why are most soft synths and effects so expensive?

[Amberience]

Sampletank and Amplitube were impulse buys for me. I don't really use either of them that much either. But I was pretty well off when I bought sampletank - I was working full time in a job with no future, but hey, it paid.

Then I went to uni, and my situation changed rapidily. I'm a lot LOT more happier as a person now, even though I don't have a surplus of £800 a month to myself.

[nuffink]

If you've got 10 people, and only one of them can afford to buy your product. Surely it's better to sell to all ten of them than just one of them?

You've made that point repeatedly, and it's been repeatedly explained why you're wrong. Not by some forum twonk theorising, but by the people who are doing it.

[kritikon]

My wife will let me spend 2k on hardware, but would object to buying 400 euro software

Pleased to hear it's not just me, then. Within limits, I get away with buying a modest amount of s/w, but spend up large on s/w and I start to get bad vibes. But if I were to buy a new h/w synth that costs 3-4 times as much as a whole bunch of s/w, it's generally not a problem. The wife sees it as a genuine toy to keep me out of her hair...but she doesn't see s/w as a real toy. Dunno why. I tell her I could save her thousands by getting more s/w, but it just doesn't work...

Maybe I should start showing her some new reverb plugin - the most expensive one I can find. She won't like the idea, but would maybe OK me getting a PCM91 instead. It just might work?

[Spe3D]

If you've got 10 people, and only one of them can afford to buy your product. Surely it's better to sell to all ten of them than just one of them?

There is no price that all ten would buy at, basic fact.

Best regards,

Spe3d

:O)

[Amberience]

stop drinking and smoking for a couple of weeks, and live off potatoes and lentils, you will miraculously find that after a couple of weeks that you have saved $200.)

I'm not using my student status as an excuse, and I'm certainly not saying that products aren't worth money. The question came up that basically asked why software isn't doing so well. I gave a plausible reason: People can't afford it. The majority of musicians are hobbiests, who have families, rent, kids, cars, and all that crap.

If developers want to complain they aren't selling their product enough, maybe they should look at their prices and their aimed market. If you're charging £140 for a plugin, and aiming it at novice drummers for example... no one is going to bite. £140 to seasoned professional drummers though, you've got more of a chance.

"but please don't let's deceive ourselves that if we could afford it we all wouldn't snap up the best gear we could."

You're wrong. If I could afford it, I wouldn't snap up a $3000 preamp. I don't need a $300 preamp, let alone a $3000 one. My Soundcraft desk does a good enough job for me.

Lets make it clear, I've never said that devs are stupid for pricing their products high, or even that they were greedy. NEVER have I implied they were being greedy.

What I have said though is that if Developers want to sell their product on a wide scale to people who have a lot of financial responsibilities, then charging the earth isn't going to work.

If you're happy selling a single license a month though, by all means, charge whatever you like!

Charge whatever you like anyway.. I'm just giving you my opinion. You don't need to get all hostile, it's just an opinion. Nothing personal, just the way I see things.

[herodotus]

I don't mean to be harsh, but it's a real fact of life that everyone lives according to their budget...if you don't have the income, then you simply don't get to play with the expensive toys.

Have you never heard of credit?

You've made that point repeatedly, and it's been repeatedly explained why you're wrong. Not by some forum twonk theorising, but by the people who are doing it.

Is a 'twonk' a wannabe 'wonk' ?

[Amberience]

If you've got 10 people, and only one of them can afford to buy your product. Surely it's better to sell to all ten of them than just one of them?

You've made that point repeatedly, and it's been repeatedly explained why you're wrong. Not by some forum twonk theorising, but by the people who are doing it.

I missed the explaination. Sorry.

[jmh]

On the really real better scale, h/w comes in at 9.9
Although in Finland, I believe it comes in at zero.

Oi! Haven't you heard Finland is the land of the golden eared. Cheap stuff just doesn't have a place here.



JMH

[stefancrs]

If you've got 10 people, and only one of them can afford to buy your product. Surely it's better to sell to all ten of them than just one of them?

You've made that point repeatedly, and it's been repeatedly explained why you're wrong. Not by some forum twonk theorising, but by the people who are doing it.

I missed the explaination. Sorry.

You make more money with X users paying Y per user than 10*X users paying Y/10 per user. Having lots of customers isn't always a good thing. Making money is.

[snooky]

If you've got 10 people, and only one of them can afford to buy your product. Surely it's better to sell to all ten of them than just one of them?

You've made that point repeatedly, and it's been repeatedly explained why you're wrong. Not by some forum twonk theorising, but by the people who are doing it.

I missed the explaination. Sorry.

You make more money with X users paying Y per user than 10*X users paying Y/10 per user. Having lots of customers isn't always a good thing. Making money is.

and this, Ladies and Gentlemen, proves that software devs are greedy, greedy, greedy and just want your hard earned cash wif da latest and greatest..." -hell, it aliases 5% less then last weeks übersynth, lets all spend 300 bux on the stuff"

..yeah right.

If you want to make money, there are far, faaar easier ways to do it than art/media or software.

[stefancrs]

Without making money a full-time dev can't be a full-time dev, I think it usually boils down to the fact that many devs want to be just that. Full-time devs. To be able to do what they love, not to get rich. They'd get higher salaries getting almost any normal programming job.

[JonHodgson]

If you've got 10 people, and only one of them can afford to buy your product. Surely it's better to sell to all ten of them than just one of them?

You've made that point repeatedly, and it's been repeatedly explained why you're wrong. Not by some forum twonk theorising, but by the people who are doing it.

I missed the explaination. Sorry.

I'll sum it up in two simple facts...

1) Beyond a certain point, decreasing price does not increase sales enough for revenue to increase overall - and that point is usually a lot higher than you seem to imagine.

2) Beyond a certain point, economies of scale cease to work (getting 10,000 CDs and boxes made is not much cheaper per unit than getting 1000 made), and costs per unit actually go UP (wider base of users means more with less experience, and a higher probability of encountering a problem system, thus greater support costs).

So there is a "golden" point for net revenue, and in many cases it is unfortunately higher than you're willing to pay, that's not your fault, but neither is it ours. We're just lucky if that net revenue pays the development costs.

[beej]

The question came up that basically asked why software isn't doing so well. I gave a plausible reason: People can't afford it.

No, generally people in the main *can* afford it. They have their £600 computer and their £300 speakers and their £100-600 DAW and their £300 master keyboard etc etc.

I'm sorry, £100 for a polyphonic, professional synth with loads of presets is just dirt cheap. Hey I remember saving for a year to buy my first synth, a Casio CZ-101.

I know we are living in the present and not the past, but stuff has never been cheaper. Most kids on their daddy's computer with some free software have *way* more than I did when young even after five years and several thousands of pounds worth of gear.

I think the pricing is pretty good. You weigh up a product's utility versus it's market price. If you don't feel that the utility of Zebra2 is worth whatever $$ it costs, then you don't buy it, even if you'd kinda like to have it.

The problem is not that a decent synth costs £100. It's that there are too many out there, and because software is easily attainable (type in your credit card numbers, download and play) we all kinda want loads of them. Look at what's come out over the current months in that market alone: Surge, Zebra2, Octopus, Blue, Spectra, Prophet-V and others.

For me, I don't want a million small things, which is why I tend to avoid the free stuff, apart from a few well respected small things I choose to use (stuff like Blockfish, Supatrigga, Musulomo). I choose some of the bigger stuff on how much I like it and how much I need what it does. I've bought things like EXS24, Zebra, z3ta, impOSCar, Stylus RMX, some Waves stuff, Logic, Soundforge, Live because they give me something I want, and the price is fair. I'd kinda like Pro-Tools M-Powered, but at the moment that money needs to be elsewhere and the utility from it not that great (I already have a DAW, so I'd only be getting it to learn Pro-Tools really).

New stuff comes out, and if I think it's worth it to me, I splash the cash. Things like Surge, Octopus, Specta etc - they all look great, but the utility is not that high to me - I already have a ton of synths, and I'm not even utilising many of them to the fullest.

People always use the "can't afford it" excuse, because we all choose where to spend our money. If something is important, you will prioritise funds for it. If not, or if there's other stuff that's more important - food, rent, whatever, then you ain't gonna buy a new synth.

If you can afford to run a computer, internet, music gear etc, then you *can* afford a synth at a hundred pounds. Not every synth, and not all the time, but it's not because a £100 is an unrealistic amount to charge for a pro piece of music gear.

They ain't toys for kids, and aren't priced as such...

EDIT: Mind you, have you seen the price of Lego these days..?!?!

[eduardo_b]

Without making money a full-time dev can't be a full-time dev, I think it usually boils down to the fact that many devs want to be just that. Full-time devs. To be able to do what they love, not to get rich. They'd get higher salaries getting almost any normal programming job.

I think the term "developer" gives people the impression that they're printing money with every plug-in they sell. So synths and effects that sell for $200 seem overpriced and designed mostly to make developers wealthy. I suppose one could argue that there's nothing wrong with developers becoming wealthy, but that would only make "expensive" plug-ins seem even more overpriced. Then again, NI must have truckloads of money...right?

[snooky]

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