I’ve just come here to say I’ve been using this plugin for months now and absolutely love it. It’s on every mix bus now, and even better, I use it to quickly get a demo up to a good level. It’s so versatile and powerful
After using and loving the product, this is my only complaint. When you do most of the work down in the lower left-hand corner, it's kind of a waste to go up to the top to solo a band. It would be nice if the solo buttons were right there with their corresponding low/mid/high sliders. Maybe put the lock button on the right of the sliders? Even the band separation controls could be put down below as well, or make bars like the low pass high pass bypass bars in Gullfoss and use spectrum info to help you decide where to divide the three bands (probably hate to hear it, but like FabFilter does on Pro-MB, etc.). Nonetheless, it's gonna be useful.
x2! another comment, GUI gets glitchy when dragging the AAX to a second screen. I open the Instance, it opens on screen #1, I drag it to screen #2 and the GUI gets oversized. Have to close it and open it again. Great plugin!
Really awesome plugin. Love gullfos, love this one! Its amazing how it can bring life to some material in a very different way than traditional saturators. Congratulations! PD: Awesome track on the video.. can be heard in any plataform?
I absolutely love Gullfoss and use it routinely in both music and audio post work, but I'm not entirely sure about this one. It seems decent but I already have a few multi-band saturators. Is there something unique about this one that would make it stand out from something like Saturn?
not sure why my first reply isn't showing up anymore, but I recommend using the free trial to do a proper AB comparison with Saturn. I think you'll quickly find they are both different but useful tools. Kraftur more for loudness and Saturn more for character.
thanks! those videos are actually playing on the screens which took quite a few adapters to get right. And the 10kHz CRT scanning frequency was quite annoying haha
Questions: [1] Can Kraftur (also) effectively replace a "virtual tape machine" plugin? [2] How would Kraftur be used - on a single track, group bus, and master bus - in conjunction with your other plugin, "Gullfoss"? (Including - where both plugins are used - the order of the plugins.)
Love the plugin but would just want a meter to tell me what I'm clipping off. I know lots of people say reduction meter but I think this is what they mean.😀
Absolutely phenomenal sound. At first I was like “but I have a clipper”. And then I tried the demo. Yowza. The word glue is overused. This is more like biting into a warm cookie with melty chocolate chips. So ooey gooey. Plus that interface feels like I might be communicating with aliens. A joy to use and probably the plugin of ‘24.
please give the free trial a spin and see if it works for your needs! in my opinion, that is way too many instances for any plug-in, but i typically adhere to the less is more mindset
@@Adam-g-uk Thx! Thats how Atmos mastering is being practiced, Since you can have up to 128 objects there's no way of bussing. So far, I'm using neutron 4, which is more that one could ever ask! Kraftur is awesome btw!
checkimg, but not sure if it add anything valuable to the sound. Transients get killed on the drums and every time `i disable the plugin I prefer the original signal. Anyone found a nice setting?:)
I have tried it one more time and I actually liked drivind just a few dbs on the master, with a few dbs on the mid signal. Made the song a bit more interesting. So I beleive using it at sall setting to to add a touch is one nice way:)
There is quite a lot going on! There's single-band and multi-band soft clipping based upon the transfer curves, but there is also a final clipper if you use the Clip button. So if your input Band meters aren't saturating on the bottom of the display and you still hear saturation/distortion, double check the output Band meters on the right to see if they are being clipped by the Clip button. In short, Kraftur isn't just one thing!
Multi band is splitting the signal into three bands. The low band contains the low frequencies, the mid band contains the mid frequencies and the high band contains the high frequencies. Single band is not splitting the signal into any bands. It's just one band that contains all the frequencies.
Love Gullfoss so I instantly downloaded the demo and was ready to be blow away by Kraftur... but upon A/Bing it with another multiband clipper (which I won't name to avoid sounding like an add for a competitor), I was not blown away... After copying settings and pushing for same RMS levels, Kraftur can't get near the other multiband clipper without the saturation/distortion getting audible. Then tried other settings with offset and knee and sure it colours in its own way, but again, no where near the level and clarity of the other clipper. Clearly I just downloaded this so I need to spend sometimes with, but again...its a clipper, so not too much to play with...anyway, still early days. By the way, I couldn't find the oversampling options? Clicking on the logo brings up a menu that has to do with appearance. Where are the oversampling options?
I find it weird that there is still not a single video by the usual suspects reviewing it. The only video on yt is this one here and even online i can`t find a single review other than an announcement of its release
It's because most of the companies pay RUclipsrs to review their new products, seems like soundtheory is more interested in putting out a quality product and let it say for itself.
Yea, possibly. Quite a few parameters. But if someone's lazy and doesn't want to get into the details, you can always leave everything on default and just use 'Drive' to control your peak-to-rms ratio and get some character.
Yeah, actually looks very simple, no menus. Visual feedback is a bit shit imo, not having used it yet. Would probably put an oscilloscope after it if I really cared anyway. Sounds good from what I've heard in the reviews, hmmmm, I have clippers, but nothing in the multiband range. Tempting.
Are you with Nord? I have to turn off Threat Protection Pro > Web Protection temporarily in order to use their site. Not sure what triggers the safeguards but I've noticed this problem with the Nord client and a few sites.
@@listenfidi Indeed. It’s not that it’s bad or anything. I bought Gold Clip and it’s perfectly fine… the point was basically that it’s way overpriced and when other plug-in developers put out what look to be superior products at 1/3rd the cost, it’s worth mentioning :) Same goes for MAAT and their EQ’s. I’m sure they’re great, but are they 5x better than Pro Q3 or any decent digital eq, for that matter
@@SQ3-Sequence Yeah! Some companies have a big ego, i would never change my pro q or kirchoff to use that bad looking eq from Maat, for me it's a robbery and a joke on consumers!
Watched a review on bunch of clippers - Gold Clip did come out the clear winner… though seems the key difference here might be the multiband. Wouldn’t be surprised if Gold Clip is superior to this’ final clipper, and using both together might produce good results…
Thank you for making it extremely difficult to tell what the plugin is exactly doing. thanks for not showing real life examples. i ll download the trial i m only hoping it worths my time. becauase by looking at this video i have no idea which scenario i can use it for and thanks for not clarifying what it " actually " does. thanks for playing on a non sense drum loop for 8 minutes and still not explaining why would i even wanna do it on the drum loop in the first place. i swear these companies dont know how to sell. than hire some people for god's sake.
This whole video is a demo where you can hear exactly what it is doing. They blend the effect between dry and the two clipping modes. If you want an in depth tutorial go watch a tutorial. But for the sake of a quick demo of one particular use case this video is good.
Yoy know, maybe you should just grab a simpler plugin or spend some more time actually learning about audio instead of complaining you don't understand a pretty crystal clear explanation ;). And please don't try to help people. You'll end up misinforming them. RUclips has enough of that.
@@asymmetrymedia9838 helped a bunch of people recently on this plugin. 1- it didnt pass my linear filter test 2- it screws up your low end good luck with that. 3- in a year nobody will remember this plugin. 4- i recommended people to go grab saturn and compare for theirselves. 5- i dont need to learn about audio anymore since I teach audio. good luck to you people if you bought this.
@@un-ku_son I was curious too, so went and read the license agreement, you may have to purchase again in 25 years. 😅 1.1 In consideration of payment by you of the agreed licence fee and you agreeing to abide by the terms of this Licence, we hereby grant to you a non-exclusive, single user licence to use the Software and the Documents on the terms of this Licence for a period of twenty five (25) years from the date of purchase. Trial licences are limited to a period of two (2) weeks.
@@mattbranigan what? why such term this doesn't make any sense at all, they can charge for upgrade but buying it after 25 years again is just nonsense!
Here's a copy/paste post by our developer trying to explain our reasoning for the policy changes. " I've posted the same response on KVR and I think it is worth sharing here, too. I think at this point it would be fair to offer some context for Soundtheory’s license transfer policy. The current policy is our attempt at solving a problem with the software industry, and this problem is that we believe that paying customers are treated very unfairly. Allow me to explain: Currently, if you buy software you are facing three options. 1. You pay for a subscription and can use the software while you are paying. 2. You pay for a maintenance period. You get updates and support as long as you pay and can keep using the software if you stop paying. This is usually limited, often artificially, by lack of support for OS updates. Restarting the maintenance after a break also usually comes with a penalty fee. 3. You pay for updates when they come out. The price for the update depends on the version you’re updating from. The fees are up to the discretion of the software vendor and may change. They usually add a few features and improvements, but they also make sure to only give out compatibility and bug fixes with paid updates. Sometimes you receive a free hot fix, but you can expect to pay for updates regularly. These models exist to make sure that the ongoing cost of software development, maintenance, support and infrastructure are covered. But the conditions also force the customer into a dependent relationship. He has to pay to keep using the software, even if he uses it infrequently. The total cost of maintaining the license is hard to estimate and usually even unpredictable. As a result, the investment of the user in the software product is exceeding the investment of the software company into the user, by far. We decided that we did not want to put our customers in such a situation. Instead, we are aiming at a much more symmetric relationship that is based on mutual trust and investment. The user invests in us, we invest in the user. What this means specifically is, that if you buy our software you pay a fixed price up front. And then you pay never again to keep using it. We will deliver updates and support for as long as the software is relevant and maintenance is feasible. We’ve demonstrated this policy with Gullfoss. Since we’ve released it in 2018, we’ve promptly fixed every single issue with free updates, kept improving the plugin and even added two more plugins to the same product. So that you now have three much better editions of Gullfoss. We’ve also made sure all OS updates during that time went smooth and that Gullfoss was ready from day one. All for free. For all our customers. We did not even increase the price of the product. Now, if you bought Gullfoss for our $99 introductory offer, you could now sell it for $199, because your license is just as good as a new license bought from us. So you would have used Gullfoss for six full years, received all the maintenance and would even have gained up to $100 by selling it. That doesn’t sound quite fair, neither to us developers nor to those customers who in fact payed for your time spent with the plugin and the money you made from it by selling it for more than you paid. The problem is, more or less obviously, that a software license does not have any natural loss of value, unless you force users to pay for updates regularly. Since we don’t do that, we need to somehow charge users for the time they’ve used the plugin. Because we don’t want a subscription or maintenance contract the only way is to charge when the user wants to cash in on the license: So we had to introduce transfer fees to avoid any of the other undesirable license models described above and protect both our interests and the interests of those customers who have invested in our product. So the deal is simple. If you don’t sell your license you pay upfront once and we will take care of you. If you want to sell your license, you pay a reasonable fee that prevents you from using the license transfer as an endless trial or even make a profit from selling a license that you purchased at a discount. If you look at the structure of the transfer fees, we think that they are more than reasonable. The base fee of $10 reflects our own cost of moving the license to a new owner. We don’t make any money with it. It’s worth noting that you will NOT have to pay the $25 PACE license transfer fee, as we cover that for you. If you held the license for less than a year, that’s all there is. After the first year, we charge 10% of the plugin resale value at the time of purchase per year until you reach 40% and then we keep increasing it in steps of 5%. That means it takes 16 years for the license to be entirely devalued. At this point you have received 16 years of maintenance. If you ever want to transfer the license, we also offer a buy-back or a partial refund with the same devaluation. And if you name us a charity, we will even make sure to donate the transfer fee in your name if that is possible with reasonable effort. Finally, all these rules are guidelines. We look at each case individually and may waive the fees entirely, depending on how we are approached and what the context is. If you still feel that this is a rip-off, then please take the time to explain what we could do better while running a business. We are trying to be the best company for our customers. So with Kraftur you can expect free updates and improvements just like with Gullfoss. I cannot guarantee that we will be adding free new editions to it, as this depends on where the development takes us. But we will increase the value and give back to all the customers who invested in us. Finally, the 25 year license limit is a nonsensical consequence of European law. If we hand out perpetual licenses, we would have to take one of the established models that we think are unfair towards the customer. If you ever come to the point when you hold a license that exceeds this 25 year limit and the product is still usable, then we will make sure that there is a pain-free path forward that will allow you to keep using the product. But let’s be realistic, 25 years of software support is an eternity. So, I hope I could convince you that we’re not the company from hell that wants to rip everyone off, but much rather are trying to do precisely the opposite. Thanks for listening, Andreas "
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
I’ve just come here to say I’ve been using this plugin for months now and absolutely love it. It’s on every mix bus now, and even better, I use it to quickly get a demo up to a good level. It’s so versatile and powerful
great plugin guys 🤘kraftur libes on my mix bus
After using and loving the product, this is my only complaint. When you do most of the work down in the lower left-hand corner, it's kind of a waste to go up to the top to solo a band. It would be nice if the solo buttons were right there with their corresponding low/mid/high sliders. Maybe put the lock button on the right of the sliders? Even the band separation controls could be put down below as well, or make bars like the low pass high pass bypass bars in Gullfoss and use spectrum info to help you decide where to divide the three bands (probably hate to hear it, but like FabFilter does on Pro-MB, etc.). Nonetheless, it's gonna be useful.
x2! another comment, GUI gets glitchy when dragging the AAX to a second screen. I open the Instance, it opens on screen #1, I drag it to screen #2 and the GUI gets oversized. Have to close it and open it again. Great plugin!
@@alexgarcialeal different screen resolutions can do that ?
Fantastic!! No artifacts and all the sonic beauty. Great company!!! Can't wait to check it out.
Really awesome plugin. Love gullfos, love this one! Its amazing how it can bring life to some material in a very different way than traditional saturators. Congratulations!
PD: Awesome track on the video.. can be heard in any plataform?
I absolutely love Gullfoss and use it routinely in both music and audio post work, but I'm not entirely sure about this one. It seems decent but I already have a few multi-band saturators. Is there something unique about this one that would make it stand out from something like Saturn?
not sure why my first reply isn't showing up anymore, but I recommend using the free trial to do a proper AB comparison with Saturn. I think you'll quickly find they are both different but useful tools. Kraftur more for loudness and Saturn more for character.
Kraftur is different than saturn, they shouldn't be compared, kraftur for me is a really clean and great inflator.
Video intro is really cool. I like it.
thanks! those videos are actually playing on the screens which took quite a few adapters to get right. And the 10kHz CRT scanning frequency was quite annoying haha
sounds awesome!
This is an amazing plug. Love it on the mix bus.
Questions: [1] Can Kraftur (also) effectively replace a "virtual tape machine" plugin? [2] How would Kraftur be used - on a single track, group bus, and master bus - in conjunction with your other plugin, "Gullfoss"? (Including - where both plugins are used - the order of the plugins.)
No latency? That’s amazing. Gotta try it.
Sick, need to check it out
Love the plugin but would just want a meter to tell me what I'm clipping off. I know lots of people say reduction meter but I think this is what they mean.😀
sounds very nice!
Absolutely phenomenal sound. At first I was like “but I have a clipper”. And then I tried the demo. Yowza. The word glue is overused. This is more like biting into a warm cookie with melty chocolate chips. So ooey gooey. Plus that interface feels like I might be communicating with aliens. A joy to use and probably the plugin of ‘24.
They are really different, i would buy both!
@@listenfidi for mastering, it's one or the other. This won out 🥇. 😅
Do we have to be connected to the internet to use this?
Great plugin, really interesting, now put a HPF on your vocal please.
Seems awesome, really
How heavy is it? Do you think an atmos mastering sesion could handle, let's say 128 linked instances of Kraftur? Mac Studio M2 Max 64Gb Ram.
please give the free trial a spin and see if it works for your needs! in my opinion, that is way too many instances for any plug-in, but i typically adhere to the less is more mindset
128 instances? Thats alot lol, maybe use some bus sends...
@@Adam-g-uk Thx! Thats how Atmos mastering is being practiced, Since you can have up to 128 objects there's no way of bussing. So far, I'm using neutron 4, which is more that one could ever ask! Kraftur is awesome btw!
Gott at least give it a try. It looks so freaking cool!
love that vapourware style branding y'all doing now
checkimg, but not sure if it add anything valuable to the sound. Transients get killed on the drums and every time `i disable the plugin I prefer the original signal. Anyone found a nice setting?:)
I have tried it one more time and I actually liked drivind just a few dbs on the master, with a few dbs on the mid signal. Made the song a bit more interesting. So I beleive using it at sall setting to to add a touch is one nice way:)
I'm pretty confused. Clearly it's a saturator, but it's also a clipper and a limiter as well?
There is quite a lot going on! There's single-band and multi-band soft clipping based upon the transfer curves, but there is also a final clipper if you use the Clip button. So if your input Band meters aren't saturating on the bottom of the display and you still hear saturation/distortion, double check the output Band meters on the right to see if they are being clipped by the Clip button. In short, Kraftur isn't just one thing!
EDDIE BRONCO!!!!! Great guy.
i don't get this reference haha that's not my name
@@metalhead3ecr oops, not reference, i got confused. but great tutorial anyway!
Very cool guys!
What is single band or multi band mean?
Multi band is splitting the signal into three bands. The low band contains the low frequencies, the mid band contains the mid frequencies and the high band contains the high frequencies. Single band is not splitting the signal into any bands. It's just one band that contains all the frequencies.
@@ProudSausage Thanks a lot. I find single band white line.
Love Gullfoss so I instantly downloaded the demo and was ready to be blow away by Kraftur... but upon A/Bing it with another multiband clipper (which I won't name to avoid sounding like an add for a competitor), I was not blown away...
After copying settings and pushing for same RMS levels, Kraftur can't get near the other multiband clipper without the saturation/distortion getting audible.
Then tried other settings with offset and knee and sure it colours in its own way, but again, no where near the level and clarity of the other clipper.
Clearly I just downloaded this so I need to spend sometimes with, but again...its a clipper, so not too much to play with...anyway, still early days.
By the way, I couldn't find the oversampling options? Clicking on the logo brings up a menu that has to do with appearance. Where are the oversampling options?
Same here. In love with Gullfoss, quite perplexed this time... 🙄
It's more of an inflator than a clipper
@@listenfidi so its of a waveshaper instead of a clipper? I don't think so.
I find it weird that there is still not a single video by the usual suspects reviewing it. The only video on yt is this one here and even online i can`t find a single review other than an announcement of its release
That leaves me a bit confused, too
I love ST Gullfoss but confused why this is the only review/demo of Ktaftur on RUclips.
It's because most of the companies pay RUclipsrs to review their new products, seems like soundtheory is more interested in putting out a quality product and let it say for itself.
Check again, there are at least a few (that’ve maybe come out the last couple weeks). The A/B results are pretty impressive in some of ‘em.
I think that the mass will find this too hard. Seems nice though
Yea, possibly. Quite a few parameters. But if someone's lazy and doesn't want to get into the details, you can always leave everything on default and just use 'Drive' to control your peak-to-rms ratio and get some character.
It's pretty simple actually
Yeah, actually looks very simple, no menus. Visual feedback is a bit shit imo, not having used it yet. Would probably put an oscilloscope after it if I really cared anyway. Sounds good from what I've heard in the reviews, hmmmm, I have clippers, but nothing in the multiband range. Tempting.
Any suggested presets?
Guys, for some reason your page isn´t available! I am sitting in Germany. VPN also failed for an unknown reason 🤷♂
Are you with Nord? I have to turn off Threat Protection Pro > Web Protection temporarily in order to use their site. Not sure what triggers the safeguards but I've noticed this problem with the Nord client and a few sites.
Nice plug! Side note; check your mic sound settings, getting very high on the ‘s’ when talking almost a whistle.
i used a little bit of de-essing but unfortunately that's just my voice haha will use more de-essing next time!
@@metalhead3ecr Or Speak without S
@@ItallivingeaSier Said than done ;)
@@metalhead3ecr Indeed it iS
To my ears there is no fatness to the sound. Harmonic saturation, soft clipping like analog gear. Still sounds digital.
🎶🔥❤️😊
I wonder how Schwabe Gold Clip is 3X better than this amazing clipper (given how Gold Clip is 3X the price of this clearly superior clipper)
Schwabe is great but it's most hype!
@@listenfidi Indeed. It’s not that it’s bad or anything. I bought Gold Clip and it’s perfectly fine… the point was basically that it’s way overpriced and when other plug-in developers put out what look to be superior products at 1/3rd the cost, it’s worth mentioning :) Same goes for MAAT and their EQ’s. I’m sure they’re great, but are they 5x better than Pro Q3 or any decent digital eq, for that matter
@@SQ3-Sequence Yeah! Some companies have a big ego, i would never change my pro q or kirchoff to use that bad looking eq from Maat, for me it's a robbery and a joke on consumers!
Watched a review on bunch of clippers - Gold Clip did come out the clear winner… though seems the key difference here might be the multiband. Wouldn’t be surprised if Gold Clip is superior to this’ final clipper, and using both together might produce good results…
Ágætt
Thank you for making it extremely difficult to tell what the plugin is exactly doing. thanks for not showing real life examples. i ll download the trial i m only hoping it worths my time. becauase by looking at this video i have no idea which scenario i can use it for and thanks for not clarifying what it " actually " does. thanks for playing on a non sense drum loop for 8 minutes and still not explaining why would i even wanna do it on the drum loop in the first place. i swear these companies dont know how to sell. than hire some people for god's sake.
This whole video is a demo where you can hear exactly what it is doing. They blend the effect between dry and the two clipping modes. If you want an in depth tutorial go watch a tutorial. But for the sake of a quick demo of one particular use case this video is good.
@@foodwav all tutorials are paid my friend. paid promotion. i m making a demonstration video now . i got this dont worry. lets help people.
Yoy know, maybe you should just grab a simpler plugin or spend some more time actually learning about audio instead of complaining you don't understand a pretty crystal clear explanation ;).
And please don't try to help people. You'll end up misinforming them. RUclips has enough of that.
@@asymmetrymedia9838 helped a bunch of people recently on this plugin.
1- it didnt pass my linear filter test
2- it screws up your low end good luck with that.
3- in a year nobody will remember this plugin.
4- i recommended people to go grab saturn and compare for theirselves.
5- i dont need to learn about audio anymore since I teach audio. good luck to you people if you bought this.
I can’t seem to find your demonstration video, did you upload it?
read the license agreement carefully before buying. the developer is a wacko!
What exactly are you referring to?
@@un-ku_son I was curious too, so went and read the license agreement, you may have to purchase again in 25 years. 😅
1.1 In consideration of payment by you of the agreed licence fee and you agreeing to abide by the terms of this Licence, we hereby grant to you a non-exclusive, single user licence to use the Software and the Documents on the terms of this Licence for a period of twenty five (25) years from the date of purchase. Trial licences are limited to a period of two (2) weeks.
@@mattbranigan what? why such term this doesn't make any sense at all, they can charge for upgrade but buying it after 25 years again is just nonsense!
@@vcodev108 according to their website this was a term introduced on 16th June 2024 to comply with EU law regarding licence transfer policy.
Here's a copy/paste post by our developer trying to explain our reasoning for the policy changes.
"
I've posted the same response on KVR and I think it is worth sharing here, too.
I think at this point it would be fair to offer some context for Soundtheory’s license transfer policy. The current policy is our attempt at solving a problem with the software industry, and this problem is that we believe that paying customers are treated very unfairly. Allow me to explain:
Currently, if you buy software you are facing three options.
1. You pay for a subscription and can use the software while you are paying.
2. You pay for a maintenance period. You get updates and support as long as you pay and can keep using the software if you stop paying. This is usually limited, often artificially, by lack of support for OS updates. Restarting the maintenance after a break also usually comes with a penalty fee.
3. You pay for updates when they come out. The price for the update depends on the version you’re updating from. The fees are up to the discretion of the software vendor and may change. They usually add a few features and improvements, but they also make sure to only give out compatibility and bug fixes with paid updates. Sometimes you receive a free hot fix, but you can expect to pay for updates regularly.
These models exist to make sure that the ongoing cost of software development, maintenance, support and infrastructure are covered. But the conditions also force the customer into a dependent relationship. He has to pay to keep using the software, even if he uses it infrequently. The total cost of maintaining the license is hard to estimate and usually even unpredictable. As a result, the investment of the user in the software product is exceeding the investment of the software company into the user, by far.
We decided that we did not want to put our customers in such a situation. Instead, we are aiming at a much more symmetric relationship that is based on mutual trust and investment. The user invests in us, we invest in the user. What this means specifically is, that if you buy our software you pay a fixed price up front. And then you pay never again to keep using it. We will deliver updates and support for as long as the software is relevant and maintenance is feasible.
We’ve demonstrated this policy with Gullfoss. Since we’ve released it in 2018, we’ve promptly fixed every single issue with free updates, kept improving the plugin and even added two more plugins to the same product. So that you now have three much better editions of Gullfoss. We’ve also made sure all OS updates during that time went smooth and that Gullfoss was ready from day one. All for free. For all our customers. We did not even increase the price of the product.
Now, if you bought Gullfoss for our $99 introductory offer, you could now sell it for $199, because your license is just as good as a new license bought from us. So you would have used Gullfoss for six full years, received all the maintenance and would even have gained up to $100 by selling it. That doesn’t sound quite fair, neither to us developers nor to those customers who in fact payed for your time spent with the plugin and the money you made from it by selling it for more than you paid.
The problem is, more or less obviously, that a software license does not have any natural loss of value, unless you force users to pay for updates regularly. Since we don’t do that, we need to somehow charge users for the time they’ve used the plugin. Because we don’t want a subscription or maintenance contract the only way is to charge when the user wants to cash in on the license: So we had to introduce transfer fees to avoid any of the other undesirable license models described above and protect both our interests and the interests of those customers who have invested in our product.
So the deal is simple. If you don’t sell your license you pay upfront once and we will take care of you. If you want to sell your license, you pay a reasonable fee that prevents you from using the license transfer as an endless trial or even make a profit from selling a license that you purchased at a discount.
If you look at the structure of the transfer fees, we think that they are more than reasonable. The base fee of $10 reflects our own cost of moving the license to a new owner. We don’t make any money with it. It’s worth noting that you will NOT have to pay the $25 PACE license transfer fee, as we cover that for you. If you held the license for less than a year, that’s all there is. After the first year, we charge 10% of the plugin resale value at the time of purchase per year until you reach 40% and then we keep increasing it in steps of 5%. That means it takes 16 years for the license to be entirely devalued. At this point you have received 16 years of maintenance.
If you ever want to transfer the license, we also offer a buy-back or a partial refund with the same devaluation. And if you name us a charity, we will even make sure to donate the transfer fee in your name if that is possible with reasonable effort.
Finally, all these rules are guidelines. We look at each case individually and may waive the fees entirely, depending on how we are approached and what the context is.
If you still feel that this is a rip-off, then please take the time to explain what we could do better while running a business. We are trying to be the best company for our customers.
So with Kraftur you can expect free updates and improvements just like with Gullfoss. I cannot guarantee that we will be adding free new editions to it, as this depends on where the development takes us. But we will increase the value and give back to all the customers who invested in us.
Finally, the 25 year license limit is a nonsensical consequence of European law. If we hand out perpetual licenses, we would have to take one of the established models that we think are unfair towards the customer. If you ever come to the point when you hold a license that exceeds this 25 year limit and the product is still usable, then we will make sure that there is a pain-free path forward that will allow you to keep using the product. But let’s be realistic, 25 years of software support is an eternity.
So, I hope I could convince you that we’re not the company from hell that wants to rip everyone off, but much rather are trying to do precisely the opposite.
Thanks for listening,
Andreas
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