Stephenson wrote:

My main gripe is that I thought the midi implementation would be completed and all parameters would be available inside a daw for automation. However the same issues still exists where things like delay, mod thing and reverb can have different parameter id from patch to patch. Also the next and previous patch commands are not even available.

I agree that a standardised set of parameter numbers between presets would have made things easier for me on a few occasions. However I would suspect that a change to something like this would need to wait for a major version change (v3) as otherwise it would break everyone's existing DAW projects if parameter numbers change. Because v3 would be a completely separate plugin, it would not alter people's existing DAW projects that used the v2 plugin.

For next/previous commands, what are you trying to achieve? Automation to change presets while your track is playing?

I'm glad I understood the update and like many I'm slightly disappointed that this was a utility update. Of course I love SGear, but charging for a utility update? Obviously the plugin will continue to work so I'm not sure what Scuffham was thinking when they decided to charge for a utility update. Just doesn't make much sense. Oh well...as you were...

If I worked on something for a long time....I Would you want some compensation for that. His architecture is not the same as other products. Comparing this product to others is not entirely fair. Mike works hard and this is not some big name company with a lot of employees working on fixing bugs. This is a high quality boutique type of product. Support and enjoy it

Very pleased to see 2.9 arrive - and I don't mind at all that there is little extra functionality in it.

Two main reasons for this:

• I already love S-Gear, I use it daily, and I'm not seeking any new sounds. The amps cover everything I need them to (although I think Mike's ideas on an AC30 would be very interesting) and I use a swag of other plugins to cover effects. I'm loving the sounds I already have - but I'll be happy to see what else Mike has up his sleeve when the time comes.
• As a software developer myself I can totally relate to the idea that sometimes you have to rebuild something completely in order to move forward. This takes time and people have to eat so charging for it is fine by me. I'm just glad that Mike is still moving the product forward (because I hope he can earn a living from it - and no one will buy abandonware).

I hang out on the Audiobus forum a lot as well (iPad music) and some people there go on at length about being charged even $20 for something because they've got used to being charged much less (a huge problem for iOS developers). The more sensible people suggest they should stand back and get things into perspective a bit - perhaps looking at the cost in terms of coffees. I think perhaps the same applies here.

S-Gear has enormous value to many of us; if you want to see it in terms of price then divide the amount you'll spend by the number of hours of musical pleasure you'll get from it. It doesn't come to much, does it?

I agree with you. I think it is unfair to compare the update cost to company like Fractal Audio. Come on guys you comparing a multy thousand product to a 129$ product. I paid 75$ many years ago + 29$ so for all years.a big 104$. I sold my Axe FX and saved a lot!

That is one month of Cafe Latte for me or may be 3 or 4 beers...

Put me in the camp of $29 is nothing to support an amazing piece of software that I paid too little for years ago. Have yet to find another amp sim that even comes close to the quality of S-Gear. I suspect there are a lot of lurker users like myself out there that have stayed in the shadows and enjoyed this amazing software over the years. Great Job Mike and team!

lol, mike can never catch a break on here... people whine all day about no updates and "WHERE IS 2.9?!?!". Then when it finally releases they are instantly pissed that it's not free... How about support the guy who is putting in the hard work into keeping this best-in-class (imo) amp plugin going for years. S-Gear is the best value I have ever spent in music and I almost feel bad for only paying the $29 upgrade fee rather than full price. I trust mike when he says this is one of the biggest undertakings he's done for S-Gear, even if we didn't get any new sounds out of this update. It seems like he is laying the ground-work for bigger things in the future and I can't wait. I view these updates as a "pre-order" in a sense and have no problem paying for them.

mingury wrote:

Let me express how I feel, if I may.

I hear some people raising points how 2.9 should have been free update to ALL existing users and I partly agree.
In saying that though, as a big fan, I would like see S Gear to evolve on in the years to come, as Mike steadily works hard for it, & nothing comes for free in today's world you see. Everything you do incur costs. I would not hesitate to pay for an update if it truly helps developing and bringing v.3.0 forward sooner.

I think users paying for v2.9 update should be given some credit for the subsequent (hopefully) a substantial update. Like a loyalty reward program.

This..
rsp

zvenx wrote:

mingury wrote:

Let me express how I feel, if I may.

I hear some people raising points how 2.9 should have been free update to ALL existing users and I partly agree.
In saying that though, as a big fan, I would like see S Gear to evolve on in the years to come, as Mike steadily works hard for it, & nothing comes for free in today's world you see. Everything you do incur costs. I would not hesitate to pay for an update if it truly helps developing and bringing v.3.0 forward sooner.

I think users paying for v2.9 update should be given some credit for the subsequent (hopefully) a substantial update. Like a loyalty reward program.

This..
rsp

I've got a ton of loyalty points on my Tesco card. Usually get about 5% discount.

V2.9 discount was upwards of 75%

Just sayin'

I am very happy with the new UI Zoom feature. On a 4K monitor I can now see every button, switch, label etc in crystal clear graphics. I am now using 200% zoom and it really adds to the pleasure of using S-Gear. I would imagine that it took a lot of software development time to get this zoom working so well. Also I may be imagining this but the amps sound better to my ears. $29 is not a lot and I am happy that S-Gear did not decide to wait and create a "S-Gear PRO". that costs much more with no upgrade path.

I got S-Gear after Jan 1st 2018 so I got the upgrade free but I would have gladly paid for it. I gave a last chance to BiasFX recently and spent 99$ on a new version that's only marginally better sounding than the crap it sounded like before. I spent hours and hours tweaking that software not getting a sound I really liked and it feels stiff and unnatural to play. My old PodXT felt better to play than BiasFX...

But S-Gear gave me great tones within minutes of purchasing it and it feels and reacts so much closer to a real amp. It's night and day to any other amp sim or modeling device I tried. That is worth it to pay for upgrades for me.

People should keep in mind that there was a comprehensive code update to prepare for and make future features updates and additions easier. That requires a lot of time and it's normal that that time gets compensated.

Also, my actual job is a web developer and UX guy in a small web agency I co-founded. In my work field, we pay monthly or yearly for software like the Adobe Creative Suite or WordPress premium plugins no matter what because they are the best at what they do (debatable for Adobe stuff but they mostly are for the rest . S-Gear is such great value for the price in comparison. I want Mike to stay in business and keep improving S-Gear however incrementally. The 2.9 version may not have any big new shiny features, but the improvements are still significant to me.

Thanks Mike!

The upgrade email for me got stuck in my junk box, and in my excitement at getting the newer scalable UI, I went to the website and was about the pull the trigger on the full price version. I really didn't mind the idea of paying full price, but the $29 upgrade is great. With my over 50 eyes the scalable UI is worth $29 on its own!


Being a new guitar player, picking it up late in life, I found that S-Gear has gotten me off the upgrade merry-go-round. I was buying modeling amps, then small tube amps....all of them sold after I got S-Gear hooked up and playing out a FRFR speaker. Its all the boutique amps I could never afford.

I feel that supporting S-Gear is much like supporting my local hardware store that always has the nuts, bolts, etc I need. I don't want them going away even though the Big Box store is a few miles away.

In my dealings with Mike ....he patiently and very quickly helped me out, even though it became apparent to me that my issues were likely my computer and really not with S-Gear at all. He is a top notch developer (obviously!) but also a great person to deal with!

I'm looking forward to developments that may come in the future for S-Gear, but if not, what I've got right now is wonderful. Good work!

I repeat in here my opinion
In my humble opinion I think mike has every right to receive compensation for the work, he has fulfilled some of your suggestions. problem ?? that to do this all the s-gear had to be rewritten. I'm also sure that when there is a version 3, which is also to be seen, mike will take into account the people who have supported him by doing the current update. We all wait longer, we are never happy about anything and the society we live in always lives in abundance, and sometimes, this is not a good ally of quality and more music.

And I do not hide, I am the first to want more mike, because I know it will sound the first.

kierank wrote:

Stephenson wrote:

My main gripe is that I thought the midi implementation would be completed and all parameters would be available inside a daw for automation. However the same issues still exists where things like delay, mod thing and reverb can have different parameter id from patch to patch. Also the next and previous patch commands are not even available.

I agree that a standardised set of parameter numbers between presets would have made things easier for me on a few occasions. However I would suspect that a change to something like this would need to wait for a major version change (v3) as otherwise it would break everyone's existing DAW projects if parameter numbers change. Because v3 would be a completely separate plugin, it would not alter people's existing DAW projects that used the v2 plugin.

For next/previous commands, what are you trying to achieve? Automation to change presets while your track is playing?

Thanks for your reply.. The main reason I want the next/previous controls to have midi parameters is that I use a Nektar pacer as a pedal board controller inside of Studio One . Studio One has a unique way of handling midi to control to VST's etc Although I think their method is great and allows for easy control of multiple instruments/effects, it does not allow for direct control of effects if they do not have their controls available to the daw. In other words Midi learn is not available.

fatherjacques wrote:

ICome on guys you comparing a mulyi thousand product to a 129$ product. I paid 75$ many years ago + 29$ so for all years.a big 104$. I sold my Axe FX and saved a lot!

Fractal to me sound and feel more like a real amp that any plugin,i love my Axe 3 and my Kemper Stage but once in a while a like to play with my plugins like Helix Native,Amplitube 4,TH-U and S-Gear

When I consider that Mike had to write code from the ground up to make a fully 64bit compatible version
of S-Gear it is understandable that there is a upgrade fee.
Rewriting the software from the ground up will allow future development to be easier for Mike.
Trying to cobble older 32bit code and 64 bit code together creates real future coding issues for a developer.
Look at Pro Tools that has struggled with that very issue and they have teams of coders and big bucks to throw at the issue and they are not the only company to have to deal with that.
Mike made a business decision that in the end will be better for the customer and for himself as a developer.
I was just as impatient as anyone else waiting for a update from Ver 2.7 but I think Mike did the smart thing by biting the bullet and doing the re-write to all 64bit code.
To me $29 is a cheap upgrade because this was more then just maintenance. Mike didn't just change spark plugs, oil and filter, he rebuilt the entire engine for future reliability and ease of future maintenance/ development.
Heck, I spent $29 on breakfast out with the wife this morning and that makes her a happy camper
and when the wife is happy then well lets just say it is a good thing
So that's just my $29 worth for what it's worth

Stephenson wrote:

Thanks for your reply.. The main reason I want the next/previous controls to have midi parameters is that I use a Nektar pacer as a pedal board controller inside of Studio One . Studio One has a unique way of handling midi to control to VST's etc Although I think their method is great and allows for easy control of multiple instruments/effects, it does not allow for direct control of effects if they do not have their controls available to the daw. In other words Midi learn is not available.

There are likely to be Studio One uses here who can help. From what I could see on Presonus forum posts it might be a similar setup to what I need to do in Reaper: create a separate Instrument track for your midi controller and arm it so it's receiving midi. Then route this track's output to the audio track that has S-Gear.

If you haven't tried the VST3 plugin that might offer another method. For example, in Reaper the VST3 plugin will expose the S-Gear presets to the host. This means the S-Gear presets all show up in the Reaper plugin preset list, which provides another way to change presets using midi program change.

I do use the same method in S1 and it works ok for most things. Would love to not have to use that workaround on every guitar track though. I took a look at the possibility of the VST3 passing the presets but S1 does noty support that. Their presets are separate saved versions of your presets which I have some what working. Thanks for all the ideas though I hope we do get a full implementation as my biggest issue is still that things like the delay /reverb/Mod effects do not maintain the same parameter #

kierank wrote:


If you haven't tried the VST3 plugin that might offer another method. For example, in Reaper the VST3 plugin will expose the S-Gear presets to the host. This means the S-Gear presets all show up in the Reaper plugin preset list, which provides another way to change presets using midi program change.

I've been looking for a reaper thing for some time now and I don't know how to do it the end I left it. Can you tell me in detail how to do it? Maybe this is not the right forum but since you mentioned it I would be very grateful. I wish I could use the midi pedal that I bought and that I have in the closet

I got the update for free but would have gladly paid the $29 to support Mike, this Amp sim was the first one that made me go WOW, i didn't even have to tinker with presets and it still sounded 10x better than anything else i had used before, and i had tried a lot.
Of course i would have liked some new amps, it's still in a class of it.s own in terms of quality, i love S-Gear, to me it is easily the best amp sim out there
"you can't please all the people all the time"

Thanks Mike





Dan