Originally Posted By: eddie1261
<...snip...> A lot of the diehards with any product, be it Sonar, Ableton, whatever... need to remember that once a program fades in popularity, there comes a point where YOU may be the last person alive who cares. <...>


I went through that with Master Tracks Pro. Microsoft bought Passport Designs for a bit of the technology to use in Power Point. Then sold the rest of the company to GVox. GVos cared about Encore (notation) and did a buggy version of MTPro, fixed a few of the bugs, and then abandoned it, promising to release a new version year after year after year.

I don't know if I was the last one who cared, but after a few years of promises, I figured it isn't going to happen and quit checking.

I like it because it has good features, a groove filter, and is only a MIDI sequencer. Without the complexity of adding audio it loads fast, and has every menu dialog box available with a hover and click. No menus with sub menus that have sub-sub menus. And everything snaps to the screen instantly. In other words, I can keep my hands on my MIDI controllers (wind, keys, drums) more and on the computer less.

But how are you going to upgrade a product like that every year after year after year to keep the cash flow going? That's what killed Master Tracks Pro.

BTW, Eddie, I'm on Wife 2.0 and I got lucky with that one, she's a keeper.

Labor in the US is less than labor overseas, and in many places overseas factories are allowed to pollute so they don't have the expense of cleaning up their waste. The two of these combined make it difficult for manufacturers to sell US instruments. I can't get a pro saxophone made in the US, and I don't even know of any non-pro saxes made here. My USA Parkers were expensive, about 3 times as much as the Chinese Parkers, and as a pro who uses the tools to make my living I appreciate the hardened stainless steel frets, better quality switches, and other things that will make the guitar more reliable under heavy use, but for the average user is it worth it? My Korean Epiphone Casino is about 90% as good as my Gibson ES-330 and at about 1/4 the cost.

So I have 2 Parker solid body guitars and 2 Gibson/Epiphone hollow electrics. Do I need more? Not me. They are tools, not collectables. They are going to get played, played hard, and are already pretty beat up. I'll beat them until they are no longer dependable and reasonably repairable and only then buy a new one.

This doesn't help the cash flow nor the value of any corporation's stock. I use D'Addario strings, they have the chiclets item, and they get money from me monthly. So does their Rico saxophone reed division.

In retrospect, I don't think the lifetime upgrade for one flat rate was a good idea for Gibson/Cakewalk. Cakewalk has been around since the pre-Windows DOS days, and it's sad to see them go. But things that can't generate constant income are destined to die when they go corporate.

Notes

Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
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