Big fat controversial take

[jens]

This is not really a controversial take - people complain about too many emulations of the same vintage gear all the time. On the other hand, it’s a market system and you can simply vote with your wallet by not buying or using them. If enough people did the same, companies would produce other types of plugins or go out of business. The fact that they are continuing to produce more vintage emulations means that there is a demand, and your particular preference for stock tools complemented by a light bulb distortion plugin isn’t reflective of the general marketplace.

This take is psychologically, philosophically, economically simplistic though. Asking the individual to influence the market system by voting with his or her wallet is as naive as asking a barrier to stop the wind.

Sorry, but that is complete nonsense. It appears you haven't quite understood how voting (generally) works. You have exactly one vote - as does everyone else who's part of the demographic for any particular voting.

[Etienne1973]

...
Also, the market creates a need, and people end up buying stuff they don't necessarily need because the market self-propels itself. People don't necessarily think they need vintage emulations, but the mere fact that software houses shove them in your face and promise that your mixes will become warmer, fuller, better leads people at least to second-guess themselves. If only unconsciously.
...

Are we adults or not? Anyone who lets their purchasing decision be influenced by pure marketing rhetoric has only themselves to blame. Actually, my parents already taught me how to control my shopping urges.

[rod_zero]

The music software industry needs hype and the never ending chase of the always closer but never really 100% "analog sound".

It is a myth they keep selling and people keep falling for, a good part of the industry marketing is build upon making musicians insecure about their tools and then selling them yet another mythical emulation.

And after 30 years the market is also saturated, there are plugins that do it all and speciality emulations. For developers getting noticed is hard and it is way easier to capture new costumers by selling a nice GUI of the legendary equipment used by "successful artist". It provides some free brand or name recognitional attached to their plugin.

I also suppose the development is cheaper cause they just have the model of a given effect (eq, compressor, channel strip) and they just have to tweak the values, response and range. They surely spend more on making the GUI.

[martiu]

all you need is fapfiler bundle

[zerocrossing]

One of the issues is that people have wildly different opinions of what is a good emulation. There’s one company that a lot of people swear by, that I think sounds pretty mediocre. Obviously I’m right, but you can make a lot of money off of the wrong.

[El°HYM]

I think what I realy would love to see more is some coll stuff that hasn't been emulated like the Sylvia Massey stuff (light bulbs as distortion, vegetables as filters and and silverware to enhance the snare rattle) or some of the experimental stuff at all (like a real 3d amp).

The funny part here is, that especially the 'a lot of Grammy Mixing Engineers are now also mixing in the box' folks, should actually worship Sylvia Massey.

[El°HYM]

One of the issues is that people have wildly different opinions of what is a good emulation. There’s one company that a lot of people swear by, that I think sounds pretty mediocre. Obviously I’m right, but you can make a lot of money off of the wrong.

I really hope you are not referring to Arturia and the users stacking those preamps to their beloved "this one nailed it 95%" emulation, to then pretend that it almost sounds like the hardware... busy mix mp3 earbuds blah.

[ampetrosillo]

This is not really a controversial take - people complain about too many emulations of the same vintage gear all the time. On the other hand, it’s a market system and you can simply vote with your wallet by not buying or using them. If enough people did the same, companies would produce other types of plugins or go out of business. The fact that they are continuing to produce more vintage emulations means that there is a demand, and your particular preference for stock tools complemented by a light bulb distortion plugin isn’t reflective of the general marketplace.

This take is psychologically, philosophically, economically simplistic though. Asking the individual to influence the market system by voting with his or her wallet is as naive as asking a barrier to stop the wind.

Sorry, but that is complete nonsense. It appears you haven't quite understood how voting (generally) works. You have exactly one vote - as does everyone else who's part of the demographic for any particular voting.

And? Democracy doesn't usually dictate what kind of VST plugins should be developed.

At least, in democracy, your vote and Bezos's vote counts the same... ish. Lots of caveats attached.

My point was, anyway, that voting with your wallet and expecting it to make a difference is naive in the extreme.

[ampetrosillo]

...
Also, the market creates a need, and people end up buying stuff they don't necessarily need because the market self-propels itself. People don't necessarily think they need vintage emulations, but the mere fact that software houses shove them in your face and promise that your mixes will become warmer, fuller, better leads people at least to second-guess themselves. If only unconsciously.
...

Are we adults or not? Anyone who lets their purchasing decision be influenced by pure marketing rhetoric has only themselves to blame. Actually, my parents already taught me how to control my shopping urges.

You overestimate yourself and the independence of your decisions. See, for instance, it's right there: your parents *taught* you how to control your shopping urges.

[jens]

This is not really a controversial take - people complain about too many emulations of the same vintage gear all the time. On the other hand, it’s a market system and you can simply vote with your wallet by not buying or using them. If enough people did the same, companies would produce other types of plugins or go out of business. The fact that they are continuing to produce more vintage emulations means that there is a demand, and your particular preference for stock tools complemented by a light bulb distortion plugin isn’t reflective of the general marketplace.

This take is psychologically, philosophically, economically simplistic though. Asking the individual to influence the market system by voting with his or her wallet is as naive as asking a barrier to stop the wind.

Sorry, but that is complete nonsense. It appears you haven't quite understood how voting (generally) works. You have exactly one vote - as does everyone else who's part of the demographic for any particular voting.

And? Democracy doesn't usually dictate what kind of VST plugins should be developed.

At least, in democracy, your vote and Bezos's vote counts the same... ish. Lots of caveats attached.

My point was, anyway, that voting with your wallet and expecting it to make a difference is naive in the extreme.

Save to say that you haven't got the slightest idea what I meant.

First of all: where does that political stuff come from? This isn't HPC and I certainly did not mention anything regarding democracy or so....

my point was really a very simple one:

Voting with your wallet works, just like any other fair voting works. You have one vote, and all the others have one too. If it's just you, your vote makes of course no difference. That is soooooo sooo sooo obvious that I feel ashamed even just typing it. It makes a lot of difference though if you are not just a minority and the others vote with their wallet too. Again: this is all so painfully obvious that none of it should have to be mentioned here. But you calling others naive? Lol....

Hoffstein was absolutely spot on with his assessment of the situation:

if there wasn't a lot of general interest in analog emulations, there wouldn't be so many of them being released. So if a significant amount people were really so so tired of these, they would just have to stop purchasing them. They would vote with their wallet. But they don't, which means the nay-sayers are just an insignificant minority; perhaps an irritatingly vocal one at that, yet insignificant nonetheless.

[ampetrosillo]

This is not really a controversial take - people complain about too many emulations of the same vintage gear all the time. On the other hand, it’s a market system and you can simply vote with your wallet by not buying or using them. If enough people did the same, companies would produce other types of plugins or go out of business. The fact that they are continuing to produce more vintage emulations means that there is a demand, and your particular preference for stock tools complemented by a light bulb distortion plugin isn’t reflective of the general marketplace.

This take is psychologically, philosophically, economically simplistic though. Asking the individual to influence the market system by voting with his or her wallet is as naive as asking a barrier to stop the wind.

Sorry, but that is complete nonsense. It appears you haven't quite understood how voting (generally) works. You have exactly one vote - as does everyone else who's part of the demographic for any particular voting.

And? Democracy doesn't usually dictate what kind of VST plugins should be developed.

At least, in democracy, your vote and Bezos's vote counts the same... ish. Lots of caveats attached.

My point was, anyway, that voting with your wallet and expecting it to make a difference is naive in the extreme.

Save to say that you haven't got the slightest idea what I meant.

First of all: where does that political stuff come from? This isn't HPC and I certainly did not mention anything regarding democracy or so....

my point was really a very simple one:

Voting with your wallet works, just like any other fair voting works. You have one vote, and all the others have one too. If it's just you, your vote makes of course no difference. That is soooooo sooo sooo obvious that I feel ashamed even just typing it. It makes a lot of difference though if you are not just a minority and the others vote with their wallet too. Again: this is all so painfully obvious that none of it should have to be mentioned here. But you calling others naive? Lol....

Hoffstein was absolutely spot on with his assessment of the situation:

if there wasn't a lot of general interest in analog emulations, there wouldn't be so many of them being released. So if a significant amount people were really so so tired of these, they would just have to stop purchasing them. They would vote with their wallet. But they don't, which means the nay-sayers are just an insignificant minority; perhaps an irritatingly vocal one at that, yet insignificant nonetheless.

Tut, tut. I shall now school you.

Voting with your wallet implies that the individual customer holds any kind of agency or that people actually are ideologically interested (since voting implies ideology in its widest sense). Even organised boycotts rarely work, because sometimes you can't even afford to vote with your wallet. Adobe is a shit company for so many reasons, yet everybody keeps buying their creative suite. Amazon is a shit company for so many reasons, yet everybody buys from Amazon. Voting with your wallet also often requires that you be some kind of hero (not in this specific case, granted) and abstain from enjoying stuff to make a point. None of this applies to the democratic vote, everybody can afford to vote (at least in civilised countries... I gather that the US holds elections on workdays and does not grant any kind of PTO to vote), the democratic vote serves one specific purpose only (that of taking a political stand), and choosing not to vote does not inconvenience you in any way or manner (and arguably voting can be felt as a hassle by some).

Also, if voting with your wallet worked that well, then we'd see countless alternatives to Melodyne, Soothe and all that class of unapologetically digital plugins. But we don't. (To my knowledge, there are only a handful of Melodyne competitors, and only a few more Soothe competitors). Those are plugins that make a lot of money. But why do we see a lot of hardware emulations? Because they're dead easy to develop (for somebody who develops audio plugins) and they exploit the (often unjustified) aura around everything vintage. (The Pultec, for instance, is no big deal at all). They require such a low number of man-hours to develop (as opposed to more sophisticated plugins) and they are so easy to sell that they are a no-brainer for companies. So basically their price to the public is almost all profit, especially for larger software houses. They will keep churning out those plugins as long as there is any kind of positive aura attached to the original equipment (which is always the same stuff: Pultecs, 1073 preamps, API preamps, LA-2A and 1176 compressors, the SSL bus compressor, etc.).

Lastly, it is kind of rich that somebody with a Ukraine flag for profile picture lectures anybody on talking about politics in non-political areas of the forum.

But to get back on topic: analog emulations will stop being churned out only when essentially everybody who wants them has them already, and any possible improvements are so marginal that they are negligible.

[zerocrossing]

One of the issues is that people have wildly different opinions of what is a good emulation. There’s one company that a lot of people swear by, that I think sounds pretty mediocre. Obviously I’m right, but you can make a lot of money off of the wrong.

I really hope you are not referring to Arturia and the users stacking those preamps to their beloved "this one nailed it 95%" emulation, to then pretend that it almost sounds like the hardware... busy mix mp3 earbuds blah.

(Hand hovers above the Foe button)

[zerocrossing]

What’s funny is that I liked the Arturia the least… and then realized that it was the closest to the Neve by a pretty wide margin. Funny he thinks the UAD sounds closest, because I think it’s my favorite, but also the furthest from the target, which was my least favorite.

This is what I mean by subjectivity. It’s only the fool who focuses purely on how much the emulator sounds like the emulated, unless the goal is to sell off your hardware and replace it with the plugin. These things are effects. Either they work on a channel, or they don’t, and that depends entirely on the source program. So even though I didn’t like the Neve or Arturia in that example, I bet it would work great on a high hat mic that needed some extra warmth.

I keep a few vintage UAD emulations (preamps and compressors) on my guitar input and switch them up depending on the sound I’m going for. It’s generally very subtle and often I’ll use nothing.

[whassup]

What’s funny is that I liked the Arturia the least… and then realized that it was the closest to the Neve by a pretty wide margin. Funny he thinks the UAD sounds closest, because I think it’s my favorite, but also the furthest from the target, which was my least favorite.

This is what I mean by subjectivity. It’s only the fool who focuses purely on how much the emulator sounds like the emulated, unless the goal is to sell off your hardware and replace it with the plugin. These things are effects. Either they work on a channel, or they don’t, and that depends entirely on the source program. So even though I didn’t like the Neve or Arturia in that example, I bet it would work great on a high hat mic that needed some extra warmth.

I keep a few vintage UAD emulations (preamps and compressors) on my guitar input and switch them up depending on the sound I’m going for. It’s generally very subtle and often I’ll use nothing.

Yeah, personal taste is only cool if you say that you like what I like. Or the majority. Or the industry standards. Or...

[Dirtgrain]

I feel misled. OP take is skinny. This idea comes up a lot.