I was quite upset by the fact that MC6 touch came out around 20 days after I purchased MC6, but free upgrades are only available for MC6 Boxed version customers. Why the discrimination between downloading customers and boxed version customers? Are we not buying the same product regardless of distribution method?

leebut


I was quite upset by the fact that MC6 touch came out around 20 days after I purchased MC6, but free upgrades are only available for MC6 Boxed version customers. Why the discrimination between downloading customers and boxed version customers? Are we not buying the same product regardless of distribution method?

Clarification: Free only to boxed customers who purchase AFTER May 24th. Official details here: http://www.cakewalk.com/P...ator/free-upgrade.aspx

***

I don't work in marketing, but my understanding of how the promotion works is that if you buy the boxed version, you pay more since ultimately you're paying for shipping (~ 9.95). If you buy the download version, you pay less.

So boxed purchases after this date get a free upgrade, download purchases can upgrade for a very minimal cost which is for the most part equivalent to the shipping cost of the boxed version. 

The upgrade cost to upgrade from Music Creator 6 to Music Creator 6 Touch is only 9.99 GBP. It looks like you paid less from the start (29.99 GBP) so even paying for the upgrade you'd be getting it for the same price we're currently offering. 

Sorry for any confusion on this. I hope that helps clarify.

Hello Ryan,


Thank you for responding. It's good to see some Cakewalk representation in the forum.


What I don't like is buying a product that was knowingly by Cakewalk going to be obsolete in less than a month. It was £29.99 because it was in the monthly specials section, so not the standard retail price. The sale price does not create a product any different to that of the former price.


Downloading means less cost to Cakewalk as well (no printing and packaging, no CD/DVD production), so to give special treatment for those who paid for a box and shipping is not a good thing to do. If they are paying an extra £9.99 for packaging and shipping,  they still didn't pay any extra for the software, which in reality means that both types of consumer have paid the same amount for the software. Forcing download customers to pay for a virtual box and shipping is ridiculous. The product is the SOFTWARE not the box. If the software is the same, then both types of customer should have the same treatment. You can't upgrade a box! Furthermore, why is  the upgrade a download and not a boxed version? After all, they paid for a box, right?

We are in a digital world these days, so please stop discriminating against those who save your company money and making doing business easier.

I was seriously considering upgrading to Sonar X2 this week because MC6 doesn't do what it was described to do (including what's in it's own help files), but I'm really not sure now. Very strange business practice. I wouldn't want to be a second-class  download  customer of a more expensive product.

Thank you and best regards,

Lee.

Ryan Munnis [Cakewalk
]

leebut


I was quite upset by the fact that MC6 touch came out around 20 days after I purchased MC6, but free upgrades are only available for MC6 Boxed version customers. Why the discrimination between downloading customers and boxed version customers? Are we not buying the same product regardless of distribution method?

Clarification: Free only to boxed customers who purchase AFTER May 24th. Official details here: http://www.cakewalk.com/P...ator/free-upgrade.aspx

***

I don't work in marketing, but my understanding of how the promotion works is that if you buy the boxed version, you pay more since ultimately you're paying for shipping (~ 9.95). If you buy the download version, you pay less.

So boxed purchases after this date get a free upgrade, download purchases can upgrade for a very minimal cost which is for the most part equivalent to the shipping cost of the boxed version. 

The upgrade cost to upgrade from Music Creator 6 to Music Creator 6 Touch is only 9.99 GBP. It looks like you paid less from the start (29.99 GBP) so even paying for the upgrade you'd be getting it for the same price we're currently offering. 

Sorry for any confusion on this. I hope that helps clarify.

leebut


Hello Ryan,


Thank you for responding. It's good to see some Cakewalk representation in the forum.


What I don't like is buying a product that was knowingly by Cakewalk going to be obsolete in less than a month. It was £29.99 because it was in the monthly specials section, so not the standard retail price. The sale price does not create a product any different to that of the former price.


Downloading means less cost to Cakewalk as well (no printing and packaging, no CD/DVD production), so to give special treatment for those who paid for a box and shipping is not a good thing to do. If they are paying an extra £9.99 for packaging and shipping,  they still didn't pay any extra for the software, which in reality means that both types of consumer have paid the same amount for the software. Forcing download customers to pay for a virtual box and shipping is ridiculous. The product is the SOFTWARE not the box. If the software is the same, then both types of customer should have the same treatment. You can't upgrade a box! Furthermore, why is  the upgrade a download and not a boxed version? After all, they paid for a box, right?

We are in a digital world these days, so please stop discriminating against those who save your company money and making doing business easier.

I was seriously considering upgrading to Sonar X2 this week because MC6 doesn't do what it was described to do (including what's in it's own help files), but I'm really not sure now. Very strange business practice. I wouldn't want to be a second-class  download  customer of a more expensive product.

Thank you and best regards,

Lee. 

Hi Lee,

It's definitely not obsolete, but I understand what you're saying. 

I don't necessarily think anyone at Cakewalk is trying to discriminate against any particular group of customers. The other side of that coin is someone who is upset about paying more for a boxed version then a person who paid for a download, or a person upset that they went to their local brick and mortar store and felt mislead because the only boxed version on the shelf was last years product. In other words, someone who purchases a download today has an option, someone who purchases a box does not. Also, we do not serve up downloads to people who buy boxed versions of our software. So if you buy a boxed version of Music Creator 6, you won't have a download in your account. People who buy boxed copies often feel we're leaving them out of the fun :)

Anyhow, I'm just doing my best to explain it since the perspective could easily be the opposite and often is exactly that.

There's always more to the story and I'm sure a lot more that I don't understand when it comes to contractual obligations with 3rd party vendors etc. 

At the end of the day though, I really do think Cakewalk is trying to offer a good deal to those who want to upgrade from Music Creator 6 to Music Creator 6 Touch. Often times we do not even offer an upgrade path for Music Creator customers. Typically people must pay full price for the newest version of Music Creator. I'd be hard pressed to believe that we're making any profit off that upgrade. 

There actually is a cost involved in serving up downloadable versions of products, and I think many people would be quite surprised to learn how much this can add up to with each download of large files like these. Every time someone downloads a product from their account, which some people do multiple times, it costs money to Cakewalk. This can actually end up costing us more then the price of manufacturing a box and the price of that upgrade.

Anyhow, your feedback is actually very valuable and I do thank you for taking the time to share. I don't make these types of calls here at Cakewalk but I'll be sure to pass your feedback along.

Hello Ryan,


Thank you for helping.


Boxed customers don't need a download because they have a tangible product (disc) in their possession. Besides NEW boxed MC6 customers are being offered a download account to get their free download upgrade from. Either way, download or boxed, they have purchased the same software product, but boxed gets more benefits: a FREE upgrade and a download account, while existing customers who had their product for less than a month get forgotten. Thanks to those who made that decision.


Offering  multiple downloads can be a strain on resources, which is why I guess other companies restrict the number of downloads a customer can make. Either that or companies offer an extended download service for a fee. Maybe that's also why I see Amazon's web services being used more. In other words, it's the customer's responsibility to back-up their original download, which is what they should be doing anyway.

Anyway, thank you for assisting.

All the best,

Lee.

Ryan Munnis [Cakewalk
]

leebut


Hello Ryan,


Thank you for responding. It's good to see some Cakewalk representation in the forum.


What I don't like is buying a product that was knowingly by Cakewalk going to be obsolete in less than a month. It was £29.99 because it was in the monthly specials section, so not the standard retail price. The sale price does not create a product any different to that of the former price.


Downloading means less cost to Cakewalk as well (no printing and packaging, no CD/DVD production), so to give special treatment for those who paid for a box and shipping is not a good thing to do. If they are paying an extra £9.99 for packaging and shipping,  they still didn't pay any extra for the software, which in reality means that both types of consumer have paid the same amount for the software. Forcing download customers to pay for a virtual box and shipping is ridiculous. The product is the SOFTWARE not the box. If the software is the same, then both types of customer should have the same treatment. You can't upgrade a box! Furthermore, why is  the upgrade a download and not a boxed version? After all, they paid for a box, right?

We are in a digital world these days, so please stop discriminating against those who save your company money and making doing business easier.

I was seriously considering upgrading to Sonar X2 this week because MC6 doesn't do what it was described to do (including what's in it's own help files), but I'm really not sure now. Very strange business practice. I wouldn't want to be a second-class  download  customer of a more expensive product.

Thank you and best regards,

Lee. 

Hi Lee,

It's definitely not obsolete, but I understand what you're saying. 

I don't necessarily think anyone at Cakewalk is trying to discriminate against any particular group of customers. The other side of that coin is someone who is upset about paying more for a boxed version then a person who paid for a download, or a person upset that they went to their local brick and mortar store and felt mislead because the only boxed version on the shelf was last years product. In other words, someone who purchases a download today has an option, someone who purchases a box does not. Also, we do not serve up downloads to people who buy boxed versions of our software. So if you buy a boxed version of Music Creator 6, you won't have a download in your account. People who buy boxed copies often feel we're leaving them out of the fun :)

Anyhow, I'm just doing my best to explain it since the perspective could easily be the opposite and often is exactly that.

There's always more to the story and I'm sure a lot more that I don't understand when it comes to contractual obligations with 3rd party vendors etc. 

At the end of the day though, I really do think Cakewalk is trying to offer a good deal to those who want to upgrade from Music Creator 6 to Music Creator 6 Touch. Often times we do not even offer an upgrade path for Music Creator customers. Typically people must pay full price for the newest version of Music Creator. I'd be hard pressed to believe that we're making any profit off that upgrade. 

There actually is a cost involved in serving up downloadable versions of products, and I think many people would be quite surprised to learn how much this can add up to with each download of large files like these. Every time someone downloads a product from their account, which some people do multiple times, it costs money to Cakewalk. This can actually end up costing us more then the price of manufacturing a box and the price of that upgrade.

Anyhow, your feedback is actually very valuable and I do thank you for taking the time to share. I don't make these types of calls here at Cakewalk but I'll be sure to pass your feedback along.

 

Vancheng,


There is steam support in the product. Patches are indeed delivered through Steam, in fact we've already had 1 patch. Steam logs Music Creator 6 Touch hours played. You will need to set your library to 'programs' instead of games to see Music Creator 6 Touch. This is common for applications downloaded through Steam.

Music Creator 6 and Music Creator 6 Touch have different sample content because we decided to include a better Amplifier simulator and we did not feel that the original included content from Music Creator 6 was up to quality standards for this release.

Thank you, Seth. Much obliged. I was blind =)


This is great to feel support from cakewalk

My confusion on the boxed vs download came from earlier versions (MC5) which did have more content on the disk due to the sample sizes involved. 

I guess they have eliminated that issue in the MC6 DL now. 

Sorry for the confusion on that specific. 

I have to say I am VERY disappointed to find out that a feature of MC6 was not included in my recently purchased MC6 touch. I watched the tutorial video about loops and was very excited to try this feature out, only to find out through this thread that it isn't even available to me. This was an awesome feature and should have been included, but there is no accounting for idiot marketing. You should at least put a disclaimer on the video saying this option not available on MC6 touch. Poor handling of this situation does not give me much faith in the coping abilities of this company. None the less, you got my money, so I guess that's all that matters to you guys. Sad.
 
Sterling
 
PS: Also curious as to why you would include all the templates (with the sound blocks) if it wasn't even something we could use in MC6 touch?