How much potential remains for developing new non-AI audio plugins, business-wise?

[Deladale56]

I think the AI will overrun everything but there will definitely be a community of hold outs. Just like people with records and analog recording. There's a certain satisfaction people get being a patron of arts

[soundmodel]

It's a good question.

I've researched the market for about 2 years, and I think that there are some paths to explore, but they are:

• mostly technically complicated.
• not guaranteed to offer ROI due to the consumers not caring about such developments due to the subjective nature of "good sound", "good instrument" etc. There have been several technically advanced releases, which have not been very popular. OTOH, some non-innovative stuff with a good UI or a good bundle can get people buy it. -> It's not enough to have technical excellence only. There are different ways to be innovative though.

In addition there exists a lot of products that are already innovative, but are not well-known. See e.g. the HIDDEN GEM threads at KVR. OTOH, e.g. being able to offer multi-model types of plug-ins displays that most other people aren't maybe doing anything innovative, even if their GUI looks like it.

https://www.meldaproduction.com/MTurboComp

And since this company is, I think, one person, then it also displays that the barrier to innovate in some domains is more than catering a single model that people can already buy as part of these all models plug-ins.

Some of the players also have an inflated view on their products. Which is exemplified by e.g. a lot of great Plugin Alliance $349 stuff going for $29.99 https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/prod ... gI9T_D_BwE. The Lindell stuff is good, but not really $349 good it seems. OTOH, there's a group that seems to buy based on perceived quality and for an exclusive feel, like they'd buy sports cars. If it's expensive, it must be good, so on.

I also speculate that some plug-ins just look good, while under the hood they're essentially the same old algorithms.

I have plenty of genre-specific ideas though.

In general though, I think most people are satisfied by e.g. Native Instruments Komplete already (and look at what they're doing now: https://www.native-instruments.com/en/p ... additions/). So a lot of other devs are catering for a sort of "pseudo-need".

[soundmodel]

Then there's also the problem of getting people to buy, when they already have stuff.

Plug-ins are essentially tools, and unless they're bought with hobby money, they'd need to provide economical benefits. Should be hard to achieve, due to how many studios still rely on the good old API, Neve, SSL, whatever classics. An AI "preset selector" does provide such benefit though. As do good sample libraries.

But I am not sure about processing plug-ins. Most of the plug-ins sound too similar anyways.

For a lot of producers the economic benefits also doesn't come from owning, but from renting.

[soundmodel]

Yet another perspective:

With the music industry so hard already, why do you think having new tools would change that?

Yet another perspective:

How many of the plug-ins are marketed as being better than what they are really?

[soundmodel]

If anything can be learned from OSes, then why not think that plug-ins need to democratize, like Linux does for Windows. Or in DAWs. Reaper did profit from being more open and affordable than Pro Tools or Cubase.

I've thought that the "script your own plug-ins" or "any plug-in in a plug-in" -plug-ins have been fantastic, although the leap for non-programmers is still too high. But they're certainly different than NI Reaktor or Kontakt scripts. JSFX is interesting.

[JustinJ]

Some of the players also have an inflated view on their products. Which is exemplified by e.g. a lot of great Plugin Alliance $349 stuff going for $29.99 https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/prod ... gI9T_D_BwE. The Lindell stuff is good, but not really $349 good it seems. OTOH, there's a group that seems to buy based on perceived quality and for an exclusive feel, like they'd buy sports cars. If it's expensive, it must be good, so on.

These 'original' prices are harking back to previous decades where EQs and compressors could demand that price figure due to lack of competition and because the technology was relatively new. Waves were typically pricing like this in the early days with their console EQ and compressor emulations.

PA's continued use of these prices I'm sure is a marketing/sales strategy to signify 'on sale' value and stimulate purchases. Some of us may wonder if these strategies are still effective, but they appear to be. Dirk (founder of PA) has just finished what I presume is his earn-out at PA and seems to have done very well out of the whole thing.

But that's what PA did. They'd already built up a significant user base and even managed to introduce pricing models and package and subscription deals without majorly upsetting their customer base. No mean feat. Whether a new company could get away with claiming their plugins are worth $349 but now they're (perpetually) on sale for $29.99 is another matter.

[soundmodel]

One could speculate though, whether the price of a lot of stuff will go around the $29.99 mark. There are some competitors that are giving huge value at that mark, like Hornet plug-ins:

https://www.hornetplugins.com/plugins/hornet-sleek/

(like compare this to oeksound soothe2 at 199 euros. Yeah I think soothe2 is overpriced.)

Waves has had those prices for a long time, but their plug-ins are quite old too.

[whyterabbyt]

Waves has had those prices for a long time, but their plug-ins are quite old too.

well, except for the new ones, of course. two already in 2024, I believe.

[soundmodel]

I would actually posit that maybe there's more domain in primarily digital or hybrid digital-analog models, rather than analog modelling, which should be somewhat intuitive based on available designs.

This is a business idea, but there's, for example still no cross-platform Camel Audio Alchemy replacement.

"The most comprehensive sample‑manipulation engine ever found in any VST Instrument."

[JustinJ]

This is a business idea, but there's, for example still no cross-platform Camel Audio Alchemy replacement.

"The most comprehensive sample‑manipulation engine ever found in any VST Instrument."

Pigments? Phase Plant? Omnisphere? Falcon?

[Kraku]

AI is the new dot-com bubble (from the change of millennium). Everyone pours insane amounts of money into it expecting it to make them all billionaires in a year or two. There will be a similar "major crash" which makes a lot of people upset big time. But those who understood from the beginning that AI is just one tech among others and it has its places of use (and not everywhere all the time), those are the ones who make the big money.

AI = good.
Dot-com = good.
Herd mentality = bad.

[Tone2 Synthesizers]

I disagree with this. AI already works quite well in practise. It can reduce costs by replacing or supporting human work in various areas. And it needs no weekend and no sleep.

[pekbro]

im awaiting the AI that can write a non-AI based plugin for me. I expect that its not
too far off.

[syntonica]

"AI" is still GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out. It is barely mid. It is a complete innovation killer. Honestly, I wouldn't waste my time on it. As others have said, come up with a unique idea or a unique sound and run with it.

[kerfuffle]

There are audio processing techniques that aren't possible without AI such as timbre transfer. So AI (or really machine learning) does allow for new ways to create sounds and make music. But in the end it's just another technique for taking a digital signal and doing something interesting with it, and it has its own downsides and limitations.