List of sample developers terms of sales and issue management policies

Sampler and Sampling discussion (techniques, tips and tricks, etc.)
RELATED
PRODUCTS

Post

jancivil wrote: You're making easy-to-avoid mistakes here in your zeal. I would recommend cutting it out. This forum exists because of product and there's a nice balance (cf Vi Control, which IME lacks in). This is not balanced.
Exactly. This site exists solely because of the vendors which are named and shamed here. AND, this list includes subjective experiences, which could be completely wrong, depending on the person you ask. Really, i'd bite the apple, and live with a bad investment, instead of wasting your time on this.

Post

jancivil wrote:As to Impact Soundworks, a for instance here is I had bought Sitar Nation way back in the day, not more recently than 2009 and there was an update last year. My account did not reflect this (old email account/login and rebuilt website). I mentioned it here, and Andrew sorted me ASAP.

So here's two where I KNOW better than this list... and I've really rather avoided doing more here. Life is short and I'm old.

TheoM was banned repeatedly (then finally, permanently) for too much grief and petulance basically. Rants.

You're making easy-to-avoid mistakes here in your zeal. I would recommend cutting it out. This forum exists because of product and there's a nice balance (cf Vi Control, which IME lacks in). This is not balanced.
This gives fuel to the people like BONES in the 'NFR, why' thread.

I have had the very best support from VSL with no need to wonder about selling it. I could, there's a fee for it which isn't the lowest but that being the single consideration for user-friendly doesn't cut it as far as I'm concerned. Hearsay on EULA because 8DIO is going too far, I recommend to check your facts and your impulses.
I wanted to make a list that separate thoose that state and apply a strict no customer rights EULA from the devs that don't. But I have given this some thought and I think that it is better to just stick to the facts. If there is no written statements about exceptions or will to make settlements like say Zero-G have there is nothing for the consumer to rely on. I will change the list to only include published policies. That will make it much clearer. No developer ever have to rely on my mercy to plea for justice(and feel like we do as customers). As soon as I become aware of a new policy or statement posted I will update the list. And I believe there are enough of you out there to poke me when that happen to keep it from beeing outdated.

The result for now will be that most devs will end up listed in the unfriendly section, but that is sadly the way it looks for the fresh customer that is not deeply updated with current hearsay. If you swim with sharks you may be treated as one.

Post

chk071 wrote:
jancivil wrote: You're making easy-to-avoid mistakes here in your zeal. I would recommend cutting it out. This forum exists because of product and there's a nice balance (cf Vi Control, which IME lacks in). This is not balanced.
Exactly. This site exists solely because of the vendors which are named and shamed here. AND, this list includes subjective experiences, which could be completely wrong, depending on the person you ask. Really, i'd bite the apple, and live with a bad investment, instead of wasting your time on this.
Although OP obviously has ulterior motives imo their is some value in what he's trying to do. As saturated as the sample market is it could be helpful to potential customers to have a simplified list of vendors policies without having to read a long EULA, email support, or search a companies websites for policies. The first post could definitely use more diplomatic terms and listing companies as "customer unfriendly" isn't completely fair as it leads people to think about customer service rather than just sales policies.

People seem to be conflating terms of sale with customer service/support. Clearly plenty of companies could have great customer service while at the same time having undesirable terms of sale (that aren't even legal in EU in most cases). Chk is right that customer service is completely subjective and varies especially with larger companies who may have different people doing the job, but a companies stance on demos, refunds, & sales policies are clearly outlined somewhere for legal reasons.

I don't think companies should have to refund people if they simply find out they don't like a product or it doesn't meet their expectations imo it's up to the consumer to do proper research before buying, but if somebody buys a product that they can't demo that just doesn't work on their system or accidentally bought two licenses or the wrong format at checkout and can't get a refund or exchange for another format that's a company that I wouldn't want to give any of my money
http://drunk3nj3sus.blogspot.com/ < My blog
Free samples, presets, etc.

Post

Can we have 'customer' properly replaced with 'customer who bought a product but has no intention of keeping it' in the first post please.
Not all customers have selling what they've bought as their main priority when it comes to how they rate companies. The implication that its the sole important metric of how to rate a sample developer's treatment of their customers is entirely false.
Also, this thread isnt a 'list of sample developers terms of sales and issue management policies.' It isn't a list of any details, its a crude division into three sets of companies primarily on on the basis of a single quantifiable thing, ie resale. ( The 'sales statement' classification is speculative at best, there's no guaranteed correlation there with how companies will actually behave, so its effectively useless)
my other modular synth is a bugbrand

Post

A bunch of customers can have nice experiences with a developer while another bunch had poor experiences with the same developer. Listen to peoples opinions is not the way to go I think.

Stick to the facts about the developer and list their official policies, and EULA. If any developer have a tough EULA but in fact is very nice and helpful, then that developer should perhaps update their EULA to reflect that reality. It's even a good marketing move from them to do so.
Win 10 -64bit, CPU i7-7700K, 32Gb, Focusrite 2i2, FL-studio 20, Studio One 4, Reason 10

Post

ATN69 wrote:A bunch of customers can have nice experiences with a developer while another bunch had poor experiences with the same developer. Listen to peoples opinions is not the way to go I think.

Stick to the facts about the developer and list their official policies, and EULA. If any developer have a tough EULA but in fact is very nice and helpful, then that developer should perhaps update their EULA to reflect that reality. It's even a good marketing move from them to do so.
:tu:

That is the way the list is arranged now.

Post

drunken jesus wrote: Although OP obviously has ulterior motives imo their is some value in what he's trying to do. As saturated as the sample market is it could be helpful to potential customers to have a simplified list of vendors policies without having to read a long EULA, email support, or search a companies websites for policies. The first post could definitely use more diplomatic terms and listing companies as "customer unfriendly" isn't completely fair as it leads people to think about customer service rather than just sales policies.
No. I have been upfront from the start that I set out to make others aware of of 8Dios terms and how they refuse to discuss any kinds of solutions if you buy the wrong product. Others have projected their own perceptions of things on the matter and assumed that I posted this to get them to change their mind or something. I knew my money was lost. I did not expect this practise to be so common, but when that became clear to me I wanted to find out if there were companies with better terms that I can buy from in the future. And when I started to look into the matter I begun this list. The motive is still the same - to make it easier to other like me to see the different terms of different brands.

As for diplomatic, it says that it is a list of terms from the customers point of view regarding published policies.
drunken jesus wrote: People seem to be conflating terms of sale with customer service/support. Clearly plenty of companies could have great customer service while at the same time having undesirable terms of sale (that aren't even legal in EU in most cases). Chk is right that customer service is completely subjective and varies especially with larger companies who may have different people doing the job, but a companies stance on demos, refunds, & sales policies are clearly outlined somewhere for legal reasons.
So did I from the start. An attentive and helpful attitude may solve things long before terms come into play, but in the end if you don't get the good will it is the terms that matter. So I have editied out all subjective parts from this list. It is plain terms now.
drunken jesus wrote: I don't think companies should have to refund people if they simply find out they don't like a product or it doesn't meet their expectations imo it's up to the consumer to do proper research before buying, but if somebody buys a product that they can't demo that just doesn't work on their system or accidentally bought two licenses or the wrong format at checkout and can't get a refund or exchange for another format that's a company that I wouldn't want to give any of my money
It does help a bit if you can find honest reviews and try full demos in regards to avoiding bad products. I agree that could avoid some claims for refunds, but there is also the no reselling part. I have sold of synths and other great gear in the past. Not beacuse they were broken, but because I wanted to change my sound and needed it to fund new stuff. I much prefer dealing with companies that want to have happy customers and provide good terms for me if I for any reason feel like I want to stop using the product, sell it and use my money for something else.

Post

Just added Ridgid Audio to the friendly terms (14 days Money back guarantee). The list of positives is growing.

Post

I can´t help but suspect that somehow you "hope" (in lack of a more suitable word) that your apparent favorite foe 8DIO ends up somewhere at the bottom of the list - according to the logic that you come up with, and that is in line with your personal preferences.

And then? Would you then try to make them change their policies? Why would they, because of the revenue they may forgo because of 3 people on KVR unhappy with their EULA? I´m pretty sure that clauses like "All sales are final" have been evaluated (chances + risks) by business savvy people. But feel free to tell everyone how your own medium-sized company handles legal questions according to public forum opinion and fares reasonably well.

An EULA clause that says "All sales are final" is by definition not "customer unfriendly". If such a clause was added retrospectively after a purchase, it would be customer unfriendly. As it is, it´s just a business decision and every potential customer can weigh pros and cons of accepting such T&C and consequently buy or not.

I further predict that most of the experiences you´ll read about here are positive (even though people prefer to dwell on negatives) because most customers actually read contracts before making their choice. Or at least most people won´t whine and desperately try to steer public opinion in their favour.

Anyway, 99% of my interactions with sample library developers (and that includes more or less *all* of them... hey, now that I think of it, I spend too much money on sample libraries, but that´s besides the point!) were great:

Nice, helpful people who gave me exhaustive pre-sales answers, technical help beyond what was to be expected after the purchase and -yes!- even the occasional "you might trade that for something else, but don´t tell anyone". Because I usually ask nicely.

Post

No. I have zero hopes of 8Dio changing their way in any way. I tried asking them kindly several times, but that was like talking to a brick wall. I have all good experiences with others. It pissed me off that I did not see any signs of warnings about them before buying it. So I came to the conclusion that the only thing I could do was to inform other that may enter this hobby like me so they don't fall into that trap.

It would have been nice if 8Dio was alone to apply these customer unfriendly terms, but sadly they are not. None the less there are a few with good terms too choose from so it is up to you, me and other customers to decide where we want to spend our money.

It is likely the have calculated that they win on keeping the money from one sale, pissing off a first time customer and loosing all future sale. That math does not add up to me. I have a setup of Eurorack and in that I have two modules from two separate developers that has been a bit awkward to deal with, so I have bought nothing else from them. Others that have handled repairs and other issues well, well I have more of those. So that math does not add up to me. As I see this it is nothing but a loose loose situation and I don't wish anybody else to enter that.

I don't care if 8Dio will keep their policy or not. I will never ever deal with them again. And I will only deal with others with the same kind of terms if their products are on rock bottom sale price so I can afford loosing that money without any regret.

If ANY dev change their terms and I become aware of it I will update the list. And that goes both ways. It is just a list of stated terms as facts. No opinions and no rumours about "hey we have these terms but we may make an exception...".
epiphaneia wrote:I can´t help but suspect that somehow you "hope" (in lack of a more suitable word) that your apparent favorite foe 8DIO ends up somewhere at the bottom of the list - according to the logic that you come up with, and that is in line with your personal preferences.

And then? Would you then try to make them change their policies? Why would they, because of the revenue they may forgo because of 3 people on KVR unhappy with their EULA? I´m pretty sure that clauses like "All sales are final" have been evaluated (chances + risks) by business savvy people. But feel free to tell everyone how your own medium-sized company handles legal questions according to public forum opinion and fares reasonably well.

An EULA clause that says "All sales are final" is by definition not "customer unfriendly". If such a clause was added retrospectively after a purchase, it would be customer unfriendly. As it is, it´s just a business decision and every potential customer can weigh pros and cons of accepting such T&C and consequently buy or not.

I further predict that most of the experiences you´ll read about here are positive (even though people prefer to dwell on negatives) because most customers actually read contracts before making their choice. Or at least most people won´t whine and desperately try to steer public opinion in their favour.

Anyway, 99% of my interactions with sample library developers (and that includes more or less *all* of them... hey, now that I think of it, I spend too much money on sample libraries, but that´s besides the point!) were great:

Nice, helpful people who gave me exhaustive pre-sales answers, technical help beyond what was to be expected after the purchase and -yes!- even the occasional "you might trade that for something else, but don´t tell anyone". Because I usually ask nicely.

Post

GearNostalgia wrote:It pissed me off that I did not see any signs of warnings about them before buying it.
...
So I came to the conclusion that the only thing I could do was to inform other that may enter this hobby like me so they don't fall into that trap.
You IGNORED the "warning sign" which is called "EULA/business/license terms", and now you blame them for you ignoring it and call it a "trap" that they apply totally standard license terms which you ignored.

Contracts have clear rules exactly to avoid cases like this one: "Yeah, it says so in the contract, and I agreed to it but suddenly I don´t like it. Why can´t we change it all afterwards just because I say so?"... simple, because that´s no way of doing business in a sane manner.

Most customers who make the mistake of not reading what they agreed to generally at least have a sense of shame and don´t try to turn their own mistakes into some sort of personal vendetta against "evil contract clause traps" that "noone can see through". It´s an often-seen strategy for coping with one´s own mistakes though ("everyone would have made this particular mistake, because that´s really complicated").
GearNostalgia wrote: It would have been nice if 8Dio was alone to apply these customer unfriendly terms, but sadly they are not. None the less there are a few with good terms too choose from so it is up to you, me and other customers to decide where we want to spend our money.
...
It is likely the have calculated that they win on keeping the money from one sale, pissing off a first time customer and loosing all future sale.
Exactly: Check out the product. Check out the license. If you don´t like either aspect, don´t buy. You said it yourself. Simple, isn´t it?

The fact that you missed that step can´t be blamed on anyone but yourself. There´s no surprising, evil clause in the EULA that says stuff about sacrificing your firstborn or something. Just regular stuff that you obviously weren´t familiar with. Which is unfortunate for you but surely not something you can blame anyone else for.

And what you call "pissing you off" is the other party expecting you to stick to the contract based on their license terms (which you agreed to) instead of your own fantasy purchasing terms (which, I reckon, you didn´t negotiate with them before your purchase).

Post

If you own any VSL libraries and your eLicenser breaks or gets lost you have to pay 50% of your libraries to get your license back.

Post

Gear, did you ever respond to Tawnia and get the refund they offered?

Post

Native Instruments should be T3.

Post

Thank you for your time and efforts GearNostalgia. I also believe that explicit clarity and facilitating the understanding of such a basic criteria as Terms and Conditions, will help some of us users and potential customers in making better decisions in this varied field. I also value your receptiveness in improving the list.

Similarly, I would greatly welcome if someone starts a similar thread listing the actual recording bits and sample rate of existing libraries, a crucial information many times absent or hard to locate.
High Regards.

Post Reply

Return to “Samplers, Sampling & Sample Libraries”