Some here may have seen that I've had a number of issues with Play (EastWest's sampler), and bought Kontakt to solve my problems and so on. I also tried to see if I could get a solution on the forums, with no success. It is amusing because their support forums are locked down, only people who are verified owners can see them and post in them, and the'll move anything remotely tech support related form other forums. Ostensibly the reason is to stop piracy, but of course their Play plugins are not cracked. The real reason is so that people can't see all the bugs their software has.
 
At any rate nothing suggested there was a help, but whatever. I also noticed a few other posts from people having Play issues similar to mine, and particularly mentioning the old NI versions working fine. So I noted that I too was having trouble, and that my observation was that Play did have trouble where Kontakt didn't. I also let them know things that had mitigated some of the problems. I was nice about it, never hated on EastWest or the like, just let them know my experience.
 
The result? They quietly disabled my account from being able to post. No communication or anything, just when I went to post to someone today, the account can't do it.
 
I'm not at all surprised, but I figured I'd share it with people here. Doug Rogers (the guy who owns EW) seems to be exceedingly thin skinned about Play's issues. As far as he's concerned it is the most powerful sampler out there and people shouldn't be talking bad about it. He's sure of this because he has the best programmers (he's said this). It would seem that if you suggest to someone that Play might be problematic, and say you personally are holding off on any new EW purchases until it is fixed, that is enough to get you silenced.
 
I am just struck by the contrast to the Cakewalk forums, where problems are out in public, for all to see, people are sometimes downright mean and they still tolerate it generally, and people freely talk about competing products (like ProTools) and that is all ok.
 
Makes me like Cakewalk all the more and makes me completely resolute to never let EW see another dollar.

That's messed up.  I've received decent tech support from them but they're seriously paranoid.  You can't even mention another product over there.  Still what you describe is extreme even for them.  Have you contacted them to ask the reason?  Did you post in the support forum?

I can't post in the support forum (or any forum anymore) and I'm not going to bother to contact them. I really don't care, as I said I'm done with their products. I just want to make people here aware of the issues I've had with the, both technical and otherwise, so they can consider that if they are considering purchasing EW products. Their loss is NI's gain, the $1000ish I've spend on Kontakt and related libraries recently would have gone to them for the Complete Composers Collection otherwise.
 
They are just an extremely bad tech company. It is sad, because they make top notch sounds, but they fail at being a technology company. The real problem is the paranoia of their founder. That is actually the whole reason they made Play. Not because they needed something Kontakt couldn't do, or because it is cheaper to not pay the license fee (making your own software is really expensive) but because they wanted iLok DRM. They are convinced that the end game is preventing piracy, not making more sales.
 
So like I said, I'm letting people know. Also taking time to appreciate Cakewalk, how there is a big thread in the most popular forum about a problem with the 64-bit mix engine. There isn't any threats to ban, no moving it to a "super sekert" hidden forum, nope, people get to discuss it, the devs weigh in, and life goes on. That is software done right.

It's a shame they're that way.  I have SO Gold with the extra mic positions and it sound absolutely incredible but I also hesitate to get to lock into that company.

vintagevibe
It's a shame they're that way.  I have SO Gold with the extra mic positions and it sound absolutely incredible but I also hesitate to get to lock into that company.

Ya I'd been an EW fanboy for a long time. The first "real" samples I ever bought was Drumkit from Hell 2, which EW distributed. It was a major purchase for a poor college student. I later got SO Silver, and then Colossus. All this was for NI Kompakt/Kontakt. When they went Play they had a big sale. I was on the fence, since I hate the concept of dongles, but decided fine, I'd give in. Upgraded Colossus to Goliath, and got SO Platinum and Symphonic Choirs. Play was hugely problematic for me, and well, everyone else in the early days but I stuck with it. For awhile things worked ok, but then problem happened again. I waited, not so patiently, for years while Play 4 was on the way since that was supposed to fix things. Needless to say it didn't, so I said "screw it", asked for advice here, and got Komplete based on that advice.
 
I was still kinda "holding out hope" for them, I mean Play is still under development, and I talked to people on the forums, but then this. So I'm just done, there are other companies to do business with that aren't such jerks and, for me at least, Kontakt just works.
 
Also I've discovered that I really, really appreciate the ability to edit instruments. Play is still a player only. They promised Play Pro about 6 years ago, and even had it on "preorder" sale for a time, but nothing has ever come of it. While I'm not a sample designer by any stretch of the imagination, I've found that I do indeed use and value the ability to get in to Kontakt and modify the instruments, when I feel the need.

Sycraft - I'm relatively new to EW having owned their SO gold for a year.  I had issues with Play working in Sonar - turned out not to be compatible with Norton anti-virus (thanks to Sonar tech support).  turned off norton and it works.  However, now I'm have issues running Play in Sonar in Bootcamp.  It just won't work - keeps crashing Sonar when trying to load an instrument.  I opened a "case" with them, and unfortunately for me, they don't support Bootcamp.  So I'm looking to switch to something that will work in Bootcamp.  I wonder how the orchestral patches in Kontakt are?  

I have Komplete and Session Strings Pro but they sound really small next to EWQLSO.  If I had tro move away from EW I'd have to get a "real" VSL string section.  The Kontakt ones don't really do it for me.  The thing about EWQLSO is that they sound so d*mn good!  I've had good luck with play but I really don't like the company culture.

guitartrek
Sycraft - I'm relatively new to EW having owned their SO gold for a year.  I had issues with Play working in Sonar - turned out not to be compatible with Norton anti-virus (thanks to Sonar tech support).  turned off norton and it works.  However, now I'm have issues running Play in Sonar in Bootcamp.  It just won't work - keeps crashing Sonar when trying to load an instrument.  I opened a "case" with them, and unfortunately for me, they don't support Bootcamp.  So I'm looking to switch to something that will work in Bootcamp.  I wonder how the orchestral patches in Kontakt are?  

The Kontakt orchestra stuff is VSL and is really good.  I think the strings are very limiting and would buy a regular VSL or other string library to compliment.  The winds, brass and percussion are quite good IMO. 

Thanks for your advice about Komplete Session Strings.  I thought you could by a VSL version for Kontakt, but I can't find it advertised anywhere?  
 
If I go for the straight VSL (without Kontakt) I would need another dongle (ilok won't work for them).  I wonder which VSL bundles would be good replacements for SO Gold and Solo Violin?

As of yet, I haven't gotten many orchestral samples. I got caught up buying other stuff :). For choirs, the Soundiron Olympus Choir beats the pants off of Symphonic Choir. For strings n' such, I'm eying Kirk Hunter, which was recommended by people on this forum. Haven't ordered anything yet.
 
As for included stuff, it's ok, not stellar, but ok. There some older VSL stuff included, and the brasswinds seem to be pretty good. The included stuff isn't up to EW's level, at least not on the whole, which is why I'm looking at getting some addons, but it isn't bad. The big issue I find with most of the included orchestral stuff (which as I said is mostly older VSL stuff) is that it is generally two dynamic layers that they crossfade between. That's not horrible, it means they react to velocity changes, but you need more layers to really capture the dynamics of an instrument. Decent articulation choices though. Not overly large, but like 6ish of the main ones.
 
So I want better stuff, I'm looking around, trying to decide what I want to buy and how much I'm willing to spend. However it does have some included stuff that isn't bad. The big draw of Kontakt to me, apart from its stability, was that practically everything is released in Kontakt format, so I can go and buy additional content as I wish. Also there seems to be a fair bit of reasonably priced stuff. I look at the Vienna Ensemble stuff, but they want WAY too much money.