LinPlug Spectral - your opinions wanted

[kbaccki]

Linplug has some synths that definitely interest me. I just see that in the market place, they don't seem to hold their value and they also seem hard to move. So the market decides, and even though Spectral is not in its frenzy opening stage, it still is on the watch list for many of us. Just not at that price.

Not sure I understand the point here. What does "hold their value" have anything to do with $$$/quality, $$$/utility, etc etc? Are people buying software with the thought in the back of their head "well, if I unload this at the end of the month, at least I'll make my money back..."??? You should buy software based on it's value TO YOU, not somebody else. Then it's simply a matter of: is there enough XXX here (quality, features, support, longevity, etc.) to justify the cost?

$150 for a top quality software synth or sample library or whatever is dirt cheap. Whenever i go to the market to buy milk, bread, and toilet paper, my wallet seems to end up $50 lighter. Fill the tank? That'll be another $50. At least with the quality software you get many years of good use out of. Unike toilet paper. Now, if this stuff was in the "overpriced protools TDM plugins" range of pricing, then I'd agree. But we're talking $100 vs $150 here, not $200 vs $800.

[brok landers]

Its price of course, is set on what they think the market will bear.
And its not reasonable to think one 'gets a dollar for a dollar' because that is not how capitalism operates.

By design, a developer wants XX (or XXXX) amount for every X amount put into it. A hard premise in itself, as if there were a standard of X amount for time spent, then it becomes a subject of what the developer wants as they set their own subjective standard for time.

I have no doubt there will be quite a few that think it is a fair price according to other synths in the price range. But many of those I are ones I feel are over-priced too. For me, a price to keep me interested was $99.00 to maybe $129.00 max with a real sale getting me to jump on it. At this point, I'll wait is all. Especially since I've seen a couple of other developers lately that have dropped their pants on their 'great synths' and start selling them for far under half of their original MSRP.

Much of the market is in question at this point and we'll see this question come up more and more.

Linplug has some synths that definitely interest me. I just see that in the market place, they don't seem to hold their value and they also seem hard to move. So the market decides, and even though Spectral is not in its frenzy opening stage, it still is on the watch list for many of us. Just not at that price.

imo very short term thinking. exactly that way of thinking kills the market in long terms (which is what you could observe within the last 4-5 years), exactly that is, why more and more mediocre stuff sees the light of day, as not many developers can afford to spent the time necessary into a product that makes a difference.
spectral is a very unique and extremly capable synth, is very well tought out and very well programmed. this takes time and it shows off in the end result. not to speak of the fact that 149 usd is deadly cheap for such a hughe amount of work that ended up in such a gorgeous synth. call me biassed, as i did quite some presets for it, but in all honesty, there´s _no_ comparable synth out yet, that offers such a unique feature list. some synths, f.e. additive ones are going roughly into the same direction, but that´s _it_. and considering for what has to be calculated under the hood, spectral is actually light on the cpu. all that to be achieved is very hard work, lots of investigation, dedication and time.
and to me, it´s not really a good sign that developers feel the need to drastically lower the prices on stuff that is highest quality, just in order to earn short term money. f.e. look at native instruments. some very nice products out there, but in the end they grew rapidly, and the machinery needs to be fed. to my knowledge they were close before broke 2 times just because of growing too big too fast. not the last reason they are in the hardware market now, otherwise the way of dumping prices they did, advertising to no end, and all that, would´ve broken their neck.
what we get today in terms of quality and possibilities is unbelievable for the price we pay for it. just 5-6 years ago one would´ve paid the value of an appartment or a car for such a synth like spectral - and the work that went into such a product is roughly the same, no matter if it´s hard or "just" software.
quality _must_ have its price, and the prices we pay today are mostly ridiculous and recklessly low, and create a burdon on those who actually should benefit from the work they´ve done.
in the end it´s easy: if you can´t afford a porsche, then you have two choices - either you just don´t buy it or you save up for it. it all depends on how hard you actually want it. but saying it´s not worth that money (i.e. "this is overpriced") is just not true andnot based on opinion, but facts.

[Sampleconstruct]

I think you wanted to write "not based on facts, but opinion".

[BBFG#]

The current actions of some developers have caused me to be wary of their short term thinking and the possibility it may indeed be the new schema in general marketing is all. Like I said, I like it well enough to consider at $99.00 and would possibly jump on it at less than that in a sale. It comes back to if I really need it or just want it. If I were a designer doing banks for sales, I would need it, otherwise, the sounds I would generally use out of it, I have covered. So bottom line is that only price and urgency would close me on it.

[Iris. A]

So a question to any albino owners, Is this a good follow up to albino 3? I still haven't found any synth (including Predator) that makes pads as amazing as that synth.

[brok landers]

I think you wanted to write "not based on facts, but opinion".

no. quality isn´t based on opinion, nor is hard work, which in this case did lead to high quality.

[ThoughtExperiment]

The whole argument re: overpriced is just as subjective as whether a synth sounds good. Wrapping it up in 'market' speak doesn't help any either - BBFG# has as much idea about Linplug's marketing strategy as I have (i.e. none whatsoever). I find Spectral to be a beautiful-sounding synth, and I'm using it more and more in my tracks. So, in my opinion, I'm getting my money's worth out of it. When I finally find the time to learn how to program my own sounds, it'll be even more useful to me - in other words, I'm a satisfied customer.

But I don't think that will help the OP make his/her mind up - that's what demo versions are for, n'est-ce pas?

[ThoughtExperiment]

So a question to any albino owners, Is this a good follow up to albino 3? I still haven't found any synth (including Predator) that makes pads as amazing as that synth.

It doesn't sound anything like Albino, but it does make incredible pads...so it depends what you mean by follow-up. It ain't Albino 4 if that's what you mean, but what would be the point in that?

[BBFG#]

The whole argument re: overpriced is just as subjective as whether a synth sounds good. Wrapping it up in 'market' speak doesn't help any either - BBFG# has as much idea about Linplug's marketing strategy as I have (i.e. none whatsoever). I find Spectral to be a beautiful-sounding synth, and I'm using it more and more in my tracks. So, in my opinion, I'm getting my money's worth out of it. When I finally find the time to learn how to program my own sounds, it'll be even more useful to me - in other words, I'm a satisfied customer.

But I don't think that will help the OP make his/her mind up - that's what demo versions are for, n'est-ce pas?

That's cool (and quite valid).
Like I said, I pretty much have the spectral sounds I tend to use covered already. I like this synth too and if they suddenly had a 'no-brainer' sale for a short period, I would most likely buy it anyway.
AKA: 'Price and Urgency' would close the deal. I definitely am keeping an eye on it, and if I felt it was a 'meh' synth or had no interest in it, would ignore it completely.

[Numanoid]

seems to fly under the radar, doesn't it?

A sale would help it get detected

[Sampleconstruct]

I think you wanted to write "not based on facts, but opinion".

no. quality isn´t based on opinion, nor is hard work, which in this case did lead to high quality.

Then I must have misread your post.

[Synchanter]

Just discovered this KVR contest where people used Spectral to compose tracks:
https://sites.google.com/site/kvrosc/osc-58-spectral
The tracks are playable there.

Really nice sounds!
Somehow this synth has a very sophisticated and professional tone.

[4damind]

Interesting synth, nice GUI, easy to understand. I don't like so much the overall sound and so it's not a synth for me. For this more digital sounding synth I would prefer Rob Papen Blue 2. This synth is IMO a lot better and is also a better playground for preset users (I don't like the Spectral presets but the Blue 2 presets are excellent).

[ATS]

Well if I had to choose Spectral or Zebra I would take Spectral. So Zebra must be really overpriced since it cost more than Spectral. Luckily I get to have both though. It is so sad how spoiled we all are now. $150 expensive for something like Spectral...

[BBFG#]

Well if I had to choose Spectral or Zebra I would take Spectral. So Zebra must be really overpriced since it cost more than Spectral. Luckily I get to have both though. It is so sad how spoiled we all are now. $150 expensive for something like Spectral...

Not sure I would even put those two in the same group for consideration.
And I was just as hard of a sale for Zebra also (Dino deal helped quite a bit to get the close).

When I think Spectral, I think more in terms of Razor, Iris, Alchemy.
(And Iris was also a hard sale to me until a sale with extra discount in cart came).
Spectral is a fine synth. So are those three I already own.