KVR Audio

anothercomposer · Post by **anothercomposer** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 4:59 pm

foosnark wrote:Eh. They have a good reputation, they get good reviews, their GUIs are nice... but for me, no demo = no deal. There are a few other people in the VST community that people worship as their lord and master who I don't think are that great, and I'm tired of getting burned buying things on the basis of reviews.

I want to know why I should plunk down $40 for a phaser and consider it a good deal, when I have 9 free phasers in my plugins folder already and there are another dozen I could download if I wanted them? A demo would answer that definitively.

that sums it up for me.... although ive had my eye on dubstation and bigseq for awhile now...

I want to know what Discord can do for me, subjectively. I have pitch shifters and delays and specialized plugins which do the same sorts of effects demo'd in the 3 MP3s. I have a hardware unit that does this sort of stuff (at least from what's in the MP3s and text description) and I don't consider it useful enough to bother to plug it in... so why is it worth $50 to do it in software? Again, a demo would answer that question.

The bandwidth argument doesn't really wash unless the executables are huge -- unless the theory is that people won't bother to listen to MP3s.

shamann · Post by **shamann** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 5:03 pm

foosnark wrote:I want to know why I should plunk down $40 for a phaser and consider it a good deal, when I have 9 free phasers in my plugins folder already and there are another dozen I could download if I wanted them?

The answer is that of course you don't. If you don't like the policy, just look the other way. If you aren't comfortable with the policy, then just take them off your list of prospective purchases.

The point about bandwidth I was making wasn't that the cost is breaking the bank, but for the most part it is a wasted expense, since so few demo try outs actually turn into sales. Just ask any developer.

I'd have been happy if AD offered demos, but I didn't get my panties in twist when they didn't. One thing with the money back guarantee way is that it weeds out anyone who isn't serious about buying them. But if you aren't happy with the policy, your world won't end without their plugins. Stick with your free stuff and make merry.

waiting man · Post by **waiting man** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 5:15 pm

shamann wrote:One thing with the money back guarantee way is that it weeds out anyone who isn't serious about buying them.

that's the whole point, just a different way to buy/evaluate.

Crandall1 · Post by **Crandall1** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 5:28 pm

What Steve said, basically.

I could make any number of excuses about the demo issue, but it really breaks down to this: they're a huge pain in the arse to deal with from my perspective, and they don't have any perceivable effect on sales one way or the other.

If we only released monster plugs like U-He or a similar company, multi-purpose all encompassing plugins like, say, Ronin, we'd certainly release demos to go with them. Especially if they were expensive. But we generally do hardware emulations, and you know if you need 'em or not, and they're not expensive at all.

The other main reason is that Windows support goes through the f**king roof. In general, one Windows customer in 20 has some sort of issue. This is almost always solvable, but is a direct result of the incredible variety of hosts, interfaces, and computer configurations in Windows land. Figure we get 100 downloads of the Ronin demo for every 1 sold. One in 50 or so of the people that buy it have a problem I have to work directly with them to solve. (This is the 1:20 ratio, taking in to account OSX customers, which basically never have any problem more complicated than a repair permissions operation.)

So, 1 in 50 Ronin purchasers have an issue that requires at least one email from me, and usually a couple. For every support request from a paying customer, I get about 50 from non-paying customers (because the ratio of downloads to purchases is 100:1, but not everyone that has a problem writes. Now, I have to treat these the same, because if I don't, they'll _never_ become paying customers. However, they almost never do, whether I get their issue solved or not.

So, having a demo heavily increases our support load, with no perceptible increase in sales. Thus, it is, and will continue to be, a big fat waste of time. If it weren't, we'd have demos. Plain and simple.

blaster78 · Post by **blaster78** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 5:31 pm

Crandall1 wrote: So, having a demo heavily increases our support load, with no perceptible increase in sales. Thus, it is, and will continue to be, a big fat waste of time. If it weren't, we'd have demos. Plain and simple.

cool post

Architeuthis · Post by **Architeuthis** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 10:39 pm

yeah, mp3s = way more bandwith than demos. not only that mp3s don't even amount to much in the first place.

Architeuthis · Post by **Architeuthis** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 10:42 pm

Crandall1 wrote:So, having a demo heavily increases our support load, with no perceptible increase in sales. Thus, it is, and will continue to be, a big fat waste of time. If it weren't, we'd have demos. Plain and simple.

well ok then.

morelia · Post by **morelia** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 11:20 pm

I bought Discord1.5, it wasn't exactly as I had hoped so I got my money back, no questions, delays or problems. Now I have Discord2 because I felt confident that if it still wasn't what I was after I could return it. I won't be though.

uvacom · Post by **uvacom** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 11:54 pm

Jarvis wrote:The plugins probably cost more than the hardware units...

Just out of curiosity, when was the last time you priced out a BiPhase, or a Moog 914, or an H3000, or any quality BBD-based delay?

The only hardware emulation they have that is based off of anything cheap is the Ratshack, but Ratshack is their least expensive plugin and I think most people would find a lot more utility in the plugin than the real thing. A good emulation of a crappy sounding analog device is arguably more difficult than an emulation of a very high quality analog device, there are more nonlinearities to deal with. Don't confuse crap sound with crap algorithm, the algorithm successfully recreates a very specific flavor (scent?) of crap.

aallvor · Post by **aallvor** » Sun Jun 25, 2006 12:28 am

foosnark wrote:ive had my eye on dubstation and bigseq for awhile now...

I thought long and hard about getting any AD plugins cause I thought; 'when they're THAT cheap they can't be significantly better than the top freebies out there?' Well, I can assure you that DubStation beats the crap out of any freebies that attempt that same BBD thing. Imo, of course. Well worth $39, and then some..

foosnark · Post by **foosnark** » Sun Jun 25, 2006 1:37 am

I guess one difference is, I don't think of them as cheap... but I'm a notorious cheapskate. To me, $15 is a cheap effects plugin. For whatever reason I'm more comfortable with paying more for a synth than for effects.

I can see the argument about supporting demos, that makes a lot of sense. Support is a huge pain. I still don't like the policy, personally, but I don't lose sleep over it

Is there no demo for Audio Damage?