Ah, I see. I think AD is the only product that lets you buy the core application with vouchers that allow you free choice of the libraries you're interested in. Every other product comes with a factory library, just like SD3.shidostrife wrote:I know, I meant, I'd rather buy other drum VSTs which are cheaper and contains less libraries out of the box, such as EZD, AD, or SSD, or even SD2, rather than buying SD3. But that's my personal preference.medienhexer wrote:I think it's a dead end street, discussing this. We had the same discussion about the Kontakt 5 upgrade. Selling the application update without the library update would have to cost the same, because toontrack have calculated their cost, divided by the number of paying customers to break even with their financial investment.JohnPativens wrote:This.shidostrife wrote:I'd rather buy the bare engine and some expansion packs that I really need. Would be more useful for me without spending as much.
Software isn't a physical good which costs a certain amount to produce an additional copy of. After the initial investment, copies/licenses of the software are mostly profit. So there's no reason for toontrack to deduct any amount and selling just the application. It's a mixed calculation.
As for the price, yes, they're increasing the price of entry. MSRP for SD2 is 259€, SD3 is 349€. Which brings it more in line with bfd3 (319€). Although, the size of the SD3 factory library suggests that this new price will be justified by the number of drum components and level of detail alone.
Wait two years and down the line, retail will come up with great bundle deals to get new users started.
I think what we see now for the first time is an actual segmentation of the market. EZDrummer, SSD and AD as the ~150€ products with less features and less detailed drum samples and SD3 and bfd3 at the ~350€ high end with more detailed drum samples, internal sequencers/editors and full mixers.
And if you look at it that way, AD is kind of the best deal or me. Because out of the low end offerings, it, for my personal taste, sounds best (little to no machine gun effect) and you have a broad selection of really good internal effects which you can fully edit, just like in SD3 or bfd3.
I will eventually update SD2, probably even at the regular price. If you look at the Progressive Foundry SDX, that one has been excluded from sales for almost two years now. So I don't expect toontrack to discount the upgrade anytime soon.
But for now, I have so much to explore in bfd3 and AD, it would be crazy to spend any money.