EastWest Trying to Go Out of Business?

[kafka]

I'm beginning to think that EastWest doesn't really want to be in business anymore. I recently got QL Pianos. Play performance on XP/Protols has been an absolute disaster, to the point that they really should not claim they support it at all. The GUI is non-functional (i.e. it just freezes, allowing no input), and when it does work, the engine hiccups and forgets notes, and sometimes just plays the wrong notes.

To top it off, their support is essentially non-existent. When you submit a case, they don't respond to it until you follow up asking if they've received the case. And after the one brush-off email from them, they don't follow-up at all. Furthermore, if you post a simple question on their forum - such as who has a similar, working setup - they refuse to allow it through.

They have a "live online-support" button on their support page that, as far as I can tell, is just a sick joke, mocking anyone who believes it actually exists. I have never, ever, for even one second, seen the live support status go to "online". Nor have they ever responded when I sent them requests.

To top it off, they're now demanding $249 for Play 2 (vaporware, due in March), even though Play 1 never worked in the first place. Is anyone so astonomically stupid that they'd turn over even more money to a company run like this? They act like we're supposed to be grateful they wasted so much time in the studio recording the samples, when they never gave us an engine that can play them back! What friggin attitudes!

My impression is that EastWest isn't really serious about being in business. I think they'd rather do other things, and are just riding this out until it collapses completely.

[Whitecat]

FYI, in another thread which veered into similar territory as this is headed, Doug Rogers personally offered to help GS members who were still having technical troubles get up and running, just shoot him a PM. 'Doug Rogers' is his screen name here as well as his real name.

Play 2 has been renamed Play Pro in the interim as well, since Play 2 didn't make a lot of sense (it sounds like an evolution, rather than actually quite a different thing which it is). Play Pro is to Play as Kontakt is to Kompakt Player, for example.

[rhythmtech]

i remember the days when samples were samples.. who's the bloody genius that decided that we didnt need our samplers? that what we really needed was a flashy front end interface????

[kgdrum_nyc]

i have not been able to move forward with any EW Play based products(held off upgrading EWQLSO Play)because it really doesn't work with PPC based Macs.
I have SD and I have heard the SD2 Play version is a pig as well, so this is a no go as well.
It's pretty amazing they want Play 2 to be a major $$ money paid upgrade to correct and fix issues in the flawed Play engine.
the last few years EW business practices/marketing ,upgrade paths have been really shoddy at times and seems to be getting weirder as time progresses.
a hilarious thread I have been following actually has Nick Phoenix telling a user who can't get the software to work correctly to simply shove the DVD where the sun don't shine!
v.i. control forum • View topic - PLAY on Mac ... [ Guest ]
EW in my book is the new Waves,I really have a hard time giving them anymore business.They post minimum acceptable specs that they now admit aren't real and tell people, well get a newer Mac.They delete posts on there own forums ,bury tech support issues as well as they can,the more I see of them,the less I like the business model they employ.

i have never seen a company change their upgrade policy's as much as EW does.
remember the EWQLSO Play upgrade fiasco last year ?
the more I see the way EW behaves the less comfortable I feel in continuing giving them business.
I bought tons of VI's from them in the past ...................as they moved forward with Play oriented libraries,I have made the decision not to get ANY more of their products until they straighten out the Play issues and or I also move to a Macintel based system.
I actually canceled my order to upgrade EWQLSO Platinum + Play when it became apparent that it would not be realistic to expect it work on my system.

KG

[kafka]

Originally Posted by kgdrum_nyc

a hilarious thread I have been following actually has Nick Phoenix telling a user who can't get the software to work correctly to simply shove the DVD where the sun don't shine!
v.i. control forum • View topic - PLAY on Mac ... [ Guest ]

Well, that Nick Phoenix guy is pretty out there. In one thread on that forum he claims that "99% of our users say the latest PLAY is working great". Really? 99%? I seriously doubt that any company can even claim a response from 99% of it's users, let alone an endorsement. It sounds like head-in-the-sand support, to me.

[author]

All the East West products I have used have been terrible. Just p.l.a.i.n. terrible.

Terrible. stike

[sahiaman]

Figured I would chime in. I've never had a problem with their Play products. Gypsy and Fab Four.

The first time I installed it I had a couple hiccups. As soon as I got the update from their site, I was good to go and didn't have any problems after that.

[captain caveman]

The fact that they censor complaints on their forums rings alarm bells.

Something to hide?

[GCL]

I was a heavy East-West user when their Symphonic Orchestra and a everything else they made was on KONTAKT. I bought everything they released.

It all worked.

Now I have all the PLAY versions of all this stuff and I NEVER use them. Way too buggy. Let me repeat that. WAYYY too buggy. Every time I decide I'm going to open PLAY in Logic 8.02, it will crash not too long after I start using it. And when I open the crashlog, it points to PLAY. So I remove it and use something else.

Spurious huge loud white noise bursts too, very seldom happens, but enough to make you nervous.

And don't let me forget to mention how CPU-intensive PLAY is, it's off the charts. And I'm on a 8-core Mac, 16 GB Ram, and 6 SATA drives.

It takes A LOT to develop an efficient software sample playback plug-in. They have an awful lot of work to do, and they've been trying to fix it for quite some time now. If they can ever get there is a question I'm not sure can be answered, but I've lost faith in them for now.

Take the VSL Player, by contrast. It worked great right out of the box and it's very easy on the CPU.

[meathman]

and what about the fact that some of their most popular instruments are STILL not intel mac compatible ... 5 years later

I bought choirs 4 years or so ago used it for a few months , upgraded to a mac pro , and since have not been able to use it.. now they finally announce a vague release date for a partial release of the choirs instrument and they want to charge an arm and leg for the upgrade...

and im sure it will be almost unusable (buggy).

I respect east west , and do appreciate their high quality samples, etc .. there sounds are very good , its just that the way they run their business needs to be overhauled

[Whitecat]

Originally Posted by meathman

and what about the fact that some of their most popular instruments are STILL not intel mac compatible ... 5 years later

they are if you use kontakt.

the word builder's intel mac application is convoluted and doesn't work easily with it, but if you're patient it will (allegedly) work. you really need to dig into the environment in Logic though.

[Ashermusic]

I only presently own Stormdrum 2 (Play) and it runs just fine here on my Quad Intel with LP 8.0.2.

[Doug Rogers]

There seems to be an effort by a few on this forum to trash us lately, and we smell a rat!!

If you are interested in my responses to user questions please go here and check the posts starting at #99 -

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/new-p...-titles-4.html

Those of you using PT8 should also be aware of this ...

GUI issues with certain 3rd party plug-ins - Digi User Conference

We believe our upgrade prices are very fair, usually $99 for a product that takes months to develop, other companies like Apple don't offer upgrades, you just buy the new version.

There is no software that works on every users computer, you only have to go to each companies forum to see that for yourself, but the vast majority of our 200,000+ PLAY users are not having any issues, in fact we have over 100 users both inside and outside the company whose job it is all day everyday to try and break the software and report it to the software team. In the other thread I also referenced other proof that PLAY works reliably on well setup systems that can handle the largest and most detailed virtual instruments ever made. Most users that contact tech support are simply trying to do too much at once on their system, computers are still not that fast, even the latest ones, and we push them to the limit, more than any other audio software. We do have one issue we are trying to resolve with the help of our users that is affecting a very small group of users, and we are continually optimizing the software to improve efficiency, in the last update we added a sample purge function to release the ram attached to unused samples.

To the title of the thread, we just had our most successful year in over 20 years, we also just re-opened a famous studio complex after a 2 year development (Photos of newly renovated EASTWEST Studios (formally Western/Cello Studios)), and we just released three new products that other PLAY users are buying as fast as we can product them, now why would they do that if nothing works?

Cheers,

- DR

[JohnG1]

PLAY is working great here -- no problems at all. I have just finished 88 minutes of music for a feature film using PLAY version of EWQLSO, Voices of Passion, Ministry of Rock, and StormDrum2 (SD2).

Not only that, but I have had nothing but good results from both the forum (other members' suggestions) and their user support, which I have found to be much better than most of EW's alternatives. I have a pretty complex setup and they have been helpful getting all the drive locations and so on settled out.

I am quite surprised to see negative posts at this stage. For those seeking to check out or benchmark their systems, there is a list of systems, put up by users on the Soundsonline site, that all are user-recommended configurations. In other words, these are systems people are using with PLAY and getting good results. Plenty of Mac and plenty of PC systems.

If you are having trouble, maybe check it out or just post a ticket with user support. There is even a "Support" link on their site that is public and some users are also helpful there.

I'm using an Intel Mac 4-processor desktop, with 13 gigs of RAM, Tiger OS, and I use Digital Performer 5.13 as my DAW software.

Kind regards,

JohnG
John Graham - Composer

[Foot In Mouth]

Recent versions of PLAY are a huge improvement. Have you tried to upgrade?

[russell]

I just joined this forum and I thought I'd look to see what I can learn about the products I use most.

I was amazed to see this posting about EastWest products and PLAY in particular. I've been using EastWest software for over 4 years and never had a complaint. My primary medium is classical music with occasional work in theatre music here in New York, so I started with Symphonic Orchestra and then added Symphonic Choirs and Stormdrum. When PLAY was released, I started using Gypsy and then Pianos. I'm now also using the PLAY version of Symphonic Orchestra and I'm eager to upgrade to the PLAY version of Symphonic Choirs when released in the next month or two.

The mockups I do with the PLAY libraries sound great and I have had zero downtime.

I work in the Windows environment, using Sonar to create my mockups and using Sibelius to create my scores.

So my experience is VERY different from those who began this thread.

Russell P

[antonfrulio]

Play is working fine here.
Running in Logic 8.0.2 on Mac Pro 2.8 (late 08). Previously used on G5 dual and no problems at all. ( Just turning off the built in reverb for the reason you can imagine : G5 is a little bit "old" actually ).
Usually in my template i have a full piano (bose) SD2 (some percussions) VOP and EWSO
instances. Plus other V.I. (VSL,Omisphere etc.) I got no problems running everything and also the video online and some audiotracks for dialogs,temp and other.
No problems at all.

[captain caveman]

Originally Posted by Doug Rogers

There seems to be an effort by a few on this forum to trash us lately, and we smell a rat!!

I don't think there is parfum du rat around when people are just voicing their opinion. If you didn't censor negative opinion and ban users on your own forum then it would be more "in house" anway.

It's a lot more fishy that the last three positive posts in this thread have only just joined and thought to use their first (or 2nd) posts on the defense of Play.

I thought only Waves did that here.

[theblotted]

wow, after Doug, a whole bunch of new posters singing praises.. smells like anti-rat to me...

i'm out

[MonoBrow]

Originally Posted by theblotted

wow, after Doug, a whole bunch of new posters singing praises.. smells like anti-rat to me...

i'm out

Internet at its best.Serious Buisness!

[Doug Rogers]

Originally Posted by captain caveman

I don't think there is parfum du rat around when people are just voicing their opinion. If you didn't censor negative opinion and ban users on your own forum then it would be more "in house" anway.

Captain Caveman, or whoever you are, if you look around our forum you will find plenty of posts that are critical of one thing or another, and are not censored unless profanity is involved. It's usually at the request of other members that some get asked to leave because they hide behind anonymous names and usually are there working for our competitors, then come to forums like this one and spread false information in an attempt to get back at the company.

Also, the reason some are here supporting us for the first time is there is a discussion going on about this topic at our forum.

Perhaps your real name would enlighten us, I'm using mine.

Cheers,

- DR

[Gary Ladd]

Originally Posted by rhythmtech

i remember the days when samples were samples.. who's the bloody genius that decided that we didnt need our samplers? that what we really needed was a flashy front end interface????

+1000 thumbsup

I only buy straight samples these days, & good ones at that!!!

[GCL]

Originally Posted by theblotted

wow, after Doug, a whole bunch of new posters singing praises.. smells like anti-rat to me...

i'm out

right, and all 3 of those guys joined gearslutz today!!!

[Jay]

Is the issue for people the actual PLAY engine or the underlying samples? The samples continue IMHO to be of stellar quality. My issue is more with the interface. It's certainly less buggy than before but honestly I prefer Kontakt (or Kontakt Player). For mac they have always been a bit more stable and it's easier to quickly audition patches and assign them to independent MIDI channels. The legato implementation in play is really cool though. If EW would have a closer look at Kontakt, or even something like Stylus, the routing and multi-timbral implementation is excellent on both. For samples though (I am a composer, not really an engineer) the EW stuff is still in my top 3. I do mostly use them in Kontakt even though the new PLAY software is miles ahead of the first release.

[25ghosts]

Originally Posted by Doug Rogers

There seems to be an effort by a few on this forum to trash us lately, and we smell a rat!!

cut.........
- DR

Hi Doug,

I personally dont own your products. Not cuz I have had bad experiences with you or because your libraries arent interesting.

But anyone choosing Native Instruments as players for their products are IMO in it for trouble.
OK you are supplying your samples via Play. But commonly, on many forums, I have gathered the opinion that Play is even more buggy than the kontakt player was.

I have not experienced this first handedly, so my opinion doesn't really count.

while having a good meal, I sat down and read the most of the thread on the V.I. Control forum and I have to say that I found it very amusing and at the same time scary.

Lots of people complaining about Play. Instead of really being listening, the folks responsible for Play, were making sensationalistic claims that 99% of their customers were having no problems.

Nick Phoenix states, and I quote

99% of our users say the latest PLAY is working great. That's about the same level of success as any other company

I dont know of any software or manufacturer who claims to have a 99% success. That means that if you have 5000 customers - 4950 of them have ALL taken the time to write you stating that they are having no problems.

Sorry but I just dont believe that.


So, to the RAT and SABOTAGE thing that sparked me to write this post.

Whether you have ONE or 50 RATS - makes absolutely NO DIFFERENCE if you have a generally happy and content user base. If anyone even tries to sabotage you, the rest will repudiate and come forth with their opinion. Especially, if you have a user base of 99% happy users.

I think the only thing sabotaging you are the attacks that Nick Phoenix and others are commencing when your users start complaining - simply, because enough is enough.

One thing remains for sure:

You can only treat you client base bad, for "So Long". If you treat them bad then what you are experiencing right now, is only the re-action of your past actions or lack thereof.

Maybe you have a rat and maybe Osama Bin Laden has personally seen fit, to terrorize your company. And if that is the case - you should sue the person responsible for the corporate damage that he/she is doing to you.

However, IMO - you fail to see the flip side to that coin, and that COULD be that you have no RAT at all trying to sabotage you - but a 99% UNHAPPY user base who feel like victims of a stampede by your lack of support or updating.

Which ever it is - I surely hope that Play - like Nick Phoenix also claims - will be the future of sampling. Cuz IMO - as of today we have no really good and stable sampler as a VI.

[GCL]

I'm just reporting my less-than-stellar user experience with PLAY -- no agenda, no nonsense, just the facts on my system. Period.

[feck]

I haven't had any compatibility or bug issues with PLAY, and I have been using it for a while. The only issues I have had are performance issues, which I know are in good part due to the size of the sample set. Overall, I find PLAY to work well, and do it's job. I do want to see further optimization, and I hope there will continue to be that. However, as far as samplers go, for my buck, PLAY has done as well for me as any other sample engine I have or have used.

[Doug Rogers]

Originally Posted by feck

I haven't had any compatibility or bug issues with PLAY, and I have been using it for a while. The only issues I have had are performance issues, which I know are in good part due to the size of the sample set. Overall, I find PLAY to work well, and do it's job. I do want to see further optimization, and I hope there will continue to be that. However, as far as samplers go, for my buck, PLAY has done as well for me as any other sample engine I have or have used.

And that is most PLAY users experience, you have to be practical about using these large detailed instruments. But rather than continue this nasty titled thread, I've answered this issue here as best I can ...

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/new-p...-titles-6.html

Btw, when we were using Kompakt/Kontakt as an engine, we had just as many posts on just as many forums telling us that software didn't work, and we know it did for most users because we can tell by the number of tech support calls we get compared to our sales of the products.

Cheers,

- DR

[captain caveman]

Originally Posted by Doug Rogers

Also, the reason some are here supporting us for the first time is there is a discussion going on about this topic at our forum.

What's that, this "discussion" posted by you with (at the moment) 2 replies?

Have a read through my posts to see who I work for if you think I am a competitor. It's either....

1. Steinberg
2. Native Instruments
3. Hamas
4. Other

Take your pick.

[BenJah]

It's a lot more fishy that the last three positive posts in this thread have only just joined and thought to use their first (or 2nd) posts on the defense of Play.

Yeah.. How dumb do these guys think we are?

Putting fake positive responses on a message board is to me, far more damaging than reading of negative experiences by users. It shows a ruthlessness and lack of respect for peoples intellect that is more generally associated with the Chinese government.

Why don't you try acknowledging that you have been having problems with your new product ( and lets face it, there are a lot of threads out there that that would indicate this) and let people know that you are working on it.

A little honesty can go a long way..