Is plugin market going down?

[pekbro]

I think that pretty much all the developers who have commented in this
thread would fall under the category of having already, successfully done
it the hard way. The only thing I might consider, if I were Urs in particular,
would be to offer the Uhbik line individually for $20-30 each, as well as bundled.
This would give you a very low cost product line, with minimal effort.
An easy way to bolster your customer base with excellent entry-level appeal.

-Cheers

[xhunaudio]

Is plugin market going down...?

I don't know, but I can assure TWEETS and POSTS and COMMENTS and FRIENDS and SOCIALS market has really grown.

Who can reasonably find the time to improve himself/his products, when there are so many SELFIES and INSTAGRAMS to publish ?

No polemics or arguments, just a "defuse", eheh... Cheers

[SparkySpark]

The only thing I might consider, if I were Urs in particular,
would be to offer the Uhbik line individually for $20-30 each, as well as bundled.
This would give you a very low cost product line, with minimal effort.
An easy way to bolster your customer base with excellent entry-level appeal.

-Cheers

Well said!

[Urs]

With hardware I can easily see how hand made products with selected parts can become expensive for a reason. With "high end EQs" which are based on f**king biquad formulas I can't.

Can this be understood like "we at U-He are going to make a real high end EQ just to set a new standard"?

Hahaha, no... with EQs particularly I'm puzzled. If I'm not completely mistaken, high end EQs in the analogue domain are designed to be utterly transparent, i.e. free of distortion and not too much phase shift. Which is something that is exceptionally easily achieved in the digital domain. Compared to synth filters anyway.

With EQs I think it's all about user interface, like what Fabfilters do or DMG.

Admittedly, I was blown away by the transformers of an analogue Neve EQ once, but I can not imagine this to contain enough secret sauce to justify going beyond and extra fifty bucks a pop.

In other words, I get the price for usability, but I don't get the prices for pixie dust.

[Urs]

The only thing I might consider, if I were Urs in particular,
would be to offer the Uhbik line individually for $20-30 each, as well as bundled.
This would give you a very low cost product line, with minimal8 effort.
An easy way to bolster your customer base with excellent entry-level appeal.

-Cheers

Well said!

I'd go the same prices as we did for Rack Extensions (39 or something). But in reality, supporting nine products instead of just one is a major drag, no matter how much more revenue we would make. We might consider it if we ever manage to come up with a license control center.

[Distorted Horizon]

We might consider it if we ever manage to come up with a license control center.

What are you waiting for? Start working on it

[SparkySpark]

I'd go the same prices as we did for Rack Extensions (39 or something). But in reality, supporting nine products instead of just one is a major drag, no matter how much more revenue we would make. We might consider it if we ever manage to come up with a license control center.

Also getting more users mean more support, so business-wise it can be better to have fewer users paying more (speaking in general terms here).

[Zaphod (giancarlo)]

I think the market it's easier than this, or you go for the pro, or you go for the consumer market.

The pro is a small market that wants the best quality and like Giancarlo said it's very picky about the price it pays, you also have to provide a product that really innovative and unique (like Acustica does)

If you don't have that unique product you have to go for the consumer market which is used to revolving sales and expect "to make the deal" think like you are selling TVs or smartphones, every now and then there is a sale on that product and it has to be a "limited sale" to create the sense of urgency and not to miss the deal.
Also ideally the price should fall in the "impulse buying" category so that that sense of urgency is reinforced by the low price.
To sustain this model you have to make a lot of sales keeping the costs as low as possible.
This in the software industry in 2017 is very easy since there is an abundance of free (often BSD licensed) libraries ready to be used to shape a unique product.

The other thing you can do if you aim to the pro market is to create a "pro" brand. Neve and Universal audio keep on selling for high prices because of the "pro" brand they have not because of their excellent and exclusive products (that has been cloned a tons of times and can be bought often for half the price).

My 2c
Saverio

Thank you saverio

[Kazrog]

Sorry for the necrobump here, but I thought I'd weigh in, since many developers I respect already have in this thread so far. I just found the thread today because I've had similar thoughts/experiences to Aleksey lately, so I thought I'd see if there was any discussion about the state of the plugin market being on any sort of decline, and sure enough there is such a discussion.

TL;DR - Supply has vastly outstripped demand. We are in a decline - some of us will be affected more by it than others.

So here goes: From my experience (10 years in the audio plugin space), I would definitely say it's getting harder to reach potential customers about the advantages of my plugins vs. the countless other options out there on the market for doing the same (or similar) things. In the case of my guitar amp modeling plugin line (Thermionik), there's a generational problem - not as many people care about electric guitar anymore, so I've seen sales of that line decrease a lot in the last couple of years. Not great, as I put years of hard work into it, but that's life!

In the case of my growing mixing/mastering line of plugins (KClip, ValvEQ, masterDither), things are looking pretty consistent, but there's not really any growth. I feel like, at least relative to my experience, this has hit kind of a ceiling as a business model.

I also don't feel comfortable doing my own subscription service, as I would feel pressure to create plugins for the sake of it (to round out the offering) and not because of any particular innovation. That's not how I operate - I only build what I feel I can do in some new/unique/better way, otherwise it's a waste of time! I wonder how sustainable the subscription model will be even for the "big"companies in our space - after all, the subscription model needs large scale to work, otherwise it will fail due to lack of adequate revenue.

All things considered, when I look at the state of the industry overall, and some of the excellent contributions in this thread, I think these are the main factors going on right now:

• Number of DAW/plugin users has gone up only marginally in the past decade.
• Number of plugins and plugin companies has gone up substantially in the same period.
• Quality level of DAW-included plugins has gone way up.
• Quality level (and sheer quantity) of free plugins has gone way up.
• Music in general, as a cultural and economic force, continues to lose ground, globally. Also, you can no longer pursue a "career in music" in any real capacity - unless you want to be a starving artist type.
• The needs of other markets (audio post, film, games, etc.) are satisfied well by simple/affordable tools as well as off-the-shelf content libraries.
• Analog emulation has been perfected at nearly the exact same moment where people care less and less about emulating analog/vintage sounds - millennials largely didn't grow up with music created on vintage equipment, so it seems silly and irrelevant to them.

Where do we go from here? I'm not sure. I'm going to continue to build things I believe in, and support my users, but I have no expectation of growth within the audio software market.

[Richard_Synapse]

All things considered, when I look at the state of the industry overall, and some of the excellent contributions in this thread, I think these are the main factors going on right now:

Number of DAW/plugin users has gone up only marginally in the past decade.
Number of plugins and plugin companies has gone up substantially in the same period.

Not all of them are still around though. If we subtract the inactive developers, there is probably still a growth but it may not be as big.

[*]Quality level of DAW-included plugins has gone way up.
Quality level (and sheer quantity) of free plugins has gone way up.

Sure, but neither the number of plugins nor their quality can possibly decrease (except in some relative way), so this will always be true. Due to technological changes, however, stuff can become obsolete. Also when browsing the KVR database I recognize at best 5% of the listed plugins, the rest are plugins/developers I never heard of before. When talking to other developers or music producers, I noticed that quite a few don't even know the most popular plugins (the kind of stuff you find in top-10 lists).

Richard

[4damind]

IMO some years ago it was easier to create a hype with a new plugin and generate a lot of impulse sales. I've no numbers but IMO this has changed a bit. But if it comes to the question how and where you can make some money in the music business, a good plugin developer will always have a good chance to stay in business for a long time.

But I saw also that some developers are gone or their stuff fell quickly under the radar. If you don't have really good stuff and you are too shy to promote your plugins and people speak about you/your plugins, you will have a problem. IMO today you need more marketing and fresh ideas to place new plugins on the top lists.

[Richard_Synapse]

IMO some years ago it was easier to create a hype with a new plugin and generate a lot of impulse sales. I've no numbers but IMO this has changed a bit.

This is true from my experience. When we started around 2000, we basically had instant exposure out of nowhere, and quite a few people just bought blindly by looking at screenshots or something. Achieving this today, i.e. just releasing something quietly and hoping people discover it is unlikely to succeed.

Richard

[4damind]

IMO some years ago it was easier to create a hype with a new plugin and generate a lot of impulse sales. I've no numbers but IMO this has changed a bit.

This is true from my experience. When we started around 2000, we basically had instant exposure out of nowhere, and quite a few people just bought blindly by looking at screenshots or something. Achieving this today, i.e. just releasing something quietly and hoping people discover it is unlikely to succeed.

Richard

Yes.
It seems that people are also more picky with the features/quality/GUI etc. If a synth has not all or "that" feature, people don't buy it or waiting for the next update. So if you start with a new plugin idea you must invest more time to bring out something which can please more people and where you can generate enough sales.

The same why you will not have a big chance (IMO) with a Synthedit/Synthmaker/Flowstone/... plugin and the idea to release the hottest plugin of the year. People expecting high quality and support of some standards. If it's not 64Bit or has no preset browser and not to mention running as VST/AU there is a good chance that people don't buy the plugin.
If you always raise the bar and try to work hard to release a great plugin, users will always reward the developers

[Kazrog]

Good points. Overall, the cost of customer acquisition has gone up, and users seem less motivated to try new plugins.

[plexuss]

Here is some perspective from a customer. I am not a dev and code hurts my brain. I have spent $10k's on plugins so I have "skin in the game" and a pretty good view of the plugin world from direct purchase and use.

Plugins are like anything else: show me a competitive advantage including price and make it all line up compared to the competition, and if its a tool I think I'll use, I'll buy it. This is one of the largest gaps when it comes to plugins - you can't just sell any old plugin and expect to get my money. I need to know its going to fill a gap of usefulness and I need a price that makes sense for me. On the latter, there is no music business for me and so I make music mostly for my own edification. Although I take it very seriously and am doing everything we were told to do to sell music, it doesn't sell. That's fine. But where there is no substantial income, there is no pallete for substatial price.

It's pretty easy to accummulate a wide selection of tools. beyond that, how many compressors does one want or need. it's possible these day, with most plugin types, to have more than you need and so anything that doesn't offer anything new and/or a price outside of what is reasonable, it's not going to sell. GAS is a thing of the past.

One of the biggest mistakes plugin devs make is... well, actually it's too high a price. It's not 2005 anymore. But the other mistake is *thinking* that their plugins offer some kind of amazing competitive advantage when in actual fact they don't. just saying they do doesn't make it so. Fan-boyism is going to the wayside and people are looking for true value to justify their purchases.

To sum up: lack of innovation, excessive pricing are the main limitations now. I am willing to pay >$100 (sale price) for something like 2caudio Kaleidoscope but not willing to pay >$200 (regular price). But for something like PA Karacter, I am not even willing to pay >$100 as I have so many saturators that sound similar its not worth it. I am not even willing to pay >$50 for it. But I did pay $100 for Kush Pusher because of its innovation (and sound quality).

And just a detail, "innovation" doesn't just mean features, it also means musicaility and relevance when used with music.

From what I have read this puts added pressure on plugin devs - it's not sufficient anymore to just put out any old thing and collect those $50 bills. Another way to put it is that time has distilled out the value in a plugin: what does it offer compared to the asking price. I think customers are even avoiding free plugins so as not to convolute their plugin menus, I know I do. I only want things in menus I know I'll use because my menus are so cluttered.