How much money have you spent on plugins?

[ATS]

I'm not even including HW, my modular alone is near $20k. and that's just one thing.

Damn nice!

[pekbro]

I'm not even including HW, my modular alone is near $20k. and that's just one thing.

Damn nice!

Modular is cool, though I am in guitar mode of late and haven't spent much on modular.
I am not rich, I just have very little in the way of bills and make stupid amounts of cash
in tips every time I go to work.

And for me the Covid thing has only significantly increased my income weirdly.

[ATS]

I'm not even including HW, my modular alone is near $20k. and that's just one thing.

Damn nice!

Modular is cool, though I am in guitar mode of late and haven't spent much on modular.
I am not rich, I just have very little in the way of bills and make stupid amounts of cash
in tips every time I go to work.

And for me the Covid thing has only significantly increased my income weirdly.

I'm same, not rich at all but have lots of disposable income.

[cryophonik]

Hi, how much have you guys spent on software?

No idea, but I spent a lot over probably the last 20 years or so. However, I rarely buy software anymore unless it's some no-brainer deal or upgrade to something I already own, since I'm mostly a hardware snob.

I am a newbie and it seems quite expensive. I am wanting to start with Logic Pro or Ableton Live, but liking Logic more from videos.

Both are great options. With Logic, you buy it and you're good to go for a long time. It's got everything you need and more to make DAW-based music, and Apple just keeps on giving us free updates.

Also, how much money if any have you made with music?

No idea, but music was my primary income source for about 15 years back in the late 80s-90s, so I made what would total up to a pretty large sum, but was still a starving artist when you consider what I made on a weekly/monthly basis. These days, I hardly make any money doing it and don't even really try to since I have a career and music is just one of my hobbies.

Reading between the lines, it sounds like maybe you're asking if it's worth investing in music software as a means to ultimately make money. If so, my advice would be to start by making music for the joy of making it and, if you find that you can make something that people would want to buy, knock yourself out, but don't go into it thinking that you're going to be rich.

[oddsphere]

Too much but it's the free/low cost/included tools I find myself enjoying the most

[audiojunkie]

I honestly have no idea. I never had much money to begin with, so I always had to be careful. I’ve been at this a really long time—since before the existence of plugins. I spent a lot on hardware too. I started with the first DAWs when the gear mags were still selling analog reel to reel tape machines in the mid 90s. I bought A LOT of hardware back then. I was single and had a decent income. I was in a real performing band. I’ve enjoyed being at the forefront of technology, and was one of the early adopters of mobile/tablet based DAWs. I spent a fortune on iPad/iPhone plugins. I got tired of the planned obsolescence culture, and of companies purposely trapping customers within their draconian ecosystems with goals of permanently extracting money from me. I got tired of losing money through copy protection schemes requiring the company to stay in existence in order to keep authorizing my plugins. Now, I’m old. I don’t have money to spare. My music creation has become a hobby, and we are so very spoiled these days compared to what we had back in the early days. I don’t like being told what I can or can’t do, so I’ve moved to Linux. I only buy plugins that use serial number or keyfile copy protection. The handful of high quality open source plugins available do so much more than the tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment I’ve invested in over the years. Most of the Windows plugins I’ve purchased over the years still work fine on Linux.

So, a lot of this depends on how long you’ve been at it—I’ve probably spent (hardware, instruments, plugins and everything over the last decades) about $30,000 to $40,000). I imagine that if I started over today (knowing what I know), I could spend $1500 on a computer and hardware, a couple hundred more on some basic plugins (most of what I use nowadays is open source), and I’d be perfectly happy, and have an infinitely better set up than I had back in the early days of digital.

Some highly regarded masterpieces were recorded with nothing more that the instruments and a 4-track recorder.

[thebangman]

I have only recently completed all my studies & started earning enough money for me to be able to justify spending it on this hobby. I have a lot more spending to do in order to compensate for all the "free" stuff I used, but I'm planning on doing so tenfold over the coming years.

I'm up to about 800 euros now.

[hangars liquides]

Yes

[vurt]

today? about fifty!

[dune_rave]

This Year I mainly swapped things. It's not worth it to sell your plugins, because everybody wants to buy at 50% lower.
So This Year I gave away some stuff and this way I received:
Cubase 12 , Arturia FX collection 3, Arturia V collection 8

[brd]

So far not much at all. Logic comes with so many great plugins so I feel a bit bad buying more.

[Robmobius]

waaay too much. Thousands.

[edude03]

Shockingly not too much, I think I'm only in for about $500. I try and buy popular plugins whenever they're on sale.

[Biome_Digital]

waaay too much. Thousands.

yep

[daviddaymusic]

Around 2k