How Many Units Does A Hit Synth Sell?

[strav101]

Shit, Urs, I feel rude when I asked for the dinosaur upgrade - forget it. I'll pay full price when I get it.

[Lotuzia]

My point being, once the program has been written, it's been written.

That's true only for dead software. Developers with that attitude disappear from the market rather quickly, and they stop selling after a few months.

The only way to keep a software alive and selling is by adding features and extra value on an annual or faster pace.

Compared to writing the entire original program, I presume that adding features requires much less time.

I seem to remember that even before releasing Zebra, Urs said somewhere that he "ate potatoes" for some years with none to few income.

Add these years one the other side of the balance

This means that Zebra is not just only a few years old for 3000 copies. Its indeed a 5/6 years development cycle.

Then dont forget either that coding, releasing, selling a synth is far from beeing the complete trilogy of offering a synth : You have to make accountancy, take care of documentation, manual, help, support users, fix bugs.

As an exemple we sell simple soundbanks here at Le Lotus Bleu. No bugs, no compatibility problems, no updates other than additional instruments gifts aso. Well 1/3 of my time is dedicated to users support, communication and marketing. If I add bureaucraty and accountancy aso, I might not be very far from 40/50%. And we're far from facing the same problems than synths devs are confronted to.

My only wish is that, like several people here mentioned it, and they know from where they speak even more than me imho, everybody here is not really in this business "just for the bucks" and every success was based on hard work.

LtZ

[Urs]

My point being, once the program has been written, it's been written.

That's true only for dead software. Developers with that attitude disappear from the market rather quickly, and they stop selling after a few months.

The only way to keep a software alive and selling is by adding features and extra value on an annual or faster pace.

Compared to writing the entire original program, I presume that adding features requires much less time.

That may be true, but sales are going down too, so you need the rest of the time to develop other things.

On the other hand, keeping a synth modern also involves a lot of rewriting of existing areas every now and then. New features are not just *added*, they often involve a redesign of exiting parts. It's a full time job, no matter what. One can't just sit there and count sales.

[Urs]

Shit, Urs, I feel rude when I asked for the dinosaur upgrade - forget it. I'll pay full price when I get it.

Noooo... please do the dino thing!

(I'm doing fine enough to spend 3 months in Australia. I'm not complaining, really, I'm just pointing out that revenues software development do not directly translate in profits, so there's no need to envy any of us)

[Rolanoid]

I forgot to ask your motivation for bringing this topic up?

Is it because you want to be a developer (if the business is lucrative), or to support individual developers more (if they are not making much money at all)?

Or just out of curiosity

Thanks!

Bulent

No, absolutely no desire or talent for software programming. Nor am I scouring for stats to plan some fiendish takeover of a company. It just seems that the music technology market has exploded in recent years, well here in Australia at least, and I was purely wondering out of curiosity. In all likelihood I'm probably just subconciously distracting myself from writer's block!

[eduardo_b]

No, absolutely no desire or talent for software programming. Nor am I scouring for stats to plan some fiendish takeover of a company. It just seems that the music technology market has exploded in recent years, well here in Australia at least, and I was purely wondering out of curiosity. In all likelihood I'm probably just subconciously distracting myself from writer's block!

Ah, writer's block. Just about any diversion is preferable to dealing with that.

Yes, the music software "industry" has gotten much larger, but I think there's a lot to be said about myopia in this regard. It reminds me of a conversation many years ago with someone who was telling me how huge the saltwater aquarium hobby was. I thought this odd given that at the time it was less than 5 percent of the market, and only in larger cities. It then turned out that he worked in a marine aquarium-only store in Los Angeles.

So, the music software market has indeed grown larger, but from afar is looks rather diminutive.

[xybre]

I feel perhaps I should present my perspective and background since it appears to be very different from most of those who have posted before me (I've read the entire thread).

Okay, so I'm sure at least some of the devs here know me, and everyone from Urs to Ugo knows I've bought their synths. I'm fully legit now, so please excuse my checkered past.

However, when I got started, this wasn't the case. I didn't buy anything. I was flat broke and didn't even think I'd be any good at making music. I always reasoned that if I wanted to be "serious" about it or actually got more money than basic survival required I would buy what I'd pirated. I wondered at the time if this was true or if I was just trying to justify my actions.

I did what some people here theorized: I downloaded pretty much everything (as long as it was free to me). I had huge archives of every softsynth since VST was invented. I was a pack rat, a collector. I did probably load up quite a few of them once or twice, but most went unused. Perhaps surprisingly, I never downloaded any of the large sample libraries, I was obsessed with synthesis. I was given a sample library by a fellow musician later, which I deleted when I realized it was a commercial library.

I moved to Chicago and got a Real Job (as a programmer actually), and started buying the software I actually used. I look back and I realize that if I had known better, I would just have used freeware for learning on and all that warez was pretty much pointless. Boggles the mind really.

The person who originally hooked me up with warez is now legit too as a result of my prodding. Pretty amazing when you figure he'd been making music since the mid 90s using warez. I also got to free up many gigs of space on my hard drives since I no longer keep warez on my system. I do try to archive my legit installers and serials though.

Please note that this is simply a story of my journey, and not a justification for downloading warez in any way. Freeware is a much better option to learn on without spending cash, and there are so many developers who offer inexpensive (certainly not cheap) synths and effects. I would encourage any warez kiddiez to purchase their software. Even if Urs did have a Porsche made out of Lego.

Anyway, if any developer wants to know what I do about the warez scene, feel free to ask. I'm no longer the expert I once was, but I'd love to help if I could.

[glokraw]

My point being, once the program has been written, it's been written.

That's true only for dead software. Developers with that attitude disappear from the market rather quickly, and they stop selling after a few months.

The only way to keep a software alive and selling is by adding features and extra value on an annual or faster pace.

Compared to writing the entire original program, I presume that adding features requires much less time.

Often a new feature in software requires an infrastructure re-write. Likewise
new hardware advances become available to coders, must be kept up with, another potential heavy coding session. Then there are coders who master new things, and realize a total rewrite based on new knowledge, will yield better results in the end.

64bit, modularity, evolving codecs, adding fx to synths, the other guy getting there first...its a dog eat dog world out there!

[xybre]

The only way to keep a software alive and selling is by adding features and extra value on an annual or faster pace.

Compared to writing the entire original program, I presume that adding features requires much less time.

Often a new feature in software requires an infrastructure re-write.

This is true. The companies I've worked for have teams of developers constantly improving, altering, updating, and fixing their products. One could make the argument that it actually requires more work to maintain an application than to simply start one from scratch. The end result however, is much better stability and many more features than a from scratch application.

[Rolanoid]

I know several people who have money but don't buy software. But they have expensive cars and life-style. I don't judge them, but I wonder, what happens that it makes them feel like doing that? I think that the world's moral is just too low, people just don't care anymore...

When I was working as an AV Tech (in order to fund my plugin addiction!) most of the other techs were also into making music with music software but I was the only one who actually bought it and so was often looked at sideways. Their justification was that if they are not making any money out of the music then it's ok to use cracked software. But that's like saying if I'm not a DJ and therefore don't make any money playing my CDs then its ok for me to just go down to HMV and nick em.

This is just my moral oppinion for what it's worth but if you make a concious decision to use a product then your conscience should be telling you that its not right to just use it without paying for it.

[sentientTOAST]

I have another question for discussion:

How many hits does a typical hit synth sell??

[debby]

I don't know well, but, I wrote negative opinion at here
this is just my short thought. I am not marketer.

Hardware - Have *BEST* of the world demo song
Software - Have not, so have to try

Hardware - a few
Software - so many plugins, but a few good modern synth in spite of vsti 10 years, even there is only one Nord, even that is free

Hardware - believe
Software - eat times to proof

So, People think Hardware is sure thing for his pro music.
In spite of software can all and more

and Sample based synths are more and more biger
and Largo seems targeted to Virus (just my guess)

Kvr have to guide like SynthMaster2
with more best demo song (In spite of best at vsti sites)

[Hitch]

Urs, is there something you're not telling us?

[ariston]

I don't know well, but, I wrote dishonesty opinion at here
this is just my short thought. I am not marketer.

Hardware - Have *BEST* of the world demo song
Software - Have not, so have to try

Hardware - a few
Software - so many plugins, but a few good modern synth in spite of vsti 10 years, even there is only one Nord, even that is free

Hardware - believe
Software - eat times to proof

So, People think Hardware is sure thing for his pro music.
In spite of software can all and more

and Sample based synths are more and more biger
and Largo seems targeted to Virus (just my guess)

Kvr have to guide like SynthMaster2
with more best demo song (In spite of best at vsti sites)

debby, your posts are the purest poetry sometimes, even if I don't have a clue as to what you're trying to say!

Developers like Urs obviously have more than a clue as to how to build up a loyal and dedicated customer base. I don't know if it's a talent, a natural gift, or if he took a few good marketing classes before starting up, but he is spot on.

I, too, used to use music software that I "got" from a friend (this was before the internet was widely accessible in Germany). I've been 100% "legit" for about 12 years now (ever since I've started making real money). In the long run, I'd have to say that today's software developers are definitely benefiting from my previous experiences, because using that software got me hooked on making music with computers. I wouldn't be buying the shitloads of vsts and vstis without that former experience.
Please don't get me wrong: I don't want to justify using illegal copies of software, I just wanted to make the point that there are many illegal users out there that are potentially legal users. People have to live with themselves, they have to look themselves in the eye in the bathroom mirror, and most people don't want to steal, and most are fooling themselves if they believe they can get away with it (even if you don't get caught, a heavy conscience will always kick you in the teeth when you least expect it). Give people some interesting and accessible options to go legit, and many will do so.

Thinking along these lines, it would be interesting to hear some sales figures in the wake of no-brainer deals. F.e., did sales for AAS' synths go up after the Ultra-Analog deal?

[amiga909]

again, thanks a lot for the insider insights (Ben, Angus, Urs, etc.)
i didnt know its that hard to make a living - even if ur on the top.

short piracy topic note, and another question:

The search engines seem to not care about piracy these days which is one of the reasons why i think it's so bad.

I understand the arguments about censureship, but what does annoy me is that Google can't even be bothered to implement their own policies. A while back I noticed some sites selling 'OEM' versions of our software. Google claimed to have a policy of removing listings which had misleading titles. I pointed out to them several times that this site was claiming to sell OEM versions of our software in their title, and thus was breaking their rules and should be delisted - I gave them plenty of evidence to. They never got back to me. I suspect they couldn't care less - like most publicly listed companies, they care first and foremost about maximising profit - and in fact, thats the one thing they have legal obligation to do.

piracy note: i dont agree here with you, Ben. in my eyes, Google had to fulfill some civil liability cause they call their practice of collecting everybodys data a societal task: "Google's mission: to organize the world's information" (Google company profile). well, apart from that Google doesnt bother about (halfway) illegal issues, such as we've seen with StreetView.
but above all its economically bizarre. would KVR get any ads if every second topic was a torrent listing?


question on topic:
is it just the vst market that has that kind of problems? means: the problem that extremely high skilled people get very low incomes.
i wonder about comparable software markets. hard to say what is comparable thu? it had to be non-consumer, creative-work software. games do not count in this sense (entertainment is different than art). looking at graphics there are some free/included resize-my-digicam-pics-apps and for the pro's quite a few photoshop plugins - still not quite near 3k-4k as for vsts...