MusicTech: Niklas Agevik talks Reason

[antic604]

Then I'd gladly support them with a stable stream of money.

I'll explain my issue.

A few months ago the company I composed music for asked me to do make an altered version for them, but I made the original a few years ago in Reason but switched to Logic Pro X in the meantime. IF I had used Reason as a subscription instead of a perpetual version, I wouldn't have acces to my old songs anymore.
Paying again to get acces to my own songs would be like paying randsom money to RS to release them to me.

I pay for something to have the right to use it whenever I want/need. Even if that is years later.

Thanks for sharing this!

That's interesting! I thought that as a professional music producer (i.e. making a living out of music) you'd actually prefer subscription. Rather than spending hundreds of $$$ upfront and being stuck with a fixed toolset that you might only use once or twice, you'd simply subscribe to it for a month at $19 when a new project comes up or you have to open an old project, and would take advantage of all the stuff added - for "free", from that point of view - in the meantime: new version, new OS/hardware support, new instruments & FX.

[Eprom]

I'll explain my issue.

A few months ago the company I composed music for asked me to do make an altered version for them, but I made the original a few years ago in Reason but switched to Logic Pro X in the meantime. IF I had used Reason as a subscription instead of a perpetual version, I wouldn't have acces to my old songs anymore.
Paying again to get acces to my own songs would be like paying randsom money to RS to release them to me.

I pay for something to have the right to use it whenever I want/need. Even if that is years later.

Thanks for sharing this!

That's interesting! I thought that as a professional music producer (i.e. making a living out of music) you'd actually prefer subscription. Rather than spending hundreds of $$$ upfront and being stuck with a fixed toolset that you might only use once or twice, you'd simply subscribe to it for a month at $19 when a new project comes up or you have to open an old project, and would take advantage of all the stuff added - for "free", from that point of view - in the meantime: new version, new OS/hardware support, new instruments & FX.

No thanks. I would still need to pay to open my own damn songs.

When you buy Logic Pro, you pay one time and EVERY update is free. New devices, new workflow, new features are all included. Even the people that bought it 10 years ago are still enjoying support and features to this date.

PS. Don't get me wrong. I like Reason and have been using it since 2001, but the way things are going they are pushing me away as a customer. As soon as it is subscription only, i'm gone.

[avasopht]

Thanks for sharing this!

That's interesting! I thought that as a professional music producer (i.e. making a living out of music) you'd actually prefer subscription. Rather than spending hundreds of $$$ upfront and being stuck with a fixed toolset that you might only use once or twice, you'd simply subscribe to it for a month at $19 when a new project comes up or you have to open an old project, and would take advantage of all the stuff added - for "free", from that point of view - in the meantime: new version, new OS/hardware support, new instruments & FX.

A professional will be using their software and plugins every month.

I'm not going to have some Rack Extension in a project I don't already own and would need Reason+ to open because there's no reason to create that dependency.

Any professional will already have their well curated set of plugins.

It's hard for me to justify a subscription, even ones I quite like because I already have equivalents for most things.

Objekt is pretty unique though.

It will be interesting to see how R13 shapes up.

[EnochLight]

Don't get me wrong. I like Reason and have been using it since 2001, but the way things are going they are pushing me away as a customer. As soon as it is subscription only, i'm gone.

You and probably the vast majority of everyone else who isn't on R+ already, myself included. Personally I don't think Reason will ever become subscription only (especially seeing what happened with Minimal Audio's attempt, though they handled it pretty poorly from the beginning).

[avasopht]

You and probably the vast majority of everyone else who isn't on R+ already, myself included. Personally I don't think Reason will ever become subscription only (especially seeing what happened with Minimal Audio's attempt, though they handled it pretty poorly from the beginning).

Look what happened to the Unity CEO.

In a leaked recording from 2011 he was caught saying, “When you are six hours into playing Battlefield and you run out of ammo in your clip and we ask you for a dollar to reload, you’re really not that price sensitive at that point in time.”

He "retired" as Unity CEO last week after doing just that - but with the game developers themselves.

Looks like people would rather jump ship than reload that bullet when push comes to shove.

[Eprom]

And another example:

https://musictech.com/news/industry/wav ... -licenses/

[EnochLight]

Yep, like I said - seriously doubt RS would do that.

[Loque]

And another example:

https://musictech.com/news/industry/wav ... -licenses/

Strange, that they said "We listen to our customers"... I doubt they ever had asked them.

[antic604]

And another example:

https://musictech.com/news/industry/wav ... -licenses/

Strange, that they said "We listen to our customers"... I doubt they ever had asked them.

They heard them AFTER not asking them first

It's really puzzling how Minimal Audio thought a sub for Current is a good idea. I mean I can understand Waves a bit, with their endless catalogue of - mostly very old by now, but still good - plugins. But 1 synth + ecosystem of soundpacks really wasn't making sense. In this area KiloHearts' approach is the gold standard, IMO: perpetual license or subscription, that gives you back I think ~80% of what you paid as a shop credit, so it's very close to rent-to-own in practice.

[Loque]

...
It's really puzzling how Minimal Audio thought a sub for Current is a good idea.
...

They said, they want to add perpetual and RTO options later. "They said"...

[EnochLight]

I mean I can understand Waves a bit, with their endless catalogue of - mostly very old by now, but still good - plugins.

I'm probably an outlier, but I'm not fond of Waves' GUI/UX on the vast majority of their plugins. Not one bit. In fact, I dislike them so much that I can't bare to look at them and choose to use others just because of their look. But I'm an extremely visual person, and what I see on my screen or right in front of my hands has a lot to do with my perception of what I am looking at, despite its sound or utility. But, I digress...

[joeyluck]

Strange, that they said "We listen to our customers"... I doubt they ever had asked them.

They heard them AFTER not asking them first

It's really puzzling how Minimal Audio thought a sub for Current is a good idea. I mean I can understand Waves a bit, with their endless catalogue of - mostly very old by now, but still good - plugins. But 1 synth + ecosystem of soundpacks really wasn't making sense. In this area KiloHearts' approach is the gold standard, IMO: perpetual license or subscription, that gives you back I think ~80% of what you paid as a shop credit, so it's very close to rent-to-own in practice.

I wouldn't say it's really puzzling. I think it makes sense. It's certainly not out of left field.

They want Current to be an ever growing and evolving thing. It is a constant flow of content and plugins as modules. It's in the name ("current" as in up-to-date or as in movement of water).

It can be difficult when you want to have an ecosystem with new content that relies on everybody having everything and then many users not having everything and things not being compatible.

And yeah Kilohearts is a great example. I like that they offer a $100 voucher after 1 year of subscribing. They also offer perpetual versions, but of course unless you want to keep buying everything individually to stay up to date, the subscription is the more efficient way to go and much simpler from a support perspective.

And it's great Minimal Audio gave it more thought and sounds like they will be making it rent-to-own. But for people on kvr and other places to be demonizing them over a pretty understandable decision is ridiculous. This isn't about somebody's existing piece of software going subscription only. This is new.

I think many people still look at subscriptions the wrong way. It doesn't mean subscriptions are for everybody. But for many users, when they think about Reason+, some are only thinking about paying to have access to what they have today later down the road...rather than thinking about the constant flow of updates/upgrades, plugins, soundpacks, etc.—that's what a subscription is about. It's not about just paying monthly to access the same stuff forever.

[joeyluck]

I mean I can understand Waves a bit, with their endless catalogue of - mostly very old by now, but still good - plugins.

I'm probably an outlier, but I'm not fond of Waves' GUI/UX on the vast majority of their plugins. Not one bit. In fact, I dislike them so much that I can't bare to look at them and choose to use others just because of their look. But I'm an extremely visual person, and what I see on my screen or right in front of my hands has a lot to do with my perception of what I am looking at, despite its sound or utility. But, I digress...

My only gripe with Waves is the scanning of the WaveShells every time. So that's why I have moved them into their own folder, and then disabled that plugin folder from within Reason, and then I only enable it when I need one of those plugins. If it weren't for the WaveShells, I'd probably own a few more Waves plugins, but I haven't bought any new ones since deciding that I don't want to watch them scan.

And yeah I also think the Waves plugin subscription/WUP makes some sense. When you have a library that large, that continues to grow, and want to keep everything up to date and working, that requires a lot resources. Otherwise, you do what other devs do and just discontinue them. In terms of WUP or subscription, I would probably choose the subscription because it's just simpler.

[jam-s]

I'm probably an outlier, but I'm not fond of Waves' GUI/UX on the vast majority of their plugins. Not one bit. In fact, I dislike them so much that I can't bare to look at them and choose to use others just because of their look. But I'm an extremely visual person, and what I see on my screen or right in front of my hands has a lot to do with my perception of what I am looking at, despite its sound or utility. But, I digress...

It's a really good thing you can wrap them in combinators (unless you need to watch some meters on those).

[selig]

No thanks. I would still need to pay to open my own damn songs.

I don’t understand why Reason doesn’t follow some other subscriptions models (maybe a technical reason?), where if your subscription expires you can STILL open your own damn songs – you just can’t edit anything that has expired (Output Arcade works this way). This gives the chance to export tracks/stems/mixes and not loose access to your works in progress. And if you find something you need to edit, THEN it’s time to pay for a month so you can get all your unfinished work “finished” (or at least export your multi-tracks). That would certainly take at least some of the sting out of the current model I would think.

[crimsonwarlock]

This gives the chance to export tracks/stems/mixes and not loose access to your works in progress.

But you can do those exports right before you terminate your subscription, so it seems obvious why RS wouldn't throw any development resources at this idea.

It is basically the same issue as people realizing they need backups... at the moment they actually need the backups

[antic604]

No thanks. I would still need to pay to open my own damn songs.

I don’t understand why Reason doesn’t follow some other subscriptions models (maybe a technical reason?), where if your subscription expires you can STILL open your own damn songs – you just can’t edit anything that has expired (Output Arcade works this way). This gives the chance to export tracks/stems/mixes and not loose access to your works in progress. And if you find something you need to edit, THEN it’s time to pay for a month so you can get all your unfinished work “finished” (or at least export your multi-tracks). That would certainly take at least some of the sting out of the current model I would think.

Not only that - they make it really hard to plan ahead.

For example, you can't buy e.g. 2 codes on sale and have a sub valid for 2 year. They discourage people from buying codes from 3rd party retailers (Plugin Boutique, Audiodeluxe, etc.) and stashing them, because "authorization system might change". Surprisingly, apparently some of those retailers receive codes that can only be used once and then future prolongation has to be done via RS, so you can't be sure the price it'll cost you.

So, if my plan was to buy annual R+ now at Plugin Boutique at -40% hoping I can buy next R+ code when it's on sale on PB or Audiodeluxe to extend it, then I have zero certainty I'll be able to do that...

It's a mindfield



Bitwig, which technically isn't a subscription, does it way better:
- when you buy license, you get 1 year of upgrades for "free" (this includes big versions, too)
- once the upgrade plan runs out, you stay on your current version forever and even get maintenance updates (like 5.0.x now)
- when you decide that updates added since your version are worth it, you go and buy new upgrade plan ($169 regular, $129 on sale) upgrade, and get further 12 months of "free" updates
- you can buy the upgrade plans from Bitwig or 3rd parties
- you can stack them by logging the codes in your account (as of now my plan is valid until Nov 2025)
- you might buy 2+ plans on sale and apply them as you want in the future (e.g. wait after one lapses until enough features are added, to make it worthwhile to apply the next plan)

It's really well thought out, fair and if someone doesn't always have to be at the most recent version can be reasonably cheap.

[avasopht]

But you can do those exports right before you terminate your subscription, so it seems obvious why RS wouldn't throw any development resources at this idea.

It is basically the same issue as people realizing they need backups... at the moment they actually need the backups

Yes, except by not doing so they increase the perceived risk.

"Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back" exists for this reason.

The price point doesn't help, and the discounts feel like a lock-in trap.

[antic604]

Yes, except by not doing so they increase the perceived risk.

Perhaps Reason should consider R+ for a week, a day or couple of hours?

[joeyluck]

I don’t understand why Reason doesn’t follow some other subscriptions models (maybe a technical reason?), where if your subscription expires you can STILL open your own damn songs – you just can’t edit anything that has expired (Output Arcade works this way). This gives the chance to export tracks/stems/mixes and not loose access to your works in progress. And if you find something you need to edit, THEN it’s time to pay for a month so you can get all your unfinished work “finished” (or at least export your multi-tracks). That would certainly take at least some of the sting out of the current model I would think.

Not only that - they make it really hard to plan ahead.

For example, you can't buy e.g. 2 codes on sale and have a sub valid for 2 year. They discourage people from buying codes from 3rd party retailers (Plugin Boutique, Audiodeluxe, etc.) and stashing them, because "authorization system might change". Surprisingly, apparently some of those retailers receive codes that can only be used once and then future prolongation has to be done via RS, so you can't be sure the price it'll cost you.

So, if my plan was to buy annual R+ now at Plugin Boutique at -40% hoping I can buy next R+ code when it's on sale on PB or Audiodeluxe to extend it, then I have zero certainty I'll be able to do that...

It's a mindfield



Bitwig, which technically isn't a subscription, does it way better:
- when you buy license, you get 1 year of upgrades for "free" (this includes big versions, too)
- once the upgrade plan runs out, you stay on your current version forever and even get maintenance updates (like 5.0.x now)
- when you decide that updates added since your version are worth it, you go and buy new upgrade plan ($169 regular, $129 on sale) upgrade, and get further 12 months of "free" updates
- you can buy the upgrade plans from Bitwig or 3rd parties
- you can stack them by logging the codes in your account (as of now my plan is valid until Nov 2025)
- you might buy 2+ plans on sale and apply them as you want in the future (e.g. wait after one lapses until enough features are added, to make it worthwhile to apply the next plan)

It's really well thought out, fair and if someone doesn't always have to be at the most recent version can be reasonably cheap.

You're comparing subscriptions with perpetual plans, which I guess you do point out. But I would guess one of the reasons they don't allow "stacking" subscriptions is because who knows what the future holds. Reason+ seems to be a success, but where do you draw the line on how many years you can purchase? And with different codes from different retailers? That's a mess. I think if someone wants 2 years or more and if Reason Studios would consider it, they would rather sell a 2 year subscription because it would be easier to plan and track.

Maybe suggest the perpetual update plan to them?

[selig]

This gives the chance to export tracks/stems/mixes and not loose access to your works in progress.

But you can do those exports right before you terminate your subscription, so it seems obvious why RS wouldn't throw any development resources at this idea.

It is basically the same issue as people realizing they need backups... at the moment they actually need the backups

I totally agree, I’m responding to folks complaining about not being able to open their songs.

[antic604]

You're comparing subscriptions with perpetual plans, which I guess you do point out. But I would guess one of the reasons they don't allow "stacking" subscriptions is because who knows what the future holds. Reason+ seems to be a success, but where do you draw the line on how many years you can purchase? And with different codes from different retailers? That's a mess. I think if someone wants 2 years or more and if Reason Studios would consider it, they would rather sell a 2 year subscription because it would be easier to plan and track.

Maybe suggest the perpetual update plan to them?

The resellers obviously don't have their own codes - they buy them from RS, because otherwise how would RS know to accept them? I call b/s on that explanation I cited above (from support reply). They just wanted to dissuade me from buying from resellers.

And do you seriously think they're going to change licensing method again? 2-3 years should easily be safe.

[joeyluck]

You're comparing subscriptions with perpetual plans, which I guess you do point out. But I would guess one of the reasons they don't allow "stacking" subscriptions is because who knows what the future holds. Reason+ seems to be a success, but where do you draw the line on how many years you can purchase? And with different codes from different retailers? That's a mess. I think if someone wants 2 years or more and if Reason Studios would consider it, they would rather sell a 2 year subscription because it would be easier to plan and track.

Maybe suggest the perpetual update plan to them?

The resellers obviously don't have their own codes - they buy them from RS, because otherwise how would RS know to accept them? I call b/s on that explanation I cited above (from support reply). They just wanted to dissuade me from buying from resellers.

And do you seriously think they're going to change licensing method again? 2-3 years should easily be safe.

From a reseller, RS can't refund your money, you'd have to go back to the reseller. And 2-3 years now? So you would put a cap on it? I guess you understand it a little bit? I don't know why you are needing to buy multiple years up front anyways.

[avasopht]

From a reseller, RS can't refund your money, you'd have to go back to the reseller. And 2-3 years now? So you would put a cap on it? I guess you understand it a little bit? I don't know why you are needing to buy multiple years up front anyways.

He explained - to ensure he had 2 years discounted instead of 1 year discounted and not having any available discount.

[joeyluck]

He explained - to ensure he had 2 years discounted instead of 1 year discounted and not having any available discount.

It was already explained and he already quoted it as well that they don't because the "authorization system might change". So I'm not sure what the misunderstanding is about.