The market for effects seems totally flooded

[cturner]

Surprised no one’s mentioned the “aftermarket” sales of used plugs right here on KVR.

My impression just over the last year is that more folks are offering more big-name plugs at lower prices. Plus they don’t seem to be moving as fast as they used to.

Comments?

[ATS]

Surprised no one’s mentioned the “aftermarket” sales of used plugs right here on KVR.

My impression just over the last year is that more folks are offering more big-name plugs at lower prices. Plus they don’t seem to be moving as fast as they used to.

Comments?

Exactly. When I see people trying to sell plugins for insane prices on here, and they don't move, I really wonder what the company's actual sales are.

[martinjuenke]

Actually I‘m one of these guys offering some well known branded plugins totally cheap compared to their RRP.

These brands where this selling strategy is necessary to find a buyer at all are characterised as having ridiciously high regular retail prices and very often ridiciously high discounts in frequent sales. Everybody here knows which companies I mean. The conclusion is IMO that these developers have had destroyed their brands successfully.

But there are other developers who never or seldom run sales (eg ValhallaDSP). Their plugins have a healthy second hand value and demand is pretty high.

[thephank]

Does this honestly surprise anyone? Capitalism thrives on flooding the market with useless products and asking consumers to sift through the resulting mess. Caveat emptor.

[mholloway]

It makes me wonder how a platform like UAD can survive. They charge up the nose for every single damn plugin, hundreds of dollars each, and as if that's not bad enough, you have to buy expensive freakin' hardware to use them in the first place.

It's the most expensive model for effects plugins in the universe. How does this still fly in 2018? Does it?!?

The *only* thing that can keep this working for them is the devotion of die-hard fanboys who, imho, have mindwashed-type brains and will insist that 'only' UAD plugins get them the mix they need / want / require. I'm sure they've convinced themselves. But is UAD going to get any new converts? Who of the next generation of computer-music-creators is going to fall for that?

[cthonophonic]

Have some pity for the "expensive" plugin companies. If they didn't have those high sticker prices to discount heavily every few months, how else would they get people talking about their plugins?

[bmanic]

It makes me wonder how a platform like UAD can survive. They charge up the nose for every single damn plugin, hundreds of dollars each, and as if that's not bad enough, you have to buy expensive freakin' hardware to use them in the first place.

It's the most expensive model for effects plugins in the universe. How does this still fly in 2018? Does it?!?

The *only* thing that can keep this working for them is the devotion of die-hard fanboys who, imho, have mindwashed-type brains and will insist that 'only' UAD plugins get them the mix they need / want / require. I'm sure they've convinced themselves. But is UAD going to get any new converts? Who of the next generation of computer-music-creators is going to fall for that?

.. not only that but they sell you "powerful DSP" chips that were outdated and slow the day they were first introduced (UAD-2 in this case, the UAD1 was actually quite powerful for it's time). They have ridiculous markup on those DSP chips. Worth perhaps 20 cents and a 4 DSP card vs 8 DSP card is literally hundreds of euros more expensive. It used to be more than a thousand euros difference at one point.

I jumped off the UAD wagon at that very moment. Many people are just suckers for "hardware" and insist UA has higher quality code than anybody else. It's also a typical my team vs your team thing that keeps people in their camp.

my 2 cents worth on UA and their business model.

[robotmonkey]

Actually I‘m one of these guys offering some well known branded plugins totally cheap compared to their RRP.

These brands where this selling strategy is necessary to find a buyer at all are characterised as having ridiciously high regular retail prices and very often ridiciously high discounts in frequent sales. Everybody here knows which companies I mean. The conclusion is IMO that these developers have had destroyed their brands successfully.

But there are other developers who never or seldom run sales (eg ValhallaDSP). Their plugins have a healthy second hand value and demand is pretty high.

As we are obviously speaking about Waves here foremost, I don't think they have damaged their brand at all. On the contrary they have brilliantly adapted to changing economic realities and market conditions. And pretty much everyone of the big players have followed them in this.

Their strategy rests on a well established premise that it's better to get a small amount of money from a lot of people than to get a big amount of money from a very small number of people. If the price is good enough, people are more likely to spend, especially in a market where there's lots of choices. Also in a world of digital goods the cost of distribution is very small in itself. This model was confirmed to be successful way before Waves in platforms like GOG or Steam or Bandcamp.

Such a model will help them to deal with second hand market too.

Don't think their brand has suffered at all. Instead they have moved from very elitist company to a company that caters to all segments of markets, including the hobbyist music makers which probably is the biggest music making segment. Yet Waves still has products for the highest end of the market with their SoundGrid and DigiGrid systems and they are pretty much only company which has products that run on from the 100 000$ consoles to your average hobbyist laptop.

[Jay Ass Blach]

and they are pretty much only company which has products that run on from the 100 000$ consoles to your average hobbyist laptop.

Not true. The hobbyist laptop runs EVERYTHING. If someone is missing out on something, it's the 100k console places, but this is their fault entirely, and not that developers don't deserve a place with them. You know, business decisions, practical decisions, etc. If they wished to, they could also run everything. But what would they do with it, considering that there's only so much stuff that you could use? The rest will just sit on those hard drives and collect dust.

[robotmonkey]

and they are pretty much only company which has products that run on from the 100 000$ consoles to your average hobbyist laptop.

Not true. The hobbyist laptop runs EVERYTHING. If someone is missing out on something, it's the 100k console places, but this is their fault entirely, and not that developers don't deserve a place with them. You know, business decisions, practical decisions, etc. If they wished to, they could also run everything. But what would they do with it, considering that there's only so much stuff that you could use? The rest will just sit on those hard drives and collect dust.

I'm not sure I understand what's not true. I think you missed my point. What I was saying is that Waves is pretty much only company which has product portfolio catering from the most expensive high end to the lowest hobbyist market. They have some really high end hardware. Also their plugins run on the 100 000$ digital consoles and DigiGrid systems as well as on your regular computer, with all the necessary support and stability expected in critical use cases. Waves plugins are generally the most stable plugins I have ever used and they have a quality of support unparalleled by most other companies. So what I was saying is that Waves has successfully moved from high end only to catering both high end and hobbyist markets and their brand has definitely not been damaged by this.

[pekbro]

Well, either that, or they're run by the Mob, and in 6 months they'll be knockin
on everyone's door sayin "you can pay the WUP now, or, you can pay the WUP now!"

[michaeltn86]

robotmonkey post is pretty spot on. very nice comment.

as for Uad as many people commented here, it's easy to see they are doing well. not as well as once they used to but they are doing well.

what people in the middle don't understand (people with 3 or more years in making music with computers), in my opinion, it's the fact that they are already used to make music in the computers, the upsides and downsides of plugins, used with the price of plugins, policies changes, etc.

making music is very hard. UAD makes it easy for people who are joining the market. the latency is good as u can monitor directly. you are also likely to pay more attention and be more sensitive to what plugins do if u can monitor in real time.

just think about playing a guitar through an amp sim. it's easier to understand ur tools if u play through it via real time. the way u play it in real time gets affected by ur chain.

that makes a remarkable experience, and u build a trust and relationship with the company in ur head. as for editing things later, or "fix it in the mix" just makes u get in the rabbit hole of trial and error and u just keep messing around if u don't have experience (it's unbelievable hard to understand compression eq translation etc).

so it's not hard to see why people might even say that uad hardware sounds better even if the same code and it's processed in the box. it's very interesting.

they charge for that of course. do I think this model will keep going? no, I don't think so because if ur computer is 2-3 years old, ur computer is pretty good, and if u have a decent latency u'd get seriously angered by their underpowered system and high prices.

I think the key factor to plugins companies is to make people who are entering the market learn to make music with their plugins. so Slate and Waves have a big advantage to their competition with their competitive prices as robotmonkey 's post.

I don't see a big difference and shocking comment about different 1176 emulations or LA-2a emulations, because I didn't learn music with the original hardware. they are all emulating the same hardware, so all in all they are all pretty close to each other. the one u learn to use will sound better in my honest opinion.

different plugins will play a much more drastic difference than two different 1176 emulations. even with 10 years of development apart.

also a interesting comment was about ilok fees and subscription fees. In my opinion, lots of developers (and developers that used to be big ones at that) are making a huge mistake by trying to get that route. because they can't "shake" the market. they are literally self destructing themselves in my opinion.

[electro]

Does anyone else think it's weird how the VST world is still lacking high quality non-robotic MIDI to Voice VSTs ?, and yes I know vocoders can do MIDI to Voice, but i don't count them, because most vocoders make MIDI to Voice sound bad or very robotic.

Here's a video example of audio hardware doing high quality non-robotic MIDI to Voice, and it's a shame VSTs still aren't anywhere close to this MIDI to Voice quality yet.

Skip to 9 minutes & 50 seconds to hear MIDI to Voice in the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO2UfDZ2vJk&t=590

That and bowed PM strings are the last two frontiers.

[CinningBao]

Don't forget PM brass (nothing is anywhere close to real), PM drums (although U-he's drum modelling looks very interesting) and nobody's gone anywhere near true human vocal tract modelling (xoxos' animal models are complex but genius) except Praat's offline Articulatory Synthesis. That in a VST/AU literally I wouldn't need anything else.

With regard to MIDI to Voice, Antares Harmony is the best we've got in software.. and it's _pretty good_.. and although it doesn't have all the intelligent MIDI stuff that new TC Helicon device has, if you spend time shaping the MIDI going into Harmony, I think the vocal tones are still a bit more natural than the Helicon hardware.

[electro]

Don't forget PM brass (nothing is anywhere close to real), PM drums (although U-he's drum modelling looks very interesting) and nobody's gone anywhere near true human vocal tract modelling (xoxos' animal models are complex but genius) except Praat's offline Articulatory Synthesis. That in a VST/AU literally I wouldn't need anything else.

WIVI Brass is good. The SWAM Saxes might get closer.