Yep, I was sorta kidding... thanks for pointing out Blacet, looks pretty capable and good value -- even so, a fully kitted out system is going to be in the $1500-$2000 range. Not that I don't think it's worth it, just not sure if I can justify it!i was saying per module. I haven't really priced Doepfer stuff, but Blacet modules are similar - or less if you are talking things like LFOs, CV multis, etc. - to what I pay for a VST.
Well, some of the *retailers* offer the fact that they have a personal relationship with a number of regular customers.. I know musicians who will pretty much only buy from one store and never mail order, even though they live in a big city with a choice of ten or more.That's why it seems to me the current marketing/sales/distribution channels are rather incapable of doing what they are supposed to be doing.
As far as I can see, the exsisting channels are rather limited. Listing prodcuts on some bog-standard online retailers doesn't count as marketing at all, IMHO. But that's the only thing these distributors offer at this stage. *not to mention that we small guys only have little influence on them.
The distributors' middleman role is to act as a fixer for the scale mismatch problem:- there are too many retailers, and too many manufacturers, for all of each to maintain a 1:1 business relationship with all of the other.
The question is, what SHOULD they be doing? For-profit businesses shouldn't try to get in customers' faces beyond a certain point (most people agree that direct-mail and e-mail spam are going too far), even with the best targeting in the world you'll catch - and waste the time of - too many uninterested people.I can't really understand the magazine situation either though...The reason why reviews on magazines are not that effective is probably due to that they are not really geared to sell stuff (without meticulously subliminal marketing messages in them)- that's the best I can come up for now.
Beyond a presence in magazines and on forums and mailing lists, what can a manufacturer reasonably do, besides making boxes and getting them in the shops? OK, there are "alternative marketing" approaches like group buys (which has worked well for some) and affiliate-marketing (which generally hasn't).
Bear in mind, a lot of customers for the more expensive VSTis are professional producer/engineers, or composer/programmers, who generally have higher incomes than full time musicians. There's a surprising (to a relative youngster like myself) number of retirees getting in to the whole computer recording thing.. guys who've been weekend-warrior guitarists since the 1960s and are now getting in to recording as they suddenly have a lot more time on their hands as well as some income to spare.Second, your guess about me having a low income is right. But it seems to me that the only one who can afford buying lots of vst/vsti on top of their host are hobbyist who have full time day jobs. For a full time musician, with very low income like most have, it is all very different.
BTW, regarding GURU -- we knew when we made the decision on the final price that, regrettably, a number of people like yourself would be excluded... PM me, I'll see if we can sort something out for you.
I heard they passed the 10,000 mark quite a few years ago. Wouldn't surprise me if they've done several times that by now. They're distributed by M-Audio, who are a public company (as part of AVID), so there may be some useful info in AVID's financial reporting, though I wouldn't know where to look.Would anyone know/care to speculate on how many copies of Reason Propellerheads have sold?
Urs
