KVR Audio

SLiC · Post by **SLiC** » Fri Dec 16, 2016 7:28 pm

Krezie wrote:https://www.roland.com/us/company/press_releases/30315/

Is this a joke?

They have a handful of pretty average (but CPU hogging) plug ins and they want you to go subscription?
Even as a system 1m user I wound never do this, what they really needed to do is make the plug outs 49 Euro each....

dumbledog · Post by **dumbledog** » Fri Dec 16, 2016 7:43 pm

On the flip side, maybe if I rented a synth for a month I'd be compelled to, you know, actually finish a damned track for once.

But I already have a hardware D-50 in the corner sooooooo

fst · Post by **fst** » Fri Dec 16, 2016 7:51 pm

I find this a little confusing, as Roland owns the D50 code, and indeed have already previously re-purposed/ported it (albeit into a different architecture i.e. Varios/V-Synth), so why decide instead to sample it?

I don't follow the rationale there, unless there's something about the original DSP code that's prohibitive.

david.beholder · Post by **david.beholder** » Fri Dec 16, 2016 7:54 pm

ghettosynth wrote:Yeah, I don't disagree. This is why I think that in the long term, this is going to bite devs in the ass. Here's why. Once you get a certain amount of experience, synths aren't all that different. A month is plenty of time to dial in a few sounds on an SH101, record it and done. You can do all of your "sound prototyping" on any number of cheap/free synths, or even the expensive synth that you happen to own but isn't quite right, then rent for a month, dial in, record, stop renting.

Considering that average quality of Roland products and greediness of certain developers - this approach might not work. If per month charge is about $40-50 for daw, X*$20 for plugins, X*$20 for effects - it's simple too high for average customer.

ghettosynth · Post by **ghettosynth** » Fri Dec 16, 2016 8:03 pm

david.beholder wrote:
ghettosynth wrote:Yeah, I don't disagree. This is why I think that in the long term, this is going to bite devs in the ass. Here's why. Once you get a certain amount of experience, synths aren't all that different. A month is plenty of time to dial in a few sounds on an SH101, record it and done. You can do all of your "sound prototyping" on any number of cheap/free synths, or even the expensive synth that you happen to own but isn't quite right, then rent for a month, dial in, record, stop renting.
Considering that average quality of Roland products and greediness of certain developers - this approach might not work. If per month charge is about $40-50 for daw, X*$20 for plugins, X*$20 for effects - it's simple too high for average customer.

Exactly right, that's what I'm saying.

https://hbr.org/2002/09/pricing-and-the ... onsumption

Dumbledog is right, that monthly bill will remind him to think about his music, but, it will also trigger an evaluation every month. People go into debt every Christmas buying stuff, not, generally, by incurring new monthly service fees.

Further, like IOS apps, this is going to be a rush to the bottom. AIR is going to offer their bundle for $5 a month, Roland won't be able to hold $20 for their shitty offerings.

I don't even see it with companies like Soundtoys, iZotope, or Eventide. I love all of their products, but if I was faced with a monthly rental from each of them I would just ditch them all and go with Waves. This is really only going to work for those at the top of the food chain with the largest catalogues. NI, Waves, EastWest, are probably going to be able to make it work.

In any case, Roland has always been full of themselves and, unfortunately, consumers seem to be lapping it up.

Winstontaneous · Post by **Winstontaneous** » Fri Dec 16, 2016 8:09 pm

egbert101 wrote:Don't sell your soul to the devil.

That's no longer possible, he's already moved to a monthly subscription-based rental model.

david.beholder · Post by **david.beholder** » Fri Dec 16, 2016 10:10 pm

Winstontaneous wrote:
egbert101 wrote:Don't sell your soul to the devil.
That's no longer possible, he's already moved to a monthly subscription-based rental model.

amazing joke

beely · Post by **beely** » Fri Dec 16, 2016 11:36 pm

fst wrote:I find this a little confusing, as Roland owns the D50 code, and indeed have already previously re-purposed/ported it (albeit into a different architecture i.e. Varios/V-Synth), so why decide instead to sample it?

Because it's not Roland that did it, it's been made the Canadian company they have partnered with (with Roland's permission for the sample content, of course).

skyscape · Post by **skyscape** » Sat Dec 17, 2016 12:14 am

I can see rent to own becoming a thing, but flat out rental for audio products will likely fail miserably. The market is already saturated and there are many good devs who won't follow such an obnoxious business model and we'll all just migrate to them. I would sincerely doubt that in the audio industry they would be able to innovate fast enough and provide enough resources and services to warrant a rental model. Adobe gets away with it because their flagship products deal with graphics and video and these are deeply entrenched in web and multimedia which move along technologically at a far faster pace than audio. Access to a library of emulations of dusty old synths isn't going to cut it.

zerocrossing · Post by **zerocrossing** » Sat Dec 17, 2016 12:48 am

Buy this:

http://www.uvi.net/en/vintage-corner/di ... tions.html

Run it inside Falcon. Send Roland a scan of your fist with one middle finger outstretched.

chili beans · Post by **chili beans** » Sat Dec 17, 2016 12:55 am

dumbledog wrote:On the flip side, maybe if I rented a synth for a month I'd be compelled to, you know, actually finish a damned track for once.

But I already have a hardware D-50 in the corner sooooooo

Can I rent your D-50? C'mon $10 bucks a month

Kai Enaki · Post by **Kai Enaki** » Sat Dec 17, 2016 1:06 am

I have no qualms about starting a new career if this subscription model becomes a industry standard.

rod_zero · Post by **rod_zero** » Sat Dec 17, 2016 1:23 am

At gearslutz in the thread for Kush subscription bundle some people expressed their desire to surrender their perpetual license for some subscription time.

ghettosynth · Post by **ghettosynth** » Sat Dec 17, 2016 2:50 am

rod_zero wrote:At gearslutz in the thread for Kush subscription bundle some people expressed their desire to surrender their perpetual license for some subscription time.

A lot of people bought Betamax as well. Just kidding, of course there are. There are always people on both sides of every discussion, that doesn't mean that the alternate viewpoint isn't correct.

I think that a lot of professionals who are earning their living using plugins will absolutely consider rental as a valid alternative. They are already thinking about their purchases differently than consumers do. As I said, that's part to the reason that it works for Adobe.

As a vendor you have to know who your customers are. I suspect that Kush is largely selling to pros. I bet that Roland, on the other hand, is ABSOLUTELY banking on consumers being a significant part of their customer base.

You also have to see this with a look to the future, not just from the present. It's not reasonable to think that all options will always be on the table, or, that what's on people's desks now will be there in the future. Time will tell, but I think that a lot of consumers won't think "oh I spend an average of $100 a month buying plugins, I can spend a $100 a month on rental and get more", They'll think "oh I spend an average of $100 a month on plugins and I have about 100 plugins, I can only spend $10 a month with Waves and I'll have 200 plugins. That way I can spend the other $90 a month buying OTHER THINGS THAT I CAN STILL OWN"

BTW: I love this quote from Gregory Scott, who runs Kush:

Subscriptions are definitely not right for everyone, in a very similar way that car leases are also not for everyone. Ownership is, AFAICT, more of a personal philosphy that reflects how we relate to possessions, as opposed to an economic policy based on a thorough and detailed mathematical analysis of the past along with a realistic assessment of future expenditures.

In fact, most people tend to underestimate both their past AND their future spendings. We are NOT intuitively economic creatures!

This is so spot on. This goes very well with what I'm saying. We don't evaluate our purchases in terms of the their economic value to use, but, we do evaluate recurring expenses this way. We just don't get as excited about borrowing something for a while as we do about owning it. People aren't going to all of a sudden get rational about things and spend the same amount of money on that thing that they're getting rational about, they're going to minimize that expense and spend the difference on things that they're still irrational about.

layzer · Post by **layzer** » Sat Dec 17, 2016 2:51 am

EvilDragon wrote:And sampled instead of hybrid VA+samples... 3.8 GB for a synth whose samples were under half a megabyte!

just think if M1 went the same route with all the PCM cards it comes with,
easily a 500GB vst.

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