An interesting comment...

Discussions about the use and operation of SAC (Software Audio Console)

An interesting comment...

Postby BrentEvans » Sat Jan 11, 2014 11:08 am

http://www.sawstudiouser.com/forums/sho ... post198743

When asked if the Montarbo products (which will be displayed at NAMM with Bob Present) will have features that SAC will not, Bob replied:

All that is yet to be determined....

But... I will attempt to continue to support SAC as I have continued to support the first SAW products for the last 20 years.

Bob L


Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't he sunset the earlier products?

Interesting way to put it...
Last edited by BrentEvans on Sat Jan 11, 2014 1:15 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: An interesting comment...

Postby Paul Henry » Sat Jan 11, 2014 1:12 pm

Sounds like he may have sold it.

mycorn:
"since the italians are apparently rebranding sac:
[and not answering questions about it...]

a) is there anything in their rigs that is not available in SAC?
[hardware support or software features]

and b) what is the plan for future support of the current software i own?"



Bob L:
All that is yet to be determined....

But... I will attempt to continue to support SAC as I have continued to support the first SAW products for the last 20 years.

Bob L


Apparently it's being rebranded and marketed as VMT.

http://www.montarbo.com/en/news/5385/NA ... ution-LLC-

http://airconsoles.com/
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Re: An interesting comment...

Postby RBIngraham » Sat Jan 11, 2014 1:45 pm

Well at least they are wise enough to know SAC is a bad idea for a name.
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Re: An interesting comment...

Postby mycorn » Sun Jan 12, 2014 7:20 am

i find it hard to believe he climbed in bed with a foreign entity
without knowing the answer to my question

...which means he's eroded what little hope
i had left that we might actually see anything
from the 'to do' list

my ASSumption is that this did not happen last month
and it explains a lot about the lack of progress the last 2 years

oh well...
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Re: An interesting comment...

Postby soundguy » Sun Jan 12, 2014 1:39 pm

BrentEvans wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't he sunset the earlier products?

Interesting way to put it...


When he introduced SAWStudio, he discontinued future support of SAW without any notice or EOL warning, reneging on his promise of "free updates for life" upon purchase. His "upgrade path" for current users was very short and very expensive, and now non-existent except at list price.

Since then he has decided to call answering tech questions about the old products ... without bug fixes or feature additions ... "continued support".

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Re: An interesting comment...

Postby randyhyde » Mon Jan 13, 2014 11:48 am

soundguy wrote:
BrentEvans wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't he sunset the earlier products?

Interesting way to put it...


When he introduced SAWStudio, he discontinued future support of SAW without any notice or EOL warning, reneging on his promise of "free updates for life" upon purchase. His "upgrade path" for current users was very short and very expensive, and now non-existent except at list price.

Since then he has decided to call answering tech questions about the old products ... without bug fixes or feature additions ... "continued support".

Soundguy


To be honest, SAC is cheap enough that even if I had to buy it all over again to get *features I want* I wouldn't have a problem at all with this.

However, having owned an old version, I'd be very wary about purchasing a new version unless I could see with my own eyes (and hands) that the new version really does address issues I have with the software. I can comment about how SAW grew up but I can say that anyone truly expecting "free upgrades for life" is really fooling themselves (particularly in light of the SAW progression).

Audio-wise, SAC seems to be a very solid product (particularly when paired with decent preamps/converters). The UI sucks (and that will never changes, as the SAW progression shows) and control surface support is less than stellar (let's see what the Italians do about this). I've only encountered a couple of "show-stopper" bugs over the years (mostly in older versions); my workflow doesn't seem to uncover all the problems reported around here. v3.1 may very well fix all the real problems I've had lately (lack of Win8 support, weird behavior on touch screens). All-in-all, except for the UI and control surface support, I'm relatively happy with SAC these days.

It will be interesting to see what the Italians do with it (I'll check this out at NAMM). My guess is that they'll pile on a lot of hardware that turns SAC into an expensive set up that will have to compete against the likes of GLD and lower-end Midas consoles. At that point, I can't see SAC winning. SAC has a magical niche around $5,000. Much more than that and it has to compete against some very serious players. Even SAC's expandability (which tends to be much better than the $10,000 crowd) won't make up for SAC's other limitations. I wish the Italians lots of luck but knowing what I know today, I'm not sure I'd buy a SAC system from scratch like this.

That said, It would be interesting to see if there are some decent control surfaces for SAC coming out of this initiative.
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Re: An interesting comment...

Postby RBIngraham » Mon Jan 13, 2014 12:17 pm

Well SAW is/was a $2500 piece rather than a $500 piece. So I can feel a bit for those that might have had to pay to update. But really this is all years ago now and frankly it just sounds a lot to me like sour grapes. It was a mistake on Bob's part to ever offer free updates for life that is for certain. No developer does that. And one can also argue what is the product life? When it moved from SAW Plus to SAW Studio, is that the same product? Who knows... either way I still don't buy that Bob is some kind of bad guy. He has him moments and all that enjoy the ride nonsense gets old very quick. But I still don't think he is a sham. Yeah, his code may be sloppy and lazy, I don't know because I don't write code. He could probably fix a lot of things (maybe) if he took the time to do it. But over all I've gotten more than my money's worth out of SAC, the plug ins and even SAW (although I bought the lite version and I got it on the x-mas sale and used the good faith agreement). LIke I've always said if I chose to ditch it all tomorrow, I could at least sell off most of the hardware at only a small loss.

Anyway Randy, I agree. If this new company is bringing out a bunch of hardware to work with SAC that is going to be a hard sell these days I think. Unless it's all stupidlly inexpensive. As we've seen for years SAC is great for those on a budget that don't mind assembling their own systems and maintaining them. As new inexpensive systems have come out we've seen the bar band crowd migrate toward those products, which leaves baiscally those that really want/need a fairly complex and sophisitcated mixer but are on a tight budget and are willing to run the risks with the off the shelf computer. A fairly small niche indeed.

It will be really interesting to see what folks report. But call me a cynic, my expectations are fairly low. I'm hoping the AMP guys will make a go of it as I have a lot more faith that they "get it" and know what the market for this kind of thing really is. At the very least I don't think you'll see them making all the ridiculous statements about replacing consoles costing hundreds of thousands.
Last edited by RBIngraham on Mon Jan 13, 2014 12:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: An interesting comment...

Postby soundguy » Mon Jan 13, 2014 12:19 pm

randyhyde wrote: I can comment about how SAW grew up but I can say that anyone truly expecting "free upgrades for life" is really fooling themselves (particularly in light of the SAW progression).


I think you expect what you are promised in exchange for your money. "Free Updates For Life" was a primary selling point in each and every sales pitch. I guess the caveat here was "life of the product", which was as short as one day, depending on when you bought in. And oh yeah, and one day after his "payment plan" advertising.

SAC has a magical niche around $5,000. Much more than that and it has to compete against some very serious players. Even SAC's expandability (which tends to be much better than the $10,000 crowd) won't make up for SAC's other limitations.


Not as magical as the Behringer x32 rack with iPad or laptop control options. Street price on that is $1499 and probably less if you dig deeper. 16 mic pres on board and expandable, and internal recording system of some sort. I don't think the x32 OR SAC even comes close to the needs of the $10K crowd, but for a small owner operated system, it's bang for the buck. I think if I wanted to spend $3K for a full x32 console, I'd keep looking elsewhere and save a few more bucks for something closer to the Soundcraft/A&H stuff.

As much as I've been disappointed with B gear, I've come to accept it as a disposable tool. I'll be taking another look at B at NAMM.

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Re: An interesting comment...

Postby RBIngraham » Mon Jan 13, 2014 12:36 pm

soundguy wrote:
Not as magical as the Behringer x32 rack with iPad or laptop control options. Street price on that is $1499 and probably less if you dig deeper. 16 mic pres on board and expandable, and internal recording system of some sort. I don't think the x32 OR SAC even comes close to the needs of the $10K crowd, but for a small owner operated system, it's bang for the buck. I think if I wanted to spend $3K for a full x32 console, I'd keep looking elsewhere and save a few more bucks for something closer to the Soundcraft/A&H stuff.

As much as I've been disappointed with B gear, I've come to accept it as a disposable tool. I'll be taking another look at B at NAMM.

Soundguy


For many segments of the sound world you are correct. But for those that really do want or need more complex routing and scene control than the Behringer stuff offers, a $4K to $5K SAC system still fills a void. For my work I would take that SAC system anyday over a $10K LS9 and even over an M7 most days. The lower end A&H stuff is nice but it lacks the larger channel counts that those modest priced SAC systems can achieve. As I had to explain to a couple of the artisitic directors at theatres now, when explaining why they shouldn't just buy these rigs from me, this system is good enough for now and it's better than the old analog systems you had laying around. But if I move on I wouldn't want to leave this for the next person taking my place becuase chances are they wouldn't care for it. Better to save up and buy something future designers will also appreciate, of course that means saving up at least $30K. One of the venues (the fist place I used SAC), probably should have just sold off the GL4000 and let me build them a system at it will be a long time before they get the money for an iLive or Digico. They would have gotten their money's worth by now. But even there my reluctance was always about what will happen when I'm not around. The TD can stumble his way around a GL4K for the one off events and such, but asking him to learn SAC would be very problematic.
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Re: An interesting comment...

Postby randyhyde » Mon Jan 13, 2014 12:59 pm

soundguy wrote:
Not as magical as the Behringer x32 rack with iPad or laptop control options.

Can't comment as I can't even consider Behringer gear for the types of rigs I provide.
Someday Behringer might rehabilitate their image, but until that day arrives Berhinger is what people buy for themselves, not something they rent from someone else.

I don't think the x32 OR SAC even comes close to the needs of the $10K crowd, but for a small owner operated system, it's bang for the buck. I think if I wanted to spend $3K for a full x32 console, I'd keep looking elsewhere and save a few more bucks for something closer to the Soundcraft/A&H stuff.

I've looked at the lower-cost Soundcraft stuff (sub-$10,000). I'd pick SAC over that.
In the >$10,000 range, I'd never make the mistake of using SAC again.
$5,000 is a pretty sweet spot for SAC.

As much as I've been disappointed with B gear, I've come to accept it as a disposable tool. I'll be taking another look at B at NAMM.
Soundguy

I used to be that way.
I've had too many snide comments about using Behringer gear from all but the "total amateur" crowd.
I've also had to much Berhringer gear die on me (during the middle of a show, no less) to make me feel comfortable about using an X32 until it proves itself.
OTOH, the X32 does have a pretty good user interface.
Cheers,
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