RAPID Synthesizer | Rapid 1.8.0 released | Free "SP - Granular Elements"

[AnX]

Businesses, which is what a synth developer is running, need money to continue.

Of course. But if you overpricing your product, no one will buy it = no money = no business. Take a look at Klanghelm. He sells his plugins from 8€ to 24€. They sell a loooooooot and as far as I know, he can be full time developer. Make a good and affordable product, they sell a lot and many will buy those impulse buys, because the price is not too high. Besides wavetable synth market is already full of good synths. 250€ price tag is wayyyy to high.

Here's some basic business strategy for you to consider.

Let's assume there are 10,000 available people to sell to.

If the price is set at $100, let's assume only 20% of people will consider buying -- that's 2,000 people. Let's assume they do. Times 100, that's a gross of $200,000.

If the price is set at $250, instead of selling to 2,000 people, they developer would only need to sell 800 to get the same $200,000. However, the developer will have the added advantage of having fewer support tickets to deal with (huge time/profit killer), higher quality customers who are less problematic overall, customers who have demonstrated the willingness and ability to pay higher prices (useful for future product launches), and overall more time available to cater to fewer overall customers.

.

Why do you think users who pay more are 'less problematic"?

If a product is faulty, it doesnt matter how much it costs or who bought it. The buyer has the right to expect it to be fixed.

If you are talking about FR's... there is no problem. They can be ignored with no loss of time or income.


If anything, i find ppl who pay more expect more support....

[chk071]

It is absolutely beyond new why people are arguing for such a ridiculously low price as $99 for this synth... looking at the competition, that would be the cheapest price I ever seen for such a synth.

Try this for a new u-he synth, and there's gonna be fkn murders.

[KBSoundSmith]

Here's some basic business strategy for you to consider.

Let's assume there are 10,000 available people to sell to.

If the price is set at $100, let's assume only 20% of people will consider buying -- that's 2,000 people. Let's assume they do. Times 100, that's a gross of $200,000.

Oh, really? So, here's some basic 1st grade arithmetic for you:

Let's assume that, instead of 2,000 that would be pushed by an impulse buy at $100, that number would be 5.000. To be able to get the same amount in sales at $250,00, the developer would need 2.000.

IMO, it would be more difficult to find 2.000 willing to pay $250,00 than 5.000 willing to pay $100,00

Plus, also IMO, it is most likely that those fewre that are willing to pay $250,00 will be much more PITA customers than those that would only be willing to pay $100,00. Why? Here are some reaons:

People who buy cheaper usually don't have music as their main surviving activity, therefore are more forgiven towards eventual youth flaws than the so called "professionals", who, as we often see on KVR are real PITAs and whiners when it comes to allegeded flaws in the products they buy.

These same customers usually are willing to support the developer more trhan the so called "professionals", because they have more time to wait for the fixes, and they don't rely as heavily on the tools to keep doing things.

Saying that people who are willing to pay more are higher quality customers is the same as saying that you have to be rich to be a knowldegeable, understandable and educated guy. It's absurd and I simply don't buy it.

Just to finish, there are a lot of successful developers who started by selling their plug-ins at $49,00 or even by giving them away for free. I will not quote names because I would be accused of favouring someone, but we all know who they are. So, this allegation that you have to charge more in order to survive and be successful is just bollocks.

If you think you can convert 50% of an available user base, go ahead and start your own business. It won't happen, though. My numbers were already generous -- yours aren't anywhere close to being aligned to real world conversion rates.

And to continue with reality, my allegations against lower-price tier customers are based on personal experience and the experiences of other business owners. This remains consistent in basically any product/service category.

I had a chat with a developer just a little bit ago confirming this (the developer will remain nameless, to spare them backlash). The guy was so exasperated, he fell back in his chair and said "Even free wouldn't be cheap enough for them. It's like they want us to pay them to use our software."

I'm not throwing around random, unfounded statements. Go chat up other business owners, read through business literature.

As for your quote "this allegation that you have to charge more in order to survive and be successful is just bollocks." To a certain extent, that's true -- you don't HAVE to charge premium pricing to survive as a business. But it is often the times the difference between having a healthy business and one that's hanging on by the skin of its teeth.

Anyway, this back-and-forth is getting quite a bit off-topic. Let's stop clogging up cyberspace and let people talk about the synth.

[Kalamata Kid]

An old joke.
A bit of humor.

A joke about 4 retired guys ordering very cheap drinks

Four old retired guys are walking down a street in Yuma, Arizona. They turn a corner and see a sign that says, “Old Timers Bar - ALL drinks 10 cents.” They look at each other and then go in, thinking, This is too good to be true.

The old bartender says in a voice that carries across the room, "Come on in and let me pour one for you! What'll it be, gentlemen?"

There's a fully stocked bar, so each of the men orders a martini. In no time the bartender serves up four iced martinis—shaken, not stirred—and says, "That'll be 10 cents each, please."

The four guys stare at the bartender for a moment, then at each other. They can't believe their good luck. They pay the 40 cents, finish their martinis, and order another round.

Again, four excellent martinis are produced, with the bartender again saying, "That's 40 cents, please." They pay the 40 cents, but their curiosity gets the better of them. They've each had two martinis and haven't even spent a dollar yet.

Finally one of them says, "How can you afford to serve martinis as good as these for a dime apiece?"

"I'm a retired tailor from Phoenix," the bartender says, “and I always wanted to own a bar. Last year I hit the Lottery jackpot for $250 million and decided to open this place. Every drink costs a dime. Wine, liquor, beer—it's all the same."

"Wow! That's some story!" one of the men says.

As the four of them sip at their martinis, they can't help noticing seven other people at the end of the bar who don't have any drinks in front of them and haven't ordered anything the whole time they've been there.

Nodding at the seven at the end of the bar, one of the men asks the bartender, "What's with them?"

The bartender says, "They're retired people from Florida.
They're waiting for Happy Hour when drinks are half-price."

It's not joke. This is how they (and me?) are down here in Florida!

[wagtunes]

[REMOVED]

[recursive one]

Okay guys, I listened to the videos and read the specs.

Based on what is currently out there on the market, going by sound quality and features, this synth could easily sell for $149 to $169. If you can get this for $99, it's a major steal, but I seriously doubt that's happening. $199 and you're in Zebra 2 territory and there is no way, on the feature scale, that this even comes close.

So for me personally, anything under $169 and I'm getting it as I really like the way this sounds.

Again, you have to compare it to what's out there currently.

I think there will be intro price, black friday, second hand sales and whatnot. I just find it ridiculous when someone claims that it doesn't have as much features as Falcon and therefore it should cost 50 bucks. I'm not sure I'll buy it at any price since I've already got all my bases covered but I like the idea that someone is making a synth focused on sounding good and modern and having a reasonable set of controls instead of releasing yet another emulation of a 40 years old analogue mono or trying to pack each and every imaginable feature into one plugin.

[chk071]

Based on what is currently out there on the market, going by sound quality and features, this synth could easily sell for $149 to $169.

I'd say, that is a pretty realistic price, considering the competition, too.

[KBSoundSmith]

Okay guys, I listened to the videos and read the specs.

Based on what is currently out there on the market, going by sound quality and features, this synth could easily sell for $149 to $169. If you can get this for $99, it's a major steal, but I seriously doubt that's happening. $199 and you're in Zebra 2 territory and there is no way, on the feature scale, that this even comes close.

So for me personally, anything under $169 and I'm getting it as I really like the way this sounds.

Again, you have to compare it to what's out there currently.

I can see why you'd feel that way. I simply place a higher value on its multi-sample capability. Given that, putting it up on the higher end seems reasonable to me. In a lot of ways, RAPID bares some resemblance to Alchemy (which was $250), minus the spectral editing and MSEGs and some other modulation capabilities. Given that, I don't think a minimum $200 price would be unfair.

Still, we've been given bare-bones specs so far and only promotional content. And I'm not in the market for anything right now, so I'm not particularly invested one way or the other.

[nordickvr]

...I like the idea that someone is making a synth focused on sounding good and modern and having a reasonable set of controls instead of releasing yet another emulation of a 40 years old analogue mono or trying to pack each and every imaginable feature into one plugin.

Hear you, that's a pretty valid point you'r bringning.
Still, I think that this mono synth will be an inspiring one and that this beast I think you'r talking about is going to be a seriously powerful one!

[Chandlerhimself]

Of course we can theorize about the price all day, but is anyone planning to buy this for $200? Maybe there are some people, but at that price I'm not even thinking about it. At $100 or less I would seriously consider it and at sub $80 it would be a definite buy.

I imagine soft synths are sold mostly through word of mouth and without mouths the speak about it I don't know how well a synth can sell. Who knows though, maybe there are tons of people with $200 ready to buy this, but I imagine most of the target audience for this synth with switch to Serum, Codex, Icarus, Nave etc at that price.

[george]

This looks like it's made by the cousin of Spire coder Which is a bastard clone of our synth Corona btw.

[Echoes in the Attic]

This looks like it's made by the cousin of Spire coder Which is a bastard clone of our synth Corona btw.

Spire and Corona are nothing alike.

[robotmonkey]

It's 250 EUR i think. As mentioned on Ruta's facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... =3&theater

is there no LoL smily? Have fun with that and all.

I think it's time to go back to the good old days when software synths had real prices. I'd say it should be in a 499-799$ range. More in the latter if it comes from Germany. Let's make the prices great again!

[george]

Spire and Corona are nothing alike.

Of course Corona is miles ahead.

[AnX]

I thought Corona was synthedit. Certainly looks like it.