live 7 to live 8 upgrade discount and user happiness with it

[muscmp]

i've received an email from ableton indicating i can get a 33% discount to upgrade from live 7 to live 8. i still use ableton live 7 quite a bit but my main daw is logic 9.
i'm wondering how happy people are with the change from 7 to 8. i may spring for it if it appears to be worthwhile.
thanks,
mikeB.

[dhilsabeck]

v8 hasn't exactly been rock solid for some users so it may not be the best time to upgrade. If you're happy with 7, I'd stay with 7 and wait for a more generous upgrade path to v9, which should be due sometime this year. At least that's what I'm doing.

[muscmp]

v8 hasn't exactly been rock solid for some users so it may not be the best time to upgrade. If you're happy with 7, I'd stay with 7 and wait for a more generous upgrade path to v9, which should be due sometime this year. At least that's what I'm doing.

thanks, appreciate it!
mikeB.

[Moody]

Live8 for the most part has been stable for me - there was one release of it that did not fare well with my setup, but 7 had similar issues - and the new instruments and effects I find invaluable at this point.

[H20nly]

v8 hasn't exactly been rock solid for some users so it may not be the best time to upgrade. If you're happy with 7, I'd stay with 7 and wait for a more generous upgrade path to v9, which should be due sometime this year. At least that's what I'm doing.

i agree.

i have Suite 8 and it works for me, but its so late in the game now. you've made it this far. there'll be some kinda promotion when Live 9 gets released. if i was you, i'd do like dhilsabeck and jump on that instead (after you know its working as expected).

[Machinesworking]

I can't say much about the stability of Live 8 as of the upgrades. It's quite possible that the problems early on have mostly been taken care of, and that the problems people have are due to looking no further than Live. No disrespect, but I've personally been guilty of blaming Live for issues that were due to other drivers on my system.

Being that I'm in the trades for my day job, I'm scant money wise, so upgrades are really hard to justify at this point, so here's my rampant speculation!
Here's the gist of it though, Live 9 can't be that far off, my uneducated but probably accurate guess is late summer. So you and all of us with 7 are faced with the question as to whether to wait or not. The dilemma, there is no guarantee that Live 9.0 will be stable, in fact there will of course be bugs to iron out on peoples systems like there is with every .0 release of any software. So will Ableton announce Live 9 and sell upgrades to 8 with the promise of an upgrade to 9? Will the upgrade to 8 be more expensive when 9 is released? Will it be more expensive than upgrading to 8 now and then paying for an upgrade to 9 in 3 months?

In my case 8 download would be about $100 usd, so if Live 9 is 180 minus a temporary price cut like last time it will be 139 for Live 8 users, so $239 total in four months.
So if I wait for the announcement of 9, it's possible that Ableton sell the upgrade like they have in the past, "Buy Live 8 upgrade now and get 9 when it comes out!" It's also possible that they decide not to give that option. If that happens then it's not that much more expensive to wait for 9 to get bug free after a few updates then upgrade, and still come out at roughly the same paid into upgrades, just wait for a sale.

Personally I decided to upgrade Speakerphone to 2 recently, and it was a hard call, Live 8 looks really good to me, and I still think that Ableton is a good company that deserves my money, but Speakerphone 1 is 4+ years old at this point.

[pulsoc]

I think you are right about much of this. I would add that we saw steady upgrade price increases when Live was on an annual schedule ($20-30 per version). That was on an annual schedule. Since we haven't seen a new version in 2 years I would bet the price increase is severe - $200 or more for v. 7 users.

And I suspect they will be able to do this, because they STILL don't have a serious competitor!

I can't say much about the stability of Live 8 as of the upgrades. It's quite possible that the problems early on have mostly been taken care of, and that the problems people have are due to looking no further than Live. No disrespect, but I've personally been guilty of blaming Live for issues that were due to other drivers on my system.

Being that I'm in the trades for my day job, I'm scant money wise, so upgrades are really hard to justify at this point, so here's my rampant speculation!
Here's the gist of it though, Live 9 can't be that far off, my uneducated but probably accurate guess is late summer. So you and all of us with 7 are faced with the question as to whether to wait or not. The dilemma, there is no guarantee that Live 9.0 will be stable, in fact there will of course be bugs to iron out on peoples systems like there is with every .0 release of any software. So will Ableton announce Live 9 and sell upgrades to 8 with the promise of an upgrade to 9? Will the upgrade to 8 be more expensive when 9 is released? Will it be more expensive than upgrading to 8 now and then paying for an upgrade to 9 in 3 months?

In my case 8 download would be about $100 usd, so if Live 9 is 180 minus a temporary price cut like last time it will be 139 for Live 8 users, so $239 total in four months.
So if I wait for the announcement of 9, it's possible that Ableton sell the upgrade like they have in the past, "Buy Live 8 upgrade now and get 9 when it comes out!" It's also possible that they decide not to give that option. If that happens then it's not that much more expensive to wait for 9 to get bug free after a few updates then upgrade, and still come out at roughly the same paid into upgrades, just wait for a sale.

Personally I decided to upgrade Speakerphone to 2 recently, and it was a hard call, Live 8 looks really good to me, and I still think that Ableton is a good company that deserves my money, but Speakerphone 1 is 4+ years old at this point.

[Machinesworking]

I think you are right about much of this. I would add that we saw steady upgrade price increases when Live was on an annual schedule ($20-30 per version). That was on an annual schedule. Since we haven't seen a new version in 2 years I would bet the price increase is severe - $200 or more for v. 7 users.

And I suspect they will be able to do this, because they STILL don't have a serious competitor!

Yeah, I don't knock them for any of it though, if they get 8 right that's great, my concerns are entirely due to my being broke for the foreseeable future until work picks up year round. What I would like to know that they can't realistically tell us is if recent up-graders to 8 are going to get any discount on 9, which is unlikely. So the question becomes then if you get the upgrade to 8 when they announce 9 will they give you 9 or offer a substantial discount to 9?

[dhilsabeck]

I think that when they announce 9 they will offer an upgrade path for previous version users to keep them up to date (= more $ for future releases). Whether or not it is an attractive offer is yet to be seen.

And in regards to not having a serious competitor: Not everyone uses live for live use. Some use it exclusively as a traditional DAW in which case v8 suite is on the pricier end in comparison the competition's flagship offerings. Yes, I love the workflow but considering what other companies are offering these days in terms of generous instrument bundles and reasonable upgrade paths, I think many users may jump ship if Live continues it's arguably outdated pricing structure.

[Machinesworking]

I think that when they announce 9 they will offer an upgrade path for previous version users to keep them up to date (= more $ for future releases). Whether or not it is an attractive offer is yet to be seen.

And in regards to not having a serious competitor: Not everyone uses live for live use. Some use it exclusively as a traditional DAW in which case v8 suite is on the pricier end in comparison the competition's flagship offerings. Yes, I love the workflow but considering what other companies are offering these days in terms of generous instrument bundles and reasonable upgrade paths, I think many users may jump ship if Live continues it's arguably outdated pricing structure.

Unfortunately Ableton decided to invest in third party instruments for the Suite, so there really isn't any way around them charging more for Suite than say Logic does for their Suite. To be fair Logic is the only DAW I can think of that offers ALL content with the Pro version. Cubase has Halion and other 'pro' plug ins as paid extras, so do Digital Performer and Pro Tools. Sonar has a lot on stripped down versions of their instruments in their pro version, so it still would be extra etc.
When people mention that it's expensive it's in comparison to Logic, which could be argued as being a loss leader for Apple hardware... Pro Tools with the convolution Reverb, drum and synth RTAS plug ins etc. comes out as much more expensive, same with DP and Mach5 etc. <- Mach 5 and Halion can be used in ANY DAW though, so it's more value etc. which brings up the point that Live is the only DAW I know of with an extensive list of third party embedded instruments as paid add ons. IMO not that great of an idea, (what Emagic used to do with the Logic instruments), but I think it's too late to change that.

[dazzer]

Pretty much guaranteed that once 9 is announced purchasers or upgraders to 8 will get 9 free. They have always done it and if not there would be an interim period when nobody would buy/upgrade, which to me doesn't make much business sense. That's what I'm waiting for anyway ( still on Live 7 here).

[dhilsabeck]

I think that when they announce 9 they will offer an upgrade path for previous version users to keep them up to date (= more $ for future releases). Whether or not it is an attractive offer is yet to be seen.

And in regards to not having a serious competitor: Not everyone uses live for live use. Some use it exclusively as a traditional DAW in which case v8 suite is on the pricier end in comparison the competition's flagship offerings. Yes, I love the workflow but considering what other companies are offering these days in terms of generous instrument bundles and reasonable upgrade paths, I think many users may jump ship if Live continues it's arguably outdated pricing structure.

Unfortunately Ableton decided to invest in third party instruments for the Suite, so there really isn't any way around them charging more for Suite than say Logic does for their Suite. To be fair Logic is the only DAW I can think of that offers ALL content with the Pro version. Cubase has Halion and other 'pro' plug ins as paid extras, so do Digital Performer and Pro Tools. Sonar has a lot on stripped down versions of their instruments in their pro version, so it still would be extra etc.
When people mention that it's expensive it's in comparison to Logic, which could be argued as being a loss leader for Apple hardware... Pro Tools with the convolution Reverb, drum and synth RTAS plug ins etc. comes out as much more expensive, same with DP and Mach5 etc. <- Mach 5 and Halion can be used in ANY DAW though, so it's more value etc. which brings up the point that Live is the only DAW I know of with an extensive list of third party embedded instruments as paid add ons. IMO not that great of an idea, (what Emagic used to do with the Logic instruments), but I think it's too late to change that.

I guess what I had in mind was Reason/Record, Logic and Reaper as my personal points of comparison in terms of good value for well engineered products.

And I'm not sure I buy that Logic is a loss leader at $500. That's still a chunk of change. More competition these days with better products for an entirely different customer base. It's nice to see "professional tools" at more affordable prices so everyone can get in on making high-end product for relatively not so much money. Especially since customers are no longer just studio people and handsomely paid djs who were already accustomed to spending loads on gear.

And just curious, how do the bundled cubase and dp plugs compare to live suite? Are live's that much better that they can warrant the additional $200+ price tag?

[Machinesworking]

And just curious, how do the bundled cubase and dp plugs compare to live suite? Are live's that much better that they can warrant the additional $200+ price tag?

Cubase is OK I guess, DP has a few really nice plug ins, a convolution reverb and a seriously high end 'MasterWorks' EQ (four different algorithms/types in the same EQ), as well a MW Leveler etc. The sampler is like Simpler though. Plus I would say the synths are pretty basic. The stomp box style distortions, amp, and room/mic modeling is all freaking great and not at all represented in Suite from what I can tell.

Reaper and ReNoise are in a class by themselves price wise, no other products are as complete for so little cash.