Is plugin market going down?

[Daimonicon]

The issue here is that you are a dev and not a salesman. You have be both. The question is do you want to be right or effective? You can be right in your own kingdom but don't expect the world will agree with you. I believe you are proud of what you have done so far and of course you should be. But you are stuck in what was right yesterday and it is still right for you but the world has moved on a long time ago. What makes a Co succesful? They are pragmatic. If it works it works. If it doesn't don't sit there and complain instead figure out how to sell more snow to the eskimos. Now I'm not saying that is what you should do but you get the point or not. Smaller dev's poped out when software became a revolution. Many are gone and didn't survive. I believe we will see it soon again in this over saturated market.

[plexuss]

The issue here is that you are a dev and not a salesman. You have be both. The question is do you want to be right or effective? You can be right in your own kingdom but don't expect the world will agree with you. I believe you are proud of what you have done so far and of course you should be. But you are stuck in what was right yesterday and it is still right for you but the world has moved on a long time ago. What makes a Co succesful? They are pragmatic. If it works it works. If it doesn't don't sit there and complain instead figure out how to sell more snow to the eskimos. Now I'm not saying that is what you should do but you get the point or not. Smaller dev's poped out when software became a revolution. Many are gone and didn't survive. I believe we will see it soon again in this over saturated market.

But marketing hype will only take you so far in the plugin world. If the "snow" doesn't have any obvious demonstrable value over free "snow", no one is going to buy it. Also marketing hype for the sake of marketing hype is just going to work to annoy customers because they generally see right through it (eg. Slate and Plugin Alliance). I think its better to dispense with the marketing hype and just make great innovative products where the demo speaks for itself. and make the price commensurate with the product - not based on your own opinion but based on what the market will bear.

[xoxos]

Some big restructurization of the market has happened for sure and I can't grasp its meaning, and where it goes.

Musicmaking does not attract people anymore? People do not need more plugins?

i believe the discrete vector is the generation that has passed since you and i joined this site that was just before "Everyone" was online, the tail end of "i have a computer because i use a computer".

we're a generation into "the internet has been around my whole life" and thus so have vst plugins. up and coming consumers cannot be responsible for pre-vst era knowledge, eg. hardware paradigm, independent research vs. abundant offered choices.

i imagine younger consumers have no ability to connect with the excitement electronic music had to those of us living during formative times except as an adopted nostalgia, like we can imagine the development of radio but our experience is different.

i'd see the future market as entertainment service, about on the same level as someone who manufactures roller skates. we've got the basic skate.

new consumers also don't have the 15 years experience watching voxengo release free vst that did things no other free vst did. we're all experienced with the "oblivion" of those who haven't spent this time watching this field develop with fascination. nobody knows who we are or how things happened. i don't know exactly how to perpetuate the market image of solidity voxengo has, keeping it perennial.

but seriously i think many aspects of the last 15 years of kvr would make outstanding documentary material.





the other thing is, with most people it seems, it's like *sacrilege* to discuss things on a greater scale. "poor investment choices" - this industry is subsidiary to both the function of music and the function artifice in this culture. every industry wants to believe it is fated to increase and flourish, without questioning what it is doing there in the first place.

[ghettosynth]

But it also comes down to rationalizing the cost - I will buy a tool, even if it's core functionality over-laps something I already have if there is something that differentiates it that maps well to it's cost. With Voxengo, I have never been able to close the gap between what I see related to their products and the price. I need to be shown product value commensurate with the asking price, especially if I already have over-lapping tools. Some companies are better at bringing these to the fore-front so the customers can see the value clearly (eg iZotope Neutron) but other companies hide that value and you have to go searching to find it (eg. Elosis AirEQ).

Yep! Let's cut to the chase on this though. I get some grief for my perspective, but, if you aren't hitting that magical point of a plugin for a pizza, you're not going to get a lot of impulse purchases where functionality overlaps.

Neutron is a fine example. With the special deal on the music production bundle it worked out to something like $10 to $15 a plugin. That's just fantastic value! I use all of those plugins and I use them often.

Let's think about that though, there are at least three separate EQ plugins in there not including the EQs in Nectar. So, I should be good for EQs, right? Nope, I buy EQs for small gains in usability and musicality.

Just yesterday I picked up the Lindell Audio Preamp/EQ that's on sale. It's a simple EQ, but it just sounds sweet on certain material. If you adjust for the discounts and coupon directly, I paid about $10 for it.

Even at the other end of the spectrum, cost per plugin is lower than you might think. I paid on the order of $500 for the Flux Full pack, that's 11 plugins so less than $50 each. But we're talking about plugins that are very sophisticated and have beautiful interfaces. Alchemy has a retail price of $700. If we scale my purchase price by the retail price, Alchemy was about $150 and the less sophisticated plugins, which are still sophisticated, were again back in that pizza range.

[stratum]

Let's think about that though, there are at least three separate EQ plugins in there not including the EQs in Nectar. So, I should be good for EQs, right? Nope, I buy EQs for small gains in usability and musicality.

I wonder why a generic parametric or graphic EQ didn't deliver that small gain in usability/musicality. It looks like it was just a few more clicks away and there are people who expect to see articles and videos on developer websites just to be told about exactly that difference.

[plexuss]

But it also comes down to rationalizing the cost - I will buy a tool, even if it's core functionality over-laps something I already have if there is something that differentiates it that maps well to it's cost. With Voxengo, I have never been able to close the gap between what I see related to their products and the price. I need to be shown product value commensurate with the asking price, especially if I already have over-lapping tools. Some companies are better at bringing these to the fore-front so the customers can see the value clearly (eg iZotope Neutron) but other companies hide that value and you have to go searching to find it (eg. Elosis AirEQ).

Yep! Let's cut to the chase on this though. I get some grief for my perspective, but, if you aren't hitting that magical point of a plugin for a pizza, you're not going to get a lot of impulse purchases where functionality overlaps.

Keep in mind the plugin market is not just hobbiest that are looking for the cheapest prices. I am semi-pro and have no problem paying $100's for a plugin if I feel it will benefit my work. I've shelled out about $3000 on Nebula and libraries which are not transferrable. If I was running a studio I'd care less about sales and just bill to the client. so the market is quite fragmented which is challenging for the plugin companies.

I don't know which segment the bulk of a plugin company's revenue comes from though. I suspect that the hobbiest segment is fairly large because of the frequency and nature of deep discount sales. but the fact that regular prices are high suggests the pro market also has clout.

Just an observation and something to keep in mind. Your use-case is not everyone's use-case.

[ghettosynth]

Let's think about that though, there are at least three separate EQ plugins in there not including the EQs in Nectar. So, I should be good for EQs, right? Nope, I buy EQs for small gains in usability and musicality.

I wonder why a generic parametric or graphic EQ didn't deliver that small gain in usability/musicality. It looks like it was just a few more clicks away and there are people who expect to see articles and videos on developer websites just to be told about exactly that difference.

You are underestimating the pain caused by a small amount of friction. I have quite a few EQs that I don't "need" because they could probably all be nulled with something else. That's not the point. The point is that when I turn a dial, it sounds good. That has value. It doesn't matter that I could conceivably get the same sound from something else.

You are also overrating the amount of thought that goes into a $10 impulse buy. I spend $10 for a six pack of craft beer because I want to. I spend $10 on an EQ because I want to. I bought the Lindell EQ/Preamp for the preamp/transformer model, but, I just happen to like the EQ. It was almost as satisfying a purchase as the craft beer. Did I need it? Nope, not at all. I bought it as part of a bundle to get UVI Darklight as cheaply as possible and it was the path to the most discount on the kinds of things that I use from developers that I've come to trust. I'd buy everything by Lindell if it was on a no-brainer sale.

Now, if you want me to spend $30+ on an EQ it's going to get a more thorough evaluation. I turned down Waves Puigtec for about $30 because I compared it to izotope's vintage EQ and, even though there was something about the Waves EQ that I liked more, I decided that they weren't different enough.

[OreoSplitter]

As someone who has never heard of voxengo in 5 seconds of reaching that website I thought these look dated. The colors green, yellow and purple do not look good together. Same reason I will likely never buy a vst from meldaproductions. I want to enjoy the ui I will be interacting with. It doesn't need to be high tech like fabfilter ui but at least look recent in the last 5 years. Same with the website. It almost feels like a layout from a parked website.

Where are the prices! Am I suppose to add to cart to see them? My impression, you don't care because you have let the ui and website age.

[stratum]

You are also overrating the amount of thought that goes into a $10 impulse buy.

Yeah, I need to remember to divide those numbers by 4 to make sense of it. That is a rough estimate of the exchange rate nowadays- not universally applicable to every good but gives an idea.

[ghettosynth]

But it also comes down to rationalizing the cost - I will buy a tool, even if it's core functionality over-laps something I already have if there is something that differentiates it that maps well to it's cost. With Voxengo, I have never been able to close the gap between what I see related to their products and the price. I need to be shown product value commensurate with the asking price, especially if I already have over-lapping tools. Some companies are better at bringing these to the fore-front so the customers can see the value clearly (eg iZotope Neutron) but other companies hide that value and you have to go searching to find it (eg. Elosis AirEQ).

Yep! Let's cut to the chase on this though. I get some grief for my perspective, but, if you aren't hitting that magical point of a plugin for a pizza, you're not going to get a lot of impulse purchases where functionality overlaps.

Keep in mind the plugin market is not just hobbiest that are looking for the cheapest prices. ... Just an observation and something to keep in mind. Your use-case is not everyone's use-case.

Of course not, however, it is also not just "my use case." It is a huge part of the plugin market and it's what has changed over the last five years or so. If you're still willing to pay hundreds of dollars for individual plugins repeatedly, then it's less likely that you're in the market segment that has fallen off for Voxengo as their plugins are reasonably priced.

Also, I was specifically talking about impulse purchases. I'm sure that you're not buying things that you can bill to the client on impulse? I'm no stranger to that mode of thinking, I just mostly separated music from business years ago when I realized that making my hobbies my work made me hate my hobbies.

I don't recall a time when it was as possible as it is now to get higher quality plugins for such a low price. Moreover, this is where the buzz is, this is what people are talking about here and everywhere else.

The buzz over the Eventide bundle this holiday season was huge. There was a lot of buzz over the iZotope bundle as well. Plugin Alliance has had a lot of buzz, the Air bundle is being talked about everywhere. All of those bundles were priced such that plugins were in the pizza range or lower.

I've personally led multiple people in my social circle to the iZotope and Air deals. If someone is asking "why am I not selling as much anymore", a reasonable answer seems to be "because you're no longer competitive in a major segment of the market."

[ghettosynth]

You are also overrating the amount of thought that goes into a $10 impulse buy.

Yeah, I need to remember to divide those numbers by 4 to make sense of it. That is a rough estimate of the exchange rate nowadays- not universally applicable to every good but gives an idea.

Which is why pizza (or lunch) and beer make for better comparisons than currency.

[emcee]

As with any market, there's a point where it reaches saturation. Me, personally yes I'm always lurking around wanting to try the latest plugin, but adding another Moog Clone/semi modular/rompler into my workflow just isn't either in my budget, or desire to have half a dozen things which do practically the same thing. For me to invest both time and dollars in something new it has to really be head and shoulders above something I'm already using to fill the same need.
If I were going back to the 80's and 90's when hardware was king, sure there was a valid argument for trading in the Ensoniq Mirage to an Akai S900 to a Kurzweil K2000 with sample kit (purely an example) because of the benefits of the better technology, but now in my opinion there's not a great deal of innovation, just rehashing of older technologies. That's true for both software and hardware.
To put another angle to it - my brother still uses Office 2007 for his small business, because it does everything he needs it to, and knows it back to front. To upgrade to Office 2016 has no net benefit in his eyes..

[keel]

Nowdays, there is very, very good free plugins too. Like TDR stuff. They sounds amazing and they are mainly free, and if you need more bands / settings, just spend small amount of money to upgrade GE editions. Or spend just ~$30 to buy MJUC and other awesome Klanghelm stuff. Valhalla makes superb stuff just for $50. Sonic Academy is doing cheap and good stuff too, just to mentition a few. There is many developer who do good looking GUI's, good plugins for relative cheap prices.

Point is that market it huge, plugins are getting better and better, but prices are getting cheaper and cheaper. Cheaper doesn't mean "not so good quality" anymore. Cheap plugins can and are good in these days. And cheap stuff just sell more. That is fact. Getting free Kotelnikov vs. Spending $30 to get MJUC or spending $70-$200 to get overhyped Slate or Softube or whatsoever compressors, is just non sense stuff.

Turn off GUI'S, amateur and out dated looking website plus maybe overpriced prices are big meh.. At least to me. There is so much good alternatives in these days, that it is so easy to just forget those maybe potential plugins and blind developers

[e@rs]

I honestly don't get it with the hidden prices complains...

Two clicks get you to all products prices:
1. Shopping Cart (above);
2. Price List.

I find that actual GUIs are not ugly at all, but I think GUI individuality for each product is a must these days.

[ghettosynth]

I honestly don't get it with the hidden prices complains...

Two clicks get you to all products prices:
1. Shopping Cart (above);
2. Price List.

It's friction. It slows down the shopping process.