Am I the only one ...

[Rabid]

Am I the only one that does not recognize half of the companies releasing instrument updates? I keep reading the announcements on the KVR main page and thinking "Where did all these companies come from and how can they possibly sell enough instruments to stay in business?" Sometimes I think there are more people making VSTi's than using them.

[Sickle]

Long Live Reaktor.

[m_e_t_r_o_n_o_m_e]

ahhh but they still complains about cracker groups that "ruin" the business HAHA I DONT OWN A CRACK. But is funny none for the less.

market be satoorated

[eduardo_b]

Am I the only one that does not recognize half of the companies releasing instrument updates? I keep reading the announcements on the KVR main page and thinking "Where did all these companies come from and how can they possibly sell enough instruments to stay in business?" Sometimes I think there are more people making VSTi's than using them.

I've become skeptical about this as well. My assumption is that most of these companies are just one person who actually has a day job -- which they'd better keep because, as you say, they're not likely going to sell enough copies to make much money.

[JackDark]

I don't mind updates as long as they are actually of substance.

But seeing a constant tiny stream of miniscule updates does get old.

Submitting news for a .01 increase in the version number which equates to some random under the hood "bug" being fixed equates to abuse of the KVR news service IMO.

All that really is is quick and dirty free advertisement for the dev, and that's wrong if the upgrade is negligible at best. I'd imagine poor ol' Ben gets sick of being obligated for that sort of thing.

[realisation]

As long as there is human ambition there will be new vsts

I think that a lot of the bigger companies software is overpriced for what is essentially a hobby for most people. There is room in the market for cheaper plugins. Anything above $100/£50 for a piece of virtual software is too much imho.

[fleetmouse]

Competition is good. As free and inexpensive software gets better the big boys will have to innovate and work harder to justify those big price tags. The result is better software for everyone at all price levels. The free market isn't my knee-jerk answer to everything but it is working out rather well in music software.

[Topiness]

As long as there is human ambition there will be new vsts

I think that a lot of the bigger companies software is overpriced for what is essentially a hobby for most people.

When there were no software instruments, people happily spent a LOT more on hardware. The biggest investment you have to make now is the time, not the money.

There is room in the market for cheaper plugins. Anything above $100/£50 for a piece of virtual software is too much imho.

Do have any idea how much time and skill it takes to make a smooth sounding (no digital artifacts), characterful, efficient VST instrument, with a decent interface?

witness the fact that 99% of them fall down on one or more of those criteria.

[realisation]

As long as there is human ambition there will be new vsts

I think that a lot of the bigger companies software is overpriced for what is essentially a hobby for most people.

When there were no software instruments, people happily spent a LOT more on hardware. The biggest investment you have to make now is the time, not the money.

Right, Time. People spend time creating software and music. I've spend a lot of money on hardware as well, but i hardly use it.

There is room in the market for cheaper plugins. Anything above $100/£50 for a piece of virtual software is too much imho.

Do have any idea how much time and skill it takes to make a smooth sounding (no digital artifacts), characterful, efficient VST instrument, with a decent interface?

Yes, i know how much time and skill it takes.

It takes a lot of time, just as you may spend your time writing music and posting it for free or next to nothing, there's developers like me who spend their time producing plugins for free or very little cost to you.

It takes a lot of skill and experience that is gained through spending time..

the same is the case for creating music. You spend a lot of time getting good at creating music so that other people will enjoy it for free/next to nothing.

Software creation is as much an artform as much as music creation.

My point here is that there is more to life than money, in my books time does not equal money, i live on next to nothing practically - and it doesn't bother me one bit!

One person might want a smooth sounding VST - the next wants a crunchy, one evolving and morphing, there is so much to synth creation, everyone knows.

A lot of the 99% of the synths that you say are lacking in criteria imho are commercial synths selling for loads of $$$.

[Topiness]

Yes, i know how much time and skill it takes.

OK, you're a dev. I, on the other hand, stared into that abyss and recolied in horror .


I agree with all your points... except that I think that when people like you create and give something to the world, people who benefit from that time and effort should at least take a second to consider contributing financially. The fact that you do your work with a passion doesn't make your product less valuable.

Maybe you do live on next to nothing - I wish I could too, if you see what I mean, but where I live that isn't possible unless you don't mind living under a bridge.

Maybe I'm being naive, but I think the "OK... how much is this worth to me?" business model is one that makes some sense when dealing with 'data' commodities, if people would have just a little more sense of community. But it wouldn't be impossible to encourage that.

That aside, paying for product updates is a way I can show my support for a product that may be worth much more to me than I actually paid for it - as long as I feel my money's going toward aiding the development of the product (i.e. giving the dev more time away from his day job!), I'm happy for it.

[Steven West]

Not as a slam to most of the synth makers here these days, but I honestly don't pay attention to 99% of them anymore. I got what I like, and I likes what I got. I think the world has more 'programmers' than programs needed now? Yet, the world also has more people than Darwin could've imagined - and as P.T. Barnum said.... "There's a sucker born every minute". Maybe I'm missing something greatly by not keeping up with every dev on every day, and some newbie may get the jump on me eventually? But that's been true in music since Pythagoras strummed his first harp, to Eric Clapton noodling on a Strat, to Depeche Mode doing away with guitars altogether... And it still sounds like a damn guitar in there! If something's buggy, but I like the tone/interface/options - sure, I'll keep up with it till it's fixed enough that I can use it with assuridty. But a lot of times if there's a beta out there and it works, I'll just stick with that to this very day. And things that I'm intrigued about at the concept stage, but comes out as a wonky unreliable miserable little beast that crashes my host when I press a note... Screw it, and to the bin it goes! Chances are in short time, I can get a beta from some other dev that's twice as good and call myself lucky.

[Rabid]

A flood of options just makes it hard to find what's really good. That's why I come here, to see what new instrument is spuring conversation on KVR.

[ianweb123]

That's why I come here, to see what new instrument is spuring conversation on KVR.

You must keep getting drawn back to Synth1 and One-Ping-Only then

[Blue Wind Project]

As long as there is human ambition there will be new vsts

I think that a lot of the bigger companies software is overpriced for what is essentially a hobby for most people.

When there were no software instruments, people happily spent a LOT more on hardware. The biggest investment you have to make now is the time, not the money.

There is room in the market for cheaper plugins. Anything above $100/£50 for a piece of virtual software is too much imho.

Do have any idea how much time and skill it takes to make a smooth sounding (no digital artifacts), characterful, efficient VST instrument, with a decent interface?

witness the fact that 99% of them fall down on one or more of those criteria.

Well, the only reason why people did pay alot more for harware synths simply cos there was no other laternative,
and, there was actualy material and labor, lets say ROLAND, they had to have the developers, the designers, marketing, raw materials, factory, personell to operate machinery and or assembly, so it is no wonder the hadrware synths were more expensive...100 people couldn;t buy the very same synth..100 people had to buy an individual synth, this synth had overhead and expenses thus to justify the price tag.

Now, you have the dev, the designers, maybe a couple of artist for gui design, or it's just one guy doing it all at home, and he makes ( 1 ) file...that ( 1 ) file is then purchased over and over again..it isn't like the dev has to make 10000 individual files...it's just the ( 1 ) file.
and I have always believed that $150.00 for a softsynth is
a good price...however, it has been made VERY clear to me
here at KVR that synth devs don;t make much money, probably cos there are those that have the money to dump $100.00-300.00
on a softsynth, whilst others do not.

I honestly believe that Zerbra 2 isn;t worth the price, but probably cos I cannot afford that,after all I am a single father of 5 year old twins, my job pays o.k...I don;t complain cos I get nearly free medical and a very good retirement package..so for now, I can;t afford to dump $200.00
on a synt...but..I can gurantee you this, if Zebra 2 was dropped to $50.00 I would BUY IT in a heartbeat...

why sell 100 synths at $100.00 each and that's it...where I am willing to bet if you sold that same $100.00 synth
for $50.00 I bet the sales would triple...I may be way off
base on that..cos I am no dev...but take Wusikstation..remember when it went up for sale for $9.95..or something like that..I didn't even think twice about pulling out my card...now...the wusikstation V.1 probably didn't sell
that much at that point, cos there were alot of people that payed full price for it and thus didn;t need it...but imnagine if the original price was just $9.95...I wonder how many would have sold versus the $100.00 price tag ( was it originally $ 100.00 ?? ) I may be mistaking on that..but anyway, you get my point.

It is a proven fact that companies can make more money reducing the price tag of an item...

[dougsyo]

That's why I come here, to see what new instrument is spuring conversation on KVR.

You must keep getting drawn back to Synth1 and One-Ping-Only then

And Virus-303 clones.

Doug