# Eastwest have banned me from posting on their forum



## lastburai (Oct 10, 2013)

Hello, This is my story with eastwest I doubt anyone will care not sure if this is the correct place but i would like to share as I just have to comment on this company I cannot believe how they have treated me lately. I consider my self a loyal customer and they have treated me very poorly.

My back ground in regards to this company is from when I first brought east west product sometime in 2004-5 they ran on kontact native instruments then. I had a G4 mac I was using at the time symphonic orchestra gold. Everything then seemed to run okay, acceptable I was really impressed by the quality of their products. So much so that I decided to purchase more of their products when I could. 

They eventually created PLAY I did not know much about PLAY I knew it was an engine that they designed but did not know exactly how it would run on a G4 mac. At the the time I purchased one of their libraries that was PLAY but it would not run on the G4 mac so I decided that it was just the system I was using that could not handle it.

Many years passed and I kept on purchasing their products I never used the new libraries as such as I was planning to upgrade all the hardware around 2011. I even brought Hollywood strings the diamond edition as a student, to run on my system. I thought finally would be able to compose real type orchestral scores.

Eventually I upgraded all my hardware and system a mac pro with more than 32 gig of ram and for the first time I used PLAY. It became clear in a project that I needed to use 64bit to be able to use all the available ram to load instruments into Cubase 6 64bit. I also noticed PLAY and Kontact 4 64bit did not function well together. Using HW strings quickly diminished my ram even running in 64bit.

So then it was brought to my attention that PLAY was a 32bit plugin at the time and for one to be able to load more instruments into ram one needed another program called Vepro. This was proving frustrating as it always seemed like I needed something else.

Soon I acquired VePro and it did help with with Play and Kontact 4 loading more instruments. And not crashing as much as before. And recent months PLAY 3 have updated to PLAY 4. So this is a good thing for some I guess. 

Fast forward to recently, on a Saturday I upgraded Vepro 5 to the latest version and also tried to upgrade from PLAY 3 to PLAY 4 but for some reason it totally broke cubase 6 in that cubase 6 would not open anymore, it would crash on start up. I opened a case at eastwest so that still works i guess. I also posted on their forum support stating this upgrade has made cubase stop working. I was very angry at them. I also made a statement to Vepro because apparently at the time there was some problems with Vepro with their update. My anger was at these companies who release these upgrades and do not check everything. My system was down for more than 4 days. I had to reinstall cubase 6 numerous times because these updates messed everything up. 

I wanted to do a test to see where the problem came from was it Vepro or PLAY.

The first test I done was I updated Vepro 5 checked cubase 6 it loaded then I updated PLAY 4 cubase 6 would crash on start up. So I had to reinstall cubase 6 again. I had to delete all the files for all the programs Cubase Vepro and Eastwest this is a long process on a mac and one has to delete all the files otherwise it will not work.

I re- installed PLAY 3 cubase 6 loads I then installed Vepro 5 and cubase loads. I dare not install PLAY 4 as that will just crash everything again.

Recently I had an argument with the eastwest Administrator on a Saturday, he basically said that it is all my fault and my system. I was very angry at them. Eastwest eventually deleted my complaints post and now I cannot comment on their forum anymore. This is wrong of a company to do that I am a customer and they have treated me like this.

I may have been rude to eastwests people but at the same time I did not expect from an upgrade to have graphical issues with my computer. That is correct soon after I updated Vepro 5 and PLAY 4 firstly cubase 6 would crash on start up then 10mins or so later my computer started to have black screens. The computer would still be on but the screens would go black(not a monitor issue as this case all screens would go black) This was to do with the graphics card I checked the crash report the graphics card had panics where did these panics come from, it was okay for all the previous months but on an update it done this how???. I had to take out the graphics card and reset all the ram that fixed the graphics issue at the time. This was FROM AN UPDATE Why release stuff that causes these issues.

To be honest I don't understand how others have got PLAY4 to work on a mac as I dare not install PLAY 4 due to all these problems I have had. 

My support case at eastwest is still open, as I cannot upgrade to PLAY 4 or I dare not to. Eastwest said they will look into my case but I do not believe them. As they blamed me previously for the errors that occurred from an update why would I believe anything they say now. And as they still have banned me from their forum, a customer from their forum. And I have done nothing wrong but tried to use their product. I do not believe in their product anymore, I do not believe for what they stand for anymore, I do not believe in them as a company anymore.


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## valexnerfarious (Oct 10, 2013)

man i had your same worries with play..but i finally bought hollywood strings...and play 4 runs amazing for me


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## RasmusFors (Oct 10, 2013)

Ok, I understand where you come from, and you have my sympaty, but I can't help to notice that you made several big mistakes.

So first off, you shouldn't have kept on buying Play products if they don't work. Sure, they may run good on your future system but there are no guarantees. 

Secondly, what I perceive from you post is that you were quite rude and aggresive towards the support team and the forum. That's one of the worst ideas you can do in the situation you were (are?) in. If you are in the position of needing help, you should *never ever* be rude against the people that have the job to help you. Be rational and professional, and the quality of your support will increase distinctively. Thats how the real world work


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## EastWest Lurker (Oct 10, 2013)

RasmusFors @ Thu Oct 10 said:


> Secondly, what I perceive from you post is that you were quite rude and aggresive towards the support team and the forum. That's one of the worst ideas you can do in the situation you were (are?) in. If you are in the position of needing help, you should *never ever* be rude against the people that have the job to help you. Be rational and professional, and the quality of your support will increase distinctively. Thats how the real world work



Very well stated.


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## lastburai (Oct 10, 2013)

valexnerfarious- I have heard PLAY 4 works for some that good news for those who it works for.

RasmusFors- I will never do that again buy products that I have not really tested. I went with the belief that the product that worked on native instruments Kontact was impressive and that was enough for me to buy into all there products. I will never be like that ever again. 

I was rude, I regret that but I was very angry as well why did this happen, I did not expect problems. And as customer I thought I have the right to project my concerns, my views , my anger however disagreeable it is to them. Are they not providing a service to those that buy their product, if not why pay for that service. If the products were free on the other hand I probably would have approached this differently. Things are slowly changing I guess with regard to consumers and products I guess.

I may have been rude some what. I don't believe I even used any colourful metaphors. They even blamed me for the problems, that my system was broke, something of that nature that it was my system. I am sorry you cannot do that to a customer, if you do not have all the information available. That was ignorance I believe. I even said it so to the administrator. shortly after they deleted all my complaints and blocked me. I do not believe a company would do that but it did. I do not believe in that company anymore.


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## EastWest Lurker (Oct 10, 2013)

lastburai @ Thu Oct 10 said:


> And as customer I thought I have the right to project my concerns, my views , my anger however disagreeable it is to them.



The forums rules, which one should always read before he starts posting. clearly say that they will NOT tolerate rude behavior. You can disagree, but it is pretty clearly stated.


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## ProtectedRights (Oct 10, 2013)

lastburai @ Thu Oct 10 said:


> Recently I had an argument with the eastwest Administrator on a Saturday, he basically said that it is all my fault and my system. I was very angry at them.



I can fully understand that. Seems to be the usual "default" practice of big companies to say it is all the customers fault. Had that same thing with Steinberg. I don't know the details here, but I can fully understand that one gets angry when a vendor says its your fault that the product does not work. Vendors should really think over their strategy and keep this as one of the last possible "solutions", not one of the first.


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## lastburai (Oct 10, 2013)

Fair enough, say what you will. 

As a company I do not think it is justified to blame one of your customers for the problems they are encountering without all the available information taken into account. In doing so I named the administrator at the time ignorant. I still stand by that. It showed poor play and showed the character of the administrators intentions towards my hostility.


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## Jordan Gagne (Oct 10, 2013)

EastWest Lurker @ Thu Oct 10 said:


> lastburai @ Thu Oct 10 said:
> 
> 
> > And as customer I thought I have the right to project my concerns, my views , my anger however disagreeable it is to them.
> ...



Imagine if every time an irate customer called a tech support line, the company policy was to just hang up on the caller? Do you know how many angry people call Apple, UPS, Amazon, EVERY day? People get frustrated easily, ESPECIALLY when it's computer or software-related. If someone is attempting to solve an issue with X product -- even if they are doing it in a rude way -- it is the company's job to help them anyway and not stoop to their level. 

I've never understood the official East West policy of basically giving the middle finger to anyone that is not happy with their products or service. In my opinion there's just no excuse for deleting posts and threads in a customer service forum. 

In a perfect world, all customers would be respectful and nice when contacting companies (trust me, I used to work in Tech support), but that's just not happening any time soon. The company has to be the bigger person and not adopt a policy of "well he was rude FIRST".


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## Astronaut FX (Oct 10, 2013)

I manage a group of software tester for a living. I can tell you that it is impossible to test how any given piece of software will behave with every possible configuration of platforms, hardware configurations, and other software that may be present and interact with it. Developers do the best that they can, but there are too many variables to test 100%. So be open to the fact that it may well be the unique combination of variables present in your system that is preventing PLAY from working properly.

That being said, with the proper approach on your part, you should be able to expect assistance from their tech support to help get you up and running. That's not an unreasonable expectation.

At the same time, I can certainly relate to your frustration. It does seem more and more that software developers have the upper hand. I've personally bought libraries, that while they work fine, either sound awful or have wretched work flow design. (And yes, I do my research. But sometimes online demos include additional processing or don't cover work flow.) Very few developers will allow refunds if simply don't like the product, let alone can't get it working properly. I suspect the reason for this is that if they did, then people would dishonestly request refunds yet continue to use the product.

I sympathize with you. I would recommend perhaps an apology on your part for being rude, modifying your approach, and being open to the fact that yes, it could be your set up that is the source of the problem. You may well then receive the assistance you need. Good luck, we're all pulling for you!


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## lastburai (Oct 10, 2013)

Protected Rights- Eastwest really blamed me for the woes I was having that is wrong of any company to do that really. I was having no problems for as long as I can remember. Then I updated Vepro and PLAY and cubase would crash on start up. My screens would go black, my graphics card started having problems. All from an update. I fixed the graphics card issues after I reset the ram. So there was never doubt in my mind that it was my system that is broken.

And I have had no problems with the graphics card since I re-installed all the programs again so it was one of the updates.

Steinberg I have not had problems with them as such as I was trying to fix cubase they told me that the best thing to do is to re-install cubase so that is what I done. First I had to find all the files for all the programs then delete them. If one misses just one file re-installing does not work. I missed one file and I cubase 6 would still crash on start up. I had to check all the files I missed one P-list file. That is what failed the the re- installation.

It is not a simple case of un-installing a program, one has to find all relevant files, it is a long process.


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## RasmusFors (Oct 10, 2013)

Btw, I hope this works out for you. I always hate that feeling of spending lots of hard earned money on something that don't work. It's a real bummer :(


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## EastWest Lurker (Oct 10, 2013)

Tone Deaf @ Thu Oct 10 said:


> I manage a group of software tester for a living. I can tell you that it is impossible to test how any given piece of software will behave with every possible configuration of platforms, hardware configurations, and other software that may be present and interact with it. Developers do the best that they can, but there are too many variables to test 100%. So be open to the fact that it may well be the unique combination of variables present in your system that is preventing PLAY from working properly.
> 
> That being said, with the proper approach on your part, you should be able to expect assistance from their tech support to help get you up and running. That's not an unreasonable expectation.
> 
> ...



Another excellent post.

To the OP, if you email me (not PM me here, please) the specifics of your problem with all the necessary info about your rig, I will try to get you some help.


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## lastburai (Oct 10, 2013)

RasmusFors- Thanks for the concern I appreciate it. I would just say for the recorded that PLAY 3 is working with the latest build of VePro5 in cubase 6 I see no problems there at the moment. I am fearful of PLAY 4 though. And I do not believe I can upgrade to that. If anything goes wrong I will have to re-install all the programs again. I cannot be dealing with that.

Tone Deaf-I agree with all you say, it must be very difficult to find bugs in programs. I commend all the work that is put into fixing programs.

I also regret that I was angry at these companies. I do not mind errors in a program. I mind when those errors affect the whole system and basically brakes my sequencer(cubase) or Digital workstation. Effects my graphics card, it turned my system inside out. That does get me angry I am sorry that it does, or that it did.


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## EastWest Lurker (Oct 10, 2013)

There is nothing wrong with being angry at the companies. You had every right to be angry and frustrated, anyone would be. It was what you DID with the anger and frustration that only made the situation worse and interfered with you getting the help you needed.

Had you simply sent it to me after the first forum response you got that you deemed unsatisfactory or insufficiently helpful, it might have gone down differently.


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## lastburai (Oct 10, 2013)

Okay Eastwest Lurker. I will comply, would I contact you at eastwest. I have talked to Mike at Eastwest he is very kind. But they could not find a problem they said they would work on it. I am not sure I believe that as I am still banned from eastwest forums They have some of my details, like OS, graphics card, ram, sequencer. Do you require this information I will provide that if you believe it will help.

Let me know how I can contact you. I will now only have the weekend perhaps sunday to give the information. Or sometime next week like Tuesday. I work other days and am weak/tired when I get back home.

I am a very transparent and honest person.


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## snattack (Oct 10, 2013)

I'm not going to bash on EW in another thread (since I opened a long one a week ago), but I'm on your side when it comes to frustration after years of problems, and all the Hollywood-libraries should at least come with a warning sign:

1. System requirements for running the libraries are WAY above the listed ones, you need the exact right parts/models, etc and..

2. ...even then PLAY might not work on some systems even if they're designed according to required specifications written on the EW-website, and...

3. PLAY is not for regular users it seems, not even for pro-IT users like me (with huge amounts of designed systems in my background as an IT-engineer) who obviously seem to have missed hidden facts like recommendation of LGA2011-motherboards on computers running PLAY etc.

I agree bug testing and software developing is difficult science, but some software seem to work better than others on a large number of machines, and PLAY isn't one of them. Sorry for your trouble, I know what you're going through. And it costs money. Lots of it.


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## EastWest Lurker (Oct 10, 2013)

lastburai @ Thu Oct 10 said:


> Okay Eastwest Lurker. I will comply, would I contact you at eastwest. I have talked to Mike at Eastwest he is very kind. But they could not find a problem they said they would work on it. I am not sure I believe that as I am still banned from eastwest forums They have some of my details, like OS, graphics card, ram, sequencer. Do you require this information I will provide that if you believe it will help.
> 
> Let me know how I can contact you. I will now only have the weekend perhaps sunday to give the information. Or sometime next week like Tuesday. I work other days and am weak/tired when I get back home.
> 
> I am a very transparent and honest person.



It is in my signature.


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## EastWest Lurker (Oct 10, 2013)

snattack @ Thu Oct 10 said:


> I'm not going to bash on EW in another thread (since I opened a long one a week ago), but I'm on your side when it comes to frustration after years of problems, and all the Hollywood-libraries should at least come with a warning sign:
> 
> 1. System requirements for running the libraries are WAY above the listed ones, you need the exact right parts/models, etc and..
> 
> ...



1. It depends on which libraries and how much you want to run.

2. As another poster explained. there are lots and lots of variables that EW cannot test all of.

3. I guess I am just lucky. When I built my PC slave, I did not even look at those, and I do not use that motherboard, I use a MSI X58A-GD45 Intel X58 Socket B and it works fine.

Just lucky, I guess.


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## lastburai (Oct 10, 2013)

Okay, great I see that, Eastwest Lurker 

What information do you require me to send in the email to you?

My OS? sequencer things of that nature or something else?


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## EastWest Lurker (Oct 10, 2013)

lastburai @ Thu Oct 10 said:


> Okay, great I see that, Eastwest Lurker
> 
> What information do you require me to send in the email to you?
> 
> My OS? sequencer things of that nature or something else?



Everything about you rig that you can. The more info, the better chance they can help you.


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## stonzthro (Oct 10, 2013)

Tone Deaf @ Thu Oct 10 said:


> I can tell you that it is impossible to test how any given piece of software will behave with every possible configuration of platforms, hardware configurations, and other software that may be present and interact with it.



Except that the OP is having a problem with a Mac, Cubase and VE-Pro5 - if EW isn't testing on that combo, what ARE they testing on? 

That said, I've had some buggy issues with VE-Pro5 lately too - they posted a new build yesterday - maybe try that out?


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## EastWest Lurker (Oct 10, 2013)

Different Macs, OS versions, audio drivers, RAM, versions of Cubase and VE Pro, combos of plugins


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## Nathan Allen Pinard (Oct 10, 2013)

A couple of things relating to customer service, which I have experience from:

1. A lot of companies bend over when customers get angry, which I applaud Eastwest for not doing. However, they take it too far. I think a balance between the two would be ideal for them.

2. Here where I work, we generally do whatever we can to make the customer happy. However, if they start using profanity or threats, we can shut them down instantly. And by shut down that's pretty much every service we could provide for them. They are essentially banned.

If you used profanity, or some kind of heavy threatening tone, it's possible Eastwest has the exact same policy regardless of the situation.

3. The fact that Jay says "you should've emailed me after the first response" means there is something wrong with Eastwest's CS. People should not have to email you Jay, to get service, on a separate forum for that matter.

There hasn't been any direct quotes, so we can only speculate.


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## EastWest Lurker (Oct 10, 2013)

They don't HAVE to, Nathan, but is the quickest way and since I am here, why not take advantage of that?


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## Hanu_H (Oct 10, 2013)

It's really weird how the support works at EW land. You can clearly see that he had started a thread at SOL forums and also opened a support ticket. He said that he's computer was out for 4 days. That's a long time for a support to do something. What ever he has said, it's of course the frustration talking, it's not the right way to go but sometimes you just lose it if you are not getting help. And you are blamed for it.

What is support anyway? It's a people who get paid to help customers with their problems, not to blame users for their errors. Of course you can't test every setup and problems are gonna come, but the support is there to handle that, right? Now it seems that every now and then people come here to ask help, because they get no help from EW. Jay is here to collect the pieces but it's definitely not the right way and it's stupid to assume that Jay gets e-mails if you just got banned from the forum you were asking for help after talking to a admin/support person from EW. It's just staggering to see how the paying customers get treated. I have once opened a support ticket to EW, but no one ever contacted me about that. I was lucky and got some help from a fellow forum user instead...I think that's a definition of really bad support...

I use EW libraries every day, but not yet PLAY 4...

-Hannes


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## EastWest Lurker (Oct 10, 2013)

Hanu_H @ Thu Oct 10 said:


> 1. but sometimes you just lose it if you are not getting help. And you are blamed for it.
> 
> 2. What is support anyway? It's a people who get paid to help customers with their problems, not to blame users for their errors. Of course you can't test every setup and problems are gonna come, but the support is there to handle that, right? Now it seems that every now and then people come here to ask help, because they get no help from EW. Jay is here to collect the pieces but it's definitely not the right way and it's stupid to assume that Jay gets e-mails if you just got banned from the forum you were asking for help after talking to a admin/support person from EW. It's just staggering to see how the paying customers get treated. I have once opened a support ticket to EW, but no one ever contacted me about that. I was lucky and got some help from a fellow forum user instead...I think that's a definition of really bad support...
> 
> ...



1. Not me....not ever....never.... because I am an adult and that is IMHO not acceptable behavior for an adult. I know others don't agree but that is the way I was raised and I am grateful to my parents for that.

2. They have a lot of products and a lot of customers and it is first come-first serve presumably. Part of the reason I was hired was to help those who indeed are falling through the cracks. It happens.


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## chimuelo (Oct 10, 2013)

I look forward to buying their products someday so I can get banned from their forum, then return here as Jay knows more about their stuff than what I read over there... _-)


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## quantum7 (Oct 10, 2013)

PLAY does have a way of sometimes bringing out the worst in people, but that said, in my 44 years of life I have learned that you get absolutely nowhere by being rude to people. My wife has a great motto- "kill them with kindness". People will usually bend over backwards for you when you are very nice to them. Hopefully you have learned a lesson from this experience.


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## Hanu_H (Oct 10, 2013)

EastWest Lurker @ Thu Oct 10 said:


> 1. Not me....not ever....never.... because I am an adult and that is IMHO not acceptable behavior for an adult. I know others don't agree but that is the way I was raised and I am grateful to my parents for that.
> 
> 2. They have a lot of products and a lot of customers and it is first come-first serve presumably. Part of the reason I was hired was to help those who indeed are falling through the cracks. It happens.



1. You say you never lose your calm? I've seen you lose it many times on this forum, so don't raise yourself to the pedestal. And once again don't try to make this about you and your beliefs. I am sure everyone here agrees that you are a good guy and help everyone who is willing to take the help. But is it the right way to do things in the first place? I think not.

2. Of course it's like that but what happens to the tickets that never get answered like mine? Maybe the whole support system EW is running is faulty? How I see it, that if even one support ticket goes unanswered it's a huge failure. And saying it's customers fault is even bigger. How do the smaller companies handle this? Spitfire and CineSamples are small companies but with a decent volume I would say. They are few men teams working and they normally answer after a day or two sometimes even within hours. And they might not even have a full time support person working. That says to me that either there's really lot support issues with EW all the time or then the system is flawed. I don't even know which one is better...


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## Nathan Allen Pinard (Oct 10, 2013)

I would like to know what happened in terms of actual communication, not a story.

First of all, support can't do anything if they can't duplicate the situation. Support is not responsible for VEPro 5 issue or Cubase issues, but if they have the info they will TRY. Support is not something that is simple. It requires a lot of info to succeed at in a certain case. If not enough is given, they won't be able to do much.

Now there are customers that swear it's the companies fault why there system is on the fritz. In this case there is 2 other pieces of software combined. In some cases the only solution is to tell them it might be there system. And most of the time...it is.

Not saying Play is innocent, but most customer service issues I see posted on this board about EW are the same posts you hear about any other company. They are generally overblown a bit due to the emotion aspect of it.

What I can speculate is this:

1. The OP posted and complained on EW forums, which is clearly against their TOS. EW doesn't allow support posts in certain forums either.

2. It could very well by the OPs system that is causing this, because I've never seen a complaint about Play affecting graphic cards to my knowledge. VST3 based on my experience is pretty unstable at times depending on the system. It's more unstable on some DAWs on the Mac than the PC.

3. 3 pieces of software were involved. Cubase, VEPro5, and Play 4. To my understanding, EW does not openly support VEPro (unless that changed)

4. Unless this was also done through PMs, there was no profanity or threats used.


If that's the case, then banning someone from a company forum is still way too harsh, even if it's in the TOS. However, if profanity was used, some companies don't tolerate it by policy.

Also as far as the problems go, isn't Mac still extremely shaky when it comes close to maxing it's RAM? Always was for me, which is why I built a PC slave.


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## EastWest Lurker (Oct 10, 2013)

Not the same thing, Hanu. I am not asking for help like people who ask tech support are. I never lash out at tech support people unless they are rude to ME without provocation.


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## Vision (Oct 10, 2013)

snattack @ Thu Oct 10 said:


> I'm not going to bash on EW in another thread (since I opened a long one a week ago), but I'm on your side when it comes to frustration after years of problems, and all the Hollywood-libraries should at least come with a warning sign:
> 
> 1. System requirements for running the libraries are WAY above the listed ones, you need the exact right parts/models, etc and..
> 
> ...



^ This. They should revise their system specifications, at least for macs. I feel that they are stretching the truth. They need to specifically mention VEP, and a PC slave.. minimum. Most powerful normal up to date stand-alone mac platforms do not perform well with EW play. Particularly with the Hollywood series. The average consumer has no clue what they are getting into. 

I have their "optimal" mac setup. PLAY (HW series) runs terribly on it. It is poorly written software. period. Not bashing, it's just the truth. I love the sound.. and have used HS particularly, sparingly, on projects with older versions of PLAY and have gotten wonderful results, and happy clients. But now, there are so many great alternatives out that just.. work. It's not worth the trouble for me. I'm over tech support. In my opinion, a lawsuit could even be warranted for false advertising. The only thing PLAY wise I use at this point is Spaces, (which is great btw). 

So, I'm on the original posters side for the most part. But I am curious, what exactly did you say? What are your specs? Some of your issues do seem rather odd (black screen).

I do understand that a certain amount of verbal abuse from a customer is intolerable. However, east west is notorious for banning users, and deleting posts that aren't to their favorable standards. It would seem that it really doesn't take much. They have a hair-trigger ban finger, not unlike Northern Sounds used to be.


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## sin(x) (Oct 10, 2013)

1. Some companies use “we cannot reproduce your problem” as a get-out-of-jail-free card. It should be the beginning of a support transaction, not its end.

2. Don't be rude to a support person if that person wasn't rude to you first. If their biggest crime is working for a company that can't get its shit together, they deserve sympathy, not abuse. Huge companies (think Comcast, T-Mobile…) have learned to entrench themselves behind Chinese walls of hapless callcenter agents specifically to redirect your anger to where it can't harm them; don't play their game.


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## EastWest Lurker (Oct 10, 2013)

I can honestly say that every support issue I have sent them, they have sincerely tried to reproduce. And I have tried myself, even though it is not part of my job when I can.

A guy sent me a Logic project this morning where a wordbuilder instance of the choirs is 1/2 step low for no apparent reason. I cannot reproduce this in a new project and even within HIS if I open another instance and load the same patch it doesn't happen. It can be tricky to diagnose these things.


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## sin(x) (Oct 10, 2013)

I don't deny it's tricky, Jay. That's what makes it a litmus test of how serious a company is about its support. How closely can you replicate the users' system configuration in your test environment? Can you determine anything else that's special about his system and could influence your product's performance? Did the issue occur on all of the user's projects, or just this one? If the latter, what differentiates this one from his other projects? Are there other open tickets that could pertain to bugs in the same realm? Can a developer quickly tell from the report in which part of the software the bug occurs and trace it back from there? etc.

I realize that in the case of an isolated problem report, there comes a point where support must throw in the towel and tell the user that he's on his own (and offer to reimburse him if it's a showstopper). What I find telling is the number of steps between “we can't reproduce your problem” and “you're on your own”. In some cases, it's zero.


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## sin(x) (Oct 10, 2013)

(And with “you” I mean “the supporter”; if trying to reproduce issues isn't part of your job anyway then I commend you on the effort and certainly wouldn't expect you to jump through extra hoops, but if you do that because nobody else will… well… _somebody's_ not doing his job.)


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## EastWest Lurker (Oct 10, 2013)

sin(x) @ Thu Oct 10 said:


> (And with “you” I mean “the supporter”; if trying to reproduce issues isn't part of your job anyway then I commend you on the effort and certainly wouldn't expect you to jump through extra hoops, but if you do that because nobody else will… well… _somebody's_ not doing his job.)



No they definitely _will_. I do it because:

1. It interests me.

2. I CAN, because I probably know Logic Pro/VE Pro as a combo better than anyone else at EW.

3. I like to help people.

4. While someone may pay me only to do 100%, it is my nature to do 125%.


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## KEnK (Oct 10, 2013)

*1. System requirements for running the libraries are WAY above the listed ones,*

I believe this is true-

I was told by EW tech support NOT to upgrade from P2 to P3.
I'm not even going to to try P4.

I did once have a lengthy tech support situation.
In the end I wrote to "admin" that I thought the ts I was getting was faulty,
because after an entire week, I was nowhere near getting the problem solved.

They hooked me up w/a "venerated expert" who knew exactly what was going on.
And it was he who told me not to upgrade.

Since that time I've moved on.
Play is just to much of an effort to do anything w/ compared to my other excellent sounding libs.
Just not worth all the hassle.

k


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## dcoscina (Oct 10, 2013)

I think there are ways of communicating disdain without being obnoxious about it. Some developers and sites are less tolerant than others. Personally, since I work in the service industry, I'm much more willing to go the extra mile for a customer or client that is calm and raises concerns in a civil tone. 

Pyschologically, when someone assaults another with provocative language or tone, instinctively they raise their defenses and nothing much good gets accomplished. 

Also having been in the service industry for 20 years, I have noticed the entitlement of customers has gotten a lot worse. Just because you pay for something doesn't give you the right to abuse or let loose on an agent of said company. 

As far as EW, I have expressed some concern here and there but have never been treated poorly by anyone there.


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## dpasdernick (Oct 10, 2013)

It was posted above that companies like Spitfire and Cinesamples have great customer service even with them being smaller companies than EW. The common denominator they have (besides the obvious one that they have great people) is that their libraries run on Kontakt. EW has doubled their possible issues releasing their own player. Just like Yellow Tools had issues with Engine. Companies like Cinesamples have an easier time as Kontakt is a mature product supported by a mature company. And even with that said Kontakt had lots of issues when it first came out. The funny thing about PLAY is, at least until PLAY 4 came out, it was a pretty generic playback software. There weren't a lot of bells and whistles and certainly very limited editing. It's hard to understand why it has been plagued for so many years and turned off so many EW customers.


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## KEnK (Oct 10, 2013)

dpasdernick @ Thu Oct 10 said:


> It's hard to understand why it has been plagued for so many years and turned off so many EW customers.


Maybe because it doesn't work very well.

I know the general consensus seems to be it's largely trouble free on Win,
and sometimes problematic on Mac.

In my case, many extra hours were spent on each composition that involved Play.
This was invariably using the various work-arounds I had to do to use it.
Example- a sample purge would involve playing only a few sequences at a time in real time from start to finish. 
This would only work about half the time, so I'd have to do it several (or many times) per piece. 
There was also much burping, glitching, missed notes, needing to reload patches and so on.
Also the load times were extraordinarily long- during which, you could do nothing else w/ your computer.

I don't have to struggle like that with Kontakt.
Not at all- There's just no comparison.

I did my research, expected it to problematic, 
dealt w/ it as best as I could for a few years,
and now I'm done thinking of EW as having anything I might be interested in.

I prefer to pretend that I don't have any EW libs because it is simply not worth the time it takes to use them.

I'm not irate about this.
These are just the facts of my experience w/ Play.

k


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## kitekrazy (Oct 10, 2013)

ProtectedRights @ Thu Oct 10 said:


> lastburai @ Thu Oct 10 said:
> 
> 
> > Recently I had an argument with the eastwest Administrator on a Saturday, he basically said that it is all my fault and my system. I was very angry at them.
> ...



Then they wonder why the person on the other end is rude. Excellent support converts enemies to friends. Banning people from a forum isn't the best action. 

I worked in the optical industry for 15 years and I would go the extra mile for those who were nice. At some point there needs to be a fine line with dealing with rudeness. Unfortunately in our capitalistic society, companies want everyone's money. At some point if someone is a jerk, give them their money back and refuse to do business. Often the people in the ivory towers never have to deal with those situations.

This is always fun to read. One of the moderators at Image Line posted this. They are not as sensitive to rudeness. They take heat really well. 

http://positivesharing.com/2008/03/top-5-reasons-why-the-customer-is-always-right-is-wrong/


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## snattack (Oct 10, 2013)

dpasdernick @ Thu Oct 10 said:


> It was posted above that companies like Spitfire and Cinesamples have great customer service even with them being smaller companies than EW. The common denominator they have (besides the obvious one that they have great people) is that their libraries run on Kontakt. EW has doubled their possible issues releasing their own player. Just like Yellow Tools had issues with Engine. Companies like Cinesamples have an easier time as Kontakt is a mature product supported by a mature company. And even with that said Kontakt had lots of issues when it first came out. The funny thing about PLAY is, at least until PLAY 4 came out, it was a pretty generic playback software. There weren't a lot of bells and whistles and certainly very limited editing. It's hard to understand why it has been plagued for so many years and turned off so many EW customers.



Funny thing is the main reason for me not choosing LA Scoring Strings was (besides that I believed HS to sound better) that I thought Kontakt wasn't as good back then as Play, at least that was my experience. Ironically all my experiences since then have been the opposite (except the sound quality of HS which still imo lacks competition).


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## SimonCharlesHanna (Oct 10, 2013)

snattack @ Fri 11 Oct said:


> dpasdernick @ Thu Oct 10 said:
> 
> 
> > It was posted above that companies like Spitfire and Cinesamples have great customer service even with them being smaller companies than EW. The common denominator they have (besides the obvious one that they have great people) is that their libraries run on Kontakt. EW has doubled their possible issues releasing their own player. Just like Yellow Tools had issues with Engine. Companies like Cinesamples have an easier time as Kontakt is a mature product supported by a mature company. And even with that said Kontakt had lots of issues when it first came out. The funny thing about PLAY is, at least until PLAY 4 came out, it was a pretty generic playback software. There weren't a lot of bells and whistles and certainly very limited editing. It's hard to understand why it has been plagued for so many years and turned off so many EW customers.
> ...



Really? I find them cold and lifeless tbh. Not to mentioned the feeling of being bogged down (esp multiple mic positions)

LA scoring strings might have a particular tone, but the useability vs eastwest is far far superior and to my ears the difference in tone/legato is not worth the hassle.


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## Hanu_H (Oct 11, 2013)

Guys, I think this is about to turn into another bash EW thread when everyone brings their problems here. I understand it's frustrating sometimes but we have heard the stories over and over again. I am not the OP here but I think the main idea here is to talk about the support that you get from EW not all the problems you have had during the years. Like this it just gets annoying to read without any topic and is not helping anyone. Jay if you can, maybe you could walk us through the process that is Support in the EW camp. Maybe we can even find something that EW could do differently/better in the future = more happy customers and less of these topics here in the V.I. Control forums. I think that's a win win situation for all of us...

-Hannes


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## Ryan (Oct 11, 2013)

Here we go again!


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## EastWest Lurker (Oct 11, 2013)

Hanu_H @ Fri Oct 11 said:


> Guys, I think this is about to turn into another bash EW thread when everyone brings their problems here. I understand it's frustrating sometimes but we have heard the stories over and over again. I am not the OP here but I think the main idea here is to talk about the support that you get from EW not all the problems you have had during the years. Like this it just gets annoying to read without any topic and is not helping anyone. Jay if you can, maybe you could walk us through the process that is Support in the EW camp. Maybe we can even find something that EW could do differently/better in the future = more happy customers and less of these topics here in the V.I. Control forums. I think that's a win win situation for all of us...
> 
> -Hannes



From the webpage:

_If you are having an issue and cannot find a solution online, please contact our technical support staff. The best way to do this is to file an online support case. To do so visit the My Account tab and click on "Contact Support". You must be logged in to do so._

I will add to this:
You can also post on the forum, but it seems to be hit and miss as to what gets picked up.

You can also phone them. I will not list the number here but if you _need_ it, PM me. Some days you get through quick;y, some days you have to leave a message.

If you have filed a support ticket and you are not getting a timely answer, you can email the issue to me and 95% of the time (weekends and holidays excepted) you will get a response in 1-2 days, usually 1.

I will say this:
IMHO people here are not going to change the way EW does business. Doug feels that EW has been a successful company for over 25 years, indeed the industry leader, and in his opinion, which at EW is really the only one that matters, things are not broken, so he isn't going to fix them. Also, he sincerely believes that EW's latest libraries are way better than the offerings of the competition. Rightly or wrongly in your view, trust me, he does.

That said, if you have _constructive_ product suggestions or enhancement requests, the Suggestion Box sub-forum on the SOL forum is the place for that. 

Once again, strictly IMHO, if you like the sound of the products and their workflow, rather than spin your wheels debating this stuff over and over in these kind of threads, you would be better off if you simply decide on one of the following:

1. I am OK with EW's licensing terms, Play and the workflow and I know the proper ways to proceed to get support when I have problems, so I will continue to buy EW products.

2. I am not OK with EW's licensing terms and/or Play and/or the workflow and/or the options to proceed to get support when I have problems and /or my perception of the company's attitude, so I will not continue to buy EW products.

Obviously, EW would prefer you choose #1 and certainly by now you know that I personally would prefer you choose #1. But if you choose #2, I respect that. What I really _don't_ respect is the endless debating about it. It is a waste of your time and a waste of mine.

I don't write that out of anger or frustration. I just think it is logical. Somebody once said, and I paraphrase,"Crazy is doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result."


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## KEnK (Oct 11, 2013)

Hanu_H @ Fri Oct 11 said:


> Guys, I think this is about to turn into another bash EW thread when everyone brings their problems here. I understand it's frustrating sometimes but we have heard the stories over and over again. I am not the OP here but I think the main idea here is to talk about the support that you get from EW not all the problems you have had during the years...


Well Hannes-
I will back off from this point-
Pretty certain I'm at least one of the people you're talking to here.

My 1st post did directly discuss the tech support I received there,
(both good and bad)
Also dealt directly w/ sys reqs- which I think is in fact important.



Hanu_H @ Fri Oct 11 said:


> Like this it just gets annoying to read without any topic and is not helping anyone.


I think a thread like this helps people (new buyers) learn about what they might be getting into.

And finally- I don't see other manufacturers getting bashed so hard- ever.
Sorry, but there's a reason for it. 

ok, I'm done

k


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## pinki (Oct 11, 2013)

Oh God what IS it with East West?

The SOL forum is responsible for SO much hatred towards them. Why oh on earth don't they change the policy at that forum?

I was banned from it once...(don't know why). I felt so crap afterwards and swore I'll never buy any more EW product, which I haven't.

Yet the support people are nice, and Jay is nice

FFS get rid of the SOL moderator and 50% of all the hate towards EW would disappear overnight. 

It's not rocket science Doug and co.


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## KEnK (Oct 11, 2013)

EastWest Lurker @ Fri Oct 11 said:


> Doug feels that EW has been a successful company for over 25 years, indeed the industry leader, and in his opinion, which at EW is really the only one that matters, things are not broken, so he isn't going to fix them.


And _that_ is exactly why these threads keep happening

ok
I'm out for real this time :mrgreen: 

k


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## ptsmith (Oct 11, 2013)

EastWest Lurker @ Fri Oct 11 said:


> "Crazy is doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result."


Like expecting decent support. That is crazy! 

I bought CCC1 and CC2 bundles this summer. The day I got them I decided I wanted another library. I contacted EW and ask if I could add the library to my CCC. They agreed and instructed me to buy it off their website at the regular price. Once they received my payment they would refund an amount that would reduce the price to the CCC discounted price. I do that. 2 weeks later, after several unanswered emails and an email to Jay (and no Jay, you didn't get me any help) I still hadn't received my refund. Finally, a post on SOL forum accusing them of ripping me off, got me the refund.

I'm on a pretty powerful PC and I don't have any problems with Play, so I'm pretty happy overall. But from my experience EW support is indeed very poor. I guess I'm lucky I haven't any further need for it.


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## EastWest Lurker (Oct 11, 2013)

I think your experience, is an anomaly. I submit people here who have sought my help will verify that if the issue was not resolved, they did at least get a response when they sent it to me. Sorry if that did not happen for you.


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## lpuser (Oct 11, 2013)

EastWest Lurker @ Fri Oct 11 said:


> 2. I am not OK with EW's licensing terms and/or Play and/or the workflow and/or the options to proceed to get support when I have problems and /or my perception of the company's attitude, so I will not continue to buy EW products.



Jay, while I generally agree with you there is one thing which everyone should keep in mind:

For some people it is just not as easy as saying "I don´t but EW products anymore", because they have bought them already and maybe spent a felt fortune (given what they earn with making music). So instead of walking off and just forgetting their expenses, they want everything to work - which is quite understandable.

The major issue I see is that there is no way to experience beforehand how PLAY will perform on your very own machine, simply because there is no demo of nothing available. You have to bite the bullet - and either you are lucky (like I am, because I have no major issues with Play) - or you are not, which is very bad, since there is no way to return the product to EW.

Most people have Kontakt already, so they can make a very good guess if something will work or not. Especially given the streaming capabilities of the most recent versions, you can almost be 100% certain that things will actually work fine.

But with PLAY it is a totally different story. Like I said, I am a quite happy user (after some initial problem which stretched over a few months, but were NOT entirely Play problems but also involved PACE, I need to say!). So I will continue to buy EW products when I find something I love, although I see that the HW series is very demanding and creates occasional dropouts on my (older) system.

Maybe EW should re-think the idea they had some years ago, where they gave away a few instruments for free so that people can actually test PLAY on their computers?

When I bought my first EW product, I was totally shocked that it was not Kontakt-compatible, because at that time, the transition to Play has been in place already but some screenshots did imply that the EWQSLO was still Kontakt... I got it and was upset, because I did not want another playback engine. But... after all the issues had been solved with the help of EW, it´s all fine here and I am constantly using 10 - 15 instances of Play in my orchestral compositions.

Cheers
Thomas


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## EastWest Lurker (Oct 11, 2013)

lpuser @ Fri Oct 11 said:


> Maybe EW should re-think the idea they had some years ago, where they gave away a few instruments for free so that people can actually test PLAY on their computers?
> 
> 
> Cheers
> Thomas



I like that. Put it in the Suggestion Box sub-froum on the SOL forum please and I will link it to Doug.


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## sin(x) (Oct 11, 2013)

EastWest Lurker @ 2013-10-11 said:


> I just think it is logical. Somebody once said, and I paraphrase,"Crazy is doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result."



And yet here you are, explaining for the 73rd time how irrational and misguided people are for voicing their opinions on EW in public. :|


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## EastWest Lurker (Oct 11, 2013)

sin(x) @ Fri Oct 11 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ 2013-10-11 said:
> 
> 
> > I just think it is logical. Somebody once said, and I paraphrase,"Crazy is doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result."
> ...



Good point, I give up. I am simply not going to read these threads in the future. People can PM or email me for help.


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## Martin K (Oct 11, 2013)

lpuser @ Sat Oct 12 said:


> Maybe EW should re-think the idea they had some years ago, where they gave away a few instruments for free so that people can actually test PLAY on their computers?


+1000

I would for sure consider EW products if I knew Play worked on my system 

- Martin


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## Simon Ravn (Oct 11, 2013)

EastWest Lurker @ Fri Oct 11 said:


> sin(x) @ Fri Oct 11 said:
> 
> 
> > EastWest Lurker @ 2013-10-11 said:
> ...



Aaaaah.... really? Let's see about that 8) 

There's a reason for all this criticism towards EW. But Doug's ego obviously seems too big to awknowledge that.


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## snattack (Oct 11, 2013)

EastWest Lurker @ Fri Oct 11 said:


> sin(x) @ Fri Oct 11 said:
> 
> 
> > EastWest Lurker @ 2013-10-11 said:
> ...



I'd rather you not giving up, even if I don't at all agree in many of your philosophies and views regarding Play and EW (we all have different opinions), all your answers in the threads are valuable in many ways, has valid points, and it keeps discussions going which is important IMO. Also, people who has actually read your posts (instead of just looking at your avatar logo) know that there's more Jay and less EW in your answers.


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## jtnyc (Oct 11, 2013)

Back in '06 I purchased SD2, Ra and EWQLSO Gold. I was running Protools 6 and shortly after PT7 on a Duel 1.25 G4 with 4 gigs of ram. That was well within the required specs the EW stated. Play was basically unusable. Constant error messages, constant crashing and brutal load times. I contacted EW and went through the usual setting tweaks (buffer size, core assignments in PT and some tweaks to Play. Nothing helped. EW support had nothing left to offer and pointed to my setup as the possible problem.

I then took the forums and saw that I was not alone at all. There were many posts on various forums stating similar issues. I started posting on their forum and while I was very critical, I was not rude. An exchange between either Doug or Nick (I can't remember) and myself started. The level of defensive and just stubborn (you don't know what your talking about.... we are right and you are wrong) attitude was startling. They refused to just deal with the fact the Play was not ready to run on that kind of setup. 

After a few exchanges on the forum and some other users chiming in with similar problems, the thread was deleted and I received an outraged PM from them chastising me for my behavior and banning me from the forum. That is totally unacceptable, unprofessional behavior. Way too much ego involved. There are too many better options out there to bother dealing such nonsense.

Play works much better now than it did then, and I use those libraries sometimes, but not often as Play is still cumbersome and so limited. Now all these years later they release Play 4 with a mixer. YEA!!!.... ahh.... no.... you can't set up a reverb on an aux channel and send your individual instruments to it unless you buy their new effects package. Unbelievable....


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## lpuser (Oct 11, 2013)

jtnyc @ Fri Oct 11 said:


> They refused to just deal with the fact the Play was not ready to run on that kind of setup.



jtnyc, you have every right in the world to criticize EW and have your opinion about the situation. I was not part of if, so I cannot take a stance.

But there is one thing, which I firmly believe:
No company that wants to be successful (and EW is certainly one of them) will ever release something which - in general - does not work. This does certainly not mean that you have been doing something wrong or that Play was a good product. The only thing I say is: If they knew it would really not work on 100% of all computers, then releasing it would have been pure suicide.

Let me give you an example (because I am in support, too): Two days ago, a customer has mailed me that he has a big software problem. Of course, that mail did not include any information about the systems involved, the OS version, the hotfixes etc. It only said: Software is useless, does not work - where is the update. Soooo.... what are you gonna tell him? That the problem he reported is not a problem on a thousand+ machines? That the vendor has tested it and it worked in their environment? This customer for sure has a right to be unhappy - but there is no way ever that any developer could check all millions of iterations of hard-/software/driver combinations.

Another example: We have a project where everything did work in the testing environment. Now, all of a sudden, the customer claims that things do not work in the active environment although everything is 100% the same. Can you believe this? What on earth would cause something to stop if things were really identical bit for bit? Nothing! But... what are you gonna tell such a customer? I really don´t know. You can only start searching for the problem (while he insists that it´s 100% the same and everything lives up to the needed specs) ... but this requires manpower, equipment and even then it can happen that you will never find the culprit.

And yes - I did have my fair share of issues with Play right after I bought it. These problems went on for months with EW support trying to tell me that it should work - and it didn´t. I was not getting mad at them in writing - but in my mind I certainly was. But.. after around 6 months of constant crashes, issues, instruments not loading and reporting unauthorized use, one of the support members asked me to send a complete system log. I did it, although not really knowing what he wanted. A few days he came back and asked me why I had not updated the PACE drivers for my iLok? Now I was getting really angry, because I *had* done excatly this - for more than 4 times in a row. Downloaded all the latest stuff, updated everything - and now they dare to ask me this? ... guess what? The Pace installer I had downloaded and installed several times, was faulty in a way that it did simply NOT update anything on my machine. I had drives installed which where virtually from the stone age.
With the help of EW I de-installed everything, installed fresh drivers and all the issues I had since 6 months had magically disappeared. So... I was mad at EW blaming them they were making bad software, but instead it was not them, but my computer.

To make a long story short: Play is not the best app, it is not remotely on par with Kontakt and we all know it. But I am fairly certain that it is not EWs intention to sell faulty software in the first place and that it actually works on their machine. My stories outline that sometimes things can go so absolutely wrong in a way that nobody knows why. Sometimes the sales / support guys can deal with it, sometimes not.

Like I already mentioned, EW should definitely offer some kind of Trial Version, so that people could decide for themselves if they want to invest in EW products or not.

My system works with over 10 and more Play instances nicely and although I need to freeze some of the bigger HW sounds (which is due to my RAM being low at the moment while waiting for a new system), there is no way I can "recreate" all the massive negative response in these threads. I would use Kontakt for sure if I had the chance to, but Play is working here just okay and that´s all I need.

Cheers
Tom


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## sin(x) (Oct 11, 2013)

lpuser @ 2013-10-11 said:


> No company that wants to be successful (and EW is certainly one of them) will ever release something which - in general - does not work. This does certainly not mean that you have been doing something wrong or that Play was a good product. The only thing I say is: If they knew it would really not work on 100% of all computers, then releasing it would have been pure suicide.



*cough*

I gotta respectfully disagree. Buggy software is being released across all industries all the time. Ever since the overhead of patching in the field has dropped to practically nothing, the standards of what passes as “good enough” have dropped accordingly, and lots of companies routinely push their products out of the door in what would otherwise be called beta stage – be it for the sake of gaining first mover advantage in the market, or keeping turnaround costs down, or trying to delegate a portion of testing to the userbase, or plainly because management doesn't understand that development/testing is supposed to be a cycle, not a two-stage process. That's why nobody touches x.0 releases in a production environment anymore, even if the product in question has a good reputation in terms of stability otherwise.


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## lastburai (Oct 11, 2013)

Hanu_H
Perhaps PLAY 4 will work for you.

Quantum7, I do not recall having ever being banned from any forum. I guess this time things are different.

Nathan Allen Pinard- Perhaps I should clarify, make more clear the steps leading up to the banishment of Eastwest forums. Overall it started a few weeks back when PLAY 4 was released. I upgraded to PLAY 4 their first version/iteration. This at the time for me broke cubase 6, cubase 6 would crash on start up, at that time I did not upgrade Vepro 5 I only updated PLAY 3 to PLAY 4. So it was then I created a thread expressing concerns and my anger at them on their forum. There was a lady administrator there at sounds online that eventually said they will look into my problems I left it as that. Also I remember another person there stated on the thread I created, them having the same issue as me, were cubase was also crashing on Start up. At the same time I created that thread I also created a support ticket. I would have been A LOT more angrier if cubase 6 was broke but I managed to fix it by re – installing PLAY 3 and everything was back to normal.

Fast forward to 2 previous Saturdays ago and in the morning of Saturday the 28th of September that should be correct. I finished my Shenmue project and I thought I would upgrade to PLAY 4 their latest build and at the same time VePro 5 had a new update I updated BOTH near enough at the same time and when I tried to open cubase 6 it would crash on start up like it did the first time I upgraded PLAY 4(their first version) but this time soon after my screens started turning off. I thought to myself why WHY!!!!! Is this happening is the computer broken. I had a short window to get the crash logs because the screen would go black. Even after restarting the computer 2-5-10min in, the screen would go black I could not believe it.

I thought cubase broken and now the computer. I did not know what to do, if the computer fails, it would cost so much and I do not have the money to fix a computer hardware error. I do not have any protection as it ran out. I started panicking like the graphics card panic, I had to post on the only place I could think of at the time which was Mac rumours. I started a thread there and someone mentioned to start out, is take out the graphics card and reset the RAM one has to do a special procedure to reset the NVRAM. So I did that and that fixed the screens from going black. I knew then it was nothing to do with the computer but something had caused panic attacks on the graphics card in the crash log. It did not say where or why or from who it just stated that the graphics card has had a panic.

I can only reason that if not for an update I would never of had these problems, the problems appeared after an update. Some would say it is coincidence, it is the system. This could be true but the crash logs said something happened to the graphics card. And I had no prior problems ever to the graphics card in this system. Again it could be a coincidence but I do not believe that to be true. I believe The simplest explanation is usually the correct one, in this case the update.

People for some reason cannot believe an update could cause a malfunction like this. I think it is entirely possible. If the code has a graphic error or a contradiction in the code or script then why could it not cause errors in the graphics card.
I do not know much of code writing but if the program needs access to the graphics card then any problems can be created from that.

After my system seemed to be alive again, I tried to re-install PLAY 3 and fix cubase 6 but no luck cubase 6 was broken for good. I went crazy, mad, blood skies, mordor appeared. And at the only company I could get angry at was Eastwest. I should have got angry at Vepro as well but as I stated I had already problems with PLAY 4 so I went with, it must be Eastwest. On my previous thread I started, so I started posting my anger on that thread. Also the previous support ticket was answered some time later in the week before 28th Saturday. In the support ticket it was Mike saying that he had not been around and that if I was still having problems I should contact him again.

I would like to add to this that the PLAY volcano in my mind was building up as many months ago regarding PLAY 3 I had an annoying issue if I was to raise the buffer to 2048 it caused hanging notes in PLAY, running inside VePro in cubase 6. I created a thread about that issue on their forum again I was very frustrated that I had that issue. And people ended up telling me that it is my hardware specifically my soundcard that is at fault. I use the 01V96 as my soundcard with a Dante port that runs via Ethernet through the Dante virtual soundcard program, it transforms an Ethernet port into a soundcard, it effectively gives an Ethernet port the ability to read audio digital information. A Mac Pro has two Ethernet ports. The people at eastwest and someone by the name of JSpencer I think that was their name, said that I get hanging notes because of my hardware, it is not professional hardware. That effectively ended the thread I created as I could not really defend it. Though I do not believe that is a true statement Jspencer could make as that Mixer is used extensively in recording bands/groups live and with the mixer 01V96 and Dante setup one can record up to 16 tracks live with FX compression and EQ simultaneously via Dante virtual soundcard at a stable clock. In what sense is this not professional? Prehaps my setup is not good for sample streaming I do not really know. I have also talked with Audinate the company who created the Dante Virtal soundcard regarding this.

Sidetrack end.

Throughout the day I was trying to get cubase 6 to work, it WOULD NOT WORK no matter how I tried, or how many times I installed PLAY 3 it would not work. Effectively rendering my computer useless for music. 

As Saturday 28th progressed (still the same day) I kept on posting on the thread at SOL eventually the administrator appeared and it started to escalate. He/she at some point blamed me that it was MY SYSTEM that is broke. I am sorry there is only so much I can take before I bring fire down. I had to call that ignorant as not all facts were taken into account. That administrator made me even more angry, he/she did not side with me, did not acknowledge my frustration and all the problems I was having.

The last post I remember was someone posting on the forum regarding VePro 5 and PLAY 4 someone posted saying PLAY 4 inside VePro 5 was having strange graphical issues/glitches. I put the two together as my graphics card had the biggest glitch of them all by turning off.

I posted on that persons thread saying how I have had issues and displeased at PLAY 4 and now I have to wait till Monday to get any help. Soon after the administrator deleted my comments from that persons thread, they deleted my thread. I then realised I could not post anymore on the forum as my account was blocked but it seemed I could still open a case.

During that following week I emailed Mike as I had reopened the case at Eastwest and I gave Mike details of OS, Ram and cubase version things of that nature. I mentioned to him that as a company why would eastwest ban me. Still having cubase issues, not starting, I was getting nowhere and on the following Thursday from that Saturday, I had to call Steinberg one expensive bill I can never do again but I had to call them. They really did not know what was wrong as I could not get cubase 6 to work. He said delete all the programs all the files for cubase 6 and re-install. I done as he said and cubase 6 loaded I again tried to install Vepro 5 and PLAY 4 and cubase crashed on start up again. I then had to find all the files again and delete them I missed one and cubase 6 would not load up I searched and there was still one file there so I deleted that and cubase was fixed. I then decided to re-install PLAY 3 only and Vepro 5, cubase 6 worked again. It has been a week since then no errors with graphics cards no crazy crashing and IT WAS NOT MY FAULT or my systems fault. I emailed Mike and said everything is working YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS something to that effect. So PLAY 3 cubase 6 and Vepro 5 works, I asked him please fix PLAY 4 because it does not work for me. He said he will look into it.

I checked on Thursday to see if I was still banned, which I was and they did not look into my issues so I created this thread I did not know Eastwest have issues with others here as well so it seems I not in isolation.

I never want to go through these problems and I do not want others to go through these problems either, with companies that play and act this way. 

Ironically PLAY, perhaps other programs such as VePro as well may have caused problems for me, where I do NO PLAYING. 

Eastwest lurker I will send you an email with details about my system hopefully over the weekend. I thank you for wanting to want to help me.


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## EastWest Lurker (Oct 11, 2013)

snattack @ Fri Oct 11 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Fri Oct 11 said:
> 
> 
> > sin(x) @ Fri Oct 11 said:
> ...



Thank you for the kind words, very nice of you and I appreciate it, but frankly I no longer am interested in helping with "keeps discussions going." Because they go nowhere useful IMHO, just the same old same old.

But I will still be here to discuss other things and help people with EW issues. I just am no longer going to read any thread that is anti EW or anti Play in the title simply because it won't help me help anyone. And of course, I am available by email or PM.s

One thing Guy Rowland has right and it is in his signature." People believe what they want to believe."

And now some brilliant individual will write, "Yes, Jay and YOU obviously believe what you want to believe."

But fortunately, i won't see it :lol:


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## snattack (Oct 11, 2013)

EastWest Lurker @ Fri Oct 11 said:


> snattack @ Fri Oct 11 said:
> 
> 
> > EastWest Lurker @ Fri Oct 11 said:
> ...



Well, I see why you would stop debating, but there are new people adding up to discussions, and even if the discussions seems like "same old", they are - at least IMO - slightly different everytime, and at least I get something out of reading all the new threads that seems like the same old discussion, not in the "bashing EW from a new angle", but from some of the knowledge and inputs that show up from different users (and your responses) everytime (longest sentence ever?).

Forums will always have topics that returns - particulary in this forum - but the small variations is what's interesting.


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## jtnyc (Oct 11, 2013)

lpuser @ Fri Oct 11 said:


> jtnyc @ Fri Oct 11 said:
> 
> 
> > They refused to just deal with the fact the Play was not ready to run on that kind of setup.
> ...



I didn't say they intentionally released something that didn't work, but they did release Play and libraries that required way more cpu and ram access than my system could supply (which was well within their stated requirements). There was no info available saying that I would only be able to run maybe 1 or 2 instruments in one instance of Play (if I was lucky) before errors, popping and crashes would occur. It performed horribly and they could not get it to work. Then they started blaming Protools, my setup, other Vi's running.... anything but Play.

What was really troubling was the way I and many others were treated, which I've already described. It was a really bad experience and I will never purchase another EW product again. Since then I always see people complaining about Play and the censorship EW practices on their forum. They've been doing it for a long time, so you've got to believe they believe this practice is good for them. It strikes me as a rather vein attempt at controlling their image. But hey, their doing alright business by the looks of it.


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## NYC Composer (Oct 11, 2013)

I'm an utter dolt, because I'll never be able to get the time back that I wasted reading yet another "world vs EW support" thread. I guess some people simply have to rubberneck when they pass an accident on the highway-me, I just have a sick fascination with repetition.


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## lastburai (Oct 12, 2013)

I do not know what an eastwest bashing thread is. If it has become that it was not my intention. To be honest I do not care if it has or has not become a bashing thread of any kind. I understand to my knowledge that this is a public forum I did not know people would even listen to my events regarding my problems. I do not know the past of this place the V.I community I only know what has happened TO ME!!

Sorry I have to comment on NYC Composer I do not know you. Why is this about YOU????? And YOUR TIME?? Please demise from my sight if you feel this way towards what I have stated here on this thread. I know nothing of the past that has happened here on V.I. And you feel I have wasted YOUR TIME. Part of me in a way is sorry for you that you feel this way towards my plight. Though at the same time part of me also does not care if you feel I have wasted YOUR TIME! I do not know who you are. This situation I have lost more time than I thought I would. I look at your comment with a smile of distain because I myself, what this thread is also about is I am stating how someone/something/some products have wasted MY TIME Replying to a comment such as yours is wasting thought processes, wasting MY TIME. Breaking my flow, my sequencer, turning the computer inside out it created somewhat for a short period of silicon hell. And on that Saturday I was about to start on something new I had some new ideas for a composition but I could not carry that train of thought. Sometime later I had to Re-install everything that took up MY... TIME... I also did not have the discs to re-install Cubase 6. I probably should of acted sooner in regards to calling Steinberg but I did not. And then being banished from a company I have never had that happen before on top off trying to fix this frustrating problem. 

I feel like I am some bad person for some reason. For stating what has happened with these companies, WHY SHOULD I FEEL THIS WAY. I believe I have genuinely done nothing wrong.

I have some different libraries but I have a lot more of Eastwest libraries/products, I do like their libraries, so this DOES affect me PLAY affects me. You might not care if it affects me. Overall if their products do not run smooth on a mac. I cannot sell the products to get my money back. At the moment I have no money to buy different products I am stuck with PLAY. 

If there is a possibility of even a small chance that I can get PLAY 4 to work and in general get PLAY to work smoother, efficiently on my computer (mac) then I would be happy. I hope you understand that is the outcome I would have liked from the beginning. Though I might of went about it the wrong way, what is done is done.


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## NYC Composer (Oct 12, 2013)

Last-my comment was mostly directed at myself and those on this forum who have participated in about a dozen similar threads in the past few years. It was not directed at you, and I'm sorry you assumed that.

That said, maybe you can calm down a bit? Cheers.


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## ProtectedRights (Oct 12, 2013)

sin(x) @ Fri Oct 11 said:


> lpuser @ 2013-10-11 said:
> 
> 
> > No company that wants to be successful (and EW is certainly one of them) will ever release something which - in general - does not work. This does certainly not mean that you have been doing something wrong or that Play was a good product. The only thing I say is: If they knew it would really not work on 100% of all computers, then releasing it would have been pure suicide.
> ...



+10000%

Thanks for clarifying this so truthfully.

It is just like that. Software makers can live with it when 90% can use their products without problems. 10% go though hell, but thats just the colateral damage of capitalism, to put it in big words. Company makes profit and 10% moaners probably won't damage the companies income / reputation. Thanks to forums like this, they will have to be careful. Better keep that percentage as low as possible.


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## playz123 (Oct 12, 2013)

NYC Composer @ Sat Oct 12 said:


> Last-my comment was mostly directed at myself and those on this forum who have participated in about a dozen similar threads in the past few years. It was not directed at you, and I'm sorry you assumed that.
> 
> That said, maybe you can calm down a bit? Cheers.



I, for one, 'got it', Larry, I laughed out loud and totally agreed since I'd just wasted time reading some of what's been posted for the 12th time as well. Let's all assume it was a bit of an 'inside' joke/comment, and for those who didn't understand...well you will after you've been here for awhile and get to know some of us and the history here. Certainly was an appropriate comment as well. Cheers.


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## NYC Composer (Oct 12, 2013)

playz123 @ Sat Oct 12 said:


> NYC Composer @ Sat Oct 12 said:
> 
> 
> > Last-my comment was mostly directed at myself and those on this forum who have participated in about a dozen similar threads in the past few years. It was not directed at you, and I'm sorry you assumed that.
> ...



Yeah, Frank- we have surely been there, done that and bought the t- shirt at this point. :wink:


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## paulmatthew (Oct 12, 2013)

The shirt has a picture of this : ;/c]


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## HardyP (Oct 12, 2013)

NYC Composer @ Sat Oct 12 said:


> That said, maybe you can calm down a bit? Cheers.


Hmm, if it went like that on SOL, maybe we can understand, that things went wrong... 

But, as another one said, part of the problem is the "admin", defenitely. If you ask questions about their communication, bug fixing strategy, eg (won´t go into detail here) - as soon as he chimes in, things get worse, or a thread will be closed. In one case I PM´d him, but never got a response.
On the other hand: The EW team is super friendly, and when they didn´t "believe me" in one case (it was a strange issue, I have to admit), they offered a Teamviewer session, looked with 2 persons into it, and I got a replacement for my Terapack even after the warranty period.


So my summary:
- PLAY is way behind the market
- their bugfixing speed is way below average 
- BUT: *their personal support/their support team is in general outstanding*


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## Arbee (Oct 12, 2013)

HardyP @ Sun Oct 13 said:


> NYC Composer @ Sat Oct 12 said:
> 
> 
> > That said, maybe you can calm down a bit? Cheers.
> ...


Was kind of thinking the same thing :shock: 
There comes a point, like when the bold type appears, when the message starts to fall on deaf ears. Just saying...

.


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## Astronaut FX (Oct 12, 2013)

I'm not trying to come to EWQL or anyone else's defense per se, but I think some folks may not have a realistic notion as to just how difficult software testing can be. Let's say you have developed a new software sampler to run some libraries you plan to market and you are ready to start testing. How many combinations of computer types, operating systems, hardware configurations, audio/midi interfaces, midi controllers, and co-existing software do you need to test before rolling out?

Let's make up some numbers to see how it works out:

Operating systems in use (mac & windows combined) - let's say 10 are widely in use today.

DAWs - How many are in use today? Let's say for this exercise there are 10, each with 3 versions in use, for a total of 30.

There have to be at least 25-30 different audio interfaces on the market, and I'd say that's underestimating.

There are at least 20-25 different popular midi controllers.

So stopping there momentarily, we have 10x30x25x20 = 150,000 possible combinations, or unique system environments commonly in use among potential users. And we haven't even started factoring in the other software that may be installed and would need to co-exist with our new sampler.

How long do you think it takes to test your sampler to be sure it works properly with just the 150,000 unique environments we've calculated? You clearly can't test 100% or your sampler would never make it to market, or if it were possible (and it isn't) you would have to charge so much for your sampler/libraries to cover your testing costs, your potential customers couldn't afford it.

This should establish how difficult it is to roll out completely bug free software. All that being said, it is critical that the developer and the customer be aware of this. For the developer, it means that they will occasionally encounter a bug they didn't come across. They need to show patience and a sense of urgency for the customer, and they need to view it as an opportunity for product improvement. For the customer, they need to show patience and understanding. If all parties cooperate, there should be no reason that both parties can't come away with a positive experience.


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## park bench (Oct 12, 2013)

+1 on Tone Deaf's post.


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## sin(x) (Oct 13, 2013)

Tone Deaf @ 2013-10-13 said:


> I'm not trying to come to EWQL or anyone else's defense per se, but I think some folks may not have a realistic notion as to just how difficult software testing can be. Let's say you have developed a new software sampler to run some libraries you plan to market and you are ready to start testing. How many combinations of computer types, operating systems, hardware configurations, audio/midi interfaces, midi controllers, and co-existing software do you need to test before rolling out?



Honestly I don't see anybody trivializing the testing process in this thread. Yes, testing can be fiendishly complex, has the potential to blow your entire production schedule to kingdom come no matter how solid you thought your codebase was, and shouldn't be taken lightly by any developer, ever. And I don't think anybody's expecting “completely bug free” either (which is a mythical creature anyway, not least because it's always a little fuzzy what constitutes a bug). Yet, I doubt anyone would contest that some developers seem to get it… _more right_ than others, no? I don't see a “the VSL player has run over my dog and impregnated my girlfriend” thread popping up here every five days…


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## renochew (Oct 13, 2013)

Tone Deaf @ Sat Oct 12 said:


> This should establish how difficult it is to roll out completely bug free software. All that being said, it is critical that the developer and the customer be aware of this. For the developer, it means that they will occasionally encounter a bug they didn't come across. They need to show patience and a sense of urgency for the customer, and they need to view it as an opportunity for product improvement. For the customer, they need to show patience and understanding. If all parties cooperate, there should be no reason that both parties can't come away with a positive experience.



You are still missing the point, Tone Deaf, no one expected the developer to test all the possibility or only release bug free software. BUT, they should expect there exist customer that find the software buggy exactly because the same reason. That's why bug report and support from the developer is so important. What make people furious in most cases is that EW seems to have the attitude that - look at my setup, it working absolutely fine, go and sort out your problem and don't post your UNIQUE problem in our forum.

I think the point being, whether a software developer is good or not, is not so much about the software itself, it about how there support system run, how they deal with user with problem with their software, how determine they are to sort out bugs.

I don't believe people just come around and tried to bash EW. There is always reason and EW should reflect if there is a better way to communicate with user.


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## Hanu_H (Oct 13, 2013)

Yeah and on top of everything, some people are still upset about abandoning Kontakt. And I think it's just funny to say what you are saying Tone Deaf. So you are saying that a paying customers better not hope for a working software when they buy something but a bit buggy, sort of there software. If you abandon fully working system with many years of research and you make a lame substitute that doesn't even work well, how do you think paying customers will take that? Some of us bought the EWQLSO with Kompakt and remember how that was working. I also understand that it takes time to make new softwares stable and working. How many years has the PLAY been developed? And it's still unstable with many systems, even if they have more than enough juice. You better not go into a software industry if you can't handle the competition and make you software better or at least as good as the competition. I think VSL is really good example. And 2CAudio too. They had a bug in their B2 reverb which made it unusable for Cubase users. They asked for system specs from everyone having the problem and after a 6 months they had rewritten the entire code of their most complex plugin just to make it work on all the users who bought it. That's how you treat your buying customers not with a answer; We cannot reproduce it, it must be your system or you are doing something wrong. I had high hopes for PLAY 4, but hearing that with some systems it works even worse than PLAY 3 is just devastating and gives no hope for PLAY to never be a software worth investing more...

And don't get me wrong, I would love to see PLAY working well and giving some more competition to Kontakt and such, but sometimes you just have let go and try something different.

-Hannes


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## Astronaut FX (Oct 13, 2013)

@sin(x) - I did see a few comments here and there questioning the testing process. On the first page alone, someone commented that clearly EWQL would have tested the OP's configuration. I thought some basic scenario calculations might show just how difficult it can be.

And I'm not missing any points at all. My final paragraph states fairly clearly that both the developer and the customer have some role in the issue resolution process, and if either behave badly, then the process fails. It is a general comment as to the process, not an expression of indictment or support for any developer in particular.


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## lastburai (Oct 13, 2013)

I am sorry NYC Composer, I need some kind of rest. I do not know what is going on with me. I regret I read your post wrongly. 

I like the variety of PLAY's libraries they sound great to me.

My apologies to you NYC Composer, I also hope I have not damaged, infected V.I. in anyway.

Next thing, I may find out I am banished from here. 

I have sent Eastwest Lurker details of my system set up and a short description of my problems regarding PLAY. I hope this can somehow be resolved. Though I doubt it can, there is many variables they would need to use close to my setup I am not sure how close one can get.

If nothing comes of this perhaps it might work with the next set of updates of said programs. To be honest I might not want to chance it. Knowing the previous outcomes, will see.


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## HardyP (Oct 13, 2013)

lastburai @ 2013-10-13 said:


> Next thing, I may find out I am banished from here.
> 
> I have sent Eastwest Lurker details of my system set up and a short description of my problems regarding PLAY. I hope this can somehow be resolved.


Hey come on, I think there´s no reason for being banished... 
And glad, you took Jays offer for real - all the best for both of you fiddling the issues out and bring it to play again ...


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## RobertPeetersPiano (Oct 13, 2013)

This sounds soo familiar. 

I'm on a PC, and Play doesn't perform the way it should, and admin tells me it is my system that is too weak (but according to the site, my system has optimum performance specs).

I'm suspended too from the forum.

If I had more time, I would sue them for false advertisement or something like that. It's just too unfair..


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## tzilla (Oct 13, 2013)

Seems like Kontakt has become the industry standard playback engine. I wonder why they don't consider that? Is it not powerful enough? Is it to save face? I so badly want to have their sounds in my arsenal, but PLAY is so buggy on my machine that I'm afraid to invest in any more of their stuff. It's nuts. I still consider their Hollywood Strings demos some of my favorite....I feel like a dog at a butcher shop window.

Todd


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## Stephen Baysted (Oct 13, 2013)

The biggest issue I have with EWQL software is that it cannot be sold on to a third party à la VSL etc. Still, the original HS diamond hard disk is working well as a doorstop for my machine room door. Though at £1k, I do admit it was a rather expensive doorstop.


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## TheUnfinished (Oct 13, 2013)

Beyond all the usual issues and the accusations of bashing or whatever...

It is a very very good point that customers are being told it is their fault and that their systems are not up to scratch when they are better than the recommended systems requirements on the East West website.

For me that is pretty unconscionable behaviour. Is it not false advertising?


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## Giant_Shadow (Oct 13, 2013)

Every six months I get a inkling to add a Play slave, thank you for threads like these to bring me back to earth.


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## Diffusor (Oct 13, 2013)

Jordan Gagne @ Thu Oct 10 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Thu Oct 10 said:
> 
> 
> > lastburai @ Thu Oct 10 said:
> ...



Exactly! EastWest will reap what they sow. I see so many people giving the middle finger to EastWest finally, because of their "practices". I mean how stupid is it to ban their customers from the support forum? You are pretty much guaranteeing the loss of that customer in the future. I have a friend who works phone tech support for a financial software and says they get irate/rude customers call in all the time. THe policy is too help them regardless and ignore their rudeness, and if you respond in kind to their rudeness you are sure to be fired.


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## snattack (Oct 13, 2013)

Stephen Baysted @ Sun Oct 13 said:


> The biggest issue I have with EWQL software is that it cannot be sold on to a third party à la VSL etc. Still, the original HS diamond hard disk is working well as a doorstop for my machine room door. Though at £1k, I do admit it was a rather expensive doorstop.



Well, that's an illegal user agreement in the EU from what I know.


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## pinki (Oct 13, 2013)

Diffusor @ Sun Oct 13 said:


> I mean how stupid is it to ban their customers from the support forum? You are pretty much guaranteeing the loss of that customer in the future. I have a friend who works phone tech support for a financial software and says they get irate/rude customers call in all the time. THe policy is too help them regardless and ignore their rudeness, and if you respond in kind to their rudeness you are sure to be fired.



Exactly this.

We could do a poll to see how many of us have been banned. Seriously that forum should be shut down tomorrow.


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## Stephen Baysted (Oct 13, 2013)

snattack @ Sun Oct 13 said:


> Stephen Baysted @ Sun Oct 13 said:
> 
> 
> > The biggest issue I have with EWQL software is that it cannot be sold on to a third party à la VSL etc. Still, the original HS diamond hard disk is working well as a doorstop for my machine room door. Though at £1k, I do admit it was a rather expensive doorstop.
> ...



Are you sure I'm not legally entitled wedge open my machine room door with the HS hard disk?


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## sin(x) (Oct 13, 2013)

Stephen Baysted @ 2013-10-14 said:


> Are you sure I'm not legally entitled wedge open my machine room door with the HS hard disk?



See provisions 82 through 93 of the EULA, “undue misappropriation of physical media”.


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## snattack (Oct 14, 2013)

Stephen Baysted @ Sun Oct 13 said:


> snattack @ Sun Oct 13 said:
> 
> 
> > Stephen Baysted @ Sun Oct 13 said:
> ...



Haha, ok, I just layed that one out for you


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## lpuser (Oct 14, 2013)

sin(x) @ Fri Oct 11 said:


> *cough*
> 
> I gotta respectfully disagree.



I have absolutely no problem with you disagreeing, however please note that what I wrote was different. I wrote to paraphrase: "if a company would know their software does not work on any (=100%) computer, they would never release it."

This is something entirely different than what you write about buggy software. I gotta say that I was betatester for some big companies and nobody there would release something which in general does not work on no matter which machine. There is certainly an attitude that some issues are not considered a showstopper and therefore should no delay a planned release. Also, many companies try to fix things as soon as possible, but we must understand that each and every system IS different and what may work on my machine might not on the devs machine - and vice versa. During my betatesting, there were more than once these situations where a fellow tester claimed something was not working, but it did for the majority of the rest. Often it turns out to be the result of a minor difference in drivers, concurrent software etc., which simply nobody else had in this exact same combination. Does this make a product bad? Probably yes in the eyes of the person who has the problem. But certainly not in general.


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## sin(x) (Oct 14, 2013)

lpuser @ 2013-10-14 said:


> I have absolutely no problem with you disagreeing, however please note that what I wrote was different. I wrote to paraphrase: "if a company would know their software does not work on any (=100%) computer, they would never release it."



Hah, gotcha. I misread what you wrote as saying that they're looking for their software to work on any (=100%) computer. Sorry. Of course nobody would release a software that doesn't work _anywhere,_ but I've witnessed cases of software being released that was only proven to work under laboratory conditions on development rigs, which in my book is almost as bad.


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## davidgary73 (Oct 14, 2013)

I had once posted a quetion about EW Spaces in 2011 and unfortunately, the EW moderators withhold my post and never seen up in the forum. I was hoping for some feedback beore purchase EW Spaces. I reckon i was ban as well.. 

Well, it saved me money and this has led me to forgo EW products while gladly spend my money on better products with better customer support like Spitfire audio, Cinesamples etc..


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## StatKsn (Oct 15, 2013)

Personally, I buy products not only because I liked them, but also because I would love to support them and invest in their future. I would love to see and participate in what happens tomorrow.

If the head of EW thinks that they wouldn't need to become even better, as they have been successful their way, it is fine, it makes sense. I just don't feel like I want to get invested in nor follow a "perfect" company that has no more room to improve. To me, EW is a history then.


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## Nathan Allen Pinard (Oct 16, 2013)

I went to look at the Play 4 upgrade and saw this right by the download link: 

_Cubase 6 and lower users will have to use PLAY 3.0.47 (below). Steinberg fixed the issue in Cubase 7 if you wish to use PLAY 4._


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## nikolas (Oct 16, 2013)

Statistically speaking:


EW complaining threads: TOO MANY
other companies complaining threads (orange tree samples, vsl, LASS, etc): none...

This for me means two things:

1. EW is hugely popular.
2. EW creates more problems than other companies.

For 1, my comment is: doh! They make good stuff, it's dead obvious and they are being very successful in what they do!

For 2, my comment is: doh! With such huge customer base, it's going to be next to impossible dealing with the problems coming in. Plus for some reason (I don't know if Jay can verify this) EW is still acting, almost like a "family business". Unlike what a big software company should do... :-/


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## Tatu (Oct 16, 2013)

Years and years ago, when I was just starting with samples, I bought SO and SD1 and had some issues (which lead EW to remove some pages from soundsonline.com etc..) and I got very, very upset.

Then some Doug Rogers guy sent me a PM saying, don't be rude and softly accused me of making bad decisions. 

I told that bitch to go get laid and return my money. I was banned immediately.

:D 

Do I need to mention that I had absolutely no idea who this "Doug Rogers" was?

So, when dealing with people who are passionate about their products, always show some respect and you will be treated the same. If I'd ever happen to meet Doug in person, I'd shake his hand for believing in the direction his taken EW (and his role as a pioneer of sampling) and apologize that incident years and years ago.


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## JBZeon (Oct 16, 2013)

Nathan Allen Pinard @ Wed Oct 16 said:


> I went to look at the Play 4 upgrade and saw this right by the download link:
> 
> _Cubase 6 and lower users will have to use PLAY 3.0.47 (below). Steinberg fixed the issue in Cubase 7 if you wish to use PLAY 4._



What issue is fixed in 7 with Play 4?


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## playz123 (Oct 16, 2013)

From the latest EWQL sales e-mail:
"WE HAVE MORE INTERNATIONAL AWARDS THAN ALL OF OUR COMPETITORS COMBINED!!"
Now that surprises me, but I guess if they say so it must be true.  Anyway, I'll just offer my congratulations....and no additional comments.


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## Nathan Allen Pinard (Oct 16, 2013)

JBZeon @ Wed Oct 16 said:


> Nathan Allen Pinard @ Wed Oct 16 said:
> 
> 
> > I went to look at the Play 4 upgrade and saw this right by the download link:
> ...



No clue, as that is all it says on the download page on soundsonline.com. But some forum posts have indicated that Cubase just crashes.


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## lastburai (Oct 16, 2013)

Hi well I got a reply. I am grateful for that and thanks for passing on my info. Though I am left with a very bitter taste from this all. For not only am I banned from eastwest but I am also stuck on PLAY 3. Because I need to upgrade to cubase 7. 

The 2048 buffer hanging note issue in PLAY 3 still stuck with that then I guess. Or is that my fault, my soundcard because it is not professional an amateur soundcard.

The reply for PLAY 4 on cubase was. 'It's a known issue, Steinberg fixed the issue in Cubase 7 if you wish to use PLAY 4. Cubase 6 and lower users will have to use PLAY 3.0.47 (below)'. 

What is the known issue? what makes PLAY 4 not run on cubase 6? I deserve an explanation. Not just it's a known issue!!. How was this known? It was not known to me.

There was no facts in the email they gave you eastwest lurker, just excuses, if they are telling someone there is a problem they should explain what that problem IS!!! Why does it not work!!!! What part of the code, and why can't they not fix it.

Or is cubase the only company that knows what is wrong with their product and they are the only ones that can fix it.

Is eastwest not writing the code so it works inside Cubase 6 how could the issue be with the host. Unless there is some code in cubase that does not allow it. So now I have to know code to be able to have a conversation with EASTWEST!!!! AND STEINBERG. Is that what you people are saying to me.

There always seems to be a common theme a common impression that I get from the community at eastwest. First my hardware is not good enough I was told once to upgrade my Mac pro 12 core with more than 32 gig of ram because it is not good enough to run to stream HW strings diamond and HW Brass gold eastwest products. I was told my soundcard is an amateur soundcard that is why I get hanging notes in PLAY 3. And now you are telling me it is my sequencer Cubase 6 

Dispersing, transferring, projecting issues elsewhere a SMOKE SCREEN that is what I feel like these people are all doing to me.

No evidence, no explanations of facts ever stated, to me. Just that it is my fault. And inadvertently the EW people are saying it is my fault MY Sequencer/DAW.

I know what one will say, why have you retaliated like this I was doing you a favour. I am not implying you, I am grateful you tried but CAN YOU NOT SEE what is done here.

I should have not been surprised nothing was ever going to get solved was it, really. Because the company now at fault is Steinberg. Or was it always Steinberg that was at fault. It is ones, 'get out of jail free card', ones 'wild card', ones 'joker card'. 

I had the worst day at work now this. This made my day complete, the end, stuck with PLAY 3 cannot afford cubase 7. I least I know where I stand in the realm of eastwest. Stuck in the middle going nowhere and getting torn apart from east to west.


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## kitekrazy (Oct 16, 2013)

nikolas @ Wed Oct 16 said:


> Statistically speaking:
> 
> 
> *EW complaining threads: TOO MANY*
> ...



I think this is the only place where this happens a great deal. I don't know about the atmosphere with EW products on KVR which is the ultimate place for complaining.

As for #2, that's not unusual with larger groups. Microsoft, M-Audio, Ubisoft are just a few of those.


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## Guy Rowland (Oct 17, 2013)

nikolas @ Wed Oct 16 said:


> Statistically speaking:
> 
> 
> EW complaining threads: TOO MANY
> ...



Nikolas - that's an, um, intriguing statistical analysis.

Especially point 1. Not sure how you can logically derive that just because there are a lot of complaints. An alternate (and some might say more obvious) explanation is that customers overall have a more negative experience, rather than there necessarily being a lot more customers in the first place.

I offer exhibit A as to an example of another company's customer complaints being turned around by excellent customer service and communication - http://www.vi-control.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3735133 .

And yet. I think the most interesting aspect of the little poll I instigated a few weeks ago (and I was loudly chastisted for) is that the customer experience is, overall, not putting people off EW nearly as much as the sampler engine. Look at the OP's position - in the final analysis, this whole thread and discussion would not have happened if it were a Kontakt product, as the root cause we're told is a fundamental compatibility issue. So a customer has a bad experience with Play, complains to EW, gets angry, gets banned, vents here in a more open forum and round and round we go. I think most ex-customers realise this, and that's why they said they'd return to EW if the sample engine were Kontakt, even if the customer relations stayed the same. My interpretation - it's an educated gamble, since the need for customer service would drop massively with a mature, stable and efficient engine at the heart of the company.

Since Jay Asher confidently tells us there is absolutely zero chance of changing away from Play under any circumstances whatsoever, and the lamentably slow and faltering development of Play itself, I rather suspect that these threads will continue to pop up every couple of weeks in perpetuity. Until that cycle is broken, history is bound to repeat itself. Seems a more straightforward and logical explanation to me for the reason why we get so many of these threads.

PS - Kitecrazy, I think you'll find KVR has been every bit as vociferous towards EW as here, but it's a lower proportion of threads because the discussion of synths etc is so much greater than here. Sample libraries are our stock in trade, it's the preserve of a wealthy minority at KVR. Dunno about GS, they all seem to be angry at everything and everyone over there....


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## Casiquire (Nov 7, 2013)

Well, I hate to dig up a thread like this, but I've just had the oddest comment censoring experience. Someone on the SOL forum was asking about new features in Play 4, and someone replied "background loading". I responded to that saying that I've actually always had background loading in Play and that I wonder why on some systems (like mine) Play loads quietly in the background and yet others seem to experience Play taking over the DAW while it loads. My tone was quite as conversational as it is here and not inflammatory in any way. It wasn't faulting Play or EWQL. That's literally all that I said. The post following mine was more offensive since it stated that Play 4 doesn't have "proper" background loading. My comment was much more innocent than that, yet mine was the one that got censored. I just almost closed my forum account over this because of how frustrated I am that such an innocuous comment would be censored. It really is just one bad move after another in the SOL/EWQL world. Amazing how someone can go from an easy "lifetime customer" to adamantly refusing to entertain the notion of buying a company's products ever again because of an apparent level of incompetence from the top down regarding treatment of individuals. I don't think even Jay can mediate this anymore. I've been thinking about holding off on future EWQL purchases for a little while until things seem to start moving uphill (and I've been wanting to upgrade my Hollywood Brass!) but I think I'm at the point where Doug has made it clear he doesn't need my money and there are so many competitors with more usable and consistent software who really want me to buy their products. I think it's the end for Play and I.


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## HardyP (Nov 7, 2013)

Casiquire @ 2013-11-07 said:


> Someone on the SOL forum was asking about new features in Play 4, and someone replied "background loading". I responded to that saying that I've actually always had background loading in Play and that I wonder why on some systems (like mine) Play loads quietly in the background and yet others seem to experience Play taking over the DAW while it loads.


I´m sorry for you to have experienced that. But OTH, Play defenitely has no full background loading until now (at least as defined by a vast majority of users), so maybe they wanted clear it out, not that again ranting starts "how can I get the background loading to work on my system". See http://www.soundsonline-forums.com/show ... stcount=10
I admit, they could have PM´d you about that, and afterwords do whatever they think they have to do.
But I really think, that something went wrong, since my posts even if ranting (for example about the quality of Solo Violin/the missing manual) have never been deleted.
Hm - or maybe I should check?!? >8o


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## Casiquire (Nov 7, 2013)

Sorry to contradict you but Play has _never_ overtaken my DAW to load patches. Not even back in version 1 and 2 days. I start loading a patch, close Play while it loads, and keep doing what I was doing. And most users of Play are still complaining that even in Play 4 it's not "real" background loading. Hence my confusion!

Anyway yeah I see many comments that are much worse than that one and don't get deleted, like my own comment about being disappointed by QL Violin. It just rubbed me completely the wrong way.


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## SamGarnerStudios (Nov 7, 2013)

Casiquire @ Thu Nov 07 said:


> Sorry to contradict you but Play has _never_ overtaken my DAW to load patches. Not even back in version 1 and 2 days. I start loading a patch, close Play while it loads, and keep doing what I was doing. And most users of Play are still complaining that even in Play 4 it's not "real" background loading. Hence my confusion!



What about when you load up the project?


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## EastWest Lurker (Nov 7, 2013)

Casiquire @ Thu Nov 07 said:


> Sorry to contradict you but Play has _never_ overtaken my DAW to load patches. Not even back in version 1 and 2 days. I start loading a patch, close Play while it loads, and keep doing what I was doing. And most users of Play are still complaining that even in Play 4 it's not "real" background loading. Hence my confusion!
> 
> Anyway yeah I see many comments that are much worse than that one and don't get deleted, like my own comment about being disappointed by QL Violin. It just rubbed me completely the wrong way.



It isn't full on background loading like Kontakt's is. That is slated for the next update however.


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## germancomponist (Nov 7, 2013)

EastWest Lurker @ Thu Nov 07 said:


> It isn't full on background loading like Kontakt's is. That is slated for the next update however.



Earlier, it was always so cozy. First, I had turned my computer on, then opened Cubase, clicked on the project and then just drank my coffee and smoked a cigarette while the project was loading. Today everything goes so fast or happens in the background so that I can (or have to) work immediately. 

Where is the comfort?

But you know what? I take aside time for my coffee and my cigarette. Even if everything is loaded instantaneously. 

o-[][]-o


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## EastWest Lurker (Nov 7, 2013)

Keep the coffee, lose the cigarette.


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## germancomponist (Nov 7, 2013)

EastWest Lurker @ Thu Nov 07 said:


> Keep the coffee, lose the cigarette.



Yeah I know, Jay. My problem is that I enjoy smoking. Not too much, but... .


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## Casiquire (Nov 7, 2013)

On loading a project, Play and Kontakt both behave the same way and they both briefly freeze up the DAW. Play takes longer to load of course but behaves no differently from Kontakt otherwise. It's done this both on 32-bit Vista and 64-bit Windows 7.


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## pkm (Nov 8, 2013)

Casiquire @ Thu Nov 07 said:


> On loading a project, Play and Kontakt both behave the same way and they both briefly freeze up the DAW. Play takes longer to load of course but behaves no differently from Kontakt otherwise. It's done this both on 32-bit Vista and 64-bit Windows 7.



They're a little different. Kontakt loads the patch without the samples before moving on to the next instance, but PLAY loads all the samples first.


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## pkm (Nov 8, 2013)

Casiquire @ Thu Nov 07 said:


> On loading a project, Play and Kontakt both behave the same way and they both briefly freeze up the DAW. Play takes longer to load of course but behaves no differently from Kontakt otherwise. It's done this both on 32-bit Vista and 64-bit Windows 7.



They're a little different. Kontakt loads the patch without the samples before moving on to the next instance, but PLAY loads all the samples first.


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## Casiquire (Nov 8, 2013)

pkm @ Fri 08 Nov said:


> They're a little different. Kontakt loads the patch without the samples before moving on to the next instance, but PLAY loads all the samples first.



Maybe, but considering the time difference is not that big on my machine and they're both still taking over the DAW, it's essentially the same to me. In any case we're missing the wood for the trees here.


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## germancomponist (Nov 8, 2013)

Casiquire @ Fri Nov 08 said:


> pkm @ Fri 08 Nov said:
> 
> 
> > They're a little different. Kontakt loads the patch without the samples before moving on to the next instance, but PLAY loads all the samples first.
> ...



Instead of discussing about loading times, isn't it much more important what you do with the libraries? Forgive me my joking about drinking coffee and smoking while the loading time, but what is much more important?


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## quantum7 (Nov 8, 2013)

Sometimes my PLAY loading times were so long, that I was able to polish off an entire bottle of Aquinas Chardonnay....hence making me much too buzzed to compose after that. ^>| 

Maybe I should stick to the coffee thing like Jay.


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## HardyP (Nov 8, 2013)

quantum7 @ 2013-11-08 said:


> Maybe I should stick to the coffee thing like Jay.


Good suggestion! 
And additionally I can recommend a good, black, strong, tradionally filtered one - try to avoid everything artificial like flavoured tastes or instant...


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## rayinstirling (Nov 8, 2013)

germancomponist @ Thu Nov 07 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Thu Nov 07 said:
> 
> 
> > Keep the coffee, lose the cigarette.
> ...



Don't do what I did Gunther..................stopped while waiting on the ambulance coming to take me to coronary care. nearly 20 years since. Never touched one ever again. I'm a grumpy B though


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## EastWest Lurker (Nov 8, 2013)

quantum7 @ Fri Nov 08 said:


> Sometimes my PLAY loading times were so long, that I was able to polish off an entire bottle of Aquinas Chardonnay....hence making me much too buzzed to compose after that. ^>|
> 
> Maybe I should stick to the coffee thing like Jay.


\\

After I visit this forum., I generally go for the single malt scotch


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