KVR Audio

sdv · Post by **sdv** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 3:29 am

BONES wrote: So what Imageline offer you are all the little things that you get in free point releases for most downloadable hosts but for all the big, cool, licensed from 3rd party stuff they ask you for more money

Yep... pretty much.

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 3:41 am

tony tony chopper wrote:yes, let's pretend you can't buy directly from NI's web site

You're not really that naive, are you? Who would stock a product if customers could get it for half the price from the manufacturer's website?

-there are only 2 music genres: music made with ORION, and crap

99% of all music made with any sequencer is complete and utter crap, except for Fruity which scores a perfect 100% on prinicple.

tony tony chopper · Post by **tony tony chopper** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 4:04 am

even better, let's pretend when you buy a NI plugin from their web site, money goes to the box resellers

ninjadroid · Post by **ninjadroid** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 4:10 am

BONES wrote: Did you look in the shop? HERE. You'll see that whilst the boxed editon [which has been $199 for some time now, not $249] is unavailable you can get a download version for $50 off. $199 - $50 = $149

Incorrect. The normal cost of Orion platinum is $249, as evidenced here:

http://synapse-audio.com/orionplatinum.php

This is for the boxed edition. You can buy a downloadable version for $199 here:

http://synapse-audio.com/shop.php

If you don't believe me, observe what happens when you add the product to your shopping cart:

http://gazuga.net/stuph/orioncost.tiff

What this means is that if you want the ability to record audio, the minimum you will spend to do this with Orion is $199, and the minimum you will spend to do this with FL is $149. If you want to compare non-audio editions, the minimums change to $99 for Orion and $49 for FL.

What is there in FL Standard that you could not do as well with freeware? Is 3xOsc so much better than Synth1 or PolyIblit that you could not replace it? There are plenty of free alternatives which severely devalue built-in generators in every host.

I take it the answer to my original question is "features." Let me know what free alternative has:

* 3 invertible oscillators with 5 shapes, noise, and the ability to load custom samples
* Stereo detuning per oscillator
* Stereo phase offset per oscillator
* Panning for 2 of the oscillators
* The ability to use an oscillator for AM
* Global stereo phase randomness
* A built in resonant filter in all the standard varieties
* A tempo syncable, tension adjustable, independent AHDSR envelope for volume, panning, cutoff, resonance, and pitch
* A tempo syncable, optionally retriggerable, independent attack-delay LFO in 3 shapes for volume, panning, cutoff, resonance, and pitch.
* Portamento with adjustable slide time
* Is damn wicked fast

Sure. How much did audio recording cost you as a fruity user? $50. How much did it cost ORION users? $49.

I think that's reaching.

How much did it cost Fruity users to get a fantasitc, versatile, full featured FM synth? Plenty! How much did it cost ORION users to get something comparable? Nothing. How much will it cost a Fruity user to get a good multi-sample instrument player/builder? Whatever DirectWave costs. how much did the same functionality cost ORION users? Nothing, and we got it years ago. So what Imageline offer you are all the little things that you get in free point releases for most downloadable hosts but for all the big, cool, licensed from 3rd party stuff they ask you for more money whereas the developers of competitive products like ORION and eXT include them in free updates.

I don't see how eXT fits intor your argument. If eXT inclues an FM synth, audio recording, and a multi-sampler, I didn't notice.

As to your remaining points, Toxic is certainly a fine synthesizer, but it's not in the same league as Sytrus. What I mean by this is that there is nothing in Toxic that you can't do in Sytrus, but there are many things in Sytrus that you can't do in Toxic. I reiterate, Toxic is a wonderful synth --- I certainly wouldn't kick it out of bed. But the two programs are designed for different purposes. Toxic is geared much more to "bread and butter" FM, whereas FL is designed for maximum tweakability. I believe browsing the contents of sytrus.com should prove this to the satisfaction of any reasonable mind, but if you require my reiteration, I can do as much.

As for the multisample ability, you could always do that using the FL layer tool. And the default FL sampler is anything but underpowered. There are some things you can with the FL sampler that can't be done with the Orion sampler, and vice versa. That one is inherently better than the other is certainly not intuitively obvious.

Yes but FM7 comes in a box with a printed manual so they are definitely making less money per unit sold. Its probably closer to the $75 IL get with the XXL bundle. TOXIC 2 is very damned good for $70 [or free if you are an ORION Platinum user].

The cost of a standalone copy of Toxic is $89.11, actually. That aside, the difference between the boxed and online versions of FL producer edition is $40. So, we know that a software product can be sold in boxed form for no more than an additional $40. Therefore, the adjusted online price for FM7 would be $249. That's still $70 more than Sytrus. And this completely ignores the fact that you can't buy it at that price, anyway, and that some people might consider the ability to buy Sytrus online a feature.

Well I'm glad we finally got that sorted out. Although it is WaspXT we're talking about, right?

FL inclues both WaspXT and the original Wasp. Why you'd want to use the original, however, is beyond me.[/url]

John Vulich · Post by **John Vulich** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 4:10 am

FL Studio is amazing. Why is it so cheap?

Because it's pretty much a toy, just like Orion and Reason.

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 4:14 am

John Vulich wrote:
FL Studio is amazing. Why is it so cheap?
Because it's pretty much a toy, just like Orion and Reason.

don't you have acid?

ninjadroid · Post by **ninjadroid** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 4:30 am

BONES wrote:
tony tony chopper wrote:yes, let's pretend you can't buy directly from NI's web site
You're not really that naive, are you? Who would stock a product if customers could get it for half the price from the manufacturer's website?
-there are only 2 music genres: music made with ORION, and crap
99% of all music made with any sequencer is complete and utter crap, except for Fruity which scores a perfect 100% on prinicple.

Are you a disciple of economics? There is a serious misunderstanding of natural monopoly price systems underscoring your position. Without reselling, NI would set P=MR and be done with it. If reselling opens up a larger market, NI will price fix at a maximum of P for resellers, and sell to resellers at P'=MR' (' indicating values under new market conditions). For resellers, P-P'=MC. You can get a good idea of what MC of small goods for a shipping is by looking at the cost of their cheapest good. In the case of MusiciansFriend.com, this would be a $0.10 eraser:

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product?sku=910019

So, it's a little silly to think that there are some insane markups on the backend, on the reseller's behalf.

And all of this is moot (although I do love economics). The price you can buy it at is the price you can buy it at, and that's what matters, and the difference between FM7 and Sytrus in this regard is major.

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 5:07 am

ninjadroid wrote:What this means is that if you want the ability to record audio, the minimum you will spend to do this with Orion is $199, and the minimum you will spend to do this with FL is $149. If you want to compare non-audio editions, the minimums change to $99 for Orion and $49 for FL.

Or you can get Audacity or a number of other audio app's for free. And what do you get for $49 from Imageline in comparison to what you would get from eXT? For starters it has a pino roll. This is not an ORION v FL debate, its about how Fruity's value stacks up and there are a variety of other options tha tshow that it doesn't necessarily stack up all that well.

I take it the answer to my original question is "features."

Then you'd be wrong. Its about sounds and usability. 3xOsc is easily the pick of FL's generators but it can't do anything that you couldn't do in Crystal. I just didn't mention it because its not something I use but I think it will more than match 3xOsc for features. The ones I did mention will match it easily for sounds. I find 3xOsc one of the most annoying synths to program that I've ever encountered whereas Synth1 and PolyIblit are very usable.

I think that's reaching.

... as opposed to your most reasonable of approaches? Ha!

I don't see how eXT fits intor your argument. If eXT inclues an FM synth, audio recording, and a multi-sampler, I didn't notice.

Its cheaper than FL Express and it has a piano roll, a sampler adn the ability to load audio files. It may have recording, I dunno.

But the two programs are designed for different purposes. Toxic is geared much more to "bread and butter" FM, whereas FL is designed for maximum tweakability.

I assume you mean Sytrus and if its meant to be tweakable, why is its GUI spread out overe so many pages?

I believe browsing the contents of sytrus.com should prove this to the satisfaction of any reasonable mind, but if you require my reiteration, I can do as much.

Feel free but you should understand that you'll just be speaking krap. Toxic 2 is a 4 op FM synth with a mod matrix, there is not to much you cannot do with a set-up like that. It certainly leaves the venerable DX-7 in the dust.

As for the multisample ability, you could always do that using the FL layer tool.

Really? Load up a soundfont or an AKAI instrument? Or don't you know what multi-sampled instruments are?

There are some things you can with the FL sampler that can't be done with the Orion sampler, and vice versa.

The FL sampler channel is nothing at all like ORION's Sampler, its mor elike a single channel from a DrumRack with added krap that no-one ever uses. The really cool stuff that we used to use all the time has been hidden away.

That one is inherently better than the other is certainly not intuitively obvious.

Well, when one has a built-in loop-slicer and an editor capable of building multi-lyered, multi-sampled instruments and routing them to up to 16 different outputs, and the other one doesn't, most people would intuit that one was indeed better than the other. of course, when one has no f**king idea what one is talking about they may come to a different conclusion.

Yes but FM7 comes in a box with a printed manual so they are definitely making less money per unit sold. Its probably closer to the $75 IL get with the XXL bundle. TOXIC 2 is very damned good for $70 [or free if you are an ORION Platinum user].

So I can spend $349 in order to save $105. Brilliant!

So, we know that a software product can be sold in boxed form for no more than an additional $40.

But that doesn't include lifetime free upgrades, does it? How much extra is that?

Therefore, the adjusted online price for FM7 would be $249. That's still $70 more than Sytrus.

... which in turn is $98 more than Toxic 2. So the cheaper it is, the better it is too. Weird, huh?

FL inclues both WaspXT and the original Wasp. Why you'd want to use the original, however, is beyond me.

Especially when WaspXT has the old engine in it for backwards-compatibility.

BTW, what happenned to TS404, I don't see it on the FL site any more? Did someone finally wake up to the fact that its a little dated?

ninjadroid wrote:Are you a disciple of economics?

No, I'm a grown-up and have actual experience to draw on. I know I can get a minimum 25% of anything I buy from a music store. I also know that they are still making money from the sale with that kind of discount. So you'd have to think their margin is probably twice my discount which would make it 50% of RRP. Add maybe 20 points for distribution which leaves you with maybe 30% of RRP for the manufacturer which has to cover all his costs. When I owned a record shop, the retail margin was about 40% on CD's. In the job I have now, our resellers get around 50% of RRP on our software. But they have to deal with customers so they mostly earn it.

derail · Post by **derail** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 5:11 am

it is so cheap because they dont use money on copy protection.
and it is also so cheap so you can use your money on exspensive VSTi and VST effects and soundcards, and midi controllers

The Chase · Post by **The Chase** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 5:13 am

Bones i respect you as a producer, synth buider, and intelligent (and humorous) person, but it seems you just got served 3 times, consecutively.

Not that it matters that this is a piss thread.

Bones and others use orion because they like it. The same goes for fruity users with fruity. They bought their host of choice because the price is just to them. Why can't people (on both sides) leave it at that?

The Chase · Post by **The Chase** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 5:22 am

The Chase · Post by **The Chase** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 5:24 am

The Chase · Post by **The Chase** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 5:25 am

Ildon · Post by **Ildon** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 5:32 am

The Chase wrote:Bones i respect you as a producer, synth buider, and intelligent (and humorous) person, but it seems you just got served 3 times, consecutively.

Not that it matters that this is a piss thread.

Bones and others use orion because they like it. The same goes for fruity users with fruity. They bought their host of choice because the price is just to them. Why can't people (on both sides) leave it at that?

That's crazy talk, mister. Everyone knows Orion is perfect in every way, and if you don't know that, you're a... dare I say... idiot?

The Chase · Post by **The Chase** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 5:40 am

If I were such an idiot i would get fat and shave the top of my head so I could dress like a viking in order to pogostick on stuffed cats around a football feild.