Printing, Box & DVDs)

Ableton Suite is more than enough to begin with and if you already own a Drum VST (EZDrummer..) or a sampler
with a huge library like Kontact is perfect. Session Drums and EIC2 come with the boxed edition whose price
is augmented by the price of those components for those who want a single software supplier and no hassle with
compatibility. I think Cubase 5 price is aligned with Ableton Live Suite.
For those who haven't noticed Ableton Suite brings the Grand Piano Lite you can find in the EIC2
and a couple of Drum Kits (LE) you find in Session Drums, making the jump to the box needed only for those who really
need it. The Upgrade price for Live alone is fair enough and even in this case in line with Cubase.

The real deal breaker is Logic Studio at 479 Euro but beware, Apple is not a Music Software company.
They get revenues from other means. Steinberg is a Music Software Company, Ableton is a Music Software Company
with a peculiar characteristic is not part of any group like Steinsberg.
So financially Ableton has to pay salaries only from Live sales.
Although this does not concede an higher price, can be part of the reasons why prices are like they are.
I saw a lot of people moaning about the prices but I think that if you take a general comparison review
it's only the boxed suite that falls out of range initially, but if you had to buy some serious Drum plugin
or sampler libraries your price will raise more than the boxed suite.
Ableton gives an invisible value to their prices, support. Over the years I opened several support requests
and they were solved or I found solution in the next update. Commercially I had a problem once and they solved it
within 1 week. Try Apple support the next time you have a problem with Logic, or with an Apple software update
or worse a non Apple Plugin. Despite some glitches Ableton has the best support I have found.
Aren't you willing to pay for that?

John Ruskin, 1819-1900 Author, Influential Critic, Philospher

"It's unwise to pay too much, but it's unwise to pay too little.
When you pay too much you lose a little money, that is all.
When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything,
because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing you bought it to do.
The common law of business prohibits paying a little and getting a lot - it can't be done.
If you deal with the lowest bidder, it's well to add something for the risk you run.
And if you do that, you will have enough to pay for something better."


- Best
- Pasha

I had forgotten the 30e coupon that ableton sent in January. Thanks guys for the remainder Glad I didn't upgrade yet.

Pasha wrote:I took my time to read all the thread,
and I have something to add:
The European Shop @ Steinberg:

Cubase 5 full = 604 Euro look https://shop.steinberg.net/cgi-bin/pp?lst=L101001
Cubase Upgrade = 200 Euro from 4 or SX3 look https://shop.steinberg.net/cgi-bin/pp?lst=L101008
Ableton Live Suite Full 549 Euro as Download Edition is http://www.ableton.com/pricing
Ableton Live Suite Full Box 699 Euros
Ableton Live Suite Full Upgrade starts at 279 Euros and it's personalized based on products owned.
Ableton Live 7 to 8 Upgrade 149 Euros
Ableton Live 1-6 to 8 Upgrade 199 Euros
Ableton Live 7 to 8 Upgrage (for Live users unlocked after Live 8 announcement) 49 Euros
All prices for download
- Pasha

I don't mean to beat this dead horse to hard but cubase 5 costs $599 list. This is a full version with a good set of instruments and sound set. I would say that it is comparable to live suit. Live 7 list was also $599 according to musician's friend. Suit is obviously more, $849. I do not know what Steinberg is charging for there upgrades. From what I can remember it is around $150 but that could be wrong, it has been a while since I sold a copy. All this being said Steinberg is owned by Yamaha so they are a MUCH bigger company than Ableton. Live is just getting into the licensing game from what I can see. So this ought to offset some of the costs. But who knows how much. I like Live very much, they put in the features that I wanted. I will continue to support them as they have provided me with the support that I needed to keep my problems at bay. I am glad that I don't have to send support emails info the Digidesign Pro Tools LE back hole.

Can I upgrade to Live 7 only? I'm using version 6. Ableton is out of their mind for charging 249 for a download upgrade. I feel like we are being charged for all the pirated copies out there. Can we start some sort of online petition?

I hate to say it, but I'm holding off, probably until Live 9 is beta'd. By then, the Abes offer a free instrument to upgrade, plus a free upgrade to the next version. Early adopters get shafted I quess. I'll suffer the whole 10 months with a perfectly functioning Live 7.

melocoton wrote:This is the email I sent Ableton.

"Your current upgrade pricing is an insult to long term supporters of Ableton. Apparently you have given discount coupons to "long term" users who "upgraded to version 7 from an older full version of Live." This means that somebody who bought Live 6 for $600 and upgraded to 7 for $160 ($760 total) gets to upgrade for less money than someone like myself who bought Live 3 for $400, upgraded to 4 for $120, upgraded to 5 for $120, upgraded to 6, for $120 (also $760 total)?

If Live is being run on a yearly subscription model with penalties if you don't stay up to date, then you should just say that upfront. Most other major software developers allow upgrades from the last few versions without a price penalty. After all, I haven't been using the Live 7 features for the past year, so why should I pay more?

The only reason I would even consider an upgrade is the addition of the new Looper, a feature which arguably should have been added several versions ago. There is something a little absurd about being asked to pay $250 for a proprietary plugin that only works in a single host. And the most exciting, groundbreaking development, Max for Live, is a separate program which will have it's own hefty pricetag and most likely a separate yearly upgrade treadmill?

Despite the fact that I didn't get the benefit of your "longtime user" perks, I AM a longtime user of Live. But given the direction of Ableton's development in the past couple of years, I'm starting to wonder whether I really want to continue down this path."

What a dick you are. You tell them that the only thing you like in 8 is the looper, that you haven't supported Live 7 either and now you are whining that they don't wash your arse? What a waste of time and internet bandwidth. If I was Ableton, I would lock your license and tell you to fuck off.

rarelyseen wrote:What a dick you are. You tell them that the only thing you like in 8 is the looper, that you haven't supported Live 7 either and now you are whining that they don't wash your arse? What a waste of time and internet bandwidth. If I was Ableton, I would lock your license and tell you to fuck off.

is everything ok at home, son?

just to throw in my 2 cents; i paid 19 eur for my upgrade.. even though i upgraded to 7 a couple days before the 8 announcement they still offered me the 49 eur upgrade minus the 30 eur coupon..

not to gloat or nothin..

One of my strongest memories of attending an Ableton workshop was Robert Henke responding to a question about open-sourcing live with a response something like:

"Whilst Ableton is a progressive company, it is run with a very conservative business model."
(Not a direct quote - the workshop was just after live 7 was released)

As a long time MaxMSP and Live user I can see huge possibilities in Max4Live, however as an owner of full educational licenses of both I slightly resent having to pay huge amounts of money to upgrade to Live8 just to use them together (plus whatever Max4Live costs).

Of course the problem for Ableton is that once Max4Live is released they will make redundant so many of their closed effects and instruments which can be recreated in Max. Sure they won't be quite as CPU friendly, but infinitely more flexible. After playing with the Live8 demo I can't help but look at the new effects and think that they would have taken 30 minutes to code each (eg. Frequency Shifter).

This is one reason why they need to charge a lot for live8 before Max4Live is released because a few new effects isn't going to cut it once community created effects and instruments start to abound. To me this seems like nothing more than a money grab by Ableton.

***

My second point is that for those of us with education licenses of live7, Ableton is not in fact offering us an upgrade.
What is being is offered is a 10-20% discount on a *new* product which is live8. In fact an educational license of Live cannot be upgraded at all. The only option one has is to use a "discount" that is included in the educational version to make the next product cheaper.

It is certainly strange that for a one-off purchase price you get 'everything' that is Ableton Live7, and then for an additional 80% you get a handful of additions that will be made arbitrary when Max4Live is released. However in order to use Max4Live you need to give us that 80% addition + whatever extra arbitrary price we decide to add for that product.

***

Finally I want to say that $4(USD) a day since the announcement is a *lot* of money to many students and academics. For $4USD i get $6(AUD) for which I can cook myself dinner every night. To ask a person who is spending only $6 on dinner every night, out of necessity, to put that meal aside shows a great misunderstanding of differing economic situations and social realities.

Ableton Live is moving away from its "fun" oriented approach to making music that drew in so many of it's customers (and particular educational institutions) and moving towards a marketing + pricing scheme that demonstrates it as a luxury item made for consumption only by the upper echelons of society.

***

I will not be purchasing Live8 as the pricing situation stands.

chris_in_london wrote:

rarelyseen wrote:What a dick you are. You tell them that the only thing you like in 8 is the looper, that you haven't supported Live 7 either and now you are whining that they don't wash your arse? What a waste of time and internet bandwidth. If I was Ableton, I would lock your license and tell you to fuck off.

is everything ok at home, son?

All good here. Just don't get why you guys are complaining about Ableton being too expensive. It's fantastic software and not really expensive at all for what you get. It's even not really more expensive than other DAWs which have dropped their prices to a ridiculously low level in the past 2 years. I have spent more than 3000 Euros on Notator/Logic since it came out, perhaps another 2000 on their hardware and have never received any discount, coupon or even a "thank you" from Emagic/Apple. The only thing they did was to fuck all PC users when they went Apple-only, which made me spend another 3000 to get a Mac (which was a good move, though). Fair enough. I don't complain. I have used their software and it offered a lot of possibilities at its time. It helped me to get the jobs done and I have earned good money from it. 20 years ago this would not have been possible at all.

I use Ableton since 5 years now, completely abandoned Logic 2 years ago and have never looked back. Live just gets better and better with every upgrade and I'm glad that I can give them my money. In return I got great service from their customer and tech support, at least 3 features have been implemented which I had requested, I got my grace period extended when I upgraded to Live 5 two weeks before 6 got announced, so eventually got 6 for free, bought the Suite which is a fantastic deal, received a coupon for 8 and whatnot. I really don't understand those guys who complain about Ableton's pricing. You must either be very dumb or extremely luckless if you miss all the special offers Ableton puts out. Ok, the Live 8 upgrade is slightly more expensive now, but on the other hands it's one of the most comprehensive upgrades and it took them longer than usual (1.5 years instead of 1 year), which I think is the reason for the higher upgrade price. I like that much more than paying once a year for just a few features.

Compare this software to hardware costs and you'll see how incredibly cheap Live is. If you make music for a hobby and you can't or don't want to buy Live, there are tons of freeware solutions out there. Not as convenient as Live, but they make noise, too. If you already have an older version, Live 5, 6 or 7 runs on all Mac and Windows platforms, it hosts all plugins and supports Rewire, so I guess you can still use that for the next 3 years or so. It does everything you want and maybe more, so there's no need to upgrade if that's too expensive for you. If you want the new cool features, pay for them. It's a very simple logic.

enjoi wrote:One of my strongest memories of attending an Ableton workshop was Robert Henke responding to a question about open-sourcing live with a response something like:

"Whilst Ableton is a progressive company, it is run with a very conservative business model."
(Not a direct quote - the workshop was just after live 7 was released)

As a long time MaxMSP and Live user I can see huge possibilities in Max4Live, however as an owner of full educational licenses of both I slightly resent having to pay huge amounts of money to upgrade to Live8 just to use them together (plus whatever Max4Live costs).

Of course the problem for Ableton is that once Max4Live is released they will make redundant so many of their closed effects and instruments which can be recreated in Max. Sure they won't be quite as CPU friendly, but infinitely more flexible. After playing with the Live8 demo I can't help but look at the new effects and think that they would have taken 30 minutes to code each (eg. Frequency Shifter).

This is one reason why they need to charge a lot for live8 before Max4Live is released because a few new effects isn't going to cut it once community created effects and instruments start to abound. To me this seems like nothing more than a money grab by Ableton.

***

My second point is that for those of us with education licenses of live7, Ableton is not in fact offering us an upgrade.
What is being is offered is a 10-20% discount on a *new* product which is live8. In fact an educational license of Live cannot be upgraded at all. The only option one has is to use a "discount" that is included in the educational version to make the next product cheaper.

It is certainly strange that for a one-off purchase price you get 'everything' that is Ableton Live7, and then for an additional 80% you get a handful of additions that will be made arbitrary when Max4Live is released. However in order to use Max4Live you need to give us that 80% addition + whatever extra arbitrary price we decide to add for that product.

***

Finally I want to say that $4(USD) a day since the announcement is a *lot* of money to many students and academics. For $4USD i get $6(AUD) for which I can cook myself dinner every night. To ask a person who is spending only $6 on dinner every night, out of necessity, to put that meal aside shows a great misunderstanding of differing economic situations and social realities.

Ableton Live is moving away from its "fun" oriented approach to making music that drew in so many of it's customers (and particular educational institutions) and moving towards a marketing + pricing scheme that demonstrates it as a luxury item made for consumption only by the upper echelons of society.

***

I will not be purchasing Live8 as the pricing situation stands.

And you already got educational discounts which is how much? 50% off the normal price? And you still complain? I'm speechless.

rarelyseen wrote:I'm speechless.

Don't be. It's good you aren't being as harsh as you were earlier, but just try to understand that people feel pretty strongly about this - as strongly as you do on the other side of it.

Everyone has different circumstances and will react different.

We have these same conversations every year, people bitching about the price and people bitching about the bitching. And every year it gets a little more expensive to keep this software up to date.

I've been a paying customer since 2003, and I've been a student the entire time. Only with version 7 did I finally take advantage of the academic price. I did so simply because it's been gotten to the point where I just can't afford it anymore.

Because of that I wont be buying this upgrade.

Just like everyone else here I have invested a fair amount of cash into this software over the years and I have the right to complain about the pricing, features, or anything else if I want.

Surely you can see the logic in this?

Touche! Nevertheless I am under the impression that some people here are utterly overreacting and unrealistic.