DS Audio joins Plugin Alliance

[martinjuenke]

Up yours PA.

Your decision (and opinion).

Out of pure interest (and because i sort of know the answer already): How big of a business do you think Plugin Alliance is?

Tell us!

[toonertik]

@surreal
thanx for posting..
Survival is difficult these days... I don't think Dimitri took the decision lightly.. but survival has to be primary.
I hope it works for him.

[enCiphered]

I now have joined with Plugin Alliance, which I strongly believe will help me a lot to keep alive on the current market and improve quality of services needed to be provided today for companies who sell audio plugins. But the major downside of this process is that we have to charge $19 for transition from previous version of Thorn to the 1.2 at PA.

Why should a dev like DS disappear from the market? There are only positive reviews and posts about his products on the web. I don´t get it..

[chk071]

Up yours PA.

Your decision (and opinion).

Out of pure interest (and because i sort of know the answer already): How big of a business do you think Plugin Alliance is?

Tell us!

No.

It's actually pretty easy to find out. My point is that people act as if anyone would be big in the plugin business. Noone is. Not even Native Instruments is particularly big. It's just another mid tier company. like thousands here.

[Stefken]

I don't really care.
But it's acting like a big one. Like Adobe once it had dollarsigns in their eyes.

But size is irrelevant. Arturia is big but treats its customers way differently.

[chk071]

Hmmm... I thinks that's arguable. I've read a lot of bad things here about Arturia. FWIW. I can't remember a single company I haven't read anything bad about here. Customers are a really complicated breed these days (well, most of them aren't i guess. The entitlement rises exponentially when you look on the net).

[elassi]

I can't remember a single company I haven't read anything bad about here.

Actually, for a long time I thought one must be crazy to manage customer relation tasks (forums, support) at KVR.

Still not convinced if this is a good idea, but without doubt there are pro's (besides the con's).

[chk071]

I can't remember a single company I haven't read anything bad about here.

Actually, for a long time I thought one must be crazy to manage customer relation tasks (forums, support) at KVR.

TBH, i'm really convinced that most customers are totally alright. It's just that the kind of attitude by single individuals on the net seems to be infectious, and there are more and more. Don't want to say it is the case here, for example, i think the email concerns are quite justified, but... at least a bit of that spirit is sensible here.

On the other hand, i read more and more that single customers get violent towards shop employees here as well, and, the biggest electronic market here also took some measures which show well that there's violent behavior happening in the stores as well (like single customer invocation at the counter, or bouncers at the entrance). Really wished there was a more relaxed attitude in general.

[Stefken]

Really wished there was a more relaxed attitude in general.

Social media or fora is not the place where you'll find it. And KVR is not the most euh relaxed forum to begin with.

[BONES]

I have to think long and hard about whether I really want to keep Thorn.

Why? The version you have now will keep working forever, no need to pay the PA fee if you don't want to.

Ok bought this from plugin boutique, not received transfer coupon, anyone else?

Same here, this is the first I'm hearing of any of this.

I got the PA email, not impressed but hey, Dimitri must have thought about this and made a business decision (which he has every right to do).

I wonder how much he thought about it, though. You can be reasonably certain that PA contacted him - I was contacted last year about redoing my plugins for WA Prod. Maybe he got an offer that looked really good and accepted it without thinking about the possible customer fallout? I also wonder if it prompted him to shop around for better deals or not?

The real issue I see is that it doesn't seem like a very good fit. PA seems to be full of highly specialised plugins for a specific, more pro studio kind of market, not the market where DS has been successful. So I could see the benefit with getting involved but not in moving the whole shebang over there. I can see him losing more customers than he gains in the long term.

Anyway, at the moment I am disinclined to pay any fee that seems like a license transfer fee when they are the ones who have moved the damned license. I'll stick with the version I have for now and see what happens in the future. My prediction is that it won't go well for Dimitri, which is a shame. Part of Thorn's appeal is/was it's fair price. As much as I love it, $199 is not a fair price for what Thorn is. Seriously, who would pay more for Thorn than DUNE or Diva?

[Razzia]

I have to think long and hard about whether I really want to keep Thorn.

Why? The version you have now will keep working forever, no need to pay the PA fee if you don't want to.

Yeah I worded that poorly. I mean, whether I want to keep it supported.

I have big reservations about the possibility that I may have to pay another $20 or so per DS audio plugin whenever they get updated. If that's the case I'd rather just skip the whole deal and not give them any more of my money

[dionenoid]

$199 is not a fair price for what Thorn is. Seriously, who would pay more for Thorn than DUNE or Diva?

I'm actually demoing all 3 of them now. Thorn is not even close to being competition to the other 2...btw : Diva is atm even cheaper than Thorn (even with vouchers)

In that price range it also has to compete with Serum, Spire, Sylenth and Synthmaster for example.
All of them much more versatile (and much better sounding imo) synths with better built-in fx, loads more factory presets and huge amounts of sounds available...and these are all small (or even 1 guy) businesses too...

I wish DS all the luck, but honestly i think if he really had made a beast of a synth he wouldn't have needed to work with PA...

[plexuss]

Thinking about all this, it's not too bad... they bundled 3 soundpacks in to compensate for the $19 transfer price. That's fair and useful. And some Thorn owners are going to have PA vouchers and can get the upgrade for free. So all in all I am ok with how its rolling out.

[plexuss]

[snip...]
I wish DS all the luck, but honestly i think if he really had made a beast of a synth he wouldn't have needed to work with PA...

I think the transition of products from DS to PA is more to do with DS's (un)availability to support and meet the expectations of his customers. I think that PA might have been hankering for a synth and DS was hankering to hand off some of responsibility to someone else. To what degree DS will retain any ownership or involvement, that I am not sure, but would like to know.

[Greenstorm33]

My prediction is that it won't go well for Dimitri, which is a shame. Part of Thorn's appeal is/was it's fair price. As much as I love it, $199 is not a fair price for what Thorn is. Seriously, who would pay more for Thorn than DUNE or Diva?

Probably no one, but it doesn't matter. As others have said, the whole PA business model is to have their sticker prices be way too high so more people bite when they do sales. Well, that and charging customers of existing products 20 bucks for the "privilege" of moving to their platform, apparently. Hopefully it works out for Dmitri; Thorn is great and I've got high hopes for Diversion 2.