why are most soft synths and effects so expensive?

[JackDark]

For the record the model I mentioned earlier obviously won't work for everybody, hence the "might be wrong part".

But it works for me. I like the idea of never charging more than $30 for a plug (that's the highest I'll go until inflation explodes again... and only for an FM Synth & Vector Synth in the works...), because that ensures even the poorest bastards out there (hey like me!) can actually have a chance at affording the things.

Now granted I can spend 40-60 hours creating a decent FM Synth, and recoup that at $30 intervals. However, I recognize that companies which have multi-man teams working for months and years even on specific pieces of software cannot go by the model I choose.

So whatever works for -you-.

However, and this is entirely personal opinion; I feel some companies do charge -way- too much money for what they are offering, and I feel this comes from "namebrand" imaging at times, or worse yet, "hilfiger syndrome".

If it costs that much it MUST BE PRO!

Whatever... there's the dark and light sides to every industry, and VST is not excluded. As long as someone is willing to sell something as phenomenal as energyXT for next to nothing, I'm still a happy camper.

[keyman_sam]

If its expensive - dont buy it. Get freeware. THey're....free.

[BONES]

I dont know where that figure comes from on Oz wages.

That's what they quoted on the news when the last minimum wage case was on a few months ago. I was hugely surprised that it was that high, I would have thought somewhere in the mid-30's would have been closer but there you go.

[M'Snah]

-the time and expertise it takes to code the instrument
-the design of the GUI
-advertising costs

is there anything else that I am missing?

if indeed the main costs to developers are the coding and the GUI, then shouldn't new soft synths all cost around $40?

As said before, the developer needs to make a living. If you product 3 VST synths (or effects) in a year, and this is your full-time job, these three have to make for your entire salary, to pay bills from, housing, eating, etc.

It's not like each VST get's 1000's of buyers. Look at the groupbuys for example: If you sell your VST in a groupbuy for (let's say) $40, and you have 50 buyers, that's $2000. That's not much to live on, if you realize that the market for that VST is filled for a few months after the groupbuy!.
To get an idea of the number of buyers for VST's, look at the product pages here at kvraudio. Of course it's not the official license registration, but since many users will be at kvraudio, at least for the products where this is the official forum, it should give an idea of the number of users. Multiply that number of users with the current price of the VST, and you have a (bad) estimate of the turnover for that product. (e.g. Cameleon: 89 users bought it for $200, that would make approx $18.000, and the product has been around for about 2 years... )

[Angus_FX]

why can't I download Absynth for $79 from NI and sidestep the boxed version in the local music store that retails at $299 and has 3 companies sharing profits on?

Because distributors and retailers -- especially retailers -- will drop a product like a hot rock if it can be bought for cheaper from the manufacturer's web site. There are two ways of looking at this -- one is that it's a rip-off, and that the middle-men, who don't add any value, should not be allowed to get away with this.. the other way to look at it is that some retailers have spent years and $$$$$ developing their market and their customer list, and as such the customer, in a sense, belongs to them.

Bear in mind that most people that buy boxed VSTs in stores are buying a tool to do a job -- they're not going to obsess over it, they're not even interested in being super-informed about it or having a close relationship with the manufacturer -- in fact, it's fair to say, many of them are about as interested in all that as your average guitarist would be in the makings of his/her tuner, instrument case or plectrum. Very different to the thousand or so individuals that spend a lot of time on KvR and are thoroughly clued up about this stuff. If it's not in their music store, they probably won't know it exists.

ew / John -- Generator never ran on a DSP card, but it did come with a special I/O card originally (this was before low-cost soundcards had ASIO as standard). The very first version only worked with their card, then they made one for a short while that also worked on Emagic Audiowerks. The final versions, right before Reaktor killed it off, worked with anything.

The other thing to bear in mind when comparing software to hardware prices is that hardware prices have also come down a great deal in the last ten years or so, and not always for "nice" reasons. How many left-of-center, eco-friendly musicians think about the working conditions and environmental consequences involved with $150 Chinese-made mics? How many people that would never dream of using warez are quite happy using cheap hardware whose design is a blatant rip-off of a more expensive unit?

[AD80]

The other thing to bear in mind when comparing software to hardware prices is that hardware prices have also come down a great deal in the last ten years or so, and not always for "nice" reasons. How many left-of-center, eco-friendly musicians think about the working conditions and environmental consequences involved with $150 Chinese-made mics? How many people that would never dream of using warez are quite happy using cheap hardware whose design is a blatant rip-off of a more expensive unit?

Thats a damn good point.

[blaster78]

regardless of pricing strategies etc, i don't think they are expensive at all.

i have a lot more synths now than i ever did when i had to buy expensive hardware, 15 years ago there was very little i wanted that would cost me £150 let alone with the power and flexibility synths offer now.

i own a couple of "big" synths like absynth 3, kontakt 2 and arturias minimoog. i also own a g2x that cost me just over £2,000, which as much as i love it cost me more than all my soft synths put together.

theres also some fantastic stuff out there for almost no money, this week i have got round to buying dblues's glitch, darkwares fxjockey, ugos metallurgy, audiomulch and energyxt. that little lot came to the grand total of about £100.

now tell me that isn't fantastic value.

cheers,

steve.

[bduffy]

The other thing to bear in mind when comparing software to hardware prices is that hardware prices have also come down a great deal in the last ten years or so, and not always for "nice" reasons. How many left-of-center, eco-friendly musicians think about the working conditions and environmental consequences involved with $150 Chinese-made mics? How many people that would never dream of using warez are quite happy using cheap hardware whose design is a blatant rip-off of a more expensive unit?

Thats a damn good point.

Totally. You can shop with a conscience here, knowing there is no slave labour involved. Except for maybe JackDark; I think he might have a couple of Japanese girls tied up in the back...

[blaster78]

Except for maybe JackDark; I think he might have a couple of Japanese girls tied up in the back...

[AD80]

The other thing to bear in mind when comparing software to hardware prices is that hardware prices have also come down a great deal in the last ten years or so, and not always for "nice" reasons. How many left-of-center, eco-friendly musicians think about the working conditions and environmental consequences involved with $150 Chinese-made mics? How many people that would never dream of using warez are quite happy using cheap hardware whose design is a blatant rip-off of a more expensive unit?

Thats a damn good point.

Totally. You can shop with a conscience here, knowing there is no slave labour involved. Except for maybe JackDark; I think he might have a couple of Japanese girls tied up in the back...

I own one of those Chinese mics and now I feel bad. Eventhough it sounds REALLY good and was very cheap.

[Sascha Franck]

i have a lot more synths now than i ever did when i had to buy expensive hardware, 15 years ago there was very little i wanted that would cost me £150 let alone with the power and flexibility synths offer now.

Exactly.
I mean, if I want a simple quality distortion foot pedal, I still have to pay around €100 at least - some of the great models even going up to 300-400.
That's certainly not justified by the cost of the used hardware.
And that's exactly why I will be trying to go for a laptop solution when playing live as well during the next weeks. Even when adding the cost for the laptop, things will still be cheaper as if I'd buy, say, the new TC G-Force unit - which is defenitely offering less than what my laptop will be able to do for me.

[nuisance sonore]

The other thing to bear in mind when comparing software to hardware prices is that hardware prices have also come down a great deal in the last ten years or so, and not always for "nice" reasons. How many left-of-center, eco-friendly musicians think about the working conditions and environmental consequences involved with $150 Chinese-made mics? How many people that would never dream of using warez are quite happy using cheap hardware whose design is a blatant rip-off of a more expensive unit?

Conscience illuminating comment. If you ever get into politic, let me know you'd get a vote here. Seriously.

[Torben]

Spectra took about 1000 hours to develop and code for the windows version only. And some of the algorithms to the effect section were more or less developed by us before. On top of this comes expenses to the GUI designer and sound designers. Then there are expenses to ads and advertising, exhibitions etc. and finally additional time for updating etc. How many plugins are sold? Let me say it this way that the big companies consider a product a success if it sells about 2000-3000 pcs on all platforms and they naturally got a greater sale (and uses more money for marketing etc) than a little company, and what if it is not a success; then the product is likely to be a losing business.

Torben

[Sascha Franck]

Indeed a brilliant point, Angus.

Now, of course (as usual) there's two sides of the coin.
I mean, it's not as if the well established "celebrity" brand companies would sell their products at what I'd call a reasonable price. Ok, maybe some are, but let's take the microphone example: Do you really think €2222 is a reasonable price for a U87? Or, even more ridiculous, €333 for the shockmount?!?

Don't get me wrong, I'm in no way happy with children labour, most likely involved in about everything coming from China or other parts of the far east.
In addition, support for anything coming from such companies is close to non-existant, whereas, say, Neumanns support is almost unbeatable.

Still, that doesn't justify their price tags at all. It's pretty obvious why they get away with it though. I know of quite some dudes personally who are like "heck, yeah, a C3 might get the job done as well, but a U87 is just looking great on my kit list".

The same goes for about anything with a Neve, Massenburg, Weiss, Avalon, Rosetta or whatever label on it. While being kickass stuff, those ridiculously high prices simply can't be justified anymore.
Oh, I'm sure someone will come up with a reasonable explanation why it's all OK to ask for such an amount of money - and it's even gonna be plausible.
But, globalisation *is* there, no matter how you put it, no matter how much you hate children labour and what not.
Just take a look at your clothes... even quite some of the more expensive items won't be made in any western country. The same goes for daily life electronic items and the likes.

Something to think about nonetheless.

[HelgeG]

Speaking as a software developer myself (not music related), my experience is that "regular" people (i.e. non-programmers) hugely underestimate the effort needed to develop software. I have huge respect for the developers that manage to carve out a living from creating soft synths and effects.