u-he bundle worth it?

[BBFG#]

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.

Agreed. Lately I've been adding the preset developers to this "bundle philosophy" and it's reached a point where it's actually keeping me from buying their libraries. Arturia included. Where the libraries have sounds for b the plugins I own mixed with a bunch of sounds for plugins I have no interest in owning.
NI has eventually got me to eliminate their bundles in favor of the couple I prefer to keep around. It also has firmly planted in my mind to always consider the adage of "the cheap comes out expensive" before buying.

One thing that sets AAS above the rest is you can get the bundle but sell off from it what you don't use.

Not sure if u-He does that, and I've been pretty happy just picking up one at a time. Most of them were hard for me to jump on, but they've all become the ones I'm most reluctant to ever let go of now. I can easily see there may come a day where I own their entire catalog.

[Ex Machina]

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.

This is the point I unsuccessfully tried to make earlier. If you are going to offer a bundle discount, then make it worthy of consideration. Don't disingenuously pretend that knocking a few bucks off the bundle price is an act of "loyalty." To whom, new customers? That doesn't even make sense.

Just say we believe our plugins are fairly priced given their quality and frequent free updates. As such we don't discount prices. I have a lot more respect for that approach than contorting yourself trying to justify a pointless bundle "discount."

[Etienne1973]

One thing that sets AAS above the rest is you can get the bundle but sell off from it what you don't use. Not sure if u-He does that, ...

Every u-he product in their bundles has an individual serial number. You can sell what you don't need as per u-he regular transfer policy.
Source: https://u-he.com/support/faq.html#purch ... ell-bundle

[MrJubbly]

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.

Just as well it was uninstalled at the same time as v8 then and I have no intentions on ever using it (V collection) again

As for Pigments, well that licence was also uninstalled and deregistered from my Arturia account along with the V Collection, when I sold v8. And due to Arturia's regular discounted sales, I'd probably be lucky to get around $50 for it, if I even could be bothered to post it on the sales forum.

Which kind of proves Urs' sentiments about u-he's overall philosophy on sales and discounts of products.

[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.

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.

If this is not a deliberate misrepresentation of Arturia’s V Collection upgrades, then it is a fundamental misunderstanding of how it works.

The Collection is upgraded by new plugins of new synth models being added to the growing collection.

Updates for existing plugins are not tied to new V Collection versions. Those are released as they become available, and anyone who owns a plugin getting updated gets that update for free, regardless of which version of V Collection they own, or if they purchased the plugin standalone.

When you purchase a V Collection upgrade, you are buying it for the new models Arturia has added to it. If you don’t want the new synths, then don’t upgrade. If you do, the price per synth you are getting is significantly lower than it would be if you bought them piecemeal.

The V Collection is simply a value pack. It exists as a way to acquire many Arturia synths at once for a very good price.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Jamcat is not wrong about the Arturia update policy. Not sure how anyone could find issue with it myself.

[MrJubbly]

The Collection is upgraded by new plugins of new synth models being added to the growing collection.

I'm glad you're satisfied with Arturia V Collection. That's good for you. For me though, I never felt Arturia really delivered value for money. I was left underwhelmed by their products, so I left them behind and found what imho were 'more preferable' alternatives.

Now, I find my needs are satisfactorily delivered between plugins from more preferred developers like u-he, Gforce Software, Modartt, Sonic Charge, Synapse Audio, Reveal Sound, Kilohearts, Fabfilter, Voxengo and Valhalla DSP, etc.

All of which, I regard as operating and sounding better than Arturia's offerings were. So, despite being spread across multiple different developers, those plugins are also FAR less bloated than Arturia's software was. So, I was personally happy to bid adieu to the whole Arturia Software Centre and its eco system and my device's storage drive was most appreciative of that.

[martiu]

is worth it, buy now

[Urs]

If you are going to offer a bundle discount, then make it worthy of consideration.

Our bundles are based on frequent user wishes. For years they've asked us to give a small discount when buying all plug-ins. They did not generally ask 25% or 50%, they commonly just asked for something like 10%.

Again, from something like 30%-50% the bundle itself becomes the product. From that point, licenses can not be sold individually. Updates will cost, regardless of whether you benefit from the update or you don't. Typically, after a few years your discount is going to be eaten up by added costs. It'll become a hidden subscription.

Also, we have very often been able to help users with individual discounts if they wanted to complete their collections. We have no official stance on this, but I think the support guys are humans who respond to what's said in emails - and how it was said (they are notoriously overworked beings, treat them nicely!). If someone has, say, 4 or 5 of our synths and maybe an effect or two, there'll probably be a way to make the remaining items a bit more affordable, somehow, dunno.

[jamcat]

One example of "Loyality to the almighty dollar" is advertising a software worth 29$ as fictionally being worth 300$, tricking people into thinking they're getting a good deal. Another example is then charging people twice as much for updates in the following months or years. There are no perpetual bargains without a catch. Too good to be true is too good to be true, even if people wish it not to be.

We do not play any of these games and thus we make a lot less revenue than we could. We make enough revenue too sustain ok wages for about 20 employees. We ask fair prices for our work, no more no less. So much for the underlying accusation of greed in this thread.

I wanted to return to this. It's obviously aimed at Waves and Brainworx/PA.

First of all, audio plugins are the pinnacle of frivolous luxury items, so there can be no such thing as "greed" applied to a plugin vendor. These are not essential goods or services. No one needs them to live. You're buying them because you have both time and money to waste on nonsense. So a vendor can charge whatever they like, and you can choose to buy it, or not. It all just depends on if it's worth it to you, and you alone.

Let's also keep in mind here that Waves and Brainworx for years did cost $300 for a plugin, year round. That's no longer a feasible business model, due to market saturation and the commoditization of plugins. Both bx and Waves had very high reputations, partially based on the perception that expensive price tags create. They want to maintain those reputations as much as they can, so they persist with the artificially high list prices. But they also want to actually sell plugins, so in recent years they have had near perpetual discounts of $29.

And Plugin Alliance in particular charge nothing for maintenance or updates. The decline in perceived value has to do with market saturation. There are fewer buyers left at the given price point, so new buyers must be attracted through lower price points. Since you're not actually selling anything real, any sale at any price point is pure profit.

But to accuse them of "greed" for selling plugins at a reasonable sales price of $29 strikes me as a bit of a stretch. Particularly coming from a developer who charges 3 to 5 times that for a single plugin.

Software is not a limited resource. It is literally infinitely available, so the laws of supply and demand don't apply. There is a simple function that can be applied to determine the optimal price x to generate the most income. As price goes up, the number of buyers goes down. So at a certain point, higher prices begin generating less revenue for the vendor.

If you want to apply the concept of "greed" in the context of an unlimited resource, it would have to be a desire to artificially limit access to that resource through price inflation, (which I think is actually a pretty good definition in this context). Charging higher prices even to your own financial detriment just in order to keep your product rarefied and available only to an exclusive customer base would fit that definition. That isn't what either Waves or Plugin Alliance is doing by offering reasonable prices.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

And JamCat is off the rails again. Didn't take long for me to go back to disagreeing.

If the plugins are worth $29, then charge $29. Don't charge $299 and then put them on a near perpetual sale price of $29 to create this phony sense of scarcity. And I'm still waiting for Apple Silicon updates for some PA plugins going on what, 3 years now?

And Waves has tipped their hand. They were always trying to get users at the low entry point so they could eventually hit you up for a WUP later on. If you have one music PC and it's a Windows machine, it may have been a non-issue, but if you wanted 2 licenses or had a Mac that needed updating, you were locked into a paid update/subscription model via WUP. No shocker that they tried full going sub only.

Whereas U-he price ethically. They're not inexpensive, but the value is high. And they've had their fair share of sales. Not to the point of being so often that it becomes obnoxious, but often enough that folks have been able to get in during set time periods at good discounts. If you're completely skint, I can understand the desire for U-he to be more like Plugin Alliance, but holy hell...that's not sustainable. They'd have to release products as quickly as PA do, update them as slowly as possible, probably outsource huge chunks of their business. No...I like U-he as-is. Let's not mess with that. Urs knows what he's doing and I think he knows how to run his business.

[jamcat]

...

I actually don't disagree with anything you said there, except for your unfortunate opening gambit, of course.

I'm simply pointing out what PA and Waves are trying to do. I don't think they're particularly effective at what they're attempting. I think we all view PA and Waves plugins as being worth $29, not $300. So it actually fails at that.

BUT... I have a lot of PA plugins now, and they are some of my most used plugins. Many of them are plugins that I wanted back when they were actually $300 a piece. All of them are plugins I have only because they weren't, when I bought them.

I also own a few Waves plugins, though I use none of them anymore. I consider all of my Waves purchases a mistake, but at $29 a piece, none of them were terribly expensive mistakes.

But I don't see either vendor as "greedy" for giving me the opportunity to purchase their plugins at an agreeable price, rather than continuing to price me out, as they once had.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

But I don't see either vendor as "greedy" for giving me the opportunity to purchase their plugins at an agreeable price, rather than continuing to price me out, as they once had.

But the sales are just so gimmicky. Like, "c'mon, we know this will be $29 very often, why bother with the fake price of $249?" You're not getting a $249 plugin for $29. You're getting a $29 plugin for $29 and then whatever other hidden charges or gotchas there may be.

[BBFG#]

I don't use or own Waves or PA, but just watching the market schemes and what others dump them for in second hand has kept me in a place where it seems $29 is way too high of a price.
And that's specifically due to their sales game. So as many as they gain with them, it's fair to say they might be losing as much or more by then sad well. Feels almost marginally psychotic to me...
And so n often we get good developers that end up selling to some larger company that is greedy and psychotic. Always watchful to these trends, the good ones that are so constant become the "gold standard".
u-He is one of them, if not the pinnacle of good on every level.

[jamcat]

But I don't see either vendor as "greedy" for giving me the opportunity to purchase their plugins at an agreeable price, rather than continuing to price me out, as they once had.

But the sales are just so gimmicky. Like, "c'mon, we know this will be $29 very often, why bother with the fake price of $249?" You're not getting a $249 plugin for $29. You're getting a $29 plugin for $29 and then whatever other hidden charges or gotchas there may be.

PA has no hidden charges or gotchas. No plugin actually has any real value to it, so there is no such thing as a $249 valued plugin. There is only a plugin at a price that may or may not seem worth it to you.

Gimmicky or not, I acquired some good plugins that appealed to me for $29. I'm grateful for the opportunities that allowed me to buy them. It's an opportunity I have yet to receive from u-he. And that's the bottom line.