Is the Virtual Instrument era over?

[tony10000]

It is interesting to see that plugin versions are not available for many of the newer hardware synths that are primarily software driven. Examples, Waldorf, Modal, ASM, etc.

Why should that be the case? What is regarded feature-rich on HW would be regarded feature-poor in SW. Take ASM for example. One of the deepest HW-synths available is easily exceeded by Serum, MassiveX, Ana2 and supersynths like Zebra, MSF, Pigments, Phase Plant, Falcon mop the floor with all of the HW pendants.

While that may be true, people who have virtual instruments galore, buy them and use them--and even prefer them! Some have told me it is the tactile thing...they like turning knobs and pushing buttons. Others have said it is because they have resale value and you can sell them easily and buy something else. That is not something that is easy to do with many plugins unless there is a lot of demand for what you are selling and the dev allows transfers.

[Tj Shredder]

I always thought the hands on pots and controls are more important than the last 0.1% authenticity. If you can’t make a soft synth sound fat, you can’t do ot with an analog either…
The tactile experience is crucial, it can be achieved with controllers. But you need to set it up yourself, and build your personal instrument out of a bunch of options… Sometimes these unlimited choices lead to a brain overload - then a simple hardware synth can be a relief…
Or you simply also like to play with Lego, then a hardware modular is heaven…

[vurt]

Or you simply also like to play with Lego, then a hardware modular is heaven…

[Sinisterbr]

Well, that is good news! However, I think it is interesting to note that Markus' comment below does not paint as rosy a picture of the market. It would be interesting to hear from more devs.

My opinion is that currently we see a backslap from the previous "gold rush". Even before the pandemic, some companies got boosted with stupid amounts of venture capital, often for something that's IMHO not viable (like, the subscription fad). So now these companies shrink back or consolidate in other forms. So yeah, there's vacuum as result of greed and fast money, reflected by fewer releases and stagnation of very visible brands.

However, the way I see it, companies like Tone2 or us who refused to play those silly games will simply continue, and if the market declines, we have that vacuum to fill as a buffer. If I wasn't under NDA I could give an astonishing example of how those imploding companies gasp for air and literally offer us to fill the void they left.

Hi Urs, those are very interesting insights, thank you.
Would you mind elaborating why do you see the subscription model as ill-fated? I mean, there are certain companies that seem to be doing great (Slate, Plugin Alliance, Waves). Or are you refering to synth-centered developers only?

[Teksonik]

Perhaps, or perhaps not. VI synth prices will also increase. Time will tell.

Hopefully, companies can hold on long enough to make them. If you read the devs forums, they are having a tough time just doing maintenance upgrades (example: Apple Silicon).

That is you...you are not everyone. Elecktron, Akai, Polyend, and others seem to be successful by promoting that workflow.

“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows…” Bob Dylan

Key words there are "perhaps", "perhaps not" and "seem to be". That is what's called speculation which is all you have in this case.

Again I am aware of several software projects that are in the works or planing stage and some near release so from where I stand the Virtual Instrument Era is not over simply based on the factual information I have at hand. Is development slowing down? Yes if compared to years past but that doesn't mean it's "over".

Like I said I would never go DAW-less again and yes that's just me but you're basing your assertion that significant numbers of people are going DAW-less on a link to a handful of YouTube videos.

Did Apple M1 support cause extra work for software developers both large and small? Absolutely but then Apple has always been a speed bump to the overall pace of development and most developers have survived and perhaps thrived due to sales to Mac users. We don't have the sales figures so there is no way for us to know for sure.

Whether or not hardware companies are succeeding as well is irrelevant. Both hardware and software developers can succeed at the same time. It's not an either or proposition.

Will some developers both hardware and software go out of business if the global economy gets as bad as some predict? If it does then that's a real possibility but again....speculation based on incomplete information.

As for the "wind blowing'. How do you know which way it's blowing? You have factual information. It's blowing from the West because you can feel it, you have sensory input. That's data. You have no data to back up the assertion that the VI era is over. Period.

Provide us with all the sales figures from every company in the software industry. Obviously no one can do that so you're left with nothing but speculation.

[tony10000]

Perhaps, or perhaps not. VI synth prices will also increase. Time will tell.

Hopefully, companies can hold on long enough to make them. If you read the devs forums, they are having a tough time just doing maintenance upgrades (example: Apple Silicon).

That is you...you are not everyone. Elecktron, Akai, Polyend, and others seem to be successful by promoting that workflow.

“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows…” Bob Dylan

Key words there are "perhaps", "perhaps not" and "seem to be". That is what's called speculation which is all you have in this case.

Again I am aware of several software projects that are in the works or planing stage and some near release so from where I stand the Virtual Instrument Era is not over simply based on the factual information I have at hand. Is development slowing down? Yes if compared to years past but that doesn't mean it's "over".

Like I said I would never go DAW-less again and yes that's just me but you're basing your assertion that significant numbers of people are going DAW-less on a link to a handful of YouTube videos.

Did Apple M1 support cause extra work for software developers both large and small? Absolutely but then Apple has always been a speed bump to the overall pace of development and most developers have survived and perhaps thrived due to sales to Mac users. We don't have the sales figures so there is no way for us to know for sure.

Whether or not hardware companies are succeeding as well is irrelevant. Both hardware and software developers can succeed at the same time. It's not an either or proposition.

Will some developers both hardware and software go out of business if the global economy gets as bad as some predict? If it does then that's a real possibility but again....speculation based on incomplete information.

As for the "wind blowing'. How do you know which way it's blowing? You have factual information. It's blowing from the West because you can feel it, you have sensory input. That's data. You have no data to back up the assertion that the VI era is over. Period.

Provide us with all the sales figures from every company in the software industry. Obviously no one can do that so you're left with nothing but speculation.

That is why it was posited as a question. If I had all of the answers, there would be no need for a question, would there? This is a topic for discussion and interaction, and most of the responses have been helpful.

[pdxindy]

If I've missed the point somewhere, then please tell me why a £2,000 synth is better than a vst?

Whenever I see a band with someone playing keyboard, it is almost always a hardware synth.

[Teksonik]

That is why it was posited as a question. If I had all of the answers, there would be no need for a question, would it? This is a topic for discussion and interaction, and most of the responses have been helpful.

No, your original post is:

FACTS:

- Very few new synths are being regularly introduced (except for Cherry Audio)
- VST2 has been killed off and VST3 only adoption is glacial
- CLAP looks promising but universal support is up in the air
- Flagship synth major updates have slowed to a crawl
- There has been a huge resurgence in the sale of hardware synths
- DAW-less production has become a big trend
- Modular rack synths continue to be popular
- The VI market has reached saturation and is not growing
- Economic turmoil means less discretionary spending
- Interest rates are going to slow credit card purchases

Your thoughts?

Notice your use and capitalization of the word FACTS. Those are not facts, those are simply your speculations based on incomplete and quite possibly incorrect information.

This is a topic for discussion and interaction

To what purpose, to what end? What do you expect to gain from the discussion of a topic that can only be speculation?

If you sought attention you've succeeded. If you sought an actually useful outcome you have failed since none is possible.

If you're just bored then go make music which is what I plan to do right now........

[SamDi]

It is interesting to see that plugin versions are not available for many of the newer hardware synths that are primarily software driven. Examples, Waldorf, Modal, ASM, etc.

Why should that be the case? What is regarded feature-rich on HW would be regarded feature-poor in SW. Take ASM for example. One of the deepest HW-synths available is easily exceeded by Serum, MassiveX, Ana2 and supersynths like Zebra, MSF, Pigments, Phase Plant, Falcon mop the floor with all of the HW pendants.

While that may be true, people who have virtual instruments galore, buy them and use them--and even prefer them! Some have told me it is the tactile thing...they like turning knobs and pushing buttons. Others have said it is because they have resale value and you can sell them easily and buy something else. That is not something that is easy to do with many plugins unless there is a lot of demand for what you are selling and the dev allows transfers.

My answer was rather dedicated to your question, why HW-synths, especially the digital ones are not that often copied by SW. And my anser was like - because they are not worth it.

Generally I think, that your conclusions that the SW-synth era is over is also not true.

I think, you mix-up some small group of Youtube-influencers and nerdy-niche-users over-represented in forums, with the big majority of hobby bedroom-, semi-professionsal and profressional producers on the other side.

I's like LPs had some revivals and then to claim digital storation of music data era is over.

The advantages of SW-synths are pretty obvious: cheaper, more features, better integration in production process, no maintenance, etc. etc.

The pretended advantages of HW:
1.) Better sound: this is just not true for digital implemented HW-synths in HW and why should it be, at the end it's all SW then. For analog synths, I think it's pretty relative. I doubt, that there is really a big difference between an analog HW-synth and some good emulation. But even, if there would be, there are barely music styles (beside some ambient and crazy minimal music stuff), where this better sound, would make any difference. According to my personal experience it's even more difficult to integrate a full fat analog sounding synth in a mix, than a pristine, crystal clear one. At the end, I see no really big advantage there.
2.) Better accessibility: it depends - one the one side, there are HW-synths, which offer knobs for each (main-)parameter. On the other side, some fewer prominent parameters are hidden in (sub-)menus. With modern DAWs(Bitwig), I can map 8 parameters of a SW-synth to one remote controler page. If this isn't enough, I can define more mappings on a further page and then scroll the pages. If you play the game further, I can easily access many paramters of many synths, just with one MIDI-controler. So for accessing many main paramters, some HW synths may be better. For accessing easily all paramters, the mapping via MIDI controler is the better option. What is true and I made this experience just some days ago: there are border cases, where the low resolution of MIDI and some delay of transmission does make it feel less accessible as directly having the knobs on the sound source. So we need to wait on MIDI 2 or OSC implementation on HW-controlers.
3.) Value stabilty: I think this also perceived wrong. Most SW-synths don't even cost, what HW-synth do loose on value over time. You should regard the total costs of ownership rather: regard the money, you need to pay for ordering a HW-synth (including shipping costs), then the eventual maintenancs costs, and the costs (not to start talking about effort) to sell it again, and compare it to a SW synth. I don't see any advantage for HW there.

Summarized, I think that many people just mix-up some romantic nostalgia feelings and mix-it-up with reality. Even if the SW-plugin market has some consolidation, this is the technology of now and the future. Where maybe is some room to improve is accessibility in terms of resolution and delay. But from an objective perspective HW has mostly disadvantages over SW.

I do not say, that HW is not neccessary anymore, it might be a good source of inspiration and there are some niches, where it still makes sense.
But for the bigger amount of production environments it's just some sort of anachronism.

[tony10000]

That is why it was posited as a question. If I had all of the answers, there would be no need for a question, would it? This is a topic for discussion and interaction, and most of the responses have been helpful.

No, your original post is:

FACTS:

- Very few new synths are being regularly introduced (except for Cherry Audio)
- VST2 has been killed off and VST3 only adoption is glacial
- CLAP looks promising but universal support is up in the air
- Flagship synth major updates have slowed to a crawl
- There has been a huge resurgence in the sale of hardware synths
- DAW-less production has become a big trend
- Modular rack synths continue to be popular
- The VI market has reached saturation and is not growing
- Economic turmoil means less discretionary spending
- Interest rates are going to slow credit card purchases

Your thoughts?

Notice your use and capitalization of the word FACTS. Those are not facts, those are simply your speculations based on incomplete and quite possibly incorrect information.

This is a topic for discussion and interaction

To what purpose, to what end? What do you expect to gain from the discussion of a topic that can only be speculation?

If you sought attention you've succeeded. If you sought an actually useful outcome you have failed since none is possible.

If you're just bored then go make music which is what I plan to do right now........

Feel better now? Good...

[vurt]

i remember articles, about nirvana and nevermind, finally killing off the electronic music fad.

but then djs replaced guitarists.
and so on...

[SamDi]

If I've missed the point somewhere, then please tell me why a £2,000 synth is better than a vst?

Whenever I see a band with someone playing keyboard, it is almost always a hardware synth.

Really? Whenever, I see a band with someone playing keyboard, it are almost always peaces like stage pianos or workstations. Of course, these have some synths under the hood, but the main function is not to act as a synth, but to be a performance instrument. I doubt, that the songs played there, are also recorded with these instruments. Furthermore there are relatively seldom pure synths, as Moogs, Sequential Circuits, Oberheim on stage.

But of course you can proove me wrong, maybe I have just another attention area.

[pdxindy]

If I've missed the point somewhere, then please tell me why a £2,000 synth is better than a vst?

Whenever I see a band with someone playing keyboard, it is almost always a hardware synth.

Really? Whenever, I see a band with someone playing keyboard, it are almost always peaces like stage pianos or workstations.

I was including those under the general term "hardware synth"... the point being people are buying hardware when they could make the same sounds in software.

And yes, I have seen plenty of Sequential, Moog, etc. synths in stage.

[Urs]

Hi Urs, those are very interesting insights, thank you.
Would you mind elaborating why do you see the subscription model as ill-fated? I mean, there are certain companies that seem to be doing great (Slate, Plugin Alliance, Waves). Or are you refering to synth-centered developers only?

This is a huge discussion that I do not have the time and energy for.

I guess though, synth companies usually have fewer products than effects companies. Subscriptions work best with big portfolios. Thus, effects companies with large portfolios are more likely to go subscription than synth companies with fewer products.

[vurt]

If I've missed the point somewhere, then please tell me why a £2,000 synth is better than a vst?

Whenever I see a band with someone playing keyboard, it is almost always a hardware synth.

Really? Whenever, I see a band with someone playing keyboard, it are almost always peaces like stage pianos or workstations. Of course, these have some synths under the hood, but the main function is not to act as a synth, but to be a performance instrument. I doubt, that the songs played there, are also recorded with these instruments. Furthermore there are relatively seldom pure synths, as Moogs, Sequential Circuits, Oberheim on stage.

But of course you can proove me wrong, maybe I have just another attention area.

yeah, it really depends what kind of music i guess.
if it's a more vocal pop group for example, where synths play a minor supporting role, you're going to most likely see workstation
if it's an instrumental band where the synths are the stars, chances are while you may get a workstation to control things, there will be some very distinct character synths too, depending on the band's budget