Is the Virtual Instrument era over?

[Sinisterbr]

I don't understand why people are having such a strong opinion about this topic.
First of all, that's a rethoric question: Of course people won't stop using VI overnight.
Second, he does have a point, IMO. Things in this market are indeed slowing down. The amount of news and softsynth releases are decreasing year over year.
We can debate about the reasons, but this looks very clear to me.

there are always news synth & effects plugins being released. and slowing down (ie, something like dune not updating every 4 months) does not mean anything is over.

it's like computers; not every update can be revolutionary. a lot of synths have reached a peak, and next up, we'll see smaller improvements & enhancements.

anyway, without actual numbers (which no one here has), it's all just... discussion. and nothing wrong with discussion.

Sure, I agree. Also, we can clearly see around here how a lot of people (myself included) feel they're pretty much covered, softsynth wise, these days.
It's not over (again, that was a rethoric question), but this market is really saturated and slowed down these days.
So, yes, I'd say maybe we're past its peak.

[Rastkovic]

- DAW-less production has become a big trend

On YouTube?!

Trends come and go....

- Modular rack synths continue to be popular

Yes, same with VCV Rack and Voltage Modular.

Hardware modular is currently in big trouble, due to material shortages and rising production costs. WMD Devices and Hexinverter already closed their doors and I'm afraid they won't be the last....

[BoogerSnot]

Over? No. Slowing? Yes.

Where I think there's room for growth is, fairly simple: How can a synth give me sounds quick and easy?

My favorite 2 synths right now are Dune... With it's "Genetics" feature (basically random merging of patches, for those unaware).... And also my dirty little secret: FLEX in FL Studio, which some may say is just a bunch of patches, except the macro controls mix things up enough to give it some depth and interest.

So those two things: quality, and ease of use while not sacrificing depth.

Though yes, that probably won't amount to much growth.

[pierb]

Virtual instruments dominate music production and there have been lots of new projects being released lately. For example Vital, PhasePlant, and Opal to name a few.

There are upcoming new projects and updates in the pipeline. From the top of my head: Major by GPUAudio, Zebra 3 (a full rewrite of Zebra), Avenger 2, big Rapid update, etc.

Some people are getting into DAW-less production but that's really a minority. Honestly, I'd be surprised if these users comprised more than 1% of the whole music production ecosystem. Youtube is not a good representation of the real world.

[fisherKing]

I don't understand why people are having such a strong opinion about this topic.
First of all, that's a rethoric question: Of course people won't stop using VI overnight.
Second, he does have a point, IMO. Things in this market are indeed slowing down. The amount of news and softsynth releases are decreasing year over year.
We can debate about the reasons, but this looks very clear to me.

there are always news synth & effects plugins being released. and slowing down (ie, something like dune not updating every 4 months) does not mean anything is over.

it's like computers; not every update can be revolutionary. a lot of synths have reached a peak, and next up, we'll see smaller improvements & enhancements.

anyway, without actual numbers (which no one here has), it's all just... discussion. and nothing wrong with discussion.

Sure, I agree. Also, we can clearly see around here how a lot of people (myself included) feel they're pretty much covered, softsynth wise, these days.
It's not over (again, that was a rethoric question), but this market is really saturated and slowed down these days.
So, yes, I'd say maybe we're past its peak.

i don't think we're 'past it's peak' at all, just that some things (like oscillators and envelopes) don't have much further to go. but (as vata44 points out), AI will bring new tools and sounds to the table, and people, being the inventive MFs they are, will devise new tools as well. and music will continue to evolve, devolve, grow, change, not change... just as we'll continue to discuss it all... and argue

[ramseysounds]

I’ve been giving this some serious thought and after racking my brains and doing research (wikipedia and youtube), my conclusion is: I really don’t care.

[vurt]

I don't understand why people are having such a strong opinion about this topic.
First of all, that's a rethoric question: Of course people won't stop using VI overnight.
Second, he does have a point, IMO. Things in this market are indeed slowing down. The amount of news and softsynth releases are decreasing year over year.
We can debate about the reasons, but this looks very clear to me.

there are always news synth & effects plugins being released. and slowing down (ie, something like dune not updating every 4 months) does not mean anything is over.

it's like computers; not every update can be revolutionary. a lot of synths have reached a peak, and next up, we'll see smaller improvements & enhancements.

anyway, without actual numbers (which no one here has), it's all just... discussion. and nothing wrong with discussion.

Sure, I agree. Also, we can clearly see around here how a lot of people (myself included) feel they're pretty much covered, softsynth wise, these days.
It's not over (again, that was a rethoric question), but this market is really saturated and slowed down these days.
So, yes, I'd say maybe we're past its peak.

depends how you define "peak"
if you mean, the days when virtually every other day, someone was releasing something, mostly built in synth edit, which is ok of course, except a lot of those folk, didn't really have the skills to go beyond a very simple synth.
meaning while there were more synths being released, many of them weren't so great.

or if you define it as, better modeling of the analogue components for emulations or on the purely digital side, faster machines and code that utilises the new faster machines.

or even possibly in the future, when we could finally transmit thoughts to computers and inject music straight in to our brains

we all have different ideas of the peak of this mountain

im sure there are other possibles too.

[mothra]

Plus it's much easier to hide a plugin purchase from the missus than another 61 key space invader or so I heard

REAL facts right here!

[tony10000]

I would love to hear what developers think about this topic. How many would want to spend months or years developing a new virtual instrument in the current market? I think that Markus of Tone 2 said that Icarus would be his last (although he did create Warlock from Firebird code). Nothing new from Rob Papen in quite a while. Hive was the last one from Urs and that was how many years ago? I could go on and on.

Certainly, there are some companies still putting out new instruments, but they don't seem to be getting much traction. For example, Hyperion and F'em by Traktion.

Take a look at KVRs own new plugins listing. How many new virtual instruments do you see?

https://www.kvraudio.com/plugins/the-newest-plugins

[Shabdahbriah]

I don't understand why people are having such a strong opinion about this topic.
First of all, that's a rethoric question: Of course people won't stop using VI overnight.
Second, he does have a point, IMO. Things in this market are indeed slowing down. The amount of news and softsynth releases are decreasing year over year.
We can debate about the reasons, but this looks very clear to me.

there are always news synth & effects plugins being released. and slowing down (ie, something like dune not updating every 4 months) does not mean anything is over.

it's like computers; not every update can be revolutionary. a lot of synths have reached a peak, and next up, we'll see smaller improvements & enhancements.

anyway, without actual numbers (which no one here has), it's all just... discussion. and nothing wrong with discussion.

Sure, I agree. Also, we can clearly see around here how a lot of people (myself included) feel they're pretty much covered, softsynth wise, these days.
It's not over (again, that was a rethoric question), but this market is really saturated and slowed down these days.
So, yes, I'd say maybe we're past its peak.

depends how you define "peak"
if you mean, the days when virtually every other day, someone was releasing something, mostly built in synth edit, which is ok of course, except a lot of those folk, didn't really have the skills to go beyond a very simple synth.
meaning while there were more synths being released, many of them weren't so great.

or if you define it as, better modeling of the analogue components for emulations or on the purely digital side, faster machines and code that utilises the new faster machines.

or even possibly in the future, when we could finally transmit thoughts to computers and inject music straight in to our brains

we all have different ideas of the peak of this mountain

im sure there are other possibles too.

Yeah, no doubt it 'peaked' for some people, with "Dub Turbo".

[seangm]

the dawless trend...

as kvr loves a transport analogy...

some folk still ride horses too, i guess cars days are numbered?

Places like Sweetwater and Perfect Circuit are sure selling a lot of "horses", aren't they? LOL!

The days of virtual horses are over, hardware horses will be making a comeback.

[jamcat]

Unfortunately most are wrapping VST2 products or aren't implementing many of the supposed advantages of VST3.

And you have firsthand knowledge of this how?
Name these VST2 wrapped as VST3 plugins.

[MetroSonus]

Probably the biggest issue is the technological changes though. The mobile phone has replaced the need for a computer for a lot of people, and it's expensive to create a gaming PC better than the latest console. That's definitely having an impact. There's a generation who don't interact with computers in the same way as the generation, who grew up with a C64 etc, might. It's seen more like an office tool again. IMO This is a part of what's driving the DAW-less trend, and hardware instrument sales. People still want to make music, they're just not necessarily keen or comfortable going the computer route to do it, and there's been a near total market failure in terms of the integration of software with tactile hardware control.

I disagree on the dawless bit. A PC capable of running a daw, that comes included with a basic controller purchase is well below a gaming PC in both costs and specs.

Also kids are very PC literate. They're very active on sites like twitch and discord.

I think the dawless thing is being pushed by contrarianism and Instagram.

20 years ago, childless hipsters were showing up their child rearing counterparts by going minimal and spending their disposable income on a Mac book and monome; both of which were quite cost prohibitive at the time and especially for young professionals starting out in both careers and families. So those of us with kids, were stuck with our outboard gear, older PCs and what not.

20 years later? It's cheaper than ever to make music on a pc. So what do they do? Flip the script and go... Dawless.

All that elektron and teenaged engineering gear sure looks good in 60 second loops on Instagram doesn't it? It should, as much as they paid for it.

And actually compose music? Naw... You can flood Instagram with dozens of "jams" a day in the time it would take you to even set up a project template in a daw.

Music software and gear arent dead, the forums are because the average music hobbyist isn't an intellectual, auto didactic on a journey into their own imagination any more.

Now, they're either young preset users making "beats" with mostly vsts and fl studio or middle aged men doing the equivalent of buying an expensive sports car, never driving it anywhere except to a car show and then wiping it down all day with a rag with all of their dawless jams.

[pierb]

Hive was the last one from Urs and that was how many years ago?

Hive 2 wasn't that far ago. And 2.1 added a lot of stuff for the Matrix movie recently.

And U-He has been working on other products too. MFM, Uhbik, and Zebra 3.

And don't forget in the last couple of years developers have been forced to update their products to run on ARM chips (thank you Apple).

[rod_zero]

I do think there is market saturation, the sales are also constant and very aggressive. For sure there is always new people taking up production/engineer as a profession or hobby, but since most software is not "discontinued" unlike HW the new stuff has to compete with tons of stuff released in the last 10 years.

Also, it seems now very hard to release something that catches the eye of many, stuff like falcon is so complex and many synths have a lot of features that there is little left to improve. Analog emulation has improved much less in the last 10 years than the 10 years previous to those. There seems to be diminishing returns on investment vs quality now for software developments.

And I see a lot of people who have been long in the game of music software kind of jaded, no attention span for new stuff. Also many seem to have some favorite companies which they follow.

IMHo the niche that has been explored less is improving the GUI of synths, synthplant and some of the sugarbytes offerings are alone, but also doesn't seem to be an area where users have a lot of interest.

I still think HW is no competition, it is complementary.