why are most soft synths and effects so expensive?

[Amberience]

I just don't get the motivation to price so high. If I had the skills to make something as complex and beastly as Absynth for example, I most definitely would not want to charge anything more than £50 (about $90usd).

You say this now, from your perspective. But after spending 3+ years of work into something like Absynth, I highly doubt that you or anyone would keep that commitment

How you lack faith in the human spirit.

You get something with a hardware synth. You get a physical object. That's probably why hardware is considered worth more. With software you get something on a screen, a screen you've been staring at for the past three years no doubt. A computer that you had to scrimp and save to buy. The psychology is different.

The way I look at it, the computer is the instrument. VSTi's are just modules within that instrument. Not saying they are not worth anything, but worth over £100?? I have to question that.

Even if you've put your soul into it, you have to consider that people have kids to feed, and that music is not a career for them, it is a hobby.

So, from a developer's perspective, any complaint about +/- 100 bucks is embarrassingly pointless.

Do you understand that £100 to me a half a months rent? True enough, Tony Blair is paying for it this moment, but that's not the point. I'm sorry my existence is embarrassingly pointless, but oh well.

[Amberience]

Filterscape is $129 right? That works out to £72GBP. Now most of the stuff it does I can do with my current plugins and automation. So no, I don't think paying £72 quid for a plugin that I essentially already have is a good idea.

[JonHodgson]

So, from a developer's perspective, any complaint about +/- 100 bucks is embarrassingly pointless.

Do you understand that £100 to me a half a months rent? True enough, Tony Blair is paying for it this moment, but that's not the point. I'm sorry my existence is embarrassingly pointless, but oh well.

Do you understand that to me, an impOSCar is two years work? That's two years of mortgage payments to pay, and Tony Blair doesn't pay mine, and food, and petrol, and insurance, and computers, and development tools, and internet, and so on.

And if that wasn't bad enough, there's not just me to pay from a single sale, there's the retailer, the distributor, and GMedia.

Oh, and Gordon Brown, may he be cursed with the fleas of a thousand camels.

[Amberience]

Yes I understand that.

[Amberience]

I don't understand your attitude towards my student loan though. Since it has f**k all to do with you.

Consider that you're not the only one who needs to pay for things, and you wouldn't have to pay the retailer, the distributor, or GMedia if you had never wanted to sell the synth in the first place. It's possible you'd be in a better position if you'd never made the synth.

[Angus_FX]

I don't know about most of them, but I know Jorgen the guy who develops EnergyXT makes a living from XT. It is possible to make a living from software, you just need a good product and a dedicated userbase

My guess is (and looking at the eXT forum), Jorgen's customer base is strongly biased towards the geeks and experts. Few of them need much support, and there are enough that don't that they can share the load of helping those that do, between them.

FXpansion used to have a customer profile much like that, but as the ratio of experts to newbies declines, you have no choice but to hire support staff and eventually increase prices.

There are clearly enough such experts that a small number of developers with excellent products and modest ambitions can live off that market (also, there are some less expert market segments where the customers don't seem to expect so much support), all power to those that take that route, but don't expect them to ever be numerous.

As a side point.. because, I'm guessing, Jorgen is free to work on pretty much exclusively the stuff that he loves doing, he's prepared to do that for relatively little financial gain.

Do you understand that £100 to me a half a months rent? True enough, Tony Blair is paying for it this moment, but that's not the point.

£200/month rent, in London..?

[JonHodgson]

I don't understand your attitude towards my student loan though. Since it has f**k all to do with you.

Consider that you're not the only one who needs to pay for things, and you wouldn't have to pay the retailer, the distributor, or GMedia if you had never wanted to sell the synth in the first place. It's possible you'd be in a better position if you'd never made the synth.

Not just possible, almost guaranteed. Financially and personally. But my own personal mistakes aside, that doesn't change the fact that I think plugins should be a healthier market than it is.

And I don't have any kind of problem with your student loan, had some myself.

[Amberience]

I live in a share house with 5 other students and share a room with my girlfriend. I'm very fortunate to have the current arrangements I have, and I'm concious of the fact that I should consider myself lucky.

I guess support isn't something I ever really think about. I rarely need it, and if I do its usually from other people as opposed to the company who made it.

Don't get me wrong. There is some truly great looking stuff out there that costs a lot, and if my own situation were different I'd take a looksie. But I'm destitute in some respects, and my original point was so are the majority of musicians. It is unrealistic to expect your product to do well if you're aiming it at musicians who can't afford to pay hundreds of pounds for software.

[Amberience]

Not just possible, almost guaranteed. Financially and personally. But my own personal mistakes aside, that doesn't change the fact that I think plugins should be a healthier market than it is.

And I don't have any kind of problem with your student loan, had some myself.

I think it should be healthier too. But I don't think high prices are the right way to make it more healthy. That can only help the market atrophy, imo.

I never meant to imply Imposcar is a mistake btw.

[Sascha Franck]

Filterscape is $129 right? That works out to £72GBP. Now most of the stuff it does I can do with my current plugins and automation. So no, I don't think paying £72 quid for a plugin that I essentially already have is a good idea.

I don't think you could easily manage to do what Filterscape is doing with your existing plugins.
But then, that might only be me.

[waveriderarts]

IMHO it's a shame that software is considered less valuable than hardware.

Maybe it is because it won't run by itself, and you need a 1000$+ computer to run it. Oh I already have a computer, but after 5-6 vst it chokes in real-time; so I would need to get another PC to run the plugin on top of what I am doing, + another license for the host, another MIDI keyboard to play it etc....

On the other hand if I buy hardware it will run on top of what I have with no latency...

So of course a 300$ vst plug will cost me hardware to run it in real-time.

[M'Snah]

On the other hand if I buy hardware it will run on top of what I have with no latency...

And if you want a second instance, you have to buy another one. So you'll have 4 or 5 Access Virus's on your desk..

[Urs]

On the other hand if I buy hardware it will run on top of what I have with no latency...

Heh, a bit OT, but some thoughts on that: If you play with headphones, the latency of a plugin can be much smaller than the latency of an ordinary piano (unless you have a Steinway which has a patented hammer acceleration technique that lowers the latency IIRC). Each meter of distance from your monitor speaker to your ear contributes 3 ms of latency. A typical 80ies digital synth has 5+ ms latency, when played with its built in keyboard. I think 7ms were considered top notch back then. It's more when played over a MIDI daisy chain.

On the other hand, a softsynth can be rendered sample accurate when mixing down or when used with PDC. Software effects don't necessarily contribute to to latency as well, unlike rows of 19 inch hardware effects with a pair of ADC/DACs each.

As for cpu power... well, choose plugins that don't kill your cpu too much. They exist, but they're hardly among the cheap ones, because optimization takes a lot of time and requires a lot of experience and knowledge.

Cheers,

Urs

[M'Snah]

On the other hand, a softsynth can be rendered sample accurate when mixing down or when used with PDC. Software effects don't necessarily contribute to to latency as well, unlike rows of 19 inch hardware effects with a pair of ADC/DACs each.

Even more OT: I finally understand the secret of getting that retro analog sound... I need to build in more latency between tracks and soft synths

[Urs]

Yes I understand that.

This thread is way less depressing now