(although after making that point i will agree that prices are indeed going up - on the average. it's just to say that there's still lots of amazing stuff at lower price points, i guess it also gets lost in the flood of so many plugins these days....)

I think there's maybe a dozen of us, now. I don't get it though, they get much love over at OSX Audio, and at least a quarter of the people there post here from time to time.

But what do I know, I'm one of three guys who registered Tiny God's Murmur Pro, and I like my NuBi/Spinner/XOvr better than other organ sims, too. Just a chump, I guess.

wtf?

three?

i knew it was bad but...... three???

ok then, who is the other guy? own up damn you, this is a pretty exclusive club we have here.

unreal.

Argg! So much to respond to...



Is this a gross simplification? I found myself agreeing out loud. I know almost nothing about economic principles other than how they relate to me and those in my life, or whatever little my addled brain can make cohesive out of the bits and pieces I've picked up along the way. (This thread has been most informative and well spoken.) But, yes, as we watch old models of supply and demand fall apart, especially as they relate to intellectual property, there doesn't seem to be a proper model in place that actually, you know, works.



It's not that I don't agree. If I want to ply the trade, even at my own expense, I pay for my tools. It's surprising to me how many people don't live as such. But there's no real historical imperative for this, and it's not really the nature of capitalism. People desire what they can't afford. So in a world where pirating is at our finger tips we all become pirates. (I use the we in the universal sense.)



I suppose I see your point; I wouldn't give my money to a commercial studio that was built on warez. But I don't see myself needing a commercial studio any time in the near future. So all the pirating I see is on strictly amateur level. And really, what am I suppose to do about it? Turn in friends, family and coworkers to the government? Not to get all libertarian (small "l" intentional), but why is someone else's non-violent bad behavior ultimately my responsibility? I do right by the software I use, I don't share what I have purchased, and there is software I lust after which I cannot afford. I find the pride which users boast about their stolen software disquieting. But other than rationally explaining why I think stealing software is something of a moral cesspool and I don't really care if they can get me a copy of Groove Agent, I feel that there's not a whole lot I can do. I believe morality can't be taught, it can only be learned. (And is extremely relative, but that's a a whole different digression.)

As Urs suggests, most if not all of the warez freeloaders, I mean downloaders, that I've encountered just hoard stuff because they can. They might dick around with something now and again, but they have no more use for it than they do SuperMaxStudio 3D Developer (tm). I believe (and I could be wrong; I am about a lot of things), that a lot of the traffic after roughly the 5,000 hit point that these more accessible warez sites generate isn't from people who would normally buy this stuff or will really use it. Yet there is no doubt that many, many users of software are using cracked/borrowed code and samples; many, many of them on a semi-pro or outright professional basis. All of these people are stealing, and it might all but decimate the independent developers, but the analogies to the hardware world do fall apart at some point.




I think over-saturation of the actual paying market is definitely becoming a factor at this point; I'm certainly feeling it. I'm 6 years new to this whole area of electronic sound creation (old punk rocker I), but I've long since reached the point where I barely have the time to fully use what I've already invested in. Yet new software or versions thereof come out at a rate I'm rapidly losing the time, finances, and increasingly, the interest to keep up with. Since for me (and many of the users I've met) this is all investment and no return (monetarily), at some point I need to say, "Do I really need another uber-synth? I already have 12 at my disposal! And 50 more that are very, very usable." (I'm referring to both commercial and freeware.)

I can only imagine it's a bit of a nightmare for professional devs. (Cheers to you, Urs; I have even more respect for you!) I know I've gotten to the point where I can't really justify the cost, no matter how much I want to support a project I think is useful, fun and/or worthwhile.



This is a great exchange, sirs. I more or less agree with you both. But I find myself coming increasingly coming around to HanafiH's POV: not in terms of hardware - my hardware "synth" is an Alesis QS6.1 that I've never even bothered to try programming - but just locking my setup off at it's current state. Everything I have is more or less harmonious, and my processor (AMD Athalon XP Palomino, 1800+, 1.53 GHz) can't really handle much more. And, again, where do I draw the line and truly utilize what I have?

I think it's great that we have an embarrassment of riches - the chances of me coming in using distance of a hardware modular synth are slim to none, yet with software I have several options available that are affordable to varying degrees. Hell, I could more or less play with a fully loaded Moog Modular if I had the outlay, and that's unlikely to happen in the real world. I've fully believe the reason I have been able to learn so much about making music with synthesizers in so short a time is that I had a staggering array of quality synths at my disposal. (Well, that and all the literature and web sites I've read.) (And I suppose the "making music" claim is open to debate.)

But, I'm really getting away from the point to the thread here.

Humble apologies.

Anyway... as someone who works with computers and can image the time and thought it takes to produce good products, I completely support the developers, even the "corporate" outfits like NI. (Say what you will about NI, at least they've still managed to avoid invasive copy protection.) The value to cost ratio hugely favors the consumer when it comes to a lot of audio software, especially with instruments. I've worked long enough and bought enough crap that I don't think $200/$300 is too much money for something that is useful in some way, even if most of the time I can't afford it; and I absolutely can see why if someone is making money from your time, creativity and investment you'd want to be compensated rather than ripped-off. But we're entering a strange new world here. I really don't think old models can be made to work for that much longer (relatively). Complain, berate, cajole, but at some point companies have to accept that these are just the conditions to doing business in this market, and then start to shape the market to their advantage. (In the same way I'm coming to believe that copyright and the laws thereof are hugely flawed and in we're in danger of exposing ourselves to inadvertent violations... but, again, another thread.)

Cheers to all the companies on this thread, most of whom I've purchased products from. (I'm lucky - I love a good bargain, and through fairly judicious use of my money I've managed to get some great bargains and on the upgrade path of some great software.) But my virtual studio is stuffed to the rafters and I can't really take much more. Cheers to you all, but I'm reaching the point where I can mostly support you in spirit.

Congratulations, that is officially the stupidest f**king analogy i've ever heard.

If i could steal my neighbours Mercedes, park it in my garage and use it everyday, knowing that there would *never* be any negative consequences for it, of course i'd f**king steal it. And when the bitch baught another Mercedes to replace the first one, given that i could steal it as easy as downloading a file from the internet, with just as many repercussions, i'd steal that f**ker too. Given these circumstances, i'd steal anything from anyone!

Secondly, people who use pirated software don't "need" anything. I don't *need* to use a pirated copy of Windows XP, i do it because i'd rather spend the money on getting f**k-eyed- (or alternatively, i'd rather use it to support developers who create amazing music software).

I'm pretty sure most people download software simply because they can.

PS: I think the price of software is the way it is because:

a) It is worth the money- it is, in most cases, cheaper than a hardware equivelant

b) The software has to cover costs

c) The software has to make money

and d) Assholes steal software, which deprives developers of income, therefore legitimate software users have to cover for these losses.

simple, really.
Last edited by hoffy on Sat Jan 07, 2006 12:04 am; edited 2 times in total

But the guy who started the thread wasn't talking about freebies.

So? I am 100% confident that even you could write any kind of music you wanted to using just the internal generators of my $300 host. BTW, I don't "write" my own plugins, I use SynthEdit which is really just a software modular environment so for me it counts mostly as another instrument, like Reaktor only, much, much cheaper and far more open.

And all of which, I believe, were made with SynthEdit and therefore do not qualify.

That's a perfect example because I believe its exactly the same prejudice at work: If it doesn't cost anything, it cannot possibly be any good.

I'm all for "supertopnotch things", and I'd happily pay $300 if only someone would make something that qualified. Supercomplexbutgoodsounding is not the same thing. As I've said before, if you stipped all of the useless, OTT complexity out of z3ta+, I would be all over it but as it stands its complexity gets in the way of its usefulness.
That's really what I'd be willing to spend my hard-earned on, a synth that sounds really great and is straightforward enough that I can actually use it without having to mentally change modes when I'm in the middle of something. Right now the one and only synth I have come across that qualifies is built-in to my host and is possibly a little too simple for all my needs. FabFilter Twin and even ImpOSCar come close but just fall at the last hurdle in a couple of places.

Only if you bought 'em new. My BassStation cost me less than z3ta+, as did my more recent Micron purchase and even my new K-Station cost roughly the same as the RRP on it's software sibling.

But what do you do with it? Preview the infinite number of presets looking for something that's fun? I'm certain you're not gonna find it any easier than me to actually get sounds out of yourself.

Those things have been around for ages, which was my point - things that get released today are either free or really expensive, the middle-ground has been given over almost entirely to SE developers where there is necessarily compromise involved [mostly CPU usage vs hand-coded synths and the fact that there still aren't any decent filters around for it].

Damn good point. I too, enjoy "less is more" approach to synthesizers. I don't need every option and parameter under the sun, just give me the knobs that -really- matter. Seriously.



True, so true...

Let's not forget that you even get a more or less fully fledged sampler with eXT.

wrong, all of them have been first released within the 1-2 years you originally asked for, with the exception of eXT. And that is re-released with so many new things so frequently that it is a very different animal than it was 2 years ago... yet still the same price. so i'd say it's quite fair rly to include it as well.

OK, so there have been two, three if I stretch the boundaries to include something that most hosts include anyway, which still proves my point, doesn't it?

Actually the M1 sold about 250,000 units.

However you are right that most things sold FAR fewer, but my point wasn't that every plugin should be selling in those numbers, but rather to illustrate the total size of the potential market vst developers should be sharing between them.

250,000 people found something like £1500 to buy an M1, and if you look at the figures of DX7s and D50s, making a guestimate that some people would have two or more units, but also that some people would have something completely different, I don't think it's unfair to estimate that 10 years ago there were at least 500,000 people worldwide who had enough desire to make music to find the means to spend over £1000 pounds on it (and bear in mind that they probably had to buy other stuff, at similarly high prices).

The market for VSTis should, if anything, be considerably larger, for a start there's the practical issue of getting instruments and effects to people - a simple download rather than shipping, shops etc - and there's the lower price which should mean that the pros can afford to buy more different instruments whereas more amateurs can get in on the game (hardware manufacturers who sell in both fields traditionally make way more money from home users than pro).

So the total potential market for VSTis and effects should be in the millions - but it seems that we're actually sharing a market with, if we're lucky, a few tens of thousands. This to me illustrates that there are a significant number of people using cracks who would have bought if they had either been honest enough, or had no choice (as they did when hardware was the only way).

Let's try to put this in perspective,

we all recognize that many, possibly most of the people who download warez plugins would not buy a single plugin if warez were not available.

we also recognize that of those who would buy something, they'd buy far fewer than they download.

So I'm not saying that every warez download is a lost sale (though I still think it's immoral, you want to benefit from my work, you pay me, I'd pay you)

But the warez numbers are so huge, and the sales numbers so small even compared to the number of people who found ten times the money to buy hardware, that if we could get even 1 in 100 warez users to do what most kvr members do anyway, then the industry could be transformed. Not only could developers stop living hand to mouth, but they could start investing, doing research into new synthesis methods and psychoacoustics.

So please, at least carry on doing what you are doing and try to explain to people, a few will respond.
Last edited by JonHodgson on Sat Jan 07, 2006 2:20 am; edited 1 time in total

Another thing with the plugin synths versa hardware stuff is that in software you just put enough to make it good.

And then you earn a little extra over the years on upgrades, on every sold unit, for the plugins.

The first buy for a customer might be a boxed version, and this goes through a number of channel to reach market.

But then usually the developer can earn very good from upgrades to come with direct contact with customer. And production costs are nil.

But hardware stuff is a much more complicated process to get a new product developed. But on the other hand it is much better secondhand value due to this fact.

So software pirates not only make you loose the first buy, but all the upgrades as well. I know many in defense to piracy say that one that get's to know the product from a cracked version, later buys it if he likes it. I don't fully believe that.

I believe piracy is maybe the major reason for a lot of software being in the $300-$500 range, instead of $100-$200 range.

as shamann said - there might be a few more now. i hopped on the wagon a while ago and am still glad i did.

Define "love"

But I feel honored to be part of that small club