Is the Virtual Instrument era over?

[tony10000]

Just so we are clear, there are other alternatives to VI plugins that don't involve using hardware only:

- Production on mobile devices like the iPad and iPhone.
- Using the DAW instruments only. A lot of people are already doing this with Ableton, FL Studio, and especially Bitwig.
- Producing with sampled instruments in Kontakt. A lot of people are already doing this.
- Producing with samples and loops.

[Sinisterbr]

This thread's era is over

I still don't understand why you all keep bashing this thread. It's a very interesting subject, and some acclaimed developers even gave their POV about it (that alone made this thread worth it, IMO). Markus even agreed to a point about the saturated market argument, and Urs shed some light about what has been happening in this market, and to where it might be heading.
This is far from an useless thread, as some keep insinuating. Well, at least for me.

[tony10000]

This thread's era is over

I still don't understand why you all keep bashing this thread. It's a very interesting subject, and some acclaimed developers even gave their POV about it (that alone made this thread worth it, IMO). Markus even agreed to a point about the saturated market argument, and Urs shed some light about what has been happening in this market, and to where it might be heading.
This is far from an useless thread, as some keep insinuating. Well, at least for me.

I agree...the same people always attempt to quash any interesting discussion on KVR.

[Uncle E]

Just so we are clear, there are other alternatives to VI plugins that don't involve using hardware only:

- Production on mobile devices like the iPad and iPhone.
- Using the DAW instruments only. A lot of people are already doing this with Ableton, FL Studio, and especially Bitwig.
- Producing with sampled instruments in Kontakt. A lot of people are already doing this.
- Producing with samples and loops.

Lots of great electronic music has been made with nothing more than a sampler. Personally, most of my favorite sounding ones were a sampler and either a Virus or some simple analogs.

[noiseboyuk]

We don’t NEED any new VIs, that’s for sure.

I’ve been listening to a lot of interviews with 80s synth pioneers and icons. We have access to infinitely more than they ever did. Yet most people here seem to be in eternal search of the The One, complaining to developers that you can’t modulate the thrumbaxtor with the blingalizor, saying that the very popular MegaSynth is overpriced or the aliasing that only you can hear means it’s worthless crap anyway, or fixate on some esoteric niche-of-a-retro-synth that hasn’t - they swear - ever been done.

All displacement activities.

I heard a great interview today with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis (on Martyn Ware’s Electronically Yours podcast if you’re interested). They said that there are 100,000 new songs released on Spotify… not every year, not every month, not even every week. EVERY DAY. Every frickin’ day. Just wrap your head around that for a moment.

That, right there is the real problem for artists today. We can make any sound we want, pretty much. If you can’t make something sound good, the problem is you - even the freebies these days are phenomenal. There are YouTube tutorials from bone fide geniuses telling you all their secrets. Or don’t watch any of them and find your own way - even better. Write better songs. Just don’t spend your life complaining that there is no VI out there that is quite right for you, or that innovation has stopped, all of which crushes your art.

Finding a way to break through all that noise though - that’s a real challenge, and worth griping about.

[syntonica]

Gah... click-bait thread title!

The market is changing, as markets do. There are plenty of upstart VI makers out there, popping up, as some of the older ones board up their doors and windows.

Regarding available VIs, they range from the basic 1-osc synth to behemoth 16+ channel, multi-osc extravaganzas. Something for everybody, replete with race-to-the-bottom pricing.

If anything, the biggest disruption will come from the Surges and Odins, open source, freeware noisemakers that will only improve and be expanded upon as time goes by. Hopefully, CLAP will be in the forward guard of this advance, a single, simple and complete format that can be easily wrapped to pretend it's VST, AU, AAX or whatever other proprietary (or unloved) format is out there.

[tony10000]

Just so we are clear, there are other alternatives to VI plugins that don't involve using hardware only:

- Production on mobile devices like the iPad and iPhone.
- Using the DAW instruments only. A lot of people are already doing this with Ableton, FL Studio, and especially Bitwig.
- Producing with sampled instruments in Kontakt. A lot of people are already doing this.
- Producing with samples and loops.

Lots of great electronic music has been made with nothing more than a sampler. Personally, most of my favorite sounding ones were a sampler and either a Virus or some simple analogs.

Very true...there are a lot of wonderful Kontakt libraries and Decent Sampler has a growing following, Piano Book is becoming popular, and so is Arcade from Output. Native Instruments has been focusing on samples over synths for quite a while now. One of my current favorites is Plug In Guru's Unify...not only is it a host for plug ins, it has integrated instruments and a great sample player that allows you to use Plug In Guru's sample libraries, plus you can create your own samples.

[Robmobius]

I agree...the same people always attempt to quash any interesting discussion on KVR.

I think you screwed it yourself by presenting 'the facts'.

[_leras]

Very true...there are a lot of wonderful Kontakt libraries and Decent Sampler has a growing following, Piano Book is becoming popular, and so is Arcade from Output. Native Instruments has been focusing on samples over synths for quite a while now.

Pretty sure that wasn't what he meant...

Think dj shadow, the avalanches, j dilla, susuma yakota, daft punk.

[seangm]

del

[vurt]

This thread's era is over

I still don't understand why you all keep bashing this thread. It's a very interesting subject, and some acclaimed developers even gave their POV about it (that alone made this thread worth it, IMO). Markus even agreed to a point about the saturated market argument, and Urs shed some light about what has been happening in this market, and to where it might be heading.
This is far from an useless thread, as some keep insinuating. Well, at least for me.

im not bashing the thread, im bashing the notion that the era of plug ins is over.
as above, i agree things are changing in the market, but things do. and i also agree that the current economic climate will maybe mean we lose some companies/developers, but a couple of hair dressers near my house have too, but i think hairdressers in general will survive.

[FrogsInPants]

im not bashing the thread, im bashing the notion that the era of plug ins is over.
as above, i agree things are changing in the market, but things do. and i also agree that the current economic climate will maybe mean we lose some companies/developers, but a couple of hair dressers near my house have too, but i think hairdressers in general will survive.

Don't you know times are hard economically, and the market is saturated? Hairdressers in general may survive, but the era of hairdressers is over.

[kevvvvv]

Forget hardware, even forget 50% of current vsts and daws.

For me the whole notion of going forward is AI.

My physical guitar & keyboard playing skills have all gone to crap as, apart from hands-on melody and chord making (god forbid I'd ever really play an arp note by note)

- the machine edits are where I find expression

- and AI is steering everything that way to make the editing smoother and more intuitive

- to get that refined expression, in ways my hardware keys and guitars couldn't imagine or emulate.

God bless all those great instrument-playing moments I've had

- but it's time to move on and discover something really new in the world of music, which is AI.

I think the reason many manufacturers are slow with AI as they don't properly get it

- and their existing investment in old tech holds them back.

All their press statements conceal a deeply embedded hierarchical, synth-derived thinking processes behind the reassuring gloss and spin

- with more interest in using AI to improve ad returns or analyse user surveys, than genuinely brainstorming how music-making processes could be.

It took Fender 50 years to add an extra string to a guitar!

Big devs are failing in the leadership department. But I don't mean to be critical. They're just trying to cope in a fast-changing world, keep their jobs, they've got lives too.

All the same, AI seems like a big hurdle for a new dev to break into?

Is this true? Is AI impossible for the visionary little guy?

Genuine question for the team here.

[resynthesis]

IMO AI / ML has never been easier and more accessible due to things like Colab.

[polarsky]

seems like there has been a new granular synth dropping every month, think it may have stretched the market