No demo, no sale?

[syntonica]

Regarding watching videos and SoundClown snippets, they are fine for overall sound, but i need to get my paws all over a plugin to see if it works for me, i.e. ergonomically. Omnisphere is great, but there's just too many things to click through to make any quick tweaks.

[Zeisner]

No demo, no sale. Which isn't a problem because those "You have to buy it right away" plugins are all crap anyway.

[GeneralQ]

I learned that lesson through falcon, which was highly praised and the featureset looked convincing. That is until I bought it and pretty much all the modules were lackluster and the workflow is horribly inefficient.
From that point on, no demo no sale for me.

[JsinOwl]

No demo, no sale. Which isn't a problem because those "You have to buy it right away" plugins are all crap anyway.

I don't think I've ever seen someone refer to Omnisphere as crap.

[zerocrossing]

I’m a general “no” on this, though I can be flexible. If there seems to be a solid business with a representative who is communicating with potential customers, free plugins that work well, and a promise to refund the money if it doesn’t work out, I’ll bite. I did go in on the Unusable Audio full bundle, and I’m happy with my purchase. There are some minor bugs, but no show stoppers. Nothing that I’ve not seen in other plugins from long established developers and so far, customer service has been very good. I’d be happy to recommend them to anyone.

OTOH, I see a lot of Facebook ads for plugins that have no demo. Comments go unanswered. No presence here or on any other music forums that I frequent. No way do I bother with those plugins, regardless of how fun they look.

[Zeisner]

I don't think I've ever seen someone refer to Omnisphere as crap.

I'm one of those guys people get to make their crappy plugins run on their workstations. I could tell you stories about Spectrasonics products. Including the official okay from the Spectrasonics support to use a crack because it wasn't possible to activate their software on the same hardware and software again after reinstalling the OS no matter what I tried. That was legendary. I will never forget that. Of course I told my client to keep that e-mail like a treasure, not only for legal reasons. So there's that.

[JsinOwl]

Omnisphere was just an example. You can insert any well regarded plugin as evidence that your generalization doesn't hold true for all people. Which is obvious I suppose; it just struck me as a bit OTT.

[cryophonik]

I've routinely ordered countless hardware synths, instruments, studio gear, MIDI controllers, etc. costing hundreds or thousands over the last four decades without ever demo'ing them. Spending $100 on a plugin without a demo doesn't scare me - I just make sure it's something I want to buy, which is usually pretty easy these days with the blast of reviews/tutorials that accompany pretty much every software release.

[Zeisner]

You can insert any well regarded plugin as evidence

I have a long Excel list of well regarded plugins with plenty of issues. I don't care about reputation, advertising and hypes. People can sing and jump in circles while juggling oranges with their hands and feet, I don't care. Neither does it make issues with installers and activation go away nor other issues like aliasing or pops and clicks because the developer didn't bother to correctly edit loop points. I don't care about "But it's brand X used by artist Y on album Z", I don't care about how much the GUI looks like the hardware original, I don't care about how many KVR members like it. I listen, look and measure myself. If it's crap I note it down and move on. It's as simple as that.

[sin night]

I prefer to have the option to demo before purchase.

Usually a good walkthrough, good documentation and good demos are enough for me to decide if I should buy something or not, so I often skip trying the demo version; but sometimes I need to check some small details, if the software fits my workflow… and also if it behaves correctly, especially when dealing with a new company with no prior experience and established reputation.

The lack of a demo version is not a reason for a hard pass for me, but it makes my decision a little more difficult sometimes.
Also, I usually don’t try a demo version if I’m not already quite set on purchasing the product.

The price doesn’t matter much. Of course I think more before committing to something expensive, but I pay attention also when the price is low, because the money adds up quickly otherwise.