KVR Audio

el-bo (formerly ebow) · Fri Jan 23, 2015 1:27 am

i've gone totally cold on this. i can't really reconcile it all with the price

hibidy · Post by **hibidy** » Fri Jan 23, 2015 1:55 am

Echoes in the Attic wrote:
hibidy wrote:199 isn't totally unreasonable, now who was that that was scaring me with "no upgrade price"
That's if you have all three licenses and if all three are standard and not transfer licenses. I've got one transfer and two standard, so I'm very curious to see if they will allow the VIP upgrade for me. I would think that it would be pretty lame not to but I've been surprised by some of their overly strict and not so friendly policies in the past. Hopefully hey can bend a little there.

Mine were all bought new.

bmrzycki · Post by **bmrzycki** » Fri Jan 23, 2015 2:18 am

el-bo (formerly ebow) wrote:i've gone totally cold on this. i can't really reconcile it all with the price

I have mixed feelings about it too. Since I'm not VIP (don't own Stylus) and since I live in Texas where tax applies my upgrade price is just under $270. Ouch.

On the other hand, should I purchase it I'd be able to load all the waveforms I have from my soon-to-be-unsupported Alchemy libraries. It should be possible to recreate most of the my favorite sounds with a bit of work.

It's a tough call and I'll have to think about it a bit more.

mutantdog · Post by **mutantdog** » Fri Jan 23, 2015 2:29 am

wagtunes wrote:Let's see. How many synths would you have to buy to do all the things that Omnisphere can do?

Looking at the synths I have that are specialized, in order to get all the functionality of Omnisphere, picking the best of my collection, I would have to spend upwards of $1,000 to $1,200. That's a far cry from $500.

And yet, ironically, it's the one synth that is heard on more movie scores than any other.

Okay, here's the problem as i see it. Omnisphere's price is clearly geared toward the professional market, soundtrack composers and high end sound designers. I get that. Problem is, i expect like all their previous output copy protection will be weak and it will be cracked within days. Meaning any old pirate can pick it up freely with ease.

Then that leaves us lot, the honest types who like to pay for the software we use, forking out a sizable amount of cash, more than most DAWS and half the price of a high-spec PC. Kinda feels like fleecing the people who just wanna do the right thing.

On the other hand, with some decent copy-protection (eg: that of u-he and recent Synapse, even PaceEden seems to be fairly non-intrusive) and an affordable price, perhaps with a few different tiers (light $99, artist $199, pro $299) and they could probably get a decent marketshare and make a comparable profit, perhaps even more.

As u-he has shown there are a lot of pirates that will put their hand in their pocket if they want it enough. If this ends up the way the last one did, it will seem to show they don't care really, they'll just make the money back from overcharging us.

Compyfox · Post by **Compyfox** » Fri Jan 23, 2015 2:32 am

And on the other hand:
Consider what you get for 250USD (lower as "street price", unless only Spectrasonics offers the upgrade)...

Yes... think what happened with ALL of the Spectrasonics VSTi.
Free updates - sometimes even drastic ones. In case of Omnisphere, it was the iPad integration and the "Orb" system. In case of RMX, we first got the "chaos module", later more features like the loop alignment and simplification. With each update, new presets and sometimes more sample content as well.

And this all free of charge - what others would actually ask a fortune for - every year! And how long did Trillian, RMX and Omnisphere exist at this point? Several... years...

I said it before, I'll say it again:
I do consider Spectrasonics as "hardware synthesizer company", only that the "hardware" can be a a cheap dual core (or even single core still - granted, not in this equation), while we actually pay for the "engine" (the OS). However, we do not pay for the "OS upgrade" and need to exchange a couple of chips, do some soldering work and prey that we didn't funk up in the process. We get a 150MB installer and things turn out to be great.

I am also suprised that an "upgrade" of 200USD is okay (if you have all three), but at 250USD (if you only have Omnisphere) it's not.

Now, let's assume that the rumor is true that RMX2 will also hit this year. As of this moment, not before Musikmesse 2015 in April it seems (I see what you did there! And let's not hope it's an April's fool prank.). But let's assume it will hit end of Q2/2015. What will it cost? Considering the MSRP of 399USD, we can also take guesses of about 200USD (half of the full price). But for this, we get a "new engine", maybe even all former SAGE packages bundled, new sample content and what have you.

The cycle starts anew.

And to be honest: I rather pay 200-250USD every 5 years (MSRP - not street price!) with barely any bugs than 200EUR every year for my main work-engine (my host!) and battle issues for weeks to come.

Not that much of a tough call - but rather several sides to a medal (once again).

And no, I am NOT touching the "warez" topic. This will always be the case. But if Spectrasonics would introduce a more agressive C/R, or even iLok or E-Licenser, all hell would break lose. Even more so than currently.

quantum7 · Post by **quantum7** » Fri Jan 23, 2015 2:39 am

mutantdog wrote:
Okay, here's the problem as i see it. Omnisphere's price is clearly geared toward the professional market, soundtrack composers and high end sound designers. I get that. Problem is, i expect like all their previous output copy protection will be weak and it will be cracked within days. Meaning any old pirate can pick it up freely with ease.

Then that leaves us lot, the honest types who like to pay for the software we use, forking out a sizable amount of cash, more than most DAWS and half the price of a high-spec PC. Kinda feels like fleecing the people who just wanna do the right thing.

On the other hand, with some decent copy-protection (eg: that of u-he and recent Synapse, even PaceEden seems to be fairly non-intrusive) and an affordable price, perhaps with a few different tiers (light $99, artist $199, pro $299) and they could probably get a decent marketshare and make a comparable profit, perhaps even more.

As u-he has shown there are a lot of pirates that will put their hand in their pocket if they want it enough. If this ends up the way the last one did, it will seem to show they don't care really, they'll just make the money back from overcharging us.

Respectfully, why in the heck should you care about the pirates/theives and what they do???? There are car thieves all over the world who get to drive nicer cars than I pay for, for free. I don't give a crap what others get for free, or discounted. What matters is if I feel that what I honestly pay for a product is worth $ it. It truly is a waste of braincells to constantly be concerned for these things.

quantum7 · Post by **quantum7** » Fri Jan 23, 2015 2:40 am

Personally, I'm happy that Eric is charging what he is charging for the HUGE update. Spectrasonics needs to stay in business if they are going continue with things....like an RMX 2, for example. If Eric labeled Omnisphere 2 another name as a brand new product, I would have no problem in paying the $499 price tag, as I have made so much great music with Eric's creations that $499 is chump-change compared to what it would bring to my compositions.

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Fri Jan 23, 2015 2:41 am

mutantdog wrote: Okay, here's the problem as i see it. Omnisphere's price is clearly geared toward the professional market, soundtrack composers and high end sound designers.

I know from at least 1 (very) big trance producer, and 2 ambient producers which use Omnisphere. The way i see it, all plugins are more or less geared towards the professional market, otherwise they wouldn't be relatively pricey, and they all are.

Don't get the "honest people who need to charge a lot of money for it" argument either. I think one shouldn't care about people pirating at all. They will do it anyway, no matter if a product is reasonably priced or not. There is no reason to feel proud either about not pirating, or buying products. It's a normal thing to pay people for their work, no big deal to make about it.

I think the bottom line is that you don't have to buy it. ASAT. If you don't feel like shelling out $500 for it, then just don't. But maybe you should watch the video again, and see how many features they packed into it, and how much sampling work and effort they put into it. I'd say that pretty much justifies the price. How big is the sample library alone? 40 GB? That's pretty sick, and i can only imagine how much work that must have been.

quantum7 · Post by **quantum7** » Fri Jan 23, 2015 2:42 am

double post

quantum7 · Post by **quantum7** » Fri Jan 23, 2015 2:44 am

triple post

mholloway · Post by **mholloway** » Fri Jan 23, 2015 3:11 am

I have no sympathy for anybody whining about the price. Spectrasonics work their arses off to deliver bottomlessly wonderful products, and somebody's crying because they don't want to give them another $250 bucks for all that labor, talent, attention to detail, and genuine desire to deliver a high-end product....well, Screw 'em. They can go without. $250 is more than reasonable to ask. I paid $500 to them years ago, $100 for a quality Moog-centic expansion, and will gladly pay what they ask for this MASSIVE upgrade.

The whiners here seriously have no idea how good they actually have it. $250 bucks... imagine what that would get you in digital audio technology 20 years ago. Next to damn near nothing, of course. But now it's suddenly far too much for updating a synth that (as accurately described by the company itself) would take a lifetime to fully explore.

trimph1 · Post by **trimph1** » Fri Jan 23, 2015 3:22 am

Precisely.

Omnisphere is well worth the price. We need whaaaambulances here, again.

mutantdog · Post by **mutantdog** » Fri Jan 23, 2015 3:22 am

quantum7 wrote:Respectfully, why in the heck should you care about the pirates/theives and what they do???? There are car thieves all over the world who get to drive nicer cars than I pay for, for free. I don't give a crap what others get for free, or discounted. What matters is if I feel that what I honestly pay for a product is worth $ it. It truly is a waste of braincells to constantly be concerned for these things.

I don't really care about the pirates, what i do care about is a business model that clearly chooses to offset its losses to piracy by raising the price for honest customers. This was a common mentality for many software devs across the board 5-10 years ago, and while it is still practiced to some extent, there are successful devs who have managed to crackproof their software and seen increased sales as a result.

$500 is a lot of money for a plugin, they'd sell a lot more if it was cheaper. If it was harder to steal they'd sell even more. I'm sure they could earn whatever their target is and more honest customers could benefit.

I know piracy is a taboo subject on here so i probably shouldn't pursue this point any further. You lot all think its worth the money so there's not much else i can say about it.

trimph1 · Post by **trimph1** » Fri Jan 23, 2015 3:26 am

mutantdog wrote:
quantum7 wrote:Respectfully, why in the heck should you care about the pirates/theives and what they do???? There are car thieves all over the world who get to drive nicer cars than I pay for, for free. I don't give a crap what others get for free, or discounted. What matters is if I feel that what I honestly pay for a product is worth $ it. It truly is a waste of braincells to constantly be concerned for these things.
I don't really care about the pirates, what i do care about is a business model that clearly chooses to offset its losses to piracy by raising the price for honest customers. This was a common mentality for many software devs across the board 5-10 years ago, and while it is still practiced to some extent, there are successful devs who have managed to crackproof their software and seen increased sales as a result.

$500 is a lot of money for a plugin, they'd sell a lot more if it was cheaper. If it was harder to steal they'd sell even more. I'm sure they could earn whatever their target is and more honest customers could benefit.

I know piracy is a taboo subject on here so i probably shouldn't pursue this point any further. You lot all think its worth the money so there's not much else i can say about it.

OK. What price would you set MSRP at. Not street price. MSRP.

ghettosynth · Post by **ghettosynth** » Fri Jan 23, 2015 3:28 am

chk071 wrote: I think the bottom line is that you don't have to buy it. ASAT. If you don't feel like shelling out $500 for it, then just don't. But maybe you should watch the video again, and see how many features they packed into it, and how much sampling work and effort they put into it. I'd say that pretty much justifies the price. How big is the sample library alone? 40 GB? That's pretty sick, and i can only imagine how much work that must have been.

Yeah, you see, this is where people disagree. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter how much work you put into something, it's simply about whether the customer values the features that you deliver enough to hand over their money.

Komplete has 130GB of samples, and Diva has zero. So by that evaluation, Komplete should cost about $1500 and Diva should be free. Ok, so I'm taking the piss a bit, but the point is that the size of the sample library, "alone", or even the feature set, does not justify the price, at all. It all comes down to what that sample library is, and what you can do with it, etc. Beyond that, it also matters how the competition is priced. The latter point is where I think that most people are critical. Omnisphere just seems expensive compared to the competition.

Any Spectrasonics news?