Does anyone NOT like Diva?

[Arglebargle]

People nowadays are so spoiled. 20 years ago you'd pay 10x the cost of Diva for a fraction of its power. And you'd be happy, ya damn kids.

[Numanoid]

This makes absolutely no sense. It's not the gear that makes the music, it's the people behind the gear that do. Sure, good gear can help but it isn't what gets you "lost in the crowd". Having little to no vision, talent, or dedication is what keeps you there.

You can make downright amazing music with Synth1 and LMMS on Windows (it's a bit tougher on Mac to find a free DAW).

Do you haggle with your local grocer over the price of milk? When you buy clothes or furniture do you expect a student discount at the checkout line?

I don't know, for instance Peter Gabriel and Trevor Horn had enough money to be able to buy the Fairlight CMI at the time of launch in the early 80's, they did use some of the preset sounds because they were distinct at the time as nobody else could afford them....

Totally agree with you about Synth1 and especially LMMS, very underrated product.

My thing about this as I stated above is that it is not so much about Diva as software instruments in general: I haggle, always want the best deal

[Urs]

What do you think about the way Synthmaster do their business, they offer reduced price for certain customer groups, like students for instance?

We had incredible arguments about that in the past, and whatever argument one brings up is like jumping in a hornet nest.

I'll just say that we do not have the resources to distinguish poor students / poor people / poor artists from those who fare well. We will not favour anyone category of poor over any other, only because this is a marketing advantage.

We also btw. do not sponsor wealthy artists. Even though we get almost as many requests for that as for edu licenses.

In general we believe that software and the pricing model we have (somewhere up price for independent, but still below average of the big ones) contributes to a far more "democratic" access to music production than what it was in the hardware days.

Our prices are confident, and they work for us and our customers.

A word on professional use vs. hobby: This is of course a very current issue in every country that sees a rise of pirate parties. Many pirate spokesmen / manifestos / whatsoever argue that private use of copyrighted material including software should be free. That's the "ultimo" of the idea for different pricing on pro vs. hobby level. However, we think that roughly three quarters of our customers do not make a living from music hence do not use our software professionally. Thus in such a scenario we would have to raise prices by 300% and probably sell, way, way less to the few professionals.

This is just an extreme example of course and flawed in many ways. But it may show why we think that the best policy is one price for everyone.

[whyterabbyt]

But I understand that point. Had I been a professional musician and bought a top of the line product, I would want a product that not everybody has access to, otherwise my productions could get lost in the crowd.

If you were an amateur musician using any other instrument than software your basic investment would be far higher than a couple-hundred Euro for a top-of-the-breed instrument. Its probably cheaper to buy a couple of great synths than a junk Chinese strat copy and amp.

You're already in at the cheap end of the industry, and the only reason you'd be lost in the crowd given the plethora of free and insanely cheap stuff available would be entirely down to one thing, and that'd be on the opposite of the keyboard from the software.

edit : fixed typo

[standalone]

People nowadays are so spoiled. 20 years ago you'd pay 10x the cost of Diva for a fraction of its power. And you'd be happy, ya damn kids.

I paid eight times the cost of Diva for this



A sample based 12 bits drum machine.

[braj]

I paid more for a rack mount midi delay way back when, and had to walk 10 miles barefoot in the snow to pick it up from the music store.

[GruvSyco]

We are 4 lads doing a lot of customer support each, with the few sales we have. If we priced Diva at a third, we would need triple the sales for same revenue that feeds 4 people. But then we would need 12 lads to do the support.

Ok, not everyone does only support at any given time, but projection is, more sales for less would kill us. I think for a third of the price we would need to sell at least 5-8 times the units, which is about the region NI might do (which has become a hardware company).

I swear I just read that U-he is going to start doing hardware

[GruvSyco]

People nowadays are so spoiled. 20 years ago you'd pay 10x the cost of Diva for a fraction of its power. And you'd be happy, ya damn kids.

I paid eight times the cost of Diva for this



A sample based 12 bits drum machine.

Not quite the same but I paid $400 for an Oberheim SEM and Minimoog combo and separately got a Pro One and Mono Poly combo for $200. A little less than 4x DIVA. But sadly, that was a long long time ago... even more sadly, I parted with them for less than I bought them.

[mcnoone]

But it may show why we think that the best policy is one price for everyone.

I don't think I'm alone in saying, that's a very reasonable pricing point.
You also offer other opportunities through supporting the patch competitions or the dinocrossgrade offer, that most other plugin developers never have done.
Not to mention communicating with your customers, and non-customers alike on kvr.
In a word "unique".

[ghettosynth]

What do you think about the way Synthmaster do their business, they offer reduced price for certain customer groups, like students for instance?

The entire point of selling at reduced prices to students is to generate additional sales that would not be sold otherwise. In general, in fact, the entire point of price discrimination through versioning is to capture additional consumer surplus or deadweight loss. It's not a gift. Properly designed pricing scenarios don't allow members of one consumer segment to masquerade as another. Matlab is reasonably successful at this, for example, putting sufficient limitations in the student version and making it difficult to purchase and get support if don't qualify.

That doesn't mean that people don't cheat and it works for matlab because they have a huge student market and it generates significant additional sales as well as, for their particular product, it makes sense to lock in students early as opposed to having them choose to do their work in something free and open which they can take with them into the workplace.

I, personally, don't see how .edu prices make a lot of sense for a synth product that isn't intrinsically educational such that educators will help to drive your sales (e.g. MAX).

It makes a bit more sense for hosts which have high switching costs. I'm quite sure that cockos realizes that the majority of their audience are not professionals and that the two tier scheme is necessary to drive adoption.

We had incredible arguments about that in the past, and whatever argument one brings up is like jumping in a hornet nest.

I'll just say that we do not have the resources to distinguish poor students / poor people / poor artists from those who fare well. We will not favour anyone category of poor over any other, only because this is a marketing advantage.

Exactly so. Any versioning system requires administration costs. So if the additional revenue isn't greater than the administration costs plus the lost revenue due to some users opting for the lower price, what's the point?

Our prices are confident, and they work for us and our customers.

Your products are great, but, with synths in general, the benefits are easy to understand and demonstrate. There's no need to drive adoption through versioning. This is very different from products like DAWs where it really is necessary to experience the product over a long period of time to make a decision.

A word on professional use vs. hobby: ... However, we think that roughly three quarters of our customers do not make a living from music hence do not use our software professionally.

Of course this is true. My god, if it weren't for people making music for fun, nobody would be in the music industry. This is true for modulars, guitars, frankly, everything.

[highkoo]

While this has gone into a more general discussion around pricing of any synth, I dont feel too bad for however hard I am bumping this.

If you can afford the computer to run it, the money to buy it is nothing.

That is a really great point. Its the real truth too. But anyone with any funds to put into their music should think about it.
I think that it leads to another point:

Upgrade your gear, even if it is a Dell. It is freedom.
No matter what youre doin, your first step should be to give yourself some dsp elbow room before you start kicking on the walls with the latest monster synth.

If you are mostly focused on heavyweight dsp for making your music, it is worth twice what it costs to get good pc gear right now, imo.
We live in the future! Have a blast!

[Resonator63]

I paid more for a rack mount midi delay way back when, and had to walk 10 miles barefoot in the snow to pick it up from the music store.

At least you were able to make shoes from the box, for the the walk back

[braj]

I paid more for a rack mount midi delay way back when, and had to walk 10 miles barefoot in the snow to pick it up from the music store.

At least you were able to make shoes from the box, for the the walk back

It didn't come in a box! Back then a lot of gear was just 'on the shelf' with little price tags tied on with string!

[braj]

I bought Akai's first sampler that way too, with those weird little disks that held one super-short sample each side. It seemed so futuristic back then when most disks were 5 1/4"

Oh this makes me nostalgiac, I miss my AX-73 all the time:

[ouroboros]