Wed Jan 08, 2020 5:33 am
The entire "sudden push" for upgrading to Hauptwerk V has left me stunned and flabbergasted. Without any preparation of its worldwide, and highly loyal (but dependent), clientele -- and just as half of the world was preparing itself for an extended holiday absence (not to mention PEAK time for the world's organists during Advent, Christmas and the New Year) -- Milan started what I perceived as an immensely arrogant and forceful push, trying to drive its entire clientele into the HW-5 upgrade - with a discount offer that was to be "gone like the wind" even before the Christmas holidays were over and done with. It was incredulous to witness. It felt like one of those well-known USA Highway multi-car crashes during its infamous winter following freezing temperatures and a metre of overnight snow in blizzard conditions. Milan was determined to drive this through - to hell with anyone who would crash in the process.
How many are left behind? How many hundreds, or thousands, of PC organs are standing in people's homes or in churches, where nobody has actually become aware that something has been going on during the Christmas hollidays? 20% of Hauptwerk 4 users? Or as many as 30% or 40% of the total number of Hauptwerk users around the world??? Oh, no, don't be mistaken: I live in Australia, a country where there are NO Hauptwerk resellers or electronic organ shops where you can try or purchase organ samplesets made for Hauptwerk. I only know about Hauptwerk because I have a good internet connection - I've never had any person-to-person contact in this country with anyone who owns a Hauptwerk organ so I could learn about this fabulous way of 'playing the organ'.
For me - having only just finished my Hauptwerk 4 set-up (my Advanced Edition payment is from August 29, 2019), having just purchased and installed my permanent Presonus 6-channel audio interface LESS THAN TWO WEEKS before that now "infamous" Coupon Email - the ONLY email noting there was an upgrade to HW4; WITHOUT any explanation of its features, WITHOUT anything that convinced me that this was a neccesary, if not essential upgrade; for me, this all came across as a ridiculous if not (financially?) desparate act, bordering on commercial idiocy.
No wonder then that my first, spontaneous and primary reaction was: "F*ck Off, Milan, go to h*ll with your upgrade". I quickly reached the decision that if I were to ever upgrade, it would be WELL beyond the discount offer period of January 6. Even my "wishlist" of encrypted samplesets was not even complete - I only owned ONE sampleset which only opened fully once my payment for it had been completed.
My next step was to make a comprehensive list of encrypted organs I insisted on owning before that other commercially ridiculous deadline - no more USB Dongle updates beyond March 31, 2020. But this process was already tainted with my distrust: from my first interactions with Milan it has become clear that its website promise of "usual response time of 24 hours" was basically more spin than fact. I would soon learn that a License update turn-around after buying an encrypted sampleset could take anything up to two weeks or more. If I put, from my small pension payment and savings, money together for 5 or 8 samplesets, there would not be enough time for all the Dongle updates before the March deadline.
Let me not forget a tiny trivial fact: when I paid my Hauptwerk Basic License in March 2019, I also applied for approval of my entry as a member of the Hauptwerk Forum. I NEVER received a reply to my request. So, as a Hauptwerk "self-starter" I remained EXCLUDED from the main self-help forum for me - the Hauptwerk Forum.
Oops, sorry, I LIED - Brett Milan DID reply to my Forum membership application. I received a reply to my forum membership request on DECEMBER 14, 2019 - WITHIN DAYS OF THE HAUPTWERK FIVE LAUNCH. So, my membership of the HW Forum was approved NINE MONTHS after my request.
I was very keen for a Milan sampleset of the St Georgenkirche in Rotha, Germany - because I'm a "JS Bach fanatic" I would want to own all the Silbermann organs there are. Alas, almost immediately I discovered that Milan, upon launching its HW-5 push, had IMMEDIATELY stopped selling HW4 samplesets. To make matters worse: it also became clear that, world-wide, Hauptwerk resellers could NO LONGER sell Milan HW4 samplesets -- presumably following strict instructions to them by Milan. In other words, the clause "USB Dongle License updates are available till March 31, 2020" was to be interpreted as "....rather not at all, if we at Milan would be in control!"
In the process of my super-fast investigation I contacted many resellers and samplemakers - and I thank many of them for treating me with great courtesy: this was equally true for Pipeloops, Sonus Paradisi, Prospectum Virtual Organs and several Hauptwerk resellers in the Netherlands and Germany.
Anyway, I installed successfully, with Milan License updates, TWO encrypted samplesets since early December. Next, I had to discover that OrganArtMedia, folllowing the "Milan HW-5 Push" no longer sells any samplesets through its website, but only through resellers, listed on its "Order" page: discounts of 15% would be available all December. So I settled with a Hauptwerk Reseller in the Netherlands, Noorlander Organs in Barneveld, a purchase of the OrganArtMedia "Reinhardsgrimma" sampleset on the last day of December, the 31st. Kees Noorlander of Noorlander Organs informed me that they would take care of the Licence Update for the OrganArtMedia sampleset, so I sent them the License Update Request file I made on that last December day.
Yesterday there was a reply from Brett Milan, EIGHT days after Noorlander submitted the License Update Request file. It was NOT a reply to Noorlander, but an unexpected reply to ME. Brett Milan told me he CAN NOT grant a license update without hearing from OrganArtMedia. It was a STUNNING response. Remember, I have NO RELATIONSHIP with OrganArtMedia. I made a purchase of a sampleset from a Hauptwerk and sampleset Reseller - Noorlander Organs. Brett Milan knows this. I know this. And Kees Noorlander of Noorlander Organs knows this.
What is wrong with you, Brett Milan? Where does that preposterous arrogance come from? Remember, Brett Milan, I am a Hauptwerk user. Together with thousands, if not tens of thousands, of other Hauptwerk users, we enable and have enabled your life. We give you the bread on your table, We pay for your family income, for the car you drive, the office you rent, and the Christmas dinner you presumably enjoyed recently. Therefore, respecting your clientele, the Hauptwerk users - including those who have NOT upgraded as yet, those who have NOT upgraded and might never upgrade to HW5, should be on the TOP of your priorities, each and every day. We are and have been YOUR LIFEBLOOD.
So do the right thing, every day and every hour, by your customers, Brett. Without us, you are nothing. You need to send me a License Update for the OrganArtMedia "Reinhardsgrimma" sampleset. In this, you need to accord also the ultimate respect to one of your Hauptwerk Resellers, Noorlander Organs in the Netherlands. They sent you the evidence I had purchased a sampleset. That should be more than enough.
Above all, you need to stop being manipulative to us, your Hauptwerk 4 customers. Because, speaking for myself, I've had a gutfull of your lack of courtesy and respect.