Credit where credit is due!

I’ve been one of the harshest critics of the licensing system but it’s time to say a huge thank you, most especially to @BFD_Drew

My BFD3 has been working flawlessly for a few weeks now, and Drew has sorted my serial for the BFD2 content.

I sincerely hope that Drew is extremely well paid! I hope the Directors of the company read these posts. Perhaps Drew is even a director himself? He should be.

A great example of how ONE person can save an entire brand. Drew’s patience and forbearance over this absolute nightmare licensing issue has been exemplary. It must have been incredibly stressful to start each working day with such a negative barrage of criticism. I truly hope the licensing issues are behind us now (I know there are still some people suffering, let’s hope they get their systems sorted soon). But even if there are problems in the future, I for one will give InMusic the benefit of the doubt and trust that the problems are being dealt with.

Kudos Drew!

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Well the licensing issues aren’t behind many of us until they drop the 30-day phone home crap. Even if it works flawlessly, many don’t want it in the first place. Look at what happened to Steinberg recently when they said they were going to implement a similar idea.

Sorry to be a Debbie Downer on this, Drew’s a good guy but I feel the bean counters are the ones implementing the negative stuff. All trust here is gone - I’m constantly looking at other solutions for my drum requirements these days.

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Its 90 days now, small progress but progress is being made. We need to keep on moaning about this shit so the higher ups see customers arent happy. The problem is that in the meantime, BFD will be bleeding old users and putting off new customers.

Its a real shame to watch.

Did Steinberg get a load of hassle for their new stance?

Yes of course the phone home thing is still an issue. But a few months ago I was simply unable to use BFD3, so we are getting somewhere. Steinberg faced a deluge of criticism when they announced their phone home replacement to the dongle, and did an about turn almost immediately. However, their user base is enormous and encompasses a lot of very well known professionals (not least Hans Zimmer). BFD Drums is so much smaller and no doubt they are paranoid at potential cracking losses.

But I agree entirely the phone home is not the way to go. There will always be folks who won’t pay for software - the trick is to balance the losses against a loyal user base who will pay. We can’t compare Steinberg’s revenues to even the most optimistic revenue for BFD, so I do understand why they’re trying to find the most leak-proof way of protecting their interests. Once you’ve bought BFD and maybe an extension or two, that’s the end of the revenue stream really - there’s a limit to the functionality of a VSTi after all. Drums is drums!

From the dialogue on the Steinberg forums (particularly Dorico) there was a lot of talk about the fraudulent use of credit cards in buying the software, and also the fact that a huge part of the world doesn’t have anything like the income levels of the rest - meaning that the price of premium software is several months wages. Problem for software companies then is that there really isn’t a viable market in many territories, yet the demand is there. And once it gets cracked for those markets…As a percentage of InMusic’s revenue BFD is not up there alongside the Akai, Alesis and Denon brands, so they’re not going to devote a lot of money to solving a problem that for them is solvable simply by making customers phone home. Don’t like it, don’t want it, but they show no signs of backing down completely. Fact is BFD is simply head and shoulders above every other drum VSTi, so if you wannit - ya gotta go with it! As I said, I’m happy that the darn thing is working again finally, so licensing issues are less of a bother now. And in the end the easiest way to keep your customers happy is to provide a wonderful product that just works every time you plug it in.

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Scardanelli

Good comment.

But as usual the customer comes last - profit is king.

But at least most of us can use the product for the time being.

Sadly a lot of customers have been let down very badly. Some still can’t use the product.

As much as I didn’t want to - I’ve had to finish my last three albums with Superior drummer (nothing wrong with superior it’s just not 100% my bag).

I’m reluctant to start any other projects with BFD at the moment.

Once everyone starts to go down this route I’m not sure badly treated customers will return no matter how good the program. (and for me BFD was/is the best).

I’d like to see all this resolved, as would others. It should have been sorted pre launch InMusic.

But we don’t live in an ideal world.

Neil

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SO here’s the thing - just installed update Cubase 11 Pro on my MacBook and tried to run BFD3 - had one of those “OH NO! here we go again” moments as it wanted to log me in and authorise, which I did, but still BFD did not see that - BUT, ran the licensor app, which told me that BFD3 needed updating to version 3.4.3.7 - after installing and updating Licensor App all worked fine. I hadn’t tried to use BFD on the MacBook for some time so had not noticed that it was out of date.

So, whatever else, that does prove that the very latest versions are working properly (at least on my system) which means there is active development going on, presumably to sort these log-on issues out. Anyone with licensing issues should check that they are in fact running the latest versions.

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BFD3 has been working fine for me since the last hot-fix for the LM. I’ve been offline a few times this past week and no checks/de-authorizing. I don’t remember when Drew posted the LM hot-fix in a thread, but it’s been well over 30 days.

That said, I still don’t feel comfortable investing more in this product at this time, even though I could use a couple expansions. That’s a shame too with the sale going on now, but inMusic is not exactly inspiring confidence atm.

And I surely won’t be installing the next update straight away. I have multiple open projects with BFD3 and can’t risk it going wonky on me, before I print to audio tracks.

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Yup. I’m just now looking for deals on a Pearl Mimic Pro as an expensive buyout and escape from BFD, which I’ve used and loved for 10 years. I expect most people will need more than what even a top shelf hardware module will provide, but I think it may cover me, so I’ll take the out if I can make it work.

I’m still on the pre-InMusic version of BFD, never having dared to go through what people have had to go through. Even so, several months ago, the damn thing started popping up two false “package not found” dialogues every time an instance is opened. Multiple instances aren’t always a matter of multiple sets of popups—which is bad enough—but frequently an endless cycle of these popups that can only be killed via a task manager so that I’ve been limited to one instance of BFD for the past year. A hardware module would also be just one instance, but I wouldn’t actually be sacrificing anything given the present chaos.

Meanwhile, the popups stopped a few days ago, and I just tested multiple instances, and lo and behold! they’re fine again. But I’d already allocated the funds for the Mimic Pro, and seeing as how 1) this newfound stability could go away again at any time, and 2) I still don’t have the stones to try upgrading, I gotta figure wtf and try out a new hardware device. I do have a Roland TD-50, and though I kind of like its synthetic flavor in many situations, I need a full spectrum VSTi as my bread and butter, and the Mimic Pro looks worth the try.

I’ve kinda gone in a similar direction, but I wont be leaving BFD behind, I just want to be less tied to the PC for drums, so I’ve bought a sampler and multiple drum machines. All the hassle with BFD LM has made me realise that not only would I like to not be tied to the PC so much, but also not rely solely on one drum app/vsti.

Going the drum machine route, in my case, means I’m not trying to find a competing set of drum sounds, not trying to replace BFD but just use different things. Thankfully that opens up the options, as I’m not just trying to find the best acoustic drum sounds I can.

My sampler is currently full of static and electromagnetic interference used as drum kits :slight_smile:

I should have mentioned: my primary need is for live performance. If there’s a passable hardware module, then getting away from the computer is an end in itself. The TD-50 is barely passable, and sometimes not.

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Similar here, which is why I dont wanna leave BFD behind, and why I have my TINY BFD! project of getting BFD running on a Raspberry Pi :slight_smile:

I think the issue BFD and others will face is that hardware is back in a big way, and if someone comes out with a bit of kit that sounds as good as BFD, thats gonna really make it tricky to justify the phoning home crap. Especially when prices are likely to be similar.

I know which product would get my attention these days, and its not the software that insists on checking up on me.

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I know some people here are opposed to anything connected to ilock, but I’ve found that the machine based version (no dongle involved) seems to work pretty flawlessly. Why can’t they just do that? Certainly preferable to this ongoing authorization psychodrama.

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WHAT?! if you need beta testers…

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agreed. hope this trend continues. Love BFD’s sounds!

Superior Drummer is well worth the money. I think their drums sound very good. Not as raw and wonderful as BFD but still awesome. Hansa Studio and Decades are two of my favorites. Still, there is something fantastic about BFS’s symbols… Just great sounding.

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