Given the state of the world I find a lot of music software unrealisticaly priced - do you?


For a while I've had this default reaction to software products that goes something like;

"Wtf, are these people off thier nuts, who the heck wants to pay £250 for a reverb / valve emulation - afterall I reckon I could get the same result just by chaining a few existing FX".


Is it me, or do others feel there is this vast wall of product on offer and as such I just rarely feel I can justify spending too much on software unless it's something I really think will make a difference such as Omnisphere.

I did actualy pay £90 for the most basic Autotune this week - hope it's worth it.


Are a lot of software developers just behind the curve and hence going to find themselves without any customers?

To me the pricing is way over cooked with a few notoable exceptions such as;


Sausage Fattener $29
http://www.dadalife.com/?p=937


Toraverb 39 Euros
http://d16.pl/index.php?menu=228

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software has never been cheaper. Seems like every company is having a firesale. I impulsively buy anything and everything just because the cost is insignificant. I mean waves alone, the prices have dropped so much.

I suppose if you are from the plugin age, you don't remember how much things used to cost to get bad results and then look at how much it costs now. I mean the lexicon pcm reverbs were in the thousands and you got one stereo channel. Now you can spend less and have as many as your cpu can handle.

If you find software expensive, it is because you feel the need to buy things that could probably be covered by things you already have, You don't need 10 compressors. You don't need 10 EQs.

Even synth wise, there was a time where everyone had a virus a jp8000 and a nord 2. About a 5000-6000 investment. You could spend about 1000 on soft synths and get way more versatility, more instances and more unique sounds.

If you remember the days of hardware samplers which was not that far away, the yamaha or akai samplers with megabytes of space that cost in the thousands.

And then you needed a mixer which was of course cost thousands as well. I mean a modest minimal setup used to cost minimum 20 000. You can get the same results for a fraction of the cost now. You could ostensibly make a top 10 EDM track without spending over 1500$

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Last edited by Looney4Clooney on Oct-12-2011 at 17:10

Sausage Fattener - has to be the best name of any software, ever. I think I'm going to buy it just for the name, and so I can do a youtube tutorial and when the guy asks me what plugins I use, I can say it out loud.

quote:

Originally posted by Looney4Clooney You don't need 10 compressors. You don't need 10 EQs.

LOL

You really don't. Especially for EQ, unless it has some kind of special saturation.

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quote:

Originally posted by dj_alfi change your avatar for fucks sake.

What looney said. Few years back cubase costed about 1000E. Now only half. Prices have been dropping and will remain to do so slowly for another while to come (at least that is what I expect). A lot of good deals are just around the corner.

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quote:

If less is more think about how much more more would be. -Frasier

Ya, I hear you man.

It's a real bitch when everything is free.

Totally agree with L4C. I think that what we're seeing lately (e.g., with Waves) is a response to increased competition from smaller companies whose products are cheaper, as good/better, and already 64-bit. So, the big developers of yesteryear are not making any money by inflating their prices. The big studios bought their products years ago and piracy has become so rampant among everybody else that there is no money to be made these days, so they're slashing prices to generate sales during a stagnant period.

I could be wrong, but I think that these developers who are charging an arm and a leg for their software are pretty stupid because: (1) it's hard to be considered "elite" in the software world when the best products are merely emulations of hardware and/or only marginally better than something costing a fraction, and (2) the market for these expensive products (e.g., bigger studios and a handful of hobbyists) is pretty small - most people will just use cracks if something is out of their price range. You're not going to stop the piracy, so I think that your best bet is to price them reasonably and try to maximize the number of people that will actually pay for them. Valhalla is a perfect example - his Room reverb is getting rave reviews from everybody and it's considered a serious contender for the likes of Lexicon, 2C Audio, Acoustic Arts, etc., yet it's only $50 and it's selling like crazy. Unfortunately, he will probably get bought up by a larger developer who will jack the prices up, but that's a whole other issue.

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Expensive, but worth it if you're producing for the long run. Your software won't go degrade over time. Your EQ will still do it's job years later. So will your synths and other effects. Sure there will be new improvements, versions, features, etc, but how advanced do you need to get with some of this stuff?

In the end, your EQ is still gonna EQ, compressor will compress, and a Sausage Fattener will continue doing whatever the hell it does just as well as the day you bought it.

For the transient producer however - the ones that come and try this out for a few months and quit - spending on this expensive stuff is a waste. Then again, most of these types don't necessarily buy the software anyhow...

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Frankly... I wouldn't even piss on that sausage fattener plug.

quote:

Originally posted by cl0ckw3rk Expensive, but worth it if you're producing for the long run. Your software won't go degrade over time. Your EQ will still do it's job years later. So will your synths and other effects. Sure there will be new improvements, versions, features, etc, but how advanced do you need to get with some of this stuff? In the end, your EQ is still gonna EQ, compressor will compress, and a Sausage Fattener will continue doing whatever the hell it does just as well as the day you bought it. For the transient producer however - the ones that come and try this out for a few months and quit - spending on this expensive stuff is a waste. Then again, most of these types don't necessarily buy the software anyhow...

until the company goes bust and your new os doesn't support it. HArdware also keeps a portion of its value where as software is pretty much worth nothing used and in fact most companies won't even allow it.

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quote:

Originally posted by Looney4Clooney until the company goes bust and your new os doesn't support it. HArdware also keeps a portion of its value where as software is pretty much worth nothing used and in fact most companies won't even allow it.

New OS doesn't support it? Where would you get such a silly notion.

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think this one thru

OS number 1 goes to OS number 2 , OS 2 does not support say a file type called PPC. Now if only the company was still around to update the plugin from PPC to intel which they aren't . Darn.

make sense ?

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"This is why Superman works alone." GC
old stuff from days gone by (2001-2004)
Mad For Brad's gay little contest