Sonoma Wire Works & DrumCore 4 out of business today!

[James Steele]

Got the following email today. Wow!

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

Thank you for your interest in Sonoma Wire Works products. We appreciate all of our customers and the past and present Sonoma team. We've enjoyed creating products that so many musicians have found to be helpful. After much consideration, and for many reasons, we are announcing:

1. July 31, 2022, RiffWorks, DrumCore 4 and iOS apps will no longer be sold to end-users by Sonoma.
2. After October 31, 2022, Sonoma will no longer offer support for our products.

While we are looking for a new home for RiffWorks and DrumCore, and have found some potential interest, there is no available information or guarantees for the future of these products.

July 31, 2022: Sonoma will no longer sell new licenses of RiffWorks, DC4, or DC4 updates from DC3/DC2/KC. The following may be available for purchase and download until servers are turned off at the end of October: DC4 Crossgrades, DC4 add-on sales of GrooveSets and Drums Kits, and RiffWorks InstantDrummers.
Important: As of July 31st, downloads may not be possible if the servers are overloaded by users attempting to download and back up content.
No refunds will be offered, so if you purchase any add-on content, you do so at your own risk.

August 31, 2022: No further redemptions of newsletter offers and contest prize giveaways. No DC3, DC2.5 and KitCore support or registration assistance.

October 31, 2022: Sonoma will no longer support any products, including RiffWorks, DrumCore and iOS products. Sonoma’s services, website, online guides, online store, support and email addresses will no longer be available. Software and add-on drums (DrumCore GrooveSets/Drum Kits and RiffWorks InstantDrummers) purchased in Sonoma’s online store and in DC4 will no longer be available to download.

Customers may be able to continue using RiffWorks Standard, DrumCore 4 and add-on content after October 31 by following tips below. However, there are no guarantees.

Add-on content (including DC4 crossgrades, DC4 GrooveSets/Drum Kits, and RiffWorks InstantDrummers) purchased before and between July 31 and October 31, 2022 are non-refundable. Sonoma cannot guarantee that any add-on content will be downloadable, as it is possible that Sonoma’s servers may be overloaded with customers attempting to download previously purchased content. We encouraged/warned customers (through newsletters, website, social media and/or support emails) to keep backups of software and drums on their own drives. Therefore, if you have trouble downloading content that you previously purchased, please look for your backups on your own SSD drives. All DC4 and RW software licenses and add-on drum purchases are non-refundable.

Tips for Attempting to Continue to Use RiffWorks and DC4 after October 31st:
RW and/or DC4 may continue to work for you on your current computer configuration with some limitations listed below, but there are no guarantees. It is recommended that you keep disk image backups of your current software, content, preferences, profile file, etc. in case you would like to attempt to install the software on a different/similar computer (with the same configuration) in the future. We recommend that you keep this disk image on at least 3 (THREE) separate backup drives.

Sonoma Backup Recommendations:
Print these for your records:
https://www.sonomawireworks.com/support/backup.php

Backup Tips from Other Sources:
PC: Sound On Sound - https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques ... w-music-pc
Mac: Apple - https://support.apple.com/guide/disk-ut ... l11888/mac
SetApp - https://setapp.com/how-to/how-to-clone-mac-hard-drive

If you’d like to see how RW or DC4 will continue to work for you without Sonoma’s servers, turn off your WiFi and try using the software. The following are known limitations, but there may be more issues.

DC4 Limitations After Oct. 31, 2022:

• DC4 Previews will no longer download in DC4's Browser.
• DC4 Store will not work.
• DC4 Registration should continue to be fine on your current computer. If you ever need to re-install DC4, we recommend using a disk image of your currently working configuration, otherwise registration may not work. Registering DC4 on a new computer may not work unless you install it using the disk image recommendation above. We can’t guarantee how Pace/iLok will handle authorizations on a new computer, so you may want to associate your DC4 registration to an iLok dongle rather than to a computer. Sonoma support will no longer be available to help transfer DC4 licenses between computers.
•DC4 Online Guides and FAQs will no longer be available.


RiffWorks Limitations After Oct. 31, 2022:

• RW Forgot Password link will no longer work.
• RW Get More Drums link to sonomawireworks.com will be broken.
• RW InstantDrummer store will be unavailable for purchases and downloads.
• RW registration should continue to be fine on your current computer. If you ever need to re-install RW, we recommend only doing so by using a disk image of your currently working configuration. Registering RW on a new computer will not work unless you install it using the disk image recommendation above.
• RW Online Guides and FAQs will no longer be available.

FourTrack, StudioTrack and GuitarTone are no longer available for purchase. Downloading these legacy products on older iOS versions and devices may work in your iTunes account if Apple allows it for your system, but there are no guarantees. See Sonoma's Backup Recommendations for further info.

Many of you have been using our products since their launches: RiffWorks and RiffCaster in 2005, RiffWorld and FourTrack in 2008, DrumCore 3 in 2009, GuitarJack Model 1 in 2010, GuitarJack Model 2 and GuitarTone in 2011, GuitarJack Stage and StudioJack Mini in 2015, DrumCore 4 in 2016, and more! Thanks to the incredible team who helped create these products, and to all our customers! We wish you all the best!

Cheers,
The Sonoma Team

[James Steele]

Looking like I probably won't have to worry about migrating my DrumCore 4 libraries over to the Mac Studio when I get it. Sigh. Unless I want to run it in Rosetta 2 until it just won't work anymore. Seems like the writing was on the wall... there hasn't been a maintenance update to the DrumCore 4 plug-in in years as far as I can recall.

[mikehalloran]

If you’d like to see how RW or DC4 will continue to work for you without Sonoma’s servers, turn off your WiFi and try using the software. …

That can't be good.

[bayswater]

A stark reminder.

[James Steele]

If you’d like to see how RW or DC4 will continue to work for you without Sonoma’s servers, turn off your WiFi and try using the software. …

That can't be good.

I think what it indicates is that their built in "store" for purchasing content isn't going to work anymore. Also, if I recall, you can own a library which consists of both MIDI and audio loops and sometimes the audio loops you own may be in the cloud and not on your local hard drive. So I think the thrust is that you'd better make sure you've downloaded your content to your drive soon.

DrumCore 4 was a good plug and I probably should have reached for it more often as there were some great kits and it was a good concept, but I noticed they hadn't pushed out any maintenance updates or bug fixes in years which was a cause for concern. I started gravitating away from it and relying more heavily on Toontrack Superior Drummer 3, which sounds very good and I have no doubt Toontrack is going to be around for the long term. Seems DrumCore just was in a saturated segment.

I suppose there's hope someone buys DrumCore 4 and takes over support and future development, but not sure I'd count on it. I know that I hope to get a Mac Studio M1 Max in the next couple of months and given the news and that it doesn't look like DrumCore 4 will ever be Apple Silicon native, I'll just write it off and not bother installing it on the new machine. My goal really is to be all native if at all possible and cast off vendors who can't keep up. Hello Avid?? Hahaha...

[James Steele]

I have to follow up just to report that for "giggles" I went ahead and installed the last version of DrumCore4 and made sure I downloaded whatever loops, etc. I'd purchased already, but of course it would only run if I launched DP in Rosetta 2. I had tried to use Blue Cat Audio's PatchWork as a way around this, but it had some issues. Although M1 native, if I opened it in DP the UI collapsed... it wasn't usable.

Well happy to stay that Blue Cat Audio released version 2.6…

https://www.bluecataudio.com/Products/P ... PatchWork/

I can open the old AU of DrumCore4 inside it and it works like a champ. Not sure I'll use DC4 that much as I own Superior Drummer 3 and Addictive Drums 2, but it's nice to have options. There's a Ludwig Sparkle kit that's a real gem in DrumCore 4 so nice to have it back.

Of course, you can do MUCH more with PatchWork, but I've fallen back on it numerous times to open either VIs (using the PatchWork Synth plug) or effects (using PatchWork) that DP or other host DAWs may have issues with.