Does BFD have a Future?

Entering into a 90-day subscription is a completely new contract (that we never agreed to, hence the dodgy legal aspect of this), not ‘nobody’s perfect’. ILok would be better than this.

I’ve been here since BFD1 too and I feel less positive about inMusic than ROLI, and that’s saying something. It just feels they’re only bothered about the bottom line and not at all about the consumer (I use that word intentionally, as im sure that’s how they see us).

1 Like

Before inMusic went under, they would have to deactivate/remove the 90 day reauthorization scheme, otherwise your BFD3 will cease to function and you’ll have lost everything you spent money on.

It would be ironic in the end and after all this time of users trying to get them to remove the 90 scheme, that they finally did get rid of it as they went under.

2 Likes

This is what I still(as of today) find on the Inmusic Website regarding license transfer. Please clarify:

Do you allow license transfers?

Yes, however:

  • If you’re the seller, you must contact us in advance of the sale. If you’re the prospective second-hand buyer, you must check that the seller is cleared to sell. If in doubt, contact us.
  • There is a flat $50 fee per product for a license transfer, which can be purchased from our online shop.
  • Review copies, NFRs (Not For Resale copies, sometimes used for in-store demos), etc., cannot be transferred under any circumstances.
  • We reserve the right to refuse a license transfer request.

Once a transfer is authorized and the fee has been paid, the new owner is entitled to exactly the same upgrade paths and technical support resources as if they had bought the product new.

[Back to top]

There’s still a solution if this happens.

I suspect this is another case of the website being out of sync and in need of properly updating.

Steve

Please explain? I’m not seeing a solution there.

We momentarily align to Lawful Evil instead of Lawful Good, worst thing that can happen is we end up Neutral. It’s the only situation that I justify it.

1 Like

Still not sure I follow? Regardless to whether we play along now, down the line if inMusic goes under, their servers will as well and therefor rendering BFD3 useless, as it will need to call home, but there’s nobody home.

1 Like

I’m talking about :pirate_flag:.

I am already using two plug-ins like this. I paid 300 + 300 for them. I was happily using them. One day I took my pretty boxes off the shelf and tried to install them to a new PC. But I couldn’t authorize no matter what. I did a google search, and it turns out I had been living under a rock, while the company had been changing hands several times, and at that time even the authorization server was put to sleep and remained unreachable. (This was quite some years ago, when plug-in maintenance and updates were not so regular, so I didn’t have a reason to ever check the plug-in’s website, everything just worked.) So, discussing this with an acquaintance of mine, who occassionally sports the peg-leg and eye-patch, he told me “Say no more.” And next time we met up, he gave me a stick with 2 1kB files in it. I put them in my folder, the plug-in worked, and I returned my pretty boxes to my shelf relieved.

I know this is illegal, and that EULAs say “Til EVEN AFTER death do us part”. Sorry, but I always cross my fingers at that paragraph, and THIS is the only situation where I justify this crap. Burn 600 euros because I was not prescient enough to recover auth files from the failed PC? (Would they even work if I just copied them over? I don’t think so.)

Those plug-ins are Wizoo’s Darbuka and Latigo. And the takeaway of this post is that Percussion and Drums stir passions within people. :laughing:

But this is completely irrelevant to BFD. BFD is in a MUCH better shape now than some years ago. (in my opinion always)

2 Likes

Now I gotcha. Sorry to be so obtuse. That’s always a possibility, but in that case it would be better to download all the K’d stuff now because all the links could be dead by the time you actually have to resort to that, unless you know someone who has the files.

In most cases that wouldn’t matter anyways because the auth files are likely tied to the machine. This is the conundrum with those hanging onto FXpansion BFD3. Sure, it will continue to work now, but when their servers finally shut down and your computer dies, so do those authorizations and they’ll be no way to re-authorize.

Sure, this is all hypothetical and negative thinking, but software companies and or their parent companies can/have gone under before, so it’s definitely a valid concern. If we were talking about a $50 plugin and that it, well then that’s a case when you just have to eat it I suppose. I had to do that with a few of my URS plugins and that still bugs me today. Lost $$ hundreds in software because they never adopted 64bit support. However, for a lot of BFD3 users, the dollar amount is easily in the hundreds and thousands, so that is a pretty sizable loss to take.

Getting back to my URS plugins. They are all on iLok and would still work today if I ran them on a supported 32bit system, even though the company is essentially no more. To me, that right there definitively shows the advantage of using iLok.

2 Likes

Nah, I’d never do that. It’s too morbid and pessimistic. I don’t even want to know what circulates around. IF the need arises, I’ll see what can be done.

Can’t you bridge them with jbridge or similar? If 32 bits is the problem? Or does the bridge nterfere with ilok in some way? I don’t have any experience with 32bit plugins and ilok.



For me it’s just not a question of money invested over a time period, even if this amount adds up to significant sum. It’s mainly loss of functionality, the need to find substitute products, IF they exist, AND become fluent at them (that can lead to more spending if one cannot attain the same level of expertise in the expected timeframe), add the frustration of forced change to the mix, it’s a disaster.

That’s the biggest problem for me. It’s as if I would open the case one day and my instrument wouldn’t play, but it couldn’t be fixed either, and the same model is not for sale anywhere anymore.

1 Like

I sold BFD and some extra libraries, over the Summer (Since re-bought). i can tell you that at least at that time, inMusic confirmed that they don’t charge the fee. And indeed I wasn’t charged any fees for the sale. Seems to have been some weird hang-over idea from the software hand-over. but I was assured that since the acquisition nobody had been charged for a sale.

Not sure why they’ve not changed the information…unless they have actually now changed their policy :wink:

Nah. Website needs a kick up the backside. It’s wrong. We don’t charge license transfers anymore. I’ll get them to update that. FWIW, I advocated for getting rid of them at FXpansion, to no avail. ROLI too.

4 Likes

True, not to mention a waste of drive space. I think at that point I’d probably just move on. I don’t have much more faith in K’d stuff as I do with inMusic.

I’ve tried using JBridge in the past, but it’s been too buggy in my experience. Some plugins behave better than others. On top of that, working with Pro Tools, the bridged plugins have to go in an aax wrapper as well. Too clunky, too many windows. It didn’t affect iLok that I can recall.

To your last points… yeah the whole finding, learning and incorporating a new drum VI into one’s workflow is not something I’d look forward to, especially after having been setup pretty well with BFD3 now.

You sold everything and then came back months later? What’s the story there?

1 Like

Same reason I’m on my 3rd Marshall Satriani JVM and Diezel D-Moll. We’re addicted!! :rofl:

3 Likes

Feeling this

1 Like

I live in San Francisco and take my guitars to Gary Brawer Guitars when I need work done. It’s a cool little hole-in-the-wall of a place, but I had heard it was the best shop in town. When I went to pickup my Tele after having some work done, the guy at the counter grabbed it from between a bunch of 7 guitars all of which had masking tape with ‘Satriani’ on it, so I asked if that was indeed Joe, knowing he was local, and it was. Small recompense for the rent I pay here, but I take what I can get!

1 Like

I was once in a pub in North London, waiting to be picked up for a band practice. Some random guy came up and wanted to check out my cheap £90 eBay Jazz bass guitar. He claimed he was the bassist for Jamiroquai. To this day I don’t know if he really was, or if he was just some 11am drunkard having me on.

:rofl:

3 Likes

Sweet! My other brush with greatness was from High School. I was playing keyboards in a band that never went anywhere at all - we did one, 3 song, public performance. But the guitarist was a friend and he was the best player in the band by far. Anyway, he managed to blow his amp out, and asked if he could borrow mine to practice. I had saved up the previous summer and bought an Ampeg G-212 for my little Hohner electric piano, so it was a pretty good amp and cost me a fair bit of money. Well, he blew that out somehow too, and before I could strangle him, he convinced me he knew a guy who could fix it. We lived in Maryland on the Chesapeake Bay right across from Annapolis and the guy’s sister was dating a guy in Annapolis who my buddy said could fix it. So we loaded up my amp and went over to this tiny loft apartment in downtown Annapolis and the guy’s place was filled with blocks of wood and half-finished guitar bodies and necks. He was pretty nice and kind of a quiet guy, and he had a finished guitar that was absolutely beautiful. He played a little of Bohemian Rhapsody for us (and killed it - he was good!) and then had me haul up my amp and he agreed to fix it, as a favor for his girlfriend’s little brother. His name was Paul Reed Smith. This was 1978 and he was just starting his guitar business by himself.

3 Likes