The slow march towards plug-in subscriptions

I generally agree with you, but I paid for the Mix and Master Bundle with PA and am satisfied. It was $150 promo and will be $200 when it re-ups. Although it's not their everything bundle, there are no plugins of their's missing in this that I'd want. I could spend $200 on a single plugin in a year, so getting access to dozens does seem like a good deal, especially when they are adding new stuff regularly. And they give you a respectable coupon credit to boot, so if there's one plugin you feel you should own in case you stop buying the bundle, you can pick it up affordably if you wait for deals. I think I bought two items with my credit and spent around $25.

At any rate, this bundle has given me a chance to feel out more options longer than most demos, so while some stuff never gets used, I do learn more about the differences between some of the channel strips, which I find valuable to my learning.

yep no sub here either. i'm very much a weekend warrior.

i've done pretty good getting plugs. i avoided the rush to fill my hard drives.

i only really buy plugs when they are on sale. never paid more than $29 for most of the ones i have and never bought when not on sale.
the 3-4 waves plugs i use are 3 years old now and i've no need to update or pay subscriptions.
izotope i bought when they were on special. don;t use them much anymore so a bit of a waste there and no need to subscribe.

thing is, i got a lot for free. a lot of exceptional plugs are available for free. i got some via the focusrite plugin collective and others are free from the designer like tokyo dawn, klanghelm, acustica.

acustica and tokyo dawn labs i'll pay for. but only when on sale. to me, they sound better than any other plugs i've used. acustica especially being the best to my ears so far. i'd go as far as to say a couple of the acustica are exceptional.
all the other plugs just don't sound great to me so i'm using them regularly if they perform a task i need like, metering, auto tune, auto volume etc.

We are moving in to a different era. Security is becoming a major consideration and that is forcing the expense of constant updates on developers. Subscription is the equivalent of music streaming. It’s pretty inevitable.

My best friend in high school went to MIT. He told me in 1966 not to study computer programming because it was all headed for the cloud with minimal local computers. The microprocessor delayed it but I suspect we’re still headed in the same direction.

It seems to me that the subscription model for most plugin products is aimed much more squarely at the 'weekend warrior' market (they'd be fools not to, since, as you mentioned, there are a LOT more of those folks than people making their living doing audio work). I don't know that many (if any) of my colleagues are subscribers.  

Anywho, as an audio full-timer, I don't (and will never) purchase a subscription, with the possible exception of Pro Tools, because Avid has damn near made avoiding it an impossibility.  I have a perpetual license for my personal use, and for my studio, but the difference between perpetual licenses and subscriptions are rather narrow.  I'll likely renew them till PT gives me ARA, then I'll be happy to let the 'support' lapse.  But who knows how long that will take to implement...

I previously had Slate, Relab and Plugin Alliance but have since let them all go. The main issue for me was just too many choices. I stick to buying plug ins on sale for the most part these days and have really thinned out the list.

no subscriptions here. The only one I MIGHT consider would be AVID / PT. Other than that, no thanks.

I'm not a business-head, but the $20-50 price range seems perfect for a lot of plugins. Pros and "warriors" alike can buy scads of these and prop up the companies. I think, from what I can tell, that Waves is doing very well. I'd prefer to buy a bunch of $30 plugins than to buy a bunch of subscriptions.

Behringer does very well too. That doesn't make them a particularly useful company for the medium- to long-term advancement of the audio arts.  I think Waves is milking a short-term opportunity by selling disposable mediocrity to the masses.  There's nothing inherently wrong with that, and I don't fault them from a business perspective, but I do lament the 'race to the bottom' I mentioned earlier.  Once upon a time, Waves was an innovator, and they charged an innovator's prices. Now, they repackage 15 or 20 year old technology and slap some famous mixer's name on the marketing, and sell it for $29 on some sort of never-ending 'sale'.  Not exactly the sign of a healthy, forward-thinking industry, IMO.

Hell, TDR sells plugins for low prices, but manages to push the envelope with every release.  It's not like this sort of thing is impossible.

Fab Filter charges what I consider very fair prices for their excellent tools, and there are occasional upgrade costs that are entirely reasonable. And they continue to innovate while also refining their existing portfolio.

Anywho, $20-50 is, indeed, great for a lot of plugins.  On that we agree.  Hell...i own scores of the things (more than I'll ever use, tbh, because I'm often fooled into the "oh it's only $25" tactic), so I'd be a hypocrite to say there's not a massive and viable market for them.  But to your point about subs vs. cheap plugins, I'd counter that I'd rather have neither, and instead, pay innovative companies a fair (read: higher) purchase price if it means better service, more innovation, future support, and so on.

I agree, bgrotto, that Waves is not chasing innovation maybe as much as they could be, but some of their newer plugs like Sibilance and perhaps the RS124, Abbey Road Plate and Chamber, etc, seem to be quite good. Hell they might even be broken in some ways if you look at the measurements people have been doing. I almost want to cut them some slack since they are the dinosaurs of the industry. They have the oldest plugin, they still sell it, Q10, the first plugin. I got it for $12. Sounds funny next to something like Massenburg or Fab Filter, but it was good enough for Amy Winehouse lead vocals.

But I also agree that I will pay for quality, whether it's 30 bucks or 150 bucks. Whatever is fair, I will pay it. The small companies with low prices, that innovate, seem the most exciting to me, but I do also get excited, like you said, about more costly products that show innovation. Like the Weiss products from Softube.

I'm not sure how price point specifically relates to this discussion because I'm not an economist. But it does seem obvious that people impulsively "collect" $30 plugins, I have been guilty of this myself. Like the very good Purple MC77 that I don't use, to give one example. It's a good plugin, but I probably didn't need it.

I'm not sure if, in turn, this somehow affects the mindset of the plugin developers, to "crank out pancakes" or something like this, but I would guess that's a silent factor. The major difference between your Crave DSP (with a single plugin,) and your Waves/Plugin Alliance/UAD to give some examples, the size of the library.

At the end of the day I really can't fault any of them, most of these brands still make compelling products, when you pick and choose. It's ridiculous how good many of them are. It's a good situation.

Interestingly, the most worthwhile plugins currently uncracked are from DSP pioneers. Those who write the best DSP code typically write the most effective copy protection. Sonnox, U-he, and Tokyo Dawn.

The ilok 3 was mostly cracked last year due to a developer accidnelty posting an unencrypted executable. That’s probably why we saw a flurry of sales to make up the lost revenue.

Honestly, the current sales model of the subscription plans and bundles has forced me from ever using them. Look at plugin alliance. They have mostly decent but not great effects that are horrifically overpriced. There are a few standout utilitarian tools and then a bunch of stuff you’d use on a project if it was 20-50 bucks when you wanted it. But it’s rarely 20-50 bucks and the plugins are mostly not good or utilitarian enough to impulse buy. So what do I own from them? Neold V76U73 (this is useful in mastering) , SPL De-Reverber, Metric AB, and Pro Audio DSP DSM. The others are either not good enough for general use (black box, Phil’s cascade), have awful guis they refuse to update (Acme Opticom), no component modeling or something that’s pretty much a basic wave shaping function, or are shockingly medicore despite the marketing like the Lindell API, the true peak limiter, and the AMEK 200 EQ that claimed to be inspired by a GML 8200. A GML 8200 sounds good while the AMEK just had a digital clipper tacked on and ridiculous TMNT settings that would get any new analog eq returned or used one sent in for repair.

Waves too. Yeah I can buy whatever I want for cheap but Waves update plan puts me off and they have nothing I need. I needed an EMI/Altec style comp plug this year. I ended up with PSP OldTimer because it’s the most usable and flexible. I got the Fairchildish functions I needed too. Even though it was the most expensive at 100 dollars, I didn’t want to give another dime to Kush and I hate, hate, hate Waves Central.

The new TDR Collector is what Waves Central and Plugin Alliance downloader should have been. It just works at keeping my plugs up to date without leaving wave shells all over my computer.

Waves too. Yeah I can buy whatever I want for cheap but Waves update plan puts me off and they have nothing I need. I needed an EMI/Altec style comp plug this year. I ended up with PSP OldTimer because it’s the most usable and flexible. I got the Fairchildish functions I needed. I don’t want to give another dime to Kush and hate Waves Central.The new TDR Collector is what Waves Central and Plugin Alliance downloader should have been. It just works at keeping my plugs up to date without leaving wave shells all over my computer.

Meanwhile some of these endorsed plugs are good but I refuse to buy them due to who endorsed them. Why would I buy anything from someone whose digital productions sound like an line six and bad sample pack? That’s the opposite of advertising.