How Many Units Does A Hit Synth Sell?

[WOK]

i believe 1000+ is too defensive.

Korg M1 (around 1990, 2000$), afaik the most well sold synth ever, made it to 250'000 units (wikipedia). according to my googling Roland D-50 and Yamaha DX7 both were sold more than 100'000 times (DX7 wiki: 160,000). regarding newer synths, Korg Microkorg made it to 100'000 units.

its hard to believe software has lower sales than hardware by a factor of 100?

You compare apples with pears (as we say in germany).
The M1 was a totally unique thing at it's times, with features no other keyboard had. So was the DX7; polyphony and imitation of nature sound at a level and a price not seen until then. And the concurrency was very small, because only big companies could afford developments like that. That's why companies like Waldorf or Quasimidi went down.
And you can't copy hardware with a click of a mousebutton.
Some companies like NI dominate the market and get good sales - but must throw out something new every year.
Smaller developers can't live from making plugins, I swear.

[amiga909]

Aside from the piracy, I think the market is overcrowded:

2 good reasons.

i dont think its because VST users are a "still a pretty small and exclusive group". according to some (unreliable) discussion, Behringer sold nearly 1 million midi controllers (foremost BCR/BCF) - at least 90% getting used for software control. and at least for sequencing EVERYBODY uses a computer nowadays (leaving aside MPC-community and exotic hw-seq geeks).

- what do u think is the ratio of legal-user vs. pirate? 1:100??!!
- what about comparable software markets? like video/design apps+footage? or webdesign? same situation?

edit: @WOK: maybe i was comparing different fruits
nonetheless it should reflect the size of the market for synths. i'd say the amount of potential buyers is likely double or triple nowadays (looking at the amount of people that make music now and then).
maybe the amount of serious people that really invest in music is not higher. or maybe people just spend their money on other audio goods?

[glokraw]

For some reason I was figuring it might be in the millions but obviously not. I guess us soft synth users (or rather buyers) are still a pretty small and exclusive group and there isn't a copy of Reason sitting on the study book shelf in millions of homes.

Many of those great sounding synths from decades past had good keybeds, and
are still in use. Churches and cover bands loved Roland/Korg/Yamaha, easy to set up, great sound, easy to get fixed. Virtual things, they require a bit more of a learning curve, and for many, the return does not justify the investment.
There is also a crippling fear of the unknown that many people wrestle with, thanks largely to years of Windows versions that crashed like blind ducks if the wrong thing was lightly touched...

I can go into the keyboard section at a guitar center, and I bet maybe 1 in a hundred people could name a single free vsti, the counter guys know a handful of boxed instruments, but to them, Zebra or Wusikstation might as well be exclusives at Toys R Us... so there is a cultural divide of sorts, I remember exactly what drove me across the line. It was a picture of a softsynth in a linux magazine. I had to know if it could be possibly really be true.
I never should have turned that page!

[ariston]

its hard to believe software has lower sales than hardware by a factor of 100?

Well, to put it this way: there's a good reason why some companies seem a little paranoid about piracy (Tone2, anyone?) or why others resort to means like Image Line does with FLStudio (lifetime ownership and support). The piracy figures are sky-high - imagine buying a car, or a refrigerator, or an amplifier from a company that offers a free new model every two years, free service, and a lifetime warranty. This doesn't happen, because it's hard to "crack" a car.

I believe prices for these softsynths are so "low" because the developers need to figure in the "how much is the buyer's honesty worth to him" factor.

I think Urs mentioned somewhere that Zebra's figures are somewhere between 1000 and 2000, but don't quote me on that.

[Cyforce]

its hard to believe software has lower sales than hardware by a factor of 100?

Well, to put it this way: there's a good reason why some companies seem a little paranoid about piracy (Tone2, anyone?) or why others resort to means like Image Line does with FLStudio (lifetime ownership and support). The piracy figures are sky-high - imagine buying a car, or a refrigerator, or an amplifier from a company that offers a free new model every two years, free service, and a lifetime warranty. This doesn't happen, because it's hard to "crack" a car.

I believe prices for these softsynths are so "low" because the developers need to figure in the "how much is the buyer's honesty worth to him" factor.

I think Urs mentioned somewhere that Zebra's figures are somewhere between 1000 and 2000, but don't quote me on that.

What you mean with "tone2 is paraniod"? Did i missed there a story/thread?

[ariston]

What you mean with "tone2 is paraniod"? Did i missed there a story/thread?

You're not being ironic, I suppose?'

Tone2 have a history of being a little too quick to denounce users of being pirates (or at least implying it). There were also vicious rumors about intrusive spy software installed along with product demos and so on. Do a search of the forums for the gory details.

No, actually, in my opinion, it wasn't that bad. Some people accused them of being paranoid, and that's why I wrote "seem" and not "are". I don't think they are paranoid, I think they are being realistic.

[Megakazbek]

i believe 1000+ is too defensive.

Korg M1 (around 1990, 2000$), afaik the most well sold synth ever, made it to 250'000 units (wikipedia). according to my googling Roland D-50 and Yamaha DX7 both were sold more than 100'000 times (DX7 wiki: 160,000). regarding newer synths, Korg Microkorg made it to 100'000 units.

its hard to believe software has lower sales than hardware by a factor of 100?

M1/DX7/D50 were ~20 years ago, there have never been such huge synth sales since then.
MicroKorg is not a typical case, because it's bought by a lot of e.g. guitar players who want "some keys" etc. Generally those people would never buy a "pro" synth.
Mainstream workstations or VA synths are sold probably in about 15000-30000 units (for example, for Korg workstations you can get an approximation from serial number list at Karma Lab forum; also there was sales plan for Roland Fantom G on some Japanese website a long while ago, the figures were pretty much in this range AFAIR). Less mainstream products sell in less numbers (for example, Kurzweil sold 8000+ PC3 series units so far and they're regarding it as a huge success). More niche synths like real analogs might not make it even to 1000.
Factor 100 in software/hardware sales is a bit too much, but I think it's fair to assume that software sells 5-10 times less.

[Cyforce]

What you mean with "tone2 is paraniod"? Did i missed there a story/thread?

You're not being ironic, I suppose?'

Tone2 have a history of being a little too quick to denounce users of being pirates (or at least implying it). There were also vicious rumors about intrusive spy software installed along with product demos and so on. Do a search of the forums for the gory details.

No, actually, in my opinion, it wasn't that bad. Some people accused them of being paranoid, and that's why I wrote "seem" and not "are". I don't think they are paranoid, I think they are being realistic.

Ah ok, thx for the little overview. Mhm strange.. spyware in a vst & denonce to being pirates... No good as developer.

[ariston]

Ah ok, thx for the little overview. Mhm strange.. spyware in a vst & denonce to being pirates... No good as developer.

I want to stress again that these were a)rumors and b)(imo)over-reactions from the community. I think Tone2 makes good products that don't deserve this brand of flaming.

Okay, Meffy, you can look away now.

[tehlord]

What you mean with "tone2 is paraniod"? Did i missed there a story/thread?

You're not being ironic, I suppose?'

Tone2 have a history of being a little too quick to denounce users of being pirates (or at least implying it). There were also vicious rumors about intrusive spy software installed along with product demos and so on. Do a search of the forums for the gory details.

.

This isn't a rumour at all.

I made a thread about it ages ago.

I had the demo of Gladiator installed on my machine about 18 months ago and when I fired it up in Cubase IE opened up with a great big warning telling me that Tone2 had logged this IP address blah blah and would be filing for prosecution etc etc.

I even came on the Tone2 section of this website to let them know that the demo had this flaw and the response I got from them was 'if you bought the product you wouldn't get this issue would you?'

They then explained that I must have got my 'demo' from an odd source as an official demo wouldn't do that. I got no response when I told them the demo was from a CM or FM cover disk. I even had an audio demo rendered with the frickin nag voice over it.

Er - fack off Tone2.

[Cyforce]

Did i sayed that Tone2 make no good products? NO^^

Only that i don't know this story. But i will search this topics later

so back to topic... sales-count, from 0 to 10000 and more, all is possible, thread done

[kv331]

I then started to get intruiged to know how many other people are buying the same software as me? I wonder if any developer of a hit product would divulge how many units any of their hit software products has sold?

I forgot to ask your motivation for bringing this topic up?

Is it because you want to be a developer (if the business is lucrative), or to support individual developers more (if they are not making much money at all)?

Or just out of curiosity

Thanks!

Bulent

[ariston]

I don't know if this is anything to go by, but Sonic Charge mentioned that Synplant has been "downloaded 25000 times". I'm assuming these are demo versions... now how many have actually been bought? A very conservative estimate could be 5%. That would make it 1250.

[aciddose]

if you want to know the sales of any products, ever, in any situation, look at the costs.

how big is NI ? (apparently, 350 employees)

what is the typical salary? (probably an average of 35,000 usd)

what then is the yearly cost for employees alone? (12250000)

what is the average price of the products sold by NI? (250)

as a low-ball estimate, what number of units would need to be sold to cover employee costs? (49000)

this number is ridiculously high in my opinion even though it doesn't factor in additional costs. i think the 350 employees at 35k salary data is wrong - although it is possible. if those numbers are correct 50k units per year would be the minimum number of sales in order to sustain the company in an ideal business world. in reality they are paying taxes, have overhead costs, shipping costs, supply costs, advertising, etc etc.

for a small company? let's say two employees (assuming you and your wife or friend or whoever) paid 35,000 each selling the typical small product for 99.

that would be minimum 700 copies per year in order to make a living from the product.

in reality, again, you'd be paying taxes and there will be additional costs. on the other hand, sales are going to depend upon exactly how good (or rather, how in demand in the current market) the product is. you might make 1500 sales, or you might make 100 and go out of business.

sales in the current market are definitely much higher than they would have been during the 80s and early 90s with synthesizers like the M1. this can be proven just by taking a look at the number of companies, products, employees and years of operation we currently have in the softsynth/effect scene. sales are just happening over a much longer period of time with more varied products. as was already mentioned, it's unlikely anything like a dx-7, minimoog or M1 will ever appear again.

[D N A]

And how is selling Sylenth for example ? Probably thousands...

Why ? Let's analyze a little bit
1. they picked their target correctly. You can see a lot of producers using it. Not amateur, hobbists (of course they're too) but professional producers (mainly EDM). So the product is pricey but quality costs. Sometimes I think that producers wont even bother 30 $ commercial synth not because it's bad sounding but because it's cheap Royksopp in one interview stated that they dont use logic effects (of maybe it was cubase ?) because they dont want to sound like everyone else. Maybe that's the point ? Anyone can get 20 $ synth, but not everyone can pay 150 EUR...

2. Presets
I think Sylenth nailed it. It's ultimate EDM producing machine. Great factory bank (in my opinion, only some hardware gear banks can match it...)

Great presets library really improves the workflow. Airbase trance producer in one of his tutorials just takes some factory Sylenth "jp"-like pad, slightly changes it, includes some external ableton fx's and voila - everything sounds nice and professional and fits the producer's music genre/style. Most commercial synths lack presets - mostly it's just a show off, a little bit of everything - here some brass, a little bit of FX, few basses, some classic strings, here some trancy pluck etc.

At the end, you have like 128 presets library while just 20 fit your genre but the problem is that you need to scroll through the all 128 presets - no one likes it. Sylenth nailed it. EDM producers can just load it and almost instantly find some basses, plucks that fit their genre

I mean - sure, I am a hobbyist. I can buy third party soundsets, scroll through every preset (spending half day) to create my ultimate custom soundbank that fit my music genre but I guess, professional producers dont have time for this. They prefer pricey but completed product.


I believe that another product Sylenth-like (suited for EDM Producers, with polished factory banks) would sell pretty well too. It's just I havent seen any...

3. Stability, CPU friendly etc.
Cheap product means that somewhere deep inside there are some downsides. Less presets, or maybe stability problems, less cpu friendly ? I think that plugin developers were contantly lovering prices so they reached a point where their product is recognized not a "quality one" but "cheap one". Yes, I guess marketing can do wonders....