u-he bundle worth it?

[Gosh]

Berlin Wannsee

[Ah_Dziz]

The uhe synths are totally worth having if you make synth based music. I would be confident that anybody that can program patches could have any non sample based sounds covered with only uhe synths. Everything is not for everyone though. One could produce a jillion records with Omnisphere as the only sound source. The same is true of Komplete. I have all the uhe synths and Omnisphere and Komplete so it isn't an issue for me and probably would not be for the OP if they're anything like most people and end up buying an absurd amount of plugins over the years.

If (for instance) you are just starting out and don't have many drum sounds and strange processors, Komplete would give you a huge amount of these through battery and Reaktor as well as some dope synths and a big pile of kontakt instruments (as well as the option to grab 3rd party nonplayer Kontakt instruments).

The UHe stuff is worth the money and sounds as good as anything out there. You probably want to demo it alongside what you already use to see if it works for you though.

[KBSoundSmith]

I never used either “corporate” or “greed” so I’m not sure why you’re attributing that to me in quotes.

As a developer, only you can assign a value to your products. I totally support developers in deciding how much they’re willing to license their IP for, and asserting full control over access to their IP.

Selling software is your business and livelihood. You want to make as much as you can from your work. Stating that basic fact of business is neither offensive nor anything either of us need to apologize for.

But the notion suggested here by Etienne1973 that your lack of discounts to even your loyal customers is an act of ‘loyalty’ to those customers on your part is patently ridiculous. It is actually quite the reverse. It’s because you know your loyal customers are the ones who are most willing to pay full price. So you go where the money is. I’m not faulting you for that. Your entire business model is built around establishing a loyal cult following who will pay a premium. Clearly that’s working for you and you have that core group of supporters willing to pay whatever you’re asking.

Personally, it’s way too much for me. I spend less on a whole clutch of new synths in an Arturia loyalty upgrade than a single u-he plugin costs. But I’m not your target market.

People who bought Hive were able to upgrade to version 2 for between 20 - 30 dollars, if I recall correctly. Additionally, people who bought Zebra 2 and Dark Zebra years ago are going to still receive a free update to Z3 (which current showcased progress looks amazing). U-he is hardly sticking it to their customers. These criticisms strike me as meritless.

[rod_zero]

I never used either “corporate” or “greed” so I’m not sure why you’re attributing that to me in quotes.

As a developer, only you can assign a value to your products. I totally support developers in deciding how much they’re willing to license their IP for, and asserting full control over access to their IP.

Selling software is your business and livelihood. You want to make as much as you can from your work. Stating that basic fact of business is neither offensive nor anything either of us need to apologize for.

But the notion suggested here by Etienne1973 that your lack of discounts to even your loyal customers is an act of ‘loyalty’ to those customers on your part is patently ridiculous. It is actually quite the reverse. It’s because you know your loyal customers are the ones who are most willing to pay full price. So you go where the money is. I’m not faulting you for that. Your entire business model is built around establishing a loyal cult following who will pay a premium. Clearly that’s working for you and you have that core group of supporters willing to pay whatever you’re asking.

Personally, it’s way too much for me. I spend less on a whole clutch of new synths in an Arturia loyalty upgrade than a single u-he plugin costs. But I’m not your target market.

Actually there are discounts for loyal customers, those who follow u-he development all the time: the introductory discounts. and there has also been that discount for answering a survey that was only sent to former customers.

[glokraw]

...end up buying an absurd amount of plugins over the years...

I may be guilty of such absurdity A lot of purchase decisions are linked to how one values the personal time used in creating and playing music, or producing/recording finished results. The methods and quality standards at each step in the process can vary as wildly as those making the music, without there being a right or wrong decision. Keeping music fun is a high priority here, and the ease of installation/registration of U-he products keeps them on the top portion of my purchase list, and excellent company and 3rd party expansions are abundant

[zerocrossing]

...end up buying an absurd amount of plugins over the years...

I may be guilty of such absurdity A lot of purchase decisions are linked to how one values the personal time used in creating and playing music, or producing/recording finished results. The methods and quality standards at each step in the process can vary as wildly as those making the music, without there being a right or wrong decision. Keeping music fun is a high priority here, and the ease of installation/registration of U-he products keeps them on the top portion of my purchase list, and excellent company and 3rd party expansions are abundant

This. If buying and learning a plugin is fun, then it's money well spent. If you really want to make a living doing music, you should spend as little money as possible on your tools and as much on promotion as possible, because that's what it is truly about. Buy cool tools when you're packing venues and you can pretend to have used them the whole time, like Deadmau5.

But if buying plugins and actually learning and using them seems like a chore, skip it. I personally find a lot of joy from a new juicy plugin, and U-He's up there with the most juiciest plugins and effects made today.

[Dirtgrain]

I never used either “corporate” or “greed” so I’m not sure why you’re attributing that to me in quotes.

As a developer, only you can assign a value to your products. I totally support developers in deciding how much they’re willing to license their IP for, and asserting full control over access to their IP.

Selling software is your business and livelihood. You want to make as much as you can from your work. Stating that basic fact of business is neither offensive nor anything either of us need to apologize for.

But the notion suggested here by Etienne1973 that your lack of discounts to even your loyal customers is an act of ‘loyalty’ to those customers on your part is patently ridiculous. It is actually quite the reverse. It’s because you know your loyal customers are the ones who are most willing to pay full price. So you go where the money is. I’m not faulting you for that. Your entire business model is built around establishing a loyal cult following who will pay a premium. Clearly that’s working for you and you have that core group of supporters willing to pay whatever you’re asking.

Personally, it’s way too much for me. I spend less on a whole clutch of new synths in an Arturia loyalty upgrade than a single u-he plugin costs. But I’m not your target market.

Actually there are discounts for loyal customers, those who follow u-he development all the time: the introductory discounts. and there has also been that discount for answering a survey that was only sent to former customers.

Also, they gave me their Zebra 2 presets for some reason when they changed the price on Zebra 2. I felt loved.

A few ago, I bought Hive 2 at full price. A little time after, a Native Instruments had it half off. u-he was so cool--they let me get the Repros for no charge (they gave me other options, too, but I forget).

I reiterate, a company that doesn't dump their plug-in prices is a great thing for those who sometimes sell plugins they own.

[pdxindy]

Actually there are discounts for loyal customers, those who follow u-he development all the time: the introductory discounts. and there has also been that discount for answering a survey that was only sent to former customers.

I don't think of it in terms of loyalty discounts and phrasing it that way... I think of it as benefits of 'ownership'.

U-he products don't get dropped and continue to be supported. I bought Zebra 2 about 15 years ago and it has had 3+ paid updates worth of improvements since and I have not had to pay another penny. There are very few top level synths from that time that are still around and up to date.

And after a decade and a half of Zebra 2, whenever Zebra 3 comes out, which will be a completely new synth, the upgrade cost is absurdly low... only $30.

I don't think the so called loyalty discounts get better than that.

[MrJubbly]

But the notion suggested here by Etienne1973 that your lack of discounts to even your loyal customers is an act of ‘loyalty’ to those customers on your part is patently ridiculous. It is actually quite the reverse. It’s because you know your loyal customers are the ones who are most willing to pay full price. So you go where the money is. I’m not faulting you for that. Your entire business model is built around establishing a loyal cult following who will pay a premium. Clearly that’s working for you and you have that core group of supporters willing to pay whatever you’re asking.

Personally, it’s way too much for me. I spend less on a whole clutch of new synths in an Arturia loyalty upgrade than a single u-he plugin costs. But I’m not your target market.

I don't think you'll ever convince a loyal (aka 'satisfied') u-he customer that the company should take tips from the likes of Arturia (of all other companies). Certainly not given Arturia's penchant for routinely churning out minimal "upgrades" for their 'bundle' products like V Collection, almost just for the sake of milking customers annually. "Upgrades" which all too often seem to deliver minimal benefits with diminishing returns thereof.

I used to own Arturia's V collection 8 (which I had upgraded from a previous v7) ... and imho, there were very minimal customer benefits in that "upgrade" for what Arturia actually provided. I subsequently sold that licence not long afterwards here on KVR.

I still also have (collecting dust), my now, deregistered and unused Arturia licences for V Collection v7 and Pigments plugins, which I uninstalled after being under-used. So now, both those licences just lie dormant, in preparation for a sale that I simply never got around to bothering with since Arturia products are rather devalued and not even worth that much second-hand.

In contrast, I also own (and regularly use) many of u-he products, which I am very satisfied with. I believe u-he products do deliver value for money to customers. I also appreciate u-he's efforts to continue supporting and even updating some older plugins, which many other developers would have perhaps instead abandoned, along with all the customers thereof, who had purchased those products.

I think the way u-he handled the recent Zebra 2 / Zebra Legacy was very classy. With hopefully, continued operational support for that product for a few years to come, so that there may be, for example, a CLAP version made available to existing customers at some point? ... Which should should help ensure compatibility for a good while into the future.

However, I'm also not against discounts for either stand alone products or bundles. I think you'll find that most u-he customers do already regard these products as delivering decent value for money.

I own most of u-he's products already, but I would also probably upgrade to u-he's "Everything Bundle" in an instant, if there were also options on their website which factored in, all the u-he plugins which I already own licences for, in a "custom discounted offer". At present however, there doesn't appear to be any option for such, advertised on their website. So perhaps, there could be some 'middle-ground' met, with regards to suchlike incentives also offered by u-he's marketing department on their website, to help further encourage additional sales to "loyal customers".

In short, you made some decent points, albeit I do feel that Arturia (in particular), was not the best example to use for comparison to u-he.

As for value for money, of course that is subjective to each individual's experience and opinion. However I do feel most customers would agree that u-he delivers upon that.

When it comes to companies offering product discounts (either for "customer loyalty" or otherwise "in general") or perhaps even companies altering their business models to help improve profitability/sustainability, if it helps development, then I wouldn't oppose. Perhaps a bit more leeway could be offered in this department from u-he? I am not one of those customers who feel hard done by, if another customer happens to pay less than I may have at any given time, or during any promotion deals. If I as a customer feel happy with a purchase at the point of sale and continue to enjoy using the products thereafter, then that is good enough for me.

For example, I bought Kilohearts Ultimate Bundle (back when it was under their previous business model "Toolkit Ultimate") and also paid for many of their subsequently released standalone effect snapins. I didn't care one bit when the majority of these were later included as "free plugins" as part of the Kilohearts Essentials, for new customers after Kilohearts changed their business model. So long as it helps attract more customers and help that developer continue to thrive, then I'm all for it. Any existing Kilohearts customers who maybe felt hard done by there, I feel are being rather silly. We paid for those plugins at the time, as we fully believed they were worth it, which inarguably they certainly were. However, the most important thing is that that business can continue to survive and to be profitable, so that they can continue to develop the plugins we love to use.

[carrieres]

From a marketing point of view, customers need to see a discount percent like 10%, 15% or 20% for the bundle.
Today it is 10,8% I never saw this kind of discount ! weird
I appreciate the pricing of the individual plugin; thank you Urs for your work and your business vision

[Stokely]

I certainly would use most things in the bundle, but I decided because I already had plugins that do most of it (especially the fx) that I'm happy with, I'd save some money. I use the hell out of Repro and Diva. I most recently bought Zebra 2 on sale because (at the time) that applied a future discount toward Zebra 3, but I'm also really liking what it can do even though I'm far from a good programmer on it.

As others have said though, check what your DAW brings to the table. I'm as guilty as any of just kind of assuming that DAW instruments and effects are second rate, but the reality for example is that Alchemy (in Logic Pro) used to sell for a few hundred dollars when Camel owned it, and some of the other Logic synths and effects are pretty nice.

[jamcat]

I don't think you'll ever convince a loyal (aka 'satisfied') u-he customer that the company should take tips from the likes of Arturia (of all other companies). Certainly not given Arturia's penchant for routinely churning out minimal "upgrades" for their 'bundle' products like V Collection, almost just for the sake of milking customers annually. "Upgrades" which all too often seem to deliver minimal benefits with diminishing returns thereof.

This is a misrepresentation of Arturia upgrades.
New iterations of Arturia collections feature new plugins that have been added. Upgrade pricing usually comes out to about $20 per new plugin.

Updates to existing plugins are totally free. It is never necessary to upgrade to the new collection to get the latest update of an Arturia plugin that you own.

Once in a while, Arturia will introduce a new version of an older model that is rebuilt from the ground up. This is not merely an update, but rather a completely new plugin. Owners of the old plugin will either get it for free, or at a discount.

[MrJubbly]

I don't think you'll ever convince a loyal (aka 'satisfied') u-he customer that the company should take tips from the likes of Arturia (of all other companies). Certainly not given Arturia's penchant for routinely churning out minimal "upgrades" for their 'bundle' products like V Collection, almost just for the sake of milking customers annually. "Upgrades" which all too often seem to deliver minimal benefits with diminishing returns thereof.

This is a misrepresentation of Arturia upgrades.
New iterations of Arturia collections feature new plugins that have been added. Upgrade pricing usually comes out to about $20 per new plugin.

Updates to existing plugins are totally free. It is never necessary to upgrade to the new collection to get the latest update of an Arturia plugin that you own.

Once in a while, Arturia will introduce a new version of an older model that is rebuilt from the ground up. This is not merely an update, but rather a completely new plugin. Owners of the old plugin will either get it for free, or at a discount.

It's not a misrepresentation, it's my personal opinion based upon my experience as an ex-Arturia customer.

Pigments updates have been free, but I specifically referred to their flagship V Collection bundle, which Arturia release/churn a so-called 'major update' to almost each year or so. As such, I don't regard those "updates" as even warranting a whole 'major update' release. Especially, since the majority of the included plugins in said V Collection do not receive much, if any substantial updates between one release and the next. Barely a superficial "face lift" on many plugins therein. Most Arturia "major releases" would be "minor releases" or at best a "x.5" update from most other developers.

Hence, I view many such updates more of an exercise in "milking" their customers for minimal returns. And the V-Collection update "discount prices" for existing customers to upgrade their now 'depreciated versions' are not in my personal opinion anywhere near "value for money" for what Arturia actually deliver.

Therefore, if it's a choice between Arturia's business model versus u-he's philosophy, then I'm with u-he all day, every day of the week and twice on Sundays!

Not to mention the fact that, u-he's products are simply far superior to Arturia's anyway. So, it's a win-win-win for the u-he's customers.

[pdxindy]

Therefore, if it's a choice between Arturia's business model versus u-he's philosophy, then I'm with u-he all day, every day of the week and twice on Sundays!

I don't like how companies like NI and Arturia so favor their large bundles. Yes, the dollars per plugin ends up being inexpensive, but there are enough plugins that the total annual cost ends up substantial.

That said, I think Arturia is doing a good job I don't have a criticism as such. It is just that I also prefer the u-he approach.

Also, for me, the V Collection has too many synths. I like keeping my plugins to a relatively small number. U-he is not constantly adding new synths and FX and they focus more on developing what is there. That suits me well.

[jocknaethick]

I used to own Arturia's V collection 8 (which I had upgraded from a previous v7) ... and imho, there were very minimal customer benefits in that "upgrade" for what Arturia actually provided. I subsequently sold that licence not long afterwards here on KVR.

I still also have (collecting dust), my now, deregistered and unused Arturia licences for V Collection v7 and Pigments plugins, which I uninstalled after being under-used. So now, both those licences just lie dormant, in preparation for a sale

Pretty sure if you sold the V8 license upgraded from V7. Your V7 license should have gone with the sale of V8 and you cannot sell it again.