FIXED: Anyone having trouble with new Spitfire downloader?

[mhschmieder]

As I never received a response from my problem report (even when checking junkmail and spam), and as the only discussion I've seen is about issues with Snow Leopard, I'm wondering if anyone else is having problems with the new Spitfire downloader on Mavericks?

I registered a new account as an existing customer, par their instructions, and downloaded the new installer (a surprise to me as it wasn't announced; I thought it would be Continuata for the new Glass library that I purchased, as before), which then showed two icons for the Glass library. I clicked the first and it only created a parent directory with no files. I clicked on the second and it said "already installed". I deleted the directory, rebooted, etc., but the downloader no longer sees Glass as available to install.

I never had these issues with Continuata. In fact, you could always redownload -- e.g. if you accidentally trashed your disc. I'm very nervous if we now only have one shot at it.

It's possible they're just overwhelmed and can't answer individual problems now, but they made a bold announcement of the new downloader today and it sounded like a Final Release with no known bugs. Maybe updates are coming though.

Anyway, for reasons I can't go into on a publicly searchable forum, I only have a couple of days left to properly download this before a month of not being able to do so (and many purchases have timeouts on downloads). So I thought I'd better see if anyone on this forum has had issues, rather than create an account on a forum I'd rather not participate in due to too many trolls.

[Shooshie]

My only connection with Spitfire was in a forum thread here when they were just starting their Bespoke and Spitfire libraries. They had a flute example posted on their site which attempted to perform the orchestral flute opening of Debussy's Prélude à l'après-MIDI d'un faune. To put it politely in the British idiom, it sucked royally. In fact, it sounded as if the samples were velocity-based, which would have precluded the possibility of a proper crescendo, something necessary when playing such a line. When I asked, they aggressively denounced me for being so rude as to doubt their demo or their judgment, never saying whether or not the sample libraries were capable of doing this. In fact, they challenged me to do better, so I did with three other libraries: Miroslav, Vienna, and Wallander.

Heck, I still have the examples. Allow me to post theirs and one of mine to demonstrate.
Flute opening to Prélude à l'après-MIDI d'un faune

Spitfire Library Flute demo.mp3
My response with Miroslav flute, mp3
Miroslav's flute, by the way, is probably the oldest flute sample on the market today, which doubly implicates Spitfire's claims to superiority.

Even when faced with the evidence supporting my concerns, they still treated me as some rude interloper with that particularly American kind of cheek for daring to ask them a question — they, who didn't even invite me to their Bespoke library. Why should they bother with me?

At that point, I was afraid this said a little more about their customer service than they would care to have admitted. Eventually, with other readers of the thread beginning to become vocal in their support of my question, and the growing absurdity of their refusal to answer it, they began to cooperate. They assured me that indeed you can play a crescendo with their samples, and make a fluidly expressive line, but they did not demonstrate it. Well, actually they did update their demo, but it wasn't really any better. (Yes, I have that, too, but won't post it. No need to rub salt into old wounds.)

My point: don't be surprised if Albion are unresponsive to your requests. However... if you were to send them the link to this post, with my promise to remove the demo if they help you, who knows what they might do for you? That's not extortion; if they help you quickly, it would merely prove me wrong about them, and then I'd look bad for leaving it up, right? I'm just reporting a public incident here, which in conjunction with your current problem seems to have borne out my suspicions, and the examples are central to that report. But if their customer service has become first-rate, I certainly have no objections to taking down the link.

Shooshie

[mhschmieder]

My interactions with them have been fine, it's just that often there's no response so I don't know if they received my message as many sites (especially in Europe) block my email domain since it isn't Google, Hotmail, or Yahoo.

They're planning on updating many of their libraries and finishing an implementation of a database of all user accounts and products, so probably this issue will iron itself out over the next few weeks.

I don't need to use the Glass library right away so I was more concerned if there would be a timeout on the download as many vendors take that approach. It sounds like this is a very sophisticated custom piece of software they've written, akin to VSL's, so probably we will have permanent access to our purchased products. Isn't that what "The Cloud" is supposed to be about, after all?

[nk_e]

Wow. Sorry to hear that you had that experience Shooshie. Those guys have been nothing but gracious in their response to my questions and requests for support. Maybe they were having a bad day/week/month...

[Shooshie]

I'm glad to hear that they're a good company with good customer support. You understand, I wasn't a customer, but a nosy potential customer with sort of technical questions. I never figured out why they reacted that way, but I haven't forgotten, either.

How are you finding the library in matters of expression and realism, especially fast runs (legato or staccato), and crescendo/diminuendo? I still might consider getting the library if it adds something I don't have.

Shooshie

[nk_e]

My interactions with them have been fine, it's just that often there's no response so I don't know if they received my message as many sites (especially in Europe) block my email domain since it isn't Google, Hotmail, or Yahoo.

They're planning on updating many of their libraries and finishing an implementation of a database of all user accounts and products, so probably this issue will iron itself out over the next few weeks.

I don't need to use the Glass library right away so I was more concerned if there would be a timeout on the download as many vendors take that approach. It sounds like this is a very sophisticated custom piece of software they've written, akin to VSL's, so probably we will have permanent access to our purchased products. Isn't that what "The Cloud" is supposed to be about, after all?

I just used the new system to download Sable 4 and it went without hiccups. I asked Spitfire About re-downloading libraries and sections. According to Paul Thomson:

(Me)
Apr 20 13:28

Hi guys. Congrats on getting out the new system. I'm downloading Sable 4 now and it is going very smoothly.

I notice that you have all of my previous purchases listed. However, I never downloaded or installed things like the ALT Mix or Surround Mics of the various libraries figuring that I would pull them down later when needed. With Connect I could always come back and download them using the codes provided. Will there be a way to pull these down through this new system or should I figure on using Connect in the future?

Hope that makes sense. Thanks.


Paul Thomson (Spitfire Audio)
Apr 20 13:32

Hi there,

There will be a way for you to request a new download of any section -- its not available just yet but within a few weeks it will be.

Thanks for your kind words and glad you are having a good experience!

Paul

That's reassuring.

[nk_e]

<SNIP>

How are you finding the library in matters of expression and realism, especially fast runs (legato or staccato), and crescendo/diminuendo? I still might consider getting the library if it adds something I don't have.

Shooshie

I have many of their string libraries as well as their BML Horn Series. For my purposes, they seem to be quite well done, but I am relatively new to all of this so my expectations may not be as well formed. I find their YouTube videos to be quite informative and Daniel James (not affiliated with Spitfire) has posted many a walk through of their libraries (as well as many others like LASS and CinematicStrings) on YouTube. (Example: http://tinyurl.com/lxncrgv )

[mhschmieder]

I am cherry-picking just this one topic to post tonight and am barely reading the other replies.

I just wanted to let people know that I downloaded their new version of the installer tonight and was successful in upgrading the Harpsichord library as well as performing the full download of the new Glass library.

I never received a response; most likely because I was probably not the only one experiencing problems and they were busy working it out so they could update the installer ASAP.

One has to recognize that small shops have to strike a careful balance between responding to a large percentage of inquiries and just getting the work done. I can relate, as I am back to working 100 hours a week at my "day job" and rarely have time to respond to anything outside of work. Those guys never stop working; they must be the busiest developers in the industry!

[mikehalloran]

Heck, I still have the examples. Allow me to post theirs and one of mine to demonstrate.
Flute opening to Prélude à l'après-MIDI d'un faune
...
Miroslav's flute, by the way, is probably the oldest flute sample on the market today, which doubly implicates Spitfire's claims to superiority.

Yikes!

[corbo-billy]

Tries to load the new version of Library Manager is past version 1.7.8. if you hane an earlier version .

[mhschmieder]

Unfortunately, this new installer is still EXTREMELY brittle.

I'm not a fan of having to watch YouTube videos to do an installation, as one has to keep pausing, switching focus to different windows, and trying to keep one's train of thought.

As a result, I made the mistake of doing the update directly from the installer. But we're supposed to first "prepare for the installation" by renaming certain folders.

I'm talking about the Mural volume 1 library at this point. So far this is the only update I have received, even though a quick skim of some on-line forums (not that I have a lot of time for such activities; especially when there are hundreds of posts to sort through in order to put a story straight) indicates that Sable was likewise updated earlier and with a free Volume 4 as that one was originally intended to be part of the already-puchased Volume 3. So that's another mystery to solve tonight.

Anyway, the problem now is that the installer doesn't know where my revised Mural library is, but also will never be able to update it again. It is rare that I have dealt with such a stubborn installer that doesn't tell you where it stores such information. I'm going to have to see if I can find some preferences files to edit, but likely it is instead encrypted in heavily hidden files.

[mhschmieder]

I am unable to fix the Mural installation problem in terms of the Spitfire installer's sense of where it is in my system, but it works fine when loaded into Kontakt.

My email regarding the Sable 1-3 update and the free Sable 4 was received on 16 April with a statement that the links for the Sable 4 download and the Sable 1-2 updates would be sent within 48 hours. So far that is now a month ago, and nothing went to spam either.

Given that email to Spitfire isn't generally answered, and that no one has mentioned problems at the vi-control forum (though I certainly didn't have time to sift through so many posts to be completely sure, as I just got back from a week-long family visit), this is worrisome.

I have no problems with slipped deadlines, but all indications are that this isn't the case. So I can only guess that their new system is struggling with Mavericks and that they haven't the resources to give recent Mac OS X versions priority.

[mhschmieder]

I am becoming increasingly angry and agitated about this whole situation and pondering whether to spend big bucks on Mural Volume 2 as a result.

So far I am only halfway through nine pages of posts on the Sable update, and the Mural update already has 25 pages of posts. Many postings are contradictory or confusing, or include patches available only there and which fix mistakes in what the installer does.

Additionally there is a hint to use their website to file an inquiry on not receiving the update links vs. using email, yet a few pages later someone mentions that "it has already been stated that the update won't be available until 1 May" (paraphrase).

I am sorry, but no matter how busy one is with sampling and programming, this is Old Skool in terms of off-loading communication confusion to all customers and letting the user community sort out what is valid/current and what is not.

Furthermore, since English is not the first language of the majority of posters, it is extremely confusing whether the new installer only works properly on Lion or whether Lion is the outlier that doesn't work.

There are all kinds of instructions for creating a special boot drive just for using this new installer.

I loved the old installer, which is also used by 8DIO, Sonokinetic, and Soundiron. It was flawless, fast, intuitive, repeatable, and clear. I'm guessing there was some vulnerability regarding piracy though. OTOH those vendors mostly make middle-priced libraries vs. cheap stuff, so I would think they would have similar issues and yet none of them has abandoned Continuata yet.

I have a lot of catching up to do after my house move and my family visit (and long hours at work). I really resent having to deal with something that should have been simple taking up my entire evening. I have deserted other vendors in the past (e.g. East/West) when responsiveness and reliability have gone by the wayside. The jury is still out at this point on the new Spitfire Audio Library Manager, which was contracted out to Switchplane Ltd (not familiar to me).

I think long and hard before I make criticisms of this magnitude of a smaller vendor. It is not the fact there are problems that bugs me, but how we as customers are expected to sort things out. Only geeks who have no life have time for this.

[mhschmieder]

I have now finished reading all nine pages of the vi-control topic on the Sable update. My head spins from all the parsing of bad English (not a criticism as I don't expect people to be great at English, but it adds to the confusion so it's just an observation). There are more than a handful of people who didn't receive Sable updates, so I used the support ticket webpage this time vs. sending an email. Hopefully I'll get a response in a few days.

Someone suggested deleting Mural or renaming it, but I think I already did this. I'll try it again and see if the installer then thinks it needs to download it.

Only once those two issues are resolved, can I muster the concentration to go through dozens of probably redundant links and videos about how best to prepare the directories for the updates. There do seem to be some ways to modify these after-the-fact, to some degree. I'm hesitant to stray too far from the original directory structure, but might follow some screen shots of two or three trusted posters who contribute helpful information vs. noise and distractions (which is the norm).

[mhschmieder]

Nope; renaming the Mural directory did not help. I think that hint only works on Windows. Afterwards, and after restarting the installer, the magnifying glass icon does nothing when I click on it beside the image for the Mural library.

It still thinks it is somewhere entirely different from even the directory I put it in after the incorrect initial installation of the update, but I don't know where that information is stored. I only found one preferences file, in my user account directory, and it only has one entry, for the parent directory that contains all of my correctly-installed Spitfire libraries.

I can't remember ever encountering an installer that is 100% broken if even the slightest divergence is made from the expected steps. Many installers do peculiar things or don't document things well, but most have workarounds. Based on forum comments, the only workaround for this installer is to email the Spitfire staff, but I hesitate to do that for this problem unless it carries through to Mural 2 (should I break the bank and buy it, which is increasingly unlikely due to the weak dollar and having just lost $11,000 due to a forced crisis move a couple of weeks ago).