Vegas is a fine product, as was ACID until recently. These were flagship products from the original Sonic Foundary team, and kudos to MAGIX for reviving ACID.
My intention was not to bash anyone. I’m merely pointing out that MAGIX products are currently being offered a lower prices than they have ever been, which I find noteworthy, given that the company is insolvent. The “regular” prices have always been totally artifical discounts, because the product has never sold at what they claim is full price. It has always puzzled me why this is allowed, or even legal, at least in the EU.
What I find disturbing that that people will no doubt purchase MAGIX products in good faith, not realising that the vendor is insolvent; fine, if it’s a hammer you’re buying, not so much if it’s software that can only function as long as the activation servers of an insolvent company remain switched on.
But most software companies do this. I remember paying a LOT for UAD plugins to run on 2 UAD cards. I felt they were worth it at the time. As the years went by I retired the cards. Then UA started doing native versions but I found the asking prices for plugins (some of which are essentially the same since 2001) to be way too ambitious compared to competition. So now even UA offer special discounts (and I took advantage of that). IK multimedia: I spent literally hundreds, maybe over a thousand on Sampletank and libraries. Now they are selling at fraction of the price. It’s hard to put a real value on software.
If by “this” you mean artificially inflating the perceived value of their products, yes, sure, that’s marketing – caveat emptor – but it should stay within the bounds of the consumer protection laws of the territories they sell into.
What I have a real issue with is the fact that an insolvent company appears to be incentivising the purchase of software, the ability of which to function depends on the continued existence of the company and its services.
There was one thing that it did that no other product did and I still use it for that reason though its has started to give me trouble on win10. Early on before it was sold to Magix Sony gave me a free copy of Vegas. I never used it for video or audio editing but the encoders were terrific and it was the only NLE in town that you could specify the limit. For example we had a hour long documentary that had to be under 5GB and still be of excellent quality for an Italian Film Festival. Only in Vegas you could specify the mp4 target and it would adapt the encoding algorithm to exactly hit those targets. Obviously as an AV editor it was dated compared to FCP and MC though it was once very popular among music enthusiasts.
Vegas has probably got the best audio editing capability of any video software. In fact, something it has (like Samplitude) is the ability to have track fx AND event fx for each audio clip on the track. Extremely useful. I’d like Cubase to have that. And the video side of things is very good for my purpose. I just edited a 2 hour gig with 8 x 4k cameras. I recorded the live audio into Cubase on my laptop and then took those edited mixes into Vegas for the video part. ANd actually, talking of deals, when I bought one of the Magix suites a few years back , it came bundled with Spectralayers pro, full license. It actually ended up being about the same price as buying Spectralyers on its own. AND when Spectralyers moved to Steinberg, my license was transferred automatically with no fuss.
Do they now support side chaining…When I was a consultant to Sony Broadcast India one of the issues that kept popping up was whether to do a complete refresh of the code base or develop catalyst Edit. Sony decided to go the other route and sold Vegas.
I don’t use side chaining when editing video so I never checked. It’s never been mentioned by anyone on the Vegas forums, no demand for it. VST3 plugins are supported now.
Don’t get me wrong … I love Vegas and still use it. The appeal is the DAW-like feel of it, seeing as it started life as an audio-only product. I also love the fact that Steinberg brought SpectraLayers into the fold (I’ve been using it since V3 under Sony).
All my stars would align if only Steinberg (Yamaha) were to buy Vegas, and looking at the video handling in Cubendo, that might not be a bad idea .
In fairness, I just found a thread on the Vegas forum discussing this: Magix, Producer of Vegas Pro, Files for Insolvency
Last updated about two weeks ago, there are some indications that at least the Vegas team are upbeat.
I’d love to be able to specify a render size limit in MBs and then be offered a selection of algorithms, each with a link to its capacities and limitations.
That’d be a game changer and a reason for a rapid increase of VEGAS user base and the improvement of MAGIX solvency
“All my stars would align” here equals to having all your eggs in the same basket… Hence a temporary good, counting that you appreciate what Steinberg has been doing, but altogether means increased risk.
We have yet to see what whoever (investment banks?) continues buying the whole lot, does… Or the possible decisions one of those administrations Steinberg and Yamaha decides to trickle down to their lower ranks.
Have in mind that I also have Spectralayers as one of my main tools and have loved Cubase (from the distance) for decades since it was my first DAW, now on Samplitude and Live.
I have Independence Pro which I originally purchased from the YellowTools website. Everything worked ok until Magix took over. I was speaking to the guy at YT and said the worst thing you could have done is merge with Magix and he said many people had told him about how bad their software was. I had used their software before and I had the same qualms about this take over. But the deal had been. Done. They kept the YT support guy on but he now seems to have moved elsewhere. When they moved the software from the YT to their Magix Pro Site everything still worked. Then about 2-3 years back we were told to move our software to the main Magix website. That happened and my software stopped working. Trying to raise a support log with them is a nightmare. They send you a ticket number and then they send you another email 5 minutes later to say that your support docket has been closed please resubmit! Obviously they don’t want to deal with their customers unless they use laid support! I have never been a fan of their software because it mucks up the registry and in some cases you can’t actually remove the software. Also a file Kees on going missing. It is sloppy programming at its worst. How can you keep on pushing out new versions of their software if they haven’t fixed the basics which everyone is complaining about. Yeap sorry for the staff but they must have known that the writing was on the wall because of sloppy support and software. Also they have their fingers in too many pies ie Video, Audio Music, photos etc…. They should have kept their eye on one thing that Magix is famous for and that is Audio. The photo and video software could have been n sold on as a going concern. Unfortunately my first piece of software from Magix was a Photo and Video programme which also didn’t work properly and this was being sold on one of this budget labels you used to get software that went out of date and it cost £10 instead of £70. The problem is if you then hand the software over to one of those companies that then resells it at a lower price you’d expect the software to be fixed with no errors and considering it was old they had plenty of time to fix it. If I remember I left an F bomb with their support on the company who was selling software that didn’t work. I believe sometime later I did get a file from Magix to fix the issue by then I had moved into Ulead. The sounds they produce are actually very good just a shame about the shoddy software they are wrapped up in. I am I have to say I am very surprised that Magix went into insolvency because I had assumed they were a big company a bit like Pinnacle who were the video software leader but had shoddy software as well. Steinberg had a blip when I first purchase my version of 6. That worked but then with no 7 everything went totally wrong. My major issue was there yiu have a tied note the software ignored the tie and played both notes instead of one. Thankfully that has been fixed.
I got my first taste of Nuendo through them. It was bundled with hollywood top compositing program Commotion along with realtime Cinewave before it was merged with avid who wnted their MediaStream server…
Luckly steinberg barely escaped.
If I am not wrong StarWars new series was edited on Cinewave 2K by Lucas Films.
Apologies for resurrecting this topic, but I know there are some Vegas users here who might be interested in the fact that Vegas Edit 21 is now available via Humble Bundle for a donation of about USD$30 in support of the Make-A-Wish charity.
I don’t believe it is in the US. I only say this because I was a class member in a class action lawsuit against a company who did just that and we won. My understanding is that most European countries have stricter consumer laws than the US. I’m certainly not a legal expert though.
At least now, folks who want to can upgrade to a more recent version for less than $30, while at the same time also donating to charity. Vegas Edit 21 supports VST3.
I remember MAGIX claiming that Vegas Edit 18 RRP was $698.
I really hope the Vegas team survives the MAGIX treatment. It reminds me of when Pinnacle bought Steinberg. MAGIX is to Sonic Foundry what Pinnacle was to Steinberg.
VEGAS 22 Pro (nee Edit) is currently £199, upgrade from 21 is £149 (!). (Like a Cubase upgrade would be £375-ish!)
But yes, the price slides up and down, especially during sales. I believe VEGAS 21 stayed at exactly the same price from it’s release, through Black Friday, when it was on sale for 50% off, and into a New Year sale, also 50% off. They doubled the RRP during the sales and sold the thing for the same price as off sale. Scandalous!
Excellent deal and also includes Sound Forge 17. I own Vegas Pro 22 but my forge was at v15 so I bought the deal just for Sound Forge. Actually, their recent deal on Vegas Pro suite included a full version of SPctralayers pro and it might have even cost less than buying Spectralayers direct from Steinberg…
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