Are we seeing the decline of the plug-in industry?

[fluffy_little_something]

I assume the code is not quite compatible


Anyway, I wonder what the relationship between price and number of sold licenses is. Is it linear? I.e. if company x decides to cut their prices in half, will they sell twice as many licenses? Or more or fewer than twice?

I don't like promotions, they are a bit unfair towards those who have bought stuff at the regular price. With companies like IL I wonder if anyone even buys their stuff anymore outside the recurring promotion periods

[Ingonator]

I assume the code is not quite compatible

Based on my own knowledge same could be said about the developers of both...


Ingo

[Tricky-Loops]

Anyway, I wonder what the relationship between price and number of sold licenses is. Is it linear? I.e. if company x decides to cut their prices in half, will they sell twice as many licenses? Or more or fewer than twice?

Surely not linear. It should be some kind of hill-like curve with a peak. If the prices are too high, less people buy; if they are too low, you'd earn less. So there is a certain price where you can earn most.

[ouroboros]

I wonder how much of this discussion, the decline perception, is influenced by whats happened to SE and SM? SM has been absent, and with the development cycle of SE 64 taking a while,custom modules that will be lost, etc., there aren't as many free, homegrown tinker synths on the front page as often. Not that all of them should be used, mind you, but the serious SE builders, the really small operations are in a bit of a lurch until things get resolved.

[Delfinoverde]

Since someone mentioned Tone2, I like their Saurus, but 100 euros is just too much I think, especially since they sell their sound sets for it separately.

IMO Saurus with 99 Euros (incl. VAT) is not too expensive and why should they not offer soundsets for it? It already includes more than 500 factory sounds so do you expect to offer all others for free? BTW the "Analog" soundset includes 213 patches which is more than many other soundsets for other synths.

Tone2 is also one of the developers who pays the sound designers, at least those who got an official "professional" status at them. I entered that status after doing patches for the "Vintage" soundset. I got paid for all of my work for the Rayblaster factory sounds and the first official soundset (got paid for that soundset before it was officially released...).

They also develop for multiple platforms (Windows, Mac, Mac AU, 32-bit, 64-bit) and try to test multiple host programs (e.g. Cubase, Live, etc.) which uses development time.


Ingo

Yes, i agree with you Ingo.
Cheers & respect for German developers like Tone2 or HOFA - who respect & pay people who work for them. They work at conditions which probably most sound + product designers would dream of in Italy, as example!

I bought NI ABSYNTH and was satisfied with the fast responses of NI.
Camel Audio (UK) is also a very good developer. I remember Tim Conrardy (R.I.P) who was one of the gentlest person on the world.

[fluffy_little_something]

I assume the code is not quite compatible

Based on my own knowledge same could be said about the developers of both...


Ingo

Hehe, yes, I have read there was some bickering in the Saurus thread

[Urs]

It's time for new plugin combinations to refresh the market. For example: DIVA + SAURUS = DIVASAURUS

Dinosaur Impersonating Virtual Analog Saurus... that sounds much like a paradox

[overhishead]

Is the music industry dead for everybody or just everybody who isn't Madonna?

Is the aerospace industry dead for the airplane manufacturers who aren't Boeing?

Is the breakfast cereal industry dead for everyone who isn't Quaker?

Is the ketchup industry dead for everyone who isn't Heinz?

Not every single brand is going to make it, in any industry, that's my point.

[bmrzycki]

Yes. The sky is falling and in 12 months we'll all be playing drums on 5-gallon plastic paint buckets. It's the only possible outcome from some companies slashing prices on older products.

[hibidy]

Yes. The sky is falling and in 12 months we'll all be playing drums on 5-gallon plastic paint buckets. It's the only possible outcome from some companies slashing prices on older products.

A new sample pack?????? Hope it isn't too expensive

[robotmonkey]

Yep. And apart from half-working cracks or trojan-infected downloads, new versions of a plugin may stop working or refuse to load patches saved with a cracked version. For users serious about making music it's definitely not a good idea to bother with cracks.

Richard

I must be blunt here - the problems with cracked software are obviously overstated. If cracks would be so bad like devs warn, then I'm sure people would not use them. Actually, this is the main problem: cracks actually add value to customer, because you do not have to deal with stupid CP/DRM measures. I know a ton of cases where CP has stopped legal software dead (even just now noticed couple of people here complaining), but there hardly seem to be any complaints about cracks. There are even cases where company's support people sent out cracks downloaded from net to remove malfunctioning CP and also fix some software bugs that had left in.

So actually I think one is more likely to encounter problems with non-cracked software than with cracked. The fact is that a proper crack makes software experience better not worse. Devs should realize this, but instead it is more convenient to bury their head in sand and pretend that this not true.

Now, I'm sure some of the holier-than-thou moralist here would consider this to be apologetic toward using cracks. But this is not the case. What I'm arguing here is for CP measures that is as easy and comfortable to users as cracks. This always comes up in academic studies: people prefer comfort of using cracks to draconian drm measures. It's the same with all kinds of media - the most comfortable way of acquiring and using something tends to win out.

[Ingonator]

Well, I just think it is a bit expensive these days for a standard VA synth that doesn't really offer anything special, neither in terms of features, nor in terms of sound.

As I said, I like Saurus, especially its pleasant user interface and its inherent sound quality, I don't have anything against Tone2 But I get a similar sound quality out of plugins that cost only 10 bucks, while I don't need such an extensive matrix anyway. If I were rich and money did not matter, I would buy Saurus immediately

I just remembered an older thread where you said you would not spend more than 50 bucks on a synth. Good luck for you then...

I got a few commercial synths in that price range and at least three were at a discount. Those are e.g. TAL U-NO-LX, kHs One (discount), MUX (discount), D16 Phoscyon (discount), Adam Szabo JP6K, BLOK Modular, WOK SAM (old version) and VAZ 2010 (was more expensive when i got it).

If those are all synths you need then congratulations to you.



Ingo

[fluffy_little_something]

Good morning

Exactly, since I am not rich or anything, I would not pay more than 50 bucks on a synth. Nor do I need so many synths, gee At the end of the day, I only use three on a regular basis.

You know what, I just compared a couple of good, commercial SE synths with Saurus, each time using the init patches and adapting the few parameters that were set differently. Surprisingly, I could hardly hear a difference. The dry sound is basically the same.

The main difference is that Saurus is considerably louder, way too loud in my view. When I set its volume to 50%, the equally loud SE synths are already at the max of their volume scales - and more than loud enough for my DAW.

At the same time Saurus sounds a bit more muted than the SE synths when the filter cutoff is set to max. on each. So I turned the cutoff down a bit on the SE synths and frankly I could not tell which is which.

I guess the missing brilliance along with the greater volume gives Saurus its powerful sound image with focus on the mid frequencies.

But of course Saurus has unison modes, sub-oscillators, a pleasant big realistic user interface, and other features which give it the edge. But frankly, I am utterly happy with my three 10-dollar synths, especially the latest arrival. It is awesome and lets me recreate pretty much any Saurus patch I just did that with that Oberheim brass pad in Saurus...

[Ingonator]

If i do an analysis of the synths i got (which actually i'm really doing at the moment and already started selling...) i would maybe need 30% or less of the synths i got but Saurus would be along those at any time (and i would prefeer it against all synth i just listed).
This is not because it's the best in all categories like sound, features, GUI, CPU use and price but because it got a great balance between all those. Besides that it's one of the few synths with "0df" filters (others are e.g. Diva, Xils synths, TAL U-NO-LX, LuSH-101, Charlatan).

But frankly, I am utterly happy with my three 10-dollar synths, especially the latest arrival. It is awesome and lets me recreate pretty much any Saurus patch I just did that with that Oberheim brass pad in Saurus...

The question is how many of those 10$ offer support for all platforms like e.g. Windows, Mac, Mac AU, 32-bit, 64-bit and check compatibility with most hosts and finally also pay money to the factory sound designers.


Ingo

[fluffy_little_something]

Well, of course that kind of support is good for people using all kinds of DAWs and computers. SE is Windows only and for the time being 32-bit only. Everyone knows that. Luckily I don't have an Apple Actually, my two favorite SE synths are the only reason why I still use the 32-bit version of my DAW

Yes, here a bargain, there a bargain and the stuff piles up over time...