Log in
Log in

or
Create an account

or
Enlarge
Add this product to
  • My former gear
  • My current gear
  • My wishlist
EastWest Composer Cloud
Images
1/17

Thread Comments about the review: Instruments from the Cloud

  • 2 replies
  • 2 participants
  • 1,934 views
  • 3 followers
1 Comments about the review: Instruments from the Cloud
Instruments from the Cloud
Subscription-based plans are becoming more common for music software. While presumably a good thing for the developers, they’re not necessarily so great for users, who have to pay over and over for a license, and can lose access to the software if they let the subscription lapse, or if the developer goes belly up. That said, one subscription plan that I think might actually be a boon for musicians is EastWest’s Composer Cloud, which gives users access to a large selection of EastWest products without having to buy them.

Read the article
 


This thread was created automatically after the publishing of an article. Feel free to post your comments here!
2
To properly compare this, you need to look at the costs over at least 2 years, not just 1. I don't purchase a new version of the same software every single year, and I'm sure this is true of many others as well.
3
Quote:
To properly compare this, you need to look at the costs over at least 2 years, not just 1. I don't purchase a new version of the same software every single year, and I'm sure this is true of many others as well.

I think it depends on the particular software title, as to how often it comes out. Some do put out major releases every year (e.g. Cakewalk Sonar), while for others it is more like every two. Still, I think Composer Cloud is a good deal — assuming you do the kind of musical styles that its instruments favor — even when compared with buying every two years, because it gives you the ability to use a much wider range of instruments that you'd get by spending the equivalent amount of money on purchases.

Under the least expensive plan, the "7 Collections" plan with a 1-year committment), that's 7 titles a year, not including ac the "loyalty bonus" titles you'd get at 3 months, 6 months and one at 9 months into the cycle. So let's say you were to purchase seven different EastWest collections in a year, averaging about $200 each, that's $1400. Assuming you upgraded your instruments after two years, and paid an upgrade price of, say 50% of the original cost, that would mean you spent $2100 in four years, whereas four years of Composer Cloud would be about $1440. The advantage to purchasing would be in having perpetual ownership rights, but Composer Cloud still costs a third less, and gives you the option to swap out instruments every year, should you so choose, not to mention that you'd get to use a number of "loyalty bonus" titles each year.)

If you were to do this kind of cost comparison based on the "All Collections" plan, I think that the benefits would be even greater for those who need a lot of instruments and can afford the higher monthly cost ($49.99 per month based on a yearly commitment). As I said in the review, I'm not crazy about software subscription plans in general, but in this case, considering the variety you can get for the money, I do think it's a good deal for those looking for the type of sampled instrument sounds that the EastWest collections offer.