Any Spectrasonics news?

[trimph1]

No kidding, lol.

[cwig]

I grant you that many can't hear, or don't care about the difference, and whether you prefer correctly modeled, or inaccurate filters, IS subjective, but the understanding of the limitations of analog modeling, is not.

The average listener doesn't care. One, most likely, wouldn't notice it "in the mix" anyway.

[mostlyjustj]

So, Eric losing weight seems to be the biggest news....

I wouldn't go with the *biggest* news myself, per se, but yah... that was actually a little startling. Good for him!

I'm think I'm gonna go with Omni 2 though... did you see those *caves*??

[cowby]

Hope they can produce a 30 mins video of "The making of O2".

I still remembered how they burn a piano

[SLiC]

Eric has the smile of a man with 'the best job in the world'

Roll on April 30th. Someone make a O2 dedicated hardware controller please!

[mostlyjustj]

Eric has the smile of a man with 'the best job in the world'!

True! Honestly, the positivity doesn't set off my BS radar at all... why should he?? Look what he's been sitting on all this time... Looks like Omni 2 *cleanly* knocks it out of the park!

[BBFG#]

Please... no more 30 minute videos.

[ghettosynth]

I grant you that many can't hear, or don't care about the difference, and whether you prefer correctly modeled, or inaccurate filters, IS subjective, but the understanding of the limitations of analog modeling, is not.

The average listener doesn't care. One, most likely, wouldn't notice it "in the mix" anyway.

That's a non-point. The average listener thinks that an MP3 is good enough. What I care about is what I can hear because, like most people at least as serious about music as me, I want to create product that I'm happy with. Moreover, there are many EDM listeners who DO care and who CAN hear the difference.

You can't on the on hand argue that the quality of a product matters and then discount those attributes of quality that the product doesn't have.

[trimph1]

I grant you that many can't hear, or don't care about the difference, and whether you prefer correctly modeled, or inaccurate filters, IS subjective, but the understanding of the limitations of analog modeling, is not.

The average listener doesn't care. One, most likely, wouldn't notice it "in the mix" anyway.

That's a non-point. The average listener thinks that an MP3 is good enough. What I care about is what I can hear because, like most people at least as serious about music as me, I want to create product that I'm happy with. Moreover, there are many EDM listeners who DO care and who CAN hear the difference.

You can't on the on hand argue that the quality of a product matters and then discount those attributes of quality that the product doesn't have.

So some EDM listeners have golden ears?

[ghettosynth]

So some EDM listeners have golden ears?

You don't need golden ears to point out (the result of) mediocre filters. A lot of EDM (old definition, not new) really focuses on the sound of the filter and it matters, especially on a big system.

[trimph1]

Look, did anyone say anything about you buying it though?

I know I did not.

And, again, until someone comes up with an objective-o-meter I will continue to say it is your subjective opinion.

Just as mine is.

[noiseboyuk]

The price thing - I don't think it's even at the higher end, not when you factor in the content.

Obviously the site is down now, but how much was Alchemy with all the expansions? From memory it was £550, or circa $800. Not sure how many patches that was, but under 10,000 I'm sure. Or Nexus 2 - full package is $3.000. Neither of these is like for like of course in all kinds of ways (you can't edit Nexus 2 more than superficially at any price) - the main purpose is when evaluating the price of anything, you have to take into account far more than the headline rate. I know it sounds obvious, but questions like "what can it do?" and "what has it got"? Have to be considered, yet some persistently fail to consider them. To compare with a regular software synth is rather like equating a sports car with a bike. (and I like bikes, btw - they're just different beasts).

I can see there's an argument that there should be different levels of the product to produce a cheaper version (I'm sure the EDM set would love Omni 2 without any of the soundsources), but that's a different issue. Personally I like the model that when you buy any Spectrasonics product you get the works, plus many years of free and often hugely expansive updates. If the initial price once looked on the steep side, looking back 5 years from now it'll seem as cheap as chips.

It is hard to compare with other products - it's the whole self-contained ecosystem with its genius workflow, UI and usability that puts Omni in a class of its own. I have Absynth and Reaktor. The former I almost never touch, what a hideous mess of a synth from a musician's perspective. The latter is strictly for computer programmers, save of course for the ensembles which are focused on playability - I use some of the ensembles occasionally. Neither can really be compared to Omnisphere 2 - it's integration, UI, ease of use are way off from my perspective.

As I was watching the video yesterday, I kept thinking about the re-issue of the Moog Modular 55 at $35,000. Obviously its as chalk and cheese as its possible to get, but I'd honestly prefer Omni 2 in a straight shoot out (well, if I couldn't resell the Moog, obviously....) The Modular still sounds great, has limitless possibilities in the electronic realm and represents the cutting edge... of 40 years ago. Omni 2 has a far wider pallete, with its own even more limitless possibilities, can have limitless instances and is about 1,000,000x easier to use, for 1/70th of the price.

What a glorious age we live in. I've little time for the mealy-mouthed.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

The price thing - I don't think it's even at the higher end, not when you factor in the content.

Obviously the site is down now, but how much was Alchemy with all the expansions? From memory it was £550, or circa $800. Not sure how many patches that was, but under 10,000 I'm sure. Or Nexus 2 - full package is $3.000. Neither of these is like for like of course in all kinds of ways (you can't edit Nexus 2 more than superficially at any price) - the main purpose is when evaluating the price of anything, you have to take into account far more than the headline rate. I know it sounds obvious, but questions like "what can it do?" and "what has it got"? Have to be considered, yet some persistently fail to consider them. To compare with a regular software synth is rather like equating a sports car with a bike. (and I like bikes, btw - they're just different beasts).

I can see there's an argument that there should be different levels of the product to produce a cheaper version (I'm sure the EDM set would love Omni 2 without any of the soundsources), but that's a different issue. Personally I like the model that when you buy any Spectrasonics product you get the works, plus many years of free and often hugely expansive updates. If the initial price once looked on the steep side, looking back 5 years from now it'll seem as cheap as chips.

It is hard to compare with other products - it's the whole self-contained ecosystem with its genius workflow, UI and usability that puts Omni in a class of its own. I have Absynth and Reaktor. The former I almost never touch, what a hideous mess of a synth from a musician's perspective. The latter is strictly for computer programmers, save of course for the ensembles which are focused on playability - I use some of the ensembles occasionally. Neither can really be compared to Omnisphere 2 - it's integration, UI, ease of use are way off from my perspective.

As I was watching the video yesterday, I kept thinking about the re-issue of the Moog Modular 55 at $35,000. Obviously its as chalk and cheese as its possible to get, but I'd honestly prefer Omni 2 in a straight shoot out (well, if I couldn't resell the Moog, obviously....) The Modular still sounds great, has limitless possibilities in the electronic realm and represents the cutting edge... of 40 years ago. Omni 2 has a far wider pallete, with its own even more limitless possibilities, can have limitless instances and is about 1,000,000x easier to use, for 1/70th of the price.

What a glorious age we live in. I've little time for the mealy-mouthed.

the whole value thing is personal, and relative. for me (as i am sure with many others), there are a lot of things vying for the same, extremely limited cash pool.

my problem with this update is that you have to go all-in or go home. i have zero interest in edm banks, however i can appreciate that many users have had their prayers answered in this regard. the content value argument only goes so far i.e it could be easily argued that if they gave us another 100,000 presets, and charged, $1000 for the update, that it would be great value. the problem is that you have no choice in the regard. there is a reason that i have not bought any 3rd-party banks for omnisphere there is too much redundancy with everything these days.

when they introduced 'the orb', the instant ability to increase the number of presets just exploded. now with sample import that ability has leaped once more

so why are we obliged to pay for thousands more presets that we may not want, regardless of comparative 'value' ?? does it not make more sense, at this point, to start selling a la carte ??

i would happily pay $150 for the new engine/browser features, without a single extra preset. then, if i had the choice between 3 different psychoacoustic packs, a diego stocco pack, a chipsound pack, a 'bent' pack etc, i could pick and choose. the difference being, that i could avoid redundancy, buy when budget allowed, and maybe have the chance to explore properly as opposed to being overwhelmed by 3000 sounds all in one go

the argument that gets made about 'not knowing how good you have it' is nonsense. the market for virtual instruments has been in existence long enough for it to have established it's own comparative expectation of value. i have owned hardware synths, drum machines, and hardware samplers. i have dubbed between cassette players, owned 4-tracks, and 16-tracks. on the opposite end of the scale, i regularly enjoy the amazing, and cheap apps i can use on my ipad. none of this has any bearing on my judging of value here.

i absolutely want to support spectrasonics, but i would just like a few more options/tiers in how that can be accomplshed

[noiseboyuk]

el-bo - yeah, I do get that argument, and I do have some sympathy with it. And as I said, a version without soundsources would be popular too. Maybe variants will come in time. But I suspect they won't, and here's why.

The broad concept for Omnisphere is in the name - Omni. Everything. That's what it is - a synth for everything (not literally every possible form of synthesis, but broadly covering every area and every type of synth user). The presets add a lot of value, but hard to put a figure on it - certainly it wouldn't sell for $150 with none, given the depth of synthesis and 64gb of soundsources (from ancient synths to radiaoctive caves to burning orchestras or what have you). So if you break it down into packs - soundsources, patches, synthesis types - it's just not Omnisphere any more. And I think you'd penalise those of us who like it as it is - I really appreciate laying down the cash and knowing they won't be wanting more off me every two months as a new feature or set of patches is released. A lot of the Spectrasonics love you see here is because owners know how much value it provides over time, and I guess also when they find they're using for purposes or in ways they'd never have imagined when they first bought it. It's the keys to the castle.

Omnisphere 1 already made most other synths I have redundant. 2 is highly likely to make even more redundant - I suspect now I'll be using Nexus a lot less, for one thing. I appreciate its a hunk of change for some folks that you have to buy in one whack, but long term its such a bargain its ridiculous.

[mutantdog]

Sorry, but two things:

a) why bring the topic up in the first place
b) the price has no relation to piracy
c) as mentioned before - if the CP system would be "more aggressive", there would be the usual outcries again like "you can't do this" and "I won't go for iLok/Elicenser because 'reasons' ", etc

Maybe, the price has nothing to do with it at all. Nevertheless there has been a mentality within many businesses to offset their perceived loss of revenue due to piracy by raising the price for legitimate customers. As has been stated I don't really know exactly their thinking behind their business model, i can only infer this, as can you only infer that this is not the case.

I'm no fan of intrusive CP, the likes of u-he (serial), Synapse (not sure) and Camel (watermark) have managed to thwart the pirates without resorting to dongles or the like. It can be done. And Urs has stated that he has gained a decent number of extra sales from warez users that have been timebombed.

Do you actually know how "many" licenses Specrasonic sold of Omnisphere alone?

No I don't.

The pricing model(s) you propose would indeed attract more users, but it would also mean more work/maintenance for the company. Not to mention handling several versions and sample sets.

That's a fair enough point. I'm not privvy to the inner workings of their company. Many other successful businesses of all sizes however do release several versions of the same product at varying prices geared toward different levels of consumer. For whatever reason they have decided they want it to be all or nothing.

It is not a taboo subject. Only if it's going massively OT and turning into a full-on slugfest.

Well, i hope its clear I'm not advocating anything immoral or illegal here and I don't want to turn this into another thread about iLoks or the like.

So yeah, I've made a speculation here that piracy has been factored into the price of a product, rendering it far outside of my budget. Maybe I'm well off the mark, maybe not.

But in response to the other poster who reckoned i shouldn't go around voicing my opinions on my perception of a company's business model, it's probably best you stay away from the internet generally if you don't like that sort of thing.