Synth appearance

[aciddose]

https://blog.kissmetrics.com/5-psychological-studies/

Heaps of stuff like this to be found only a few mouse-clicks away.

This thread though is really about not pricing but visuals.

The closest thing we can find in pricing is most likely the 999 rule.

See the comment about "5000" pricing and "999" "sales".

[aciddose]

What's the best practice protocols, for such a test? That depends... And I'll leave it to you to decide what they'd be (that's if anyone is interested of course). But there's plenty of information on many of the science blogs, etc.

This is all very well established at this point. The best protocol is to avoid bad ad hoc hypothesis and testing. We're not plugin creationists here.

Testing for a particular plugin A/B (emulation vs. original) is not good science, plain and simple.

Testing for generalizations however is good science. If you can fit your tests into the general theory of "threshold prices and comparative/sale prices increase volume", it is much more likely your theory is going to stand the test of time, that is: proof = stood up to test.

This is a very important part of the scientific method that people remain generally ignorant of. This is the definition of proof, that which has stood up to being tested.

For example, (just as a quick general example, lets not discuss as we don't want to draw the thread to hyde park) "God, if you exist may you strike me down with a lightning bolt this instant" demonstrates that God in fact does not exist, at least not in a form willing to demonstrate himself by striking me down with a lighting bolt. You may start to add conditions at this point, "God only acts via X" and then claim that a miracle has occurred when a "bad" person has been struck by lightning. This however becomes ad hoc, God has only acted in this very specific circumstance, meanwhile countless other "bad" people have gone on without being struck down. This is where the occam's razor applies: the hypothesis that being struck by lightning correlates to the presence of thunder heads and other features, conductivity and so forth beats out any theory about God due to the large number of assumptions and conditions that must be made in order for the God theory to work.

So, theories about GUIs aren't so good, while theories about aesthetics in general are much better. If we can come up with a theory about GUIs (sales are increased for the same plugin with a more refined GUI) that fits into the general theory of "aesthetic judgement bias" it is far more likely to be valid as it is no longer ad hoc.

Now of course many of us may find the idea that we have no idea what we're listening to or that we actually do not possess "golden ears" quite offensive. Much like the idea that we can be swayed by a little bit of glitter.

The facts are in however. Yes we can. I can, I have been and I will continue to be despite my best efforts to avoid this sort of outcome. Ultimately we are all slaves to this predetermined functioning of our minds/bodies.

The very best we can do is to remain aware of it. Admitting you are a glitter addict is the first step.

[Robmobius]

Like I said... I'm not saying visuals are not important they certainly are. I know because that's my day job (15+ years).

But in a vst contest - it may not be quite as applicable, due to sound/functionality being the primary.

There's are a hell of a lot of great vsts out there, that have poor or mediocre visuals. And sell very well...

[aciddose]

Yes but an appropriate test may be to have the same plugin presented in different GUIs and collect "ratings" from users of the two otherwise identical plugins.

This experiment has been done already! Perhaps not with plugins but with many other things like sugar, water, orange juice, cola and so forth.

There are significant biases due to aesthetics and other factors.

That isn't to say sound isn't important, but it isn't the most important feature if you can take two of the same plugin and slap a refined GUI on one and see a difference. Obviously if you have the choice between improving the GUI or not, improving it will almost certainly improve sales. Improving the sound however may not!

Now we get in to far more moot discussion and wild theories. I suspect that there is a threshold where the audio quality is "satisfactory", beyond which the GUI becomes far more important.

I also feel that this line may be drawn quite low, especially considering the existing variation in plugins and quality and although anecdotal, I have definitely observed this in my experience.

[Robmobius]

Admitting you are a glitter addict is the first step.

Hmm... Nothing terribly tangible there (this discussion is subjective ).

I remain skeptical on your stance in this particular context however.

[aciddose]

Hmm... Nothing terribly tangible there (this discussion is subjective ).

No it isn't. You'd need to claim you're unusual, statistically "way out there" if you wanted to say you aren't likely to have your judgement influenced by aesthetics.

The statement "you are influenced by X%" is subjective.

The statement "users are likely to be influenced by aesthetics" is not. It's a statement of fact.

[Lotuzia]

As for on-topic,
In my experience it is demonstrated without a shred of doubt that aesthetics are by far the most important component of an audio plugin, period.

Users are for the most part unskilled and clueless, as well as I suspect most likely near deaf.
...........

ime 100% wrong.

And such contempt for musicians and users is just well .......

It's actually quite funny when someone wants to prove you, exhibiting *unchallengeable* marketing techniques papers on the net, that you definitely should feel, and behave, the exact opposite as you do. The subtleness is of course that if you deny it, you're even more of an a..hole, because well ... it's proved you know...

So lets repeat it : I just dont care about the aesthetics if the sound is good. I understand some people care more than me, or are influenced by aesthetics. I can even understand that aesthetics could be the prime criteria to choose a .... muscial instrument for some.
But that all people should think/behave the same because we are all slaves of obscure marketing techniques : simply no.

[aciddose]

ime 100% wrong.

And such contempt for musicians and users is just well .......

You are clearly misunderstanding the point I was making.

The ability for a person to judge something, for example in the case of the A/B testing between an emulation and an original requires an intimate knowledge of both the original and the emulation ahead of time, as well as knowledge of the differences between them and a method by which you can reproduce these differences in test (an experiment) a majority of the time, as near 100% as possible.

For example if the emulation had aliasing which was most audible at a particular frequency, you could play back this exact frequency on both devices and whether or not you could detect the aliased harmonic should be very reliable if the condition were that the original was a "null" and the emulation produced "not null".

For example set the filter cutoff to 25000hz and listen for the presence of an alias. In the original this should be a null result unless there is an issue with non-linearity or other in the listening setup.

Anyone should be able to hear this.

As far as simply declaring "A is emulation, B is original" however, we are all far more deaf and clueless than you may believe. The real results from these sort of tests demonstrate that there is a gaussian random distribution of the values which shows no statistically significant bias. In other words it is completely subjective and random.

[aciddose]

So lets repeat it : I just dont care about the aesthetics if the sound is good. I understand some people care more than me, or are influenced by aesthetics. I can even understand that aesthetics could be the prime criteria to choose a .... muscial instrument for some.
But that all people should think/behave the same because we are all slaves of obscure marketing techniques : simply no.

You are misinterpreting here again.

I have never claimed that a specific subject will react in a specific way. We're talking about probabilities here.

It is very likely that the same plugin with two different GUIs, one judged aesthetically pleasing and another judged to be not pleasing will have their audio quality judged proportionately to their aesthetic quality.

Are you arguing this is untrue? I'd be happy to agree to disagree here, existing evidence and studies lend support to the theory being valid and if you were in marketing you could most likely write a paper on this if you were able to demonstrate it were untrue in this particular situation.

It would be very exiting to learn that this judgement bias applies in other situations, but not when dealing with audio software.

[Robmobius]

I also feel that this line may be drawn quite low, especially considering the existing variation in plugins and quality and although anecdotal, I have definitely observed this in my experience.

My opinion stands (for me). You're making the claim. I'm just skeptical of your point in this regard. Especially anything that is anecdotal.

I'm fully aware of the protocols that would be needed for such a double blind test. Sending links does not interest me unless I can verify the authenticity (IE - if they are peer reviewed).

Not much more I can say...

[aciddose]

If people wanted to actually discuss the topic we could also discuss other issues.

For example the consequence of this judgement bias and the marketing machine applied to commercial software tilts the scale against free software for several reasons.

Free software often does not have the sort of budget behind it that a large scale commercial project may have.

Consider for a moment even if you haven't yet accepted the truth of the theory that two identical plugins one with a pleasing aesthetic and one without will likely be used / sell at different rates.

Assuming this is true, just take it as a hypothetical if you can;

The comparison made between the two otherwise identical plugins may not merely create favor for the aesthetically pleasing version but may in fact reduce the satisfaction of users of the "free" version.

(A free version may also be considered less valuable than a highly priced version. Price applies here also of course, although the thread is technically about appearance.)

For example see the blog post I linked where it talks about comparative pricing and the detrimental effects associated with it.

So in a sense, hypothetically, the "free" plugin market has been forced down as the bar has been raised by the commercial market.

If you are as you say purely interested in sound and not aesthetic you should recognize this as very undesirable from your own point of view, as it would make it very difficult to identify plugins based upon audio quality due to the aesthetic bias in reviews and so forth. (If you felt that way, we would have this in common.)

(There are several more things that could be discussed, I'll just post the one for now.)

[aciddose]

ime 100% wrong.

And such contempt for musicians and users is just well .......

You are clearly misunderstanding the point I was making.

The ability for a person to judge something, for example in the case of the A/B testing between an emulation and an original requires an intimate knowledge of both the original and the emulation ahead of time, as well as knowledge of the differences between them and a method by which you can reproduce these differences in test (an experiment) a majority of the time, as near 100% as possible.

Just to be clear, I don't have contempt for musicians and users, this is really "reading between the lines" of what I said. I merely said that in general musicians and users are unskilled and clueless and "I suspect near-deaf".

Some musicians and users are highly skilled, know exactly what they're doing, what they're using and how to use it. Some may know absolutely everything about well, everything. Many of them can hear just fine, although that wouldn't explain the random distribution in these A/B studies.

The randomness may be explained by the fact that they do not have a reliable test to use in order to qualify the A/B. For example if your test was only 50% reliable, you'd get a 50/50 chance and this would be not much better (can't think clearly... or the same?) as completely random.

Even if users can hear perfectly well, they may not all use the plugin in exactly the same way, in a way which is "thorough" enough to make differences between them clearly audible.

So if your odds of hearing some aliasing in the emulation are only 5%, you'd only get at most a 5% bias in the results which would likely appear insignificant without a huge sample size.

So as I said, "I suspect near-deaf". We could all be considered near-deaf if we did not get a chance to listen to a majority of what was available to be heard.

(Everything I say applies to myself. I'm not saying I have golden ears or am not near-deaf. I suspect I am near-deaf also, as I know for a fact I can't demonstrate different results in these sort of A/B tests.)

[trimph1]

Boy are we getting nit picky...

[Mutant]

Boy are we getting nit picky...

Reminds me of these long discussions about the correct shades of blue/black/gray in two of the recent great free instruments threads.
BTW i still use many MDA effects and GuitarSuite too, they have great looking user interfaces ! Oh wait... they don't have any.

[aciddose]

I'm willing to admit my opinion that aesthetic is the most important factor of an audio plugin, "period" is heavily biased by my own experience.

It is a lot more complex than that, although it is more of a developer discussion and so likely wouldn't seem anything but trivial or pointless to anyone who isn't a developer.

For both free plugins and commercial though, I urge authors to consider GUI and aesthetic the very most important feature of their plugins. Audio quality is important, features are important and so forth but when you have people with the opinion "I'll never use a bad looking plugin no matter how great it sounds" it should be clear that crossing the GUI hurdle with the bar set as high as you are capable is the first step to success.

There are certainly "successful" plugins that don't have great GUIs, but as I said it is more complicated than the number of downloads/sales. As an artist (assuming you may be) I'm sure the number of times your track gets played/$$$ you get paid isn't on the very top of your list, otherwise people might call you a "sell out", right?