Anyone know what happened to Kjaerhus Audio? And what does it mean for VC64 Sonar plugin?

Hi Guys,

I was just talking with a client and suggested he check out Kjaerhus Audio plugins for his home studio. Then we discovered the domain is expired and the website is gone -- http://www.kjaerhusaudio.com -- (at least as of the time of this post). That was pretty shocking. Made me wonder what was going on with them -- they had some excellent products. In fact, Cakewalk's own VC64 Vintage Channel plugin is essentially a reskinned version of Kjaerhus' Golden Channel plugin. So that makes me wonder what's going on with VC64 as well.

If Kjaerhus has been having troubles or in the process of changing (for whatever reason) and/or perhaps was on the verge of going out of business (pure speculation), that would at least explain why VC64 was never updated to x64. I've been wondering what Cakewalk was going to do with Sonar 9 and finally updating VC64.... which seems a bit overdue by now.

Anyway, would love to know if anyone knows what's going on. Would be a shame to lose such a fine plugin developer, if that's what happened.

Or, maybe we can hope that Cakewalk loved VC64 so much, as well as their other plugins, that Cakewalk might have just up and bought the rights to Kjaerhus plugins for inclusion in Sonar 9. :)

This discussion has been going on for a few months over at the KVR forums; downright nasty at times.  I think there was some mention of health and financial problems.  It's a shame it's gone since all of his plugs were very highly rated.  Maybe if Cakewalk steps in and takes the plugs over at least they can "live on" in some way.

MarlboroMan23


This discussion has been going on for a few months over at the KVR forums; downright nasty at times. 

well yer, if they are ill or just have money problems.. fair enough.. but in the case of superwave's vanishing act, the "ill feeling" was justly deserved.. they came back now, fair enough, but years later.

I'm sure cakewalk have direct contact with them anyway , so I wouldn't worry.

I agree about the authorization issue. I think if Kjaerhus is out of business for good (which I sincerely hope is NOT the case), then some provision should be made to allow people who have purchased the plugins to continue to receive authorization, at least for a little while longer, with a known cut-off date, instead of this surprising blackout. Someone as talented as the Kjaerhus team should be able to cook up some sort of simple authorization program (if they don't already have one) and at least provide an email address for a year or two for final, manual authorizations. Seems like a reasonable, responsible thing to do, after you've put so many years of hard work into it.

The question specifically related to Sonar is what happens with VC64... and by extension, whatever other plugins Cakewalk licenses or inclusion with Sonar. VC64 is already NOT x64 (as well all know, it requires BitBridge) and that raises questions as to its future. I've already stopped using it since it's not x64, but I was looking forward to the next "generation" of it. But now that it appears -- at least for now -- that Kjaerhus is no longer in business, I would be concerned about updates, unless Cakewalk has the source code (which I hope they do, but for some reason I doubt). It also makes me think twice about Cakewalk's approach to licensing third-party plugins without some deeper, longer-term relationship with the developers, and some sort of protection from this type of event -- it seems like Cakewalk has different models of working with third-party developers... like in the case of Rene, he's been involved in other excellent Cakewalk plugins and I believe he is actually partially or fully employed by Cakewalk now (correct me if I'm wrong)...  and I believe with Sonitus, Cakewalk actually has the source code in-house, if I'm not mistaken. However, with VC64 I get the impression it was a reskinned license only, which means we may be out of luck.

I understand such things happen, and are unfortunate. No one can predict the future. I just hope we see the Kjaerhus team back again. They clearly had something special to offer. At least, I hope all is well with their personal lives -- who knows, but sometimes "life happens" so I wish them well.

That stinks.  I was just on their website about a week ago, but I knew it had been fairly inactive for a while.  Besides the VC64, I also have their Golden Modulator which I love.  It's extremely versatile and sounds really good.  The free "Classic" plugs are pretty good too.

SilkTone


Sad. I just downloaded a few of their plugins just last week...

I think if a company like this goes out of business they should just release all their plugins for free (and remove the protection). It is not as if they are going to lose any money doing that, but it will at least give those that paid for their products a chance not be left out in the cold with plugins that can no longer be authorized.

In effect you are correct, they may not lose any money. But businesses have a life of their own, and it is not unusual to find that what is left of a company's assets at the conclusion of business is still owned by someone (company creditors, owners estates etc.) who has no real idea of how to carry on but no authority to give anything away.

The dark side of the licensed-not-owned business model is that it is usually not clear what if any recourse the licensee has when the licensor is gone. Nowhere in your Cakewalk license will you find any guarantee of ongoing support or service if Cakewalk goes belly-up. At least you could still run their software. With some of the digital rights management systems that require constant re-authorization, the software will cease to function or will die with the machine it was last installed on.

slartabartfast


... But businesses have a life of their own, and it is not unusual to find that what is left of a company's assets at the conclusion of business is still owned by someone (company creditors, owners estates etc.) who has no real idea of how to carry on but no authority to give anything away.

Exactly. The business, while it may (or may not) be "out of business" from our point of view, still exists as an entity with assets, and those assets (i.e.: intellectual property, code, artwork, marketing materials, website files, even things like mailing lists, etc.) have some sort of value. If the Kjaerhus developers are indeed no longer going to continue forward, then whoever owns the assets at least has the *potential* to sell those assets to some other company/individual. Alternatively, they also have the right to release it however else they want, including as open source software, etc....

One can hope that whoever actually owns the assets will at least make some deal so that those plugins can live on in some form, rather than just disappear off the face of the earth like that. Perhaps a company like Cakewalk is already in negotiation? But maybe we're getting ahead of ourselves. Has there even been a confirmation of what happened? Has the owner said something? I have googled, but haven't seen any official word... maybe I missed it. Maybe the owner is just really ill and just inadvertently let the domain name expire? There could be extenuating circumstances that we have no idea about. Anyway, no matter how you look at it, it's unfortunate for all involved.

eratu


It also makes me think twice about Cakewalk's approach to licensing third-party plugins without some deeper, longer-term relationship with the developers, and some sort of protection from this type of event -- 

...  and I believe with Sonitus, Cakewalk actually has the source code in-house, if I'm not mistaken. However, with VC64 I get the impression it was a reskinned license only, which means we may be out of luck.

I got the feeling with the newer -64 plugs (LP series, PX and VX) that Cake was moving to an all in-house plug-in development plan.  VC-64 and TL-64 may have been the last outsourced parts of Sonar along with Perfect Space.  Pretty sure Cakewalk bought Sonitus and owns the code fully now.

I remember way back at a Sonar 2 demo someone asked why Sonar didn't natively support VST and had to use the FXpansion wrapper.  The rep said the thinking at Cakewalk was why reinvent the wheel when we can just license the technology.  I imagine there is a long term plan to slowly phase out the licensing of other company's products.  I can see the pros and cons of both though.

check out this link

http://www.brothersoft.co...er/kjaerhus-audio.html

Cliff


edit - oops this is broken too, shame 
:-(

SF_Green


Garritan bought Giga off Tascam recently:

http://www.gigastudio.com/release.html

Wow, totally missed that one. Thanks for the heads up.

eratu

SF_Green


Garritan bought Giga off Tascam recently:

http://www.gigastudio.com/release.html

Wow, totally missed that one. Thanks for the heads up.

Anytime!
cheers

As in all intellectual property such as software. Someone will inherit or gain rights to the code for those plugins due to standing contracts or rights. New owners will be assigned control. Whether or not the genius behind the invention will continue, is another matter.

..dang. Some good stuff from them and they will be missed if in fact gone.

It's a brutal market. He had some good stuff. I only use a very small number of plugs, but GEQ-7 and GCO-1 are among them. But with people just being so incredibly tight wad'ish and other people just ripping off software with zero thought of the consequences and their being so many plugin companies and most folks not knowing good from bad, he just never seemed to be able to get his stuff enough respect to make it I guess.

Freddie H

... Sonar 9... ...and it will be packed with all kind of new goodies and GUI upgrades....

I hope not. We have enough goodies, IMO. I hope they spend a lot of time on professional workflow features and refining the main app. If VC64 dies an ignoble death and fades into the 32-bit limelight, that will be sad indeed, but I definitely don't want Cakewalk to be spending any time on creating a replacement in-house for now. Okay, maybe hire whatever is left of Kjaerhus (if they can find him) to recompile for an x64 version of the plugin, but PLEASE don't divert any important resources from workflow enhancements!

Adding more "goodies" is what got us into this situation in the first place. Fewer goodies, more focus on the main app!

Just my opinion. :)