FabFilter

Dear FabFilter,

The most important part of evaluating a plug-in is having enough time to use it repeatedly, develop habits around it, and eventually feel that it's something you don't want to work without. With the current system, just as we're beginning to get comfortable with your plug-ins, the evaluation period ends. I understand that you can renew the 30-day trial. But often it takes way longer than 30, 60, 90 or even 120 days to truly know if a plug-in is right for you.

So my suggestion is, instead of a hard 30-day cutoff where your plug-ins stop working altogether, consider a hybrid approach: 30 days of full functionality (for those who demand to demo your plug-ins at their full functionality), followed by a transition into a perpetual demo mode with occasional audio drop-outs. This allow us to test your plug-ins on our own timeline without the stress of a ticking clock.

By allowing your plug-ins to stay active in our projects indefinitely and not locking us out after 30 days, some of us get used to your plug-ins and eventually become dependent on them.

There are already many developers whose plug-ins can be evaluated perpetually with occasional audio drop-outs. These are just some of them:

• Valhalla DSP
• u-he
• Modartt
• Crave DSP
• Tokyo Dawn Labs (automatic recall is blocked)

Hi J,

I just replied to your email, but I'll also answer here:

We feel that 30 days of demo period is more than enough. That said, like it says in the pop-up that you get when the initial demo expires, you an always send us an email to request some more time if needed.

What I did not mention in the email is that we don't like audio drop-outs in a demo. That way you can never really properly try a plug-in in a real-world situation.

"we don't like audio drop-outs in a demo. That way you can never really properly try a plug-in in a real-world situation."

Hello again Ralph,

That's why in my email I suggested keeping the same 30-day trial period. And only then (after the 30-day trial period was finished) transitioning to audio drop-outs. This way, people who want to demo your plug-ins without audio drop-outs can demo them for 30 days. Just like they can now.

And as per my email:

[QUOTE]
Your current 30-day trial is great at the moment. What is NOT great (in my opinion, of course), is the fact that you lose access to the plug-ins after those 30 days. It would've been great if we could still open the plug-ins after 30 days, without the full functionality of course. For example, with a periodic silence every minute or so. Like Valhalla DSP and Crave DSP, or like u-he injecting noise every minute or so.

My reasoning for this request is: the more we see your plug-ins (even without full functionality) and the more we interact with them, the more we get used to them and the higher the chance that we'll eventually purchase them.

But of course, you guys at FabFilter are the ultimate arbiters of this decision. I just felt I had to give you my opinion.

Thank you for reading my emails.
[/QUOTE]

Sorry that I repeated my email here again. But since you replied here, I felt that it was the right thing to do.