Have We Reached VST Saturation Point?

[wagtunes]

I'm starting this thread because of a discussion that's going on in another thread about a particular synth update and whether or not it's worth getting that update.

It seems to me that we've reached a point where there are so many great synths that the willingness to open up our wallets and buy yet another one is restricted to that synth either

1) Being absolutely amazingly off the charts special

or

2) Cheap or on sale.

Personally, I have 131 VSTs, of which 53 are paid for and the rest either came with my DAW or were available for free such as Synth1 and others.

So for me to buy something, it has to offer features and/or a sound that I'm not getting from another VST. Either that or, from a business perspective, it has to be popular enough to warrant my purchase to create a sound library for. And the problem with that approach is that you don't always know what the popular synths are.

With all the competition and with the improvements in both PC and VST technology, what do you think? Have we reached a point where unless a synth is really "knock it out of the ballpark" special there is little chance that it will make any substantial sales or do we still have a ways to go?

If so, when do you see the tipping point? I realize people just starting out in this business of buying soft synths won't be nearly a jaded and in fact may be overwhelmed by all the choices. But what about the rest of us who have seen and heard it all? Do we yawn at even the mention of another soft synth or are we still sitting there with our tongues wagging and our wallets open ready to buy?

Curious as to how others feel about this situation.

In short...where are we heading?

[Doug1978]

Q: Have We Reached VST Saturation Point?

A: yes.

[Kinh]

I think compulsive buying is responsible for nearly all soft synth sales, sometimes you're in the right (or wrong) frame of mind and things fall into place, all of a sudden that synth you're demoing sounds OK and you convince yourself you dont have presets that sound alike. The reality is Hive sounds like Hybrid and Nexus sounds like Spire and come to think of it, all of them sound like each other!

Then you realize what you should've done is bought presets, but even they sound similar. I wish I didn't buy Hive and I sure as hell wish I didn't get AEON which cost me $500 aud. Never use AEON for anything!

The best solution is buy Massive presets (they seem to be the only ones that sound different from each other) and save your money for prostitutes or something.

PS, anyone wanna buy AEON off me?

[drakmaniso]

Or maybe, as the processing power keeps progressing, the algorithms will be more and more complex and specific. Each synth will have its own particular sound, a subtle personality, and choosing a VST will be more like choosing acoustic and electric instruments: a mater of taste.

[Tp3]

HAVE WE REACHED VST SATURATION POINT?

Yes, longgggg time ago.

But that's the nature of commodity :

Do we NEED new cars, new clothes, better TVs, better synths\EQs\Compressors ?

Nope.

But we WANT them. we COVET them ("vintage" is the magic word in the audio world)

And as long as there's demand (ie. supposedly "better" tools) , there's someone there to satisfy it...

[Aloysius]

131 is not that many.

[Synthetic Wav]

it need time to know a synth, at first i can really enjoy a synth and then after programing hundreds of patchs often the honey moon end.....so i bought a lot but in the end i use maybe 3 or 4 softsynths regulary, i try to buy plugins on sales so i don 't loose much money if i don't keep the synth.. i see it as a sort of demoing without hassle .
to buy something full price it really have to bring something new, or at higher quality than what i already have.

at one point i think the market will be so saturated plugins will have to be priced low for instant buy otherwise people will look somewhere else

[wagtunes]

131 is not that many.

You're right, it's not.

That's after getting rid of the 300 free ones that I knew I'd never use.

When I first started, I went through the KVR database and downloaded just about everything. I can't even remember the names of most of them. Lots of XOXO synths. Some synths by this other guy who made a synth that just made noises. Don't remember his name.

I had well over 400. Finally, I went through everything and if I wasn't using it and it was free, I deleted the dll.

I am now left with 131 and I will probably weed out a few of those eventually. I just can't manage that many synths anymore. Picking something to work with on a project is getting to be a chore. Do I want this one or that one? I'm finding that fewer synths actually do make my life easier.

No, 131 isn't that many.

But it's still too many for me.

[Aloysius]

I have my VSTs arranged as follows:

Folder A = Currently installed Plugins
Folder B = Currently NOT installed Plugins = In Storage

So, only the ones I'm currently using show up in my DAW.

It's like getting a brand new plugin when I go to my 'In Storage' folder and dig out something I haven't used for a long time. Just because I'm not using something today doesn't mean it needs to be sold or will never be used again.

[todd_r]

Oooh, I'm going to make a new VST called "Saturation Point"

[dsan@mail.com]

Oooh, I'm going to make a new VST called "Saturation Point"

Dammit

Just how my luck goes.

I was thinkin the same thing till I got to the bottom of the thread and read your post todd

Cheers!
dsan

[bibz1st]

a synth that just made noises.

[beely]

I have to look at the value proposition.

There is always room for good products. But if product A is merely a good-looking, competent synth, comes with hundreds of presets, and has a range of sounds and features much like the existing 20 synths I own - then it's difficult to justify.

If it genuinely does something new, or has an interface or workflow that makes it incredibly productive to make new sounds (even ones similar to other products), or has some features that aren't available elsewhere, then that helps give it a niche. If it's an accurate, and good looking / usable emulation of a classic synth you always loved, then that nostalgia and "can finally own" thing comes into play which can justify a purchase.

But I can't help but wonder who would bring out a synth in todays market. In the case of FXpansion's stuff, well, they already have a product that's good, but it really did need reworking and modernising, and so they chose to do that to keep the product viable and offer an upgrade for existing owners. However, if they didn't have that first version, I'm not sure they'd sit down and decide to do the instrument that's just been released as Strobe 2 - a lot of work to get there from scratch, for probably not a huge return.

Yes, if you're Urs or somebody similar, and already have a lot of specialist knowledge, existing products and a bunch of frameworks that let you burp out a new synth relatively easily (compared to starting from scratch), then you can investigate different featureset options and fill in the gaps in your own product line.

Arturia's model is *only* to model classic gear, and there are still options in that space (though it is diminishing).

So yeah... another synth, with a bunch of pad sounds, bass sounds, etc etc just isn't that exciting for me these days. For sure very few of us are really exploiting all the stuff we own anyway - so part of getting a new instrument is just to buy some inspiration and to get away from the effort of doing something new with our existing gear. So in that, there will always be purchase opportunities.

But for me at least, there's very little I can't already do with what I have, so anything new coming along has to offer a really good value proposition, and I'm not sure how many of those are left unexplored...

This year we finally got emulations of the Matrix-12, and the Casio CZ, which were two I was looking forward to - the CZ at least in part to give me an in-computer way of using all my CZ patches used in past songs. That was the value proposition there - and there were no CZ emulations available (lots of Phase Distortion synths, but not that had the exact feature set and sysex compatibility of a true CZ).

In some way, shape or form, there's probably hundreds of thousands in instantly-available presets on my system. Do I really need to buy an instrument with a whole new bunch..?

So - if I was considering a synth today, I'd be looking for a unique value proposition, and without it, it would be hard to justify the investment.

[loachm]

131 is not that many.

You're right, it's not.

That's after getting rid of the 300 free ones that I knew I'd never use.

... wow, that's a lot to deal with. What do you guys do when you need to reinstall your system? Taking vacation for a week?

[wagtunes]

I have to look at the value proposition.

There is always room for good products. But if product A is merely a good-looking, competent synth, comes with hundreds of presets, and has a range of sounds and features much like the existing 20 synths I own - then it's difficult to justify.

If it genuinely does something new, or has an interface or workflow that makes it incredibly productive to make new sounds (even ones similar to other products), or has some features that aren't available elsewhere, then that helps give it a niche. If it's an accurate, and good looking / usable emulation of a classic synth you always loved, then that nostalgia and "can finally own" thing comes into play which can justify a purchase.

But I can't help but wonder who would bring out a synth in todays market. In the case of FXpansion's stuff, well, they already have a product that's good, but it really did need reworking and modernising, and so they chose to do that to keep the product viable and offer an upgrade for existing owners. However, if they didn't have that first version, I'm not sure they'd sit down and decide to do the instrument that's just been released as Strobe 2 - a lot of work to get there from scratch, for probably not a huge return.

Yes, if you're Urs or somebody similar, and already have a lot of specialist knowledge, existing products and a bunch of frameworks that let you burp out a new synth relatively easily (compared to starting from scratch), then you can investigate different featureset options and fill in the gaps in your own product line.

Arturia's model is *only* to model classic gear, and there are still options in that space (though it is diminishing).

So yeah... another synth, with a bunch of pad sounds, bass sounds, etc etc just isn't that exciting for me these days. For sure very few of us are really exploiting all the stuff we own anyway - so part of getting a new instrument is just to buy some inspiration and to get away from the effort of doing something new with our existing gear. So in that, there will always be purchase opportunities.

But for me at least, there's very little I can't already do with what I have, so anything new coming along has to offer a really good value proposition, and I'm not sure how many of those are left unexplored...

This year we finally got emulations of the Matrix-12, and the Casio CZ, which were two I was looking forward to - the CZ at least in part to give me an in-computer way of using all my CZ patches used in past songs. That was the value proposition there - and there were no CZ emulations available (lots of Phase Distortion synths, but not that had the exact feature set and sysex compatibility of a true CZ).

In some way, shape or form, there's probably hundreds of thousands in instantly-available presets on my system. Do I really need to buy an instrument with a whole new bunch..?

So - if I was considering a synth today, I'd be looking for a unique value proposition, and without it, it would be hard to justify the investment.

Very well said. I don't think I, or anyone, could have said it any better

I just wonder how many people feel the same way.