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Mail from Christian Henson (Spitfire)?

Kyle Preston said:
(Not here to take swing Daniel) I’m genuinely trying to understand the frustration with this email.

If memory serves, I heard CH say in an interview once that Spitfire treats both the release and recording of a new sample library the same way a music artist treats an album. In any case, you can tell they do this from their website and how their libraries are laid out in an album-style format.

Nine Inch Nails released Year Zero by leaving random hard drives in bathroom stalls at their shows. Prince released Planet Earth by giving it away in the Sunday newspaper. Radiohead asked fans to pay what they like for In Rainbows. This SF email (to me) just feels like a continuation of the same kind artist-style marketing.

Maybe it’s simply a difference of taste but I can’t understand why it’s so upsetting to people.
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The sentiment I have seen and with which I agree with is that the way in which this email was designed felt like a practical joke, designed to have us feel as though we received something in error. Many people rightfully stopped what they were doing and took the time to try and let SF know of the mistake only to have it transpire that it was all a marketing ploy. For me it crossed into a personal space I never invited spitfire into, like I said earlier my friends and family can play jokes on me and I found it rude and unprofessional to assume you fit in one of those categories because you sell me shit.

Like I mentioned if they had approached it straight up and maintained that professional company image that they put forward and maintained the customer company boundaries this would be a non issue. I would have actually been stoked that they are giving me a teaser of this new library. But they crossed a line into something more personal than I was prepared to allow them. Again like some have mentioned you may be fine with people jumping into your personal space and assuming how they can act around you. I am of the feeling that only I get to choose who my friends are and who can interact with me in these personable ways, anyone who assumes my friendship and respect without me giving it to them gets sent straight to the spam folder....in both email and life.

-DJ
 
South Thames said:
My main feeling on the actual thing the email was flogging is it just seems more feathery string patches. They're handy but there’s a lot of this of this sort of thing among Spitfire offerings already.
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Indeed ^

They have 4 evos and 5 albions now plus the Olafur toolkit and some other libraries I'm probably forgetting.

More wind and brass oriented evos like in Tundra would be very welcome...


synthpunk said:
If your a big fan why not write Christian or Paul about it directly?

Maybe its time to go work on Project Chaos now, it was announced almost a year ago right ? Did you honestly tell your customers it would be a year in development ?
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Wow, Who cares man? Did you kickstarter or preorder it? He has no obligation to release it until he thinks it's ready which is the best way to do things. You saying "hey what about hybrid twos biz practices" is so out of left field. This thread reeks of people leaping to defend Spitfire Can Do No Wrong. Even when the other side is just people saying "yes it was a relatively harmless prank but please don't do stuff like that in the future."
 
Kyle Preston said:
(Not here to take swing Daniel) I’m genuinely trying to understand the frustration with this email.

If memory serves, I heard CH say in an interview once that Spitfire treats both the release and recording of a new sample library the same way a music artist treats an album. In any case, you can tell they do this from their website and how their libraries are laid out in an album-style format.

Nine Inch Nails released Year Zero by leaving random hard drives in bathroom stalls at their shows. Prince released Planet Earth by giving it away in the Sunday newspaper. Radiohead asked fans to pay what they like for In Rainbows. This SF email (to me) just feels like a continuation of the same kind artist-style marketing.

Maybe it’s simply a difference of taste but I can’t understand why it’s so upsetting to people.
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Don't get me wrong, I'm not quite in the direction of feeling the way Daniel James did about it, but it did seem to have crossed a certain barrier. Not necessarily bad though. I think it's good to have a sense of humor. I just don't think your examples fits with what happened. Regardless of whether it was genuine or not (Christian maintains he was just too excited to contain himself), it is difficult to see how it was anything but just a way to hype the upcoming release...kind of taking the "any publicity is good publicity" approach. But, I would like to assume it was genuine and spontaneous and not just some marketing ploy.
 
johnbusbymusic said:
I'm one of those that actually love the way Sweetwater handles their customer relations.
Spending money is a scary thing sometimes but should also be pleasant and having someone relate to you on a personal level to me trumps having to deal with a cold commercial machine, but that's just me

edit: it's dangerous putting "trump" in a sentence these days lol
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And I have no issue with the way Sweetwater does it either, as long as I can opt out, which they kindly let me do. I realize a lot of people like their approach, which is fine...

But yeah, you should probably say "has priority over" or something instead of using the "T" word. LOL.
 
Daniel James said:
For me it crossed into a personal space I never invited spitfire into-DJ
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This. With the amount of spam and phishing, among other things, it is hard to know what you are getting. Like I said, today's email would have sufficed, and honestly would have gotten great hype, without this type of negative feedback.

What is perhaps more interesting is their failure to engage us here. Hipsters don't make good business persons.

The argument that they approached it like at artist...yep you are correct. When we invite artists in, we know what we are getting into. When I invited Spitfire, I thought I was getting into a professional business service relationship.

I am their client, not their buddy. If they want me to be their buddy, they can send me libraries pro bono, and I will send them my music back the same way.
 
Guys, no need to get personal, I think. As to more than a few things in life: people simply reacted to this mail in a multitude of ways. Good arguments from all sides, and in the end Spitfire still makes terrific libraries (and has one of the best helpdesks, while we're at it...) and making music is still one of the best ways to spend your life.
Anyway, all these arguments against these prank got me thinking why I was not offended by it. I usually detest any unasked for commercial intrusion in my life, especially when addressed to as 'friend'. To me, this mail is not of the same variety. Its two guys sharing their enthousiasm, not directly at me. I never felt my space was intruded, so I thought it was a clever joke. I understand why some people could not appreciate it though, we all look at the world with different eyes.
It's probably best to write a song about this. Who's first?
 
synthpunk said:
Sure, Did you see the question about sending Christian or Paul a message with your concerns ?

Are there other developers who cross the conflict of interst line and criticize other developers like you do ? I do not seem to recall any. Maybe the YouTube hits have dried up?
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Ah come on... so you disagree with Daniel. Still no need to question his motives, especially not in this tone. He just stated and explained his opinion. You're arguing the man, not the topic.
 
This was a dodgy marketing move. As others pointed out, sending something like this without an opt out is just a $hit thing to do... It's frat boy marketing, email click-bait... It's also a really good way to turn customers away.

These are the kinds of stupid decisions companies make when they start letting outside money in... This has the smell of a marketing team all over it and it kinda stinks :shocked:
 
jcrosby said:
This was a dodgy marketing move. As others pointed out, sending something like this without an opt out is just a $hit thing to do... It's frat boy marketing, email click-bait... It's also a really good way to turn customers away.

These are the kinds of stupid decisions companies make when they start letting outside money in... This has the smell of a marketing team all over it and it kinda stinks :shocked:
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To be fair, it did have an opt-out footer as all email marketing should.
 
As a marketing ploy, it failed for me.
Since it looked like it wasn't for me, I deleted it pretty much immediately. And second, I'm a bit cautiously paranoid about clicking links I don't recognize from sources I don't recognize, so I definitely wasn't going to try.

So yeah, I didn't get the joke. :)

Rob
 
imo you exaggerate this topic to a ridiculous level. It was just e-mail. simple e-mail. let me repeat: e-mail. How you can feel so much offended by single, let me repeat: e-mail? :grin: I wonder when someone here will tell that is going to open case in court because this e-mail ruined his life. You ready don't have not even a bit (1 inch) of distance to life?

I can't believe that mature people can feel offended by e-mail to this level o_O
 
StillLife said:
Ah come on... so you disagree with Daniel. Still no need to question his motives, especially not in this tone. He just stated and explained his opinion. You're arguing the man, not the topic.
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I have to agree.
No need to be rude just because someone has a different opinion.
He was just trying to state his opinion constructively, like most of us are doing here.

I was expecting different people would take this differently.
I've read through various posts that share and also do not share the same opinion as me.
And I understand where the people are coming from whom took this unpleasantly. ("Understanding" and "Agreeing" are different btw)

At the end of the day, if everyone share the same opinion about every existing topic, it would be a hella boring world.
"At least for me!" =)
 
Are people really burned over this? I admit, I was rubbed at them posting footage of LCO members performing and holding off in a walk through until the 11th hour of the intro price (we weren't buying the LCO, just chopped up snippets of them playing a dozen ways). I figured it would have been obvious after just reading it what it actually was. It just looked too clean and deliberate to be anything else. But hey. It's SF. They've got incredible products and can get away with having fun and rubbing people the wrong way occasionally. Compared to East West, Waves, Acustica, etc. this is nothing.
 
givemenoughrope said:
Are people really burned over this?
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12 Pages of which every single one consists of someone saying how they felt burned over this and yet you still ask! let me answer for you...Yes, yes they do. I have explained multiple times why I feel that way, to people who keep asking why. As I explained this campaign rubbed me the wrong way but I am not nearly as mad as the amount of times I have repeated the same thing would suggest. Yet people keep asking why we reacted the way we have. Read one of the many posts beforehand that explains exactly what people keep asking then maybe we wont have to keep going round in circles. Like so:

"This rubbed me the wrong way" - "Wow are people really rubbed the wrong way" - "Yes here is why" - "Wow why are people complaining" - "I already said why but because..." - "It didnt bother me, why are people so mad" - "I already said but because...." - "HybridTwo Sucks" - "Fuck you" - "Im deleting comments" - "Wow people seem mad, why?" - "I already said why but because....." - "Jeeze a lot of hostility here, Why are people so mad" - "I already said but because....." - "This is really funny, I don't get why people don't like it" - "I already said why but its because" etc etc etc.

Some people really didn't like it, and have explained AT LENGTH why. Not really much point keep asking why or acting surprised. Just read the fucking thread ;)

-DJ
 
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