Which developers are a safe bet for longevity.

[adammonroe]

Hey guys, been here for over a decade now. Plan to stick around for a few decades more, even if all that mostly ends up being at this point is updating my plugins every year for Apple and Steinberg's changes Who knows, maybe one of the big developers will fold in that time and I can finally get some market share

[simmo75]

Which is to say you have no actual reasoning behind your stance and are unable to explain it to anyone else. Just as I suspected.

No, it means I'm on my period, and i'm not in the mood for arguing with a 70 year old man...
So I'm sending you a hug, because you come across like you need one, haha

[Michael L]

MuLab which just had a major v9 update from an extremely responsive developer.

[Jorgeelalto]

iZotope because they probably have a large market share

Ohohoh!!!

Honestly I don't know what I was thinking. Although I have to say, the NI + iZotope conglomerate is newer than that, so...

[Jorgeelalto]

iZotope because they probably have a large market share...

This didn't age well. Just got an email that Trash 2, Breaktweaker and Iris 2 have been discontinued. No longer for sale and will receive no more compatibility updates.

Indeed, although this should have been evident for a long time now. Buying Trash 2 for 10e, giving it away for free... I have to say my vision on things has changed a bit too Thank god I sold my iZotope licenses.

[rod_zero]

I prefer products that evolve into version 2 and so the developer can have an increase in income with the update to sustain the update cycle.

I couldn't care less. I'm using heaps of synths at the moment that haven't been updated in a decade or more. As long as they keep working, I'll keep using them. If they stop working, I'll find something else.

I couldn't care less about your opinions too

[BONES]

More fool you.

[rezoneight]

Which is to say you have no actual reasoning behind your stance and are unable to explain it to anyone else. Just as I suspected.

Pot meet kettle.

[BONES]

Except I always provide a full explanation as to how I arrive at an opinion. Usually multiple times in any given discussion. In this particular instance, I pointed to the fact that I have many unsupported instruments that continue to work a decade on as a good enough reason not to worry about devs dropping support for any particular product. In response, rod_zero came up with some nebulous, mostly unrelated thought about continuing to support a developer. It made no sens ein t hecontext of the discussion.

[masterhiggins]

I think most big companies who are successful manufacturers of hardware like Eventide are safe. It looks like they have a pretty streamlined process of porting their rack mount and H9 hardware algos to plugins. I haven’t analyzed their finances or anything, of course, but they seem like a well-managed company. Apple will be just fine.

[jamcat]

Safe developers: The big guys everyone on KVR loves to hate
Not so safe devs: Indies with more cult than cash
Really not safe: CompaNIes with more offices than products

[simmo75]

MuLab which just had a major v9 update from an extremely responsive developer.

I’m interested in MuLab, does it support MPE?

[machinesworking]

Safe developers: The big guys everyone on KVR loves to hate

If you mean IK and Waves, I would agree, hardly any of their products haven't been updated for modern OS"s, and the rest will be, even if their upgrade plans are both the weirdest in the business.

Not so safe devs: Indies with more cult than cash

Hmm? this not so much. U-He are super cult and they aren't going anywhere and do a pretty good job of staying current, nothing has been deprecated anyway. Fabfilter and DMG Audio are both cult as well, and are super reliable.

Really not safe: CompaNIes with more offices than products

IMO anything with a parent company or investment firm attached to it isn't going to be super reliable, except the 'flagship' products, for example, NI only for Kontakt, Maschine and Reaktor; iZotope only for Ozone and RX, and inMusic only with Akai products.

[ROTMetro]

iZotope showed they don't even care about Ozone when they dropped the standalone the way they did.

It takes a lot of my time and energy to get where a tool is a natural extension of my creativity. Musician focused companies get that. Boutique labor of love companies are the most likely to get it but ironically the least financially positioned to deliver guaranteed long term stability.

Look at Ozone 10 Advanced. They dropped without any notification the standalone module because is was used less than the plugin. Yeah, duh. That final master process in the standalone is a smaller portion of everyone's overall music making process. Even if every Ozone owner used the standalone, the metric they used is going to say it's less used. That doesn't make it less important (and a musician focused company would know that). A company that understands how people use their tools would understand that less usage does not mean of less value or need. A hedge fund with 'squeeze every drop' consultants just looked at data only for $$$ savings and cut part of what made Ozone 'Advanced' advanced. Going forward Ozone is not a serious product for Advanced users, only for those users that accept a product with the minimum commonly used features. Side note, normally in the software world a company that does not have the resources to maintain existing features in their core product anymore is a zombie company. It's dead and just don't know it yet.

If I commit my time and energy to learn how to use a reverb, how to get it to make things sit how I want, I expect to be able to use that knowledge for more than a few years, and don't want to 'hope' every time an update gets pushed for my OS, my DAW, etc that it still works. Hope when I open my project it opens. I have enough other things in my life I'm reduced to hoping don't fall apart on me, I don't need my music escape to cause unnecessary duress in my life. My hobby isn't learning reverbs, or tweaking OSs, or maintaining backwards compatibility. My hobby is making music (sorry, I lied, making noise pretending to be music). Music producing focused companies understand this. Hedge funds/VCs don't GAF, they are just trying to squeeze all they can out of zombie companies before the body starts to stink.

[audiojunkie]

I’m only partway through reading this thread, so if it has been mentioned ahead, I apologize. But one thing that I haven’t seen mentioned (thus far) is the copy protection aspect. Any developer who supports serial or keyfile copy protection is a sure bet over any challenge response or other type of protection. As long as the OS APIs, ABIs, and libraries don’t change (or remain backwards compatible, your synth plugins may never stop working—even if the company goes under. That’s longevity!

Favorite companies that I trust products from:

Uhe
TAL

Edit: Ah, I see it mentioned on page 2.

Edit2: Whoops! I didn’t realize that this is a reanimated zombie necro thread. Apologies!