Minimal Audio releases first Synth "Current" (NO DEAL)

[Solidos]

https://www.minimal.audio/products/current

$15 / month OR $10 / month with yearly plan

Insane pricing and apparently they didn't even tell the Influencers that it is a subscription only synth given that "Dash Glitch" for example edited his Thumbnail and video description to reflect that...

EDIT: Minimal Audio has responded, and it's a carefully thought out response that addresses the issues the community had with the sub-only model. Great to see this end in a good way.

 

Edited October 13, 2023 by Solidos

[MusicMan]

33 minutes ago, Solidos said:

https://www.minimal.audio/products/current

$15 / month OR $10 / month with yearly plan

Insane pricing and apparently they didn't even tell the Influencers that it is a subscription only synth given that "Dash Glitch" for example edited his Thumbnail and video description to reflect that...

I wonder if/hope they'll get minimal sales and do a backflip like Waves...

[Vst0nE]

sub only means hard pass then 🛑, they may have not notice Waves fiasco 🤣

Edited October 11, 2023 by Vst0nE

[PavlovsCat]

Basic fact of most software subscriptions.  Business buyers like them,  consumers don't. From studies,  consumers greatly try to minimize their subscriptions where a business likes the regularity and spreading out payments as opposed to making more significant ones every few years. The disconnect is that small business owners often skip research before attempting to execute these kind of obviously poor decisions,  often because they don't understand how to use research (there's a ton of secondary research they could have studied and learned from; they clearly didn't). Because every software business desires a dependable source of recurring revenue, sometimes small business people can be blinded by their own wants without doing the research portion before embarking on a major strategy. I'm not saying large companies are always brilliant, we know that's not true, but they tend to better rely on research before making major changes to their pricing strategies.  As we can see from Waves example, small businesses in this industry often don't put in the effort to properly research before executing strategies well known not to be successful with their target market. Funny,  I was ripped to shreds by someone here who regularly mocks me and I wrote that on the day Waves introduced their subscription only model, explaining that the only question was how long before they change course. I believe I predicted it wouldn't last a week. The guy,  who doesn't know my background,  mocked me as an idiot. My guess is that this small developer will stay with this sure to be unsuccessful strategy much longer than Waves. How can I predict that? They currently spent very little to nothing on advertising and I don't think they're investing a lot in influencer marketing.  Those two vehicles would be critical to make this a success. But even then, that would only be a success if they weren't mainly selling to hobbyists. If they were selling to businesses, like studio owners, things might be much different.  

Prediction: They'll do this for 3 months.

It's a bit random of a guess, but based on experience advising developers and watching really bad strategy ideas happen in real time. 

Edited October 11, 2023 by PavlovsCat

[Kiloteq]

I too am skeptical about subscriptions only. (Not applicable if there is a purchase option.)
But I do like the Rent-to-Own format.
Something like Splice or Arturia would make my wallet loose.

I've often seen companies that have done well with the subscription format have a slowdown in their development.
But I see a lot of companies that use the Rent-to-Own format that are constantly working on development and improvement.
I think the difference is very important.

Edited October 11, 2023 by Kiloteq

[ralfrobert]

Sad. The synth looks nice. 

[satya]

Would pay 99 for this synth . Would take free trail just download sample pack n wavetable for free

[dumbquestions]

The best synth you’ll never have

[Vst0nE]

minimal audio statement,,,looks like management is stubborn to keep subs, good luck to them

Hey there, here is a statement from our company to address your concern with the subscription product;
 
"Hey everyone, Jake from Minimal Audio here. I'm sorry to see that we have upset so many of our customers as well as friends.
 
Unfortunately, there has been a strong reaction to Current's pricing, as well as a lot of misinformation regarding the intention and future direction of the company. It's a bummer because that's not the community that we're trying to foster. 
 
I just want to be clear that since the start of Minimal Audio, what we have been building is Current. Our aim for Current is a limitless ecosystem that delivers an incredible value for everyone, with a low barrier of entry, which we can continue to expand upon. 
 
For transparency, we will continue to release standalone products which will also be a available inside of Current. All of your perpetual products will continue to be supported and remain active on the website. We have no intention of removing any product offerings, only adding more, and we have a lot in the pipeline. 
 
While I understand that you may have some reservations with subscriptions — we believe that once you give it a shot, many of you will feel it's worth it. It is a product that our team has put their heart and soul into, and I'm confident you will feel the value. If it doesn't inspire you, you can unsubscribe at any time, and your sessions will always continue to work. 
 
I'd also like to say, we are seeing the most signups of any product we've ever released. To those of you who have decided to take the leap and try Current, we want to thank you for giving it a shot, and we can't wait to hear your feedback so we can continue to build something incredible together."
 
Please let me know if you have any further questions, thanks!

 

 

[ralfrobert]

Not for me. U-he, TAL and MSoundfactory are unlimited enough without monthly payments. 

[PavlovsCat]

13 hours ago, Kiloteq said:

I too am skeptical about subscriptions only. (Not applicable if there is a purchase option.)
But I do like the Rent-to-Own format.
Something like Splice or Arturia would make my wallet loose.

I've often seen companies that have done well with the subscription format have a slowdown in their development.
But I see a lot of companies that use the Rent-to-Own format that are constantly working on development and improvement.
I think the difference is very important.

The rent to own market and the reasons for brands using it is significantly different from the subscription model. I really appreciate that Arturia doesn't charge rent to own customers interest, as that is often how rent to own works in many industries. The subscription model isn't primarily used in this business to spread costs for big purchases,  even though it can be seen that way. Consider Waves attempt at moving to the subscription model. They weren't targeting low income consumers.  Most of their plugins are constantly selling for $29 USD. They were promoting access to most of their products to entice consumers.  Rent to own targets lower income consumers or those with a very limited budget. From the brand's perspective,  it moves people who previously were not likely customers into the realm of being customers. When it's done without charging interest,  I like that model. In some industries it has outrageous interest rates, and that's a different story. And to well educated consumers in the US, the phrase "rent to own " has a bad stigma tied to retailers charging excessive interests rates exploiting the poor.

On a personal note, a super rich very successful payday loan company founder and race car driver called me up after reading something about me he liked and tried to persuade me to lead marketing for his sleazy payday loan company maybe a decade ago. Offered me $1 million a year., a lot more than my normal income,  Im sorry to say. Boasted about charging poor people interest rates that should be illegal (it turned out they were illegal). Called me an idiot after I repeatedly turned him down (he first offered half a million and kept going up and was very angry when I turned down his highest offer). Now he's a less rich guy in prison. I love a story with a happy ending. 

Edit: This is the dude in my story. I actually just found this on a search and read the US Justice Dept actually stated what he bragged to me about. Terrible human: 

"Joan Loughnane, the Acting Deputy United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced today that SCOTT TUCKER was sentenced to 200 months in prison for operating a nationwide internet payday lending enterprise that systematically evaded state laws for more than 15 years in order to charge illegal interest rates as high as 1,000 percent on loans. "

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/scott-tucker-sentenced-more-16-years-prison-running-35-billion-unlawful-internet-payday

Edited October 12, 2023 by PavlovsCat

[PavlovsCat]

3 hours ago, Vst0nE said:

minimal audio statement,,,looks like management is stubborn to keep subs, good luck to them

Hey there, here is a statement from our company to address your concern with the subscription product;
 
"Hey everyone, Jake from Minimal Audio here. I'm sorry to see that we have upset so many of our customers as well as friends.
 
Unfortunately, there has been a strong reaction to Current's pricing, as well as a lot of misinformation regarding the intention and future direction of the company. It's a bummer because that's not the community that we're trying to foster. 
 
I just want to be clear that since the start of Minimal Audio, what we have been building is Current. Our aim for Current is a limitless ecosystem that delivers an incredible value for everyone, with a low barrier of entry, which we can continue to expand upon. 
 
For transparency, we will continue to release standalone products which will also be a available inside of Current. All of your perpetual products will continue to be supported and remain active on the website. We have no intention of removing any product offerings, only adding more, and we have a lot in the pipeline. 
 
While I understand that you may have some reservations with subscriptions — we believe that once you give it a shot, many of you will feel it's worth it. It is a product that our team has put their heart and soul into, and I'm confident you will feel the value. If it doesn't inspire you, you can unsubscribe at any time, and your sessions will always continue to work. 
 
I'd also like to say, we are seeing the most signups of any product we've ever released. To those of you who have decided to take the leap and try Current, we want to thank you for giving it a shot, and we can't wait to hear your feedback so we can continue to build something incredible together."
 
Please let me know if you have any further questions, thanks!

 

 

Wow,  the fact that a small business person writes a message like that -- just Wow. It's clear that he realizes the strategy isn't working but he's saying we're sticking with it. Denial is the first stage of bad strategy. Hopefully,  he'll have some kind of wakeup call before his business is in trouble.  I love small developers and just because they make a mistake doesn't mean they should fail (not referring to Waves, BTW, who've made far more than one mistake). I guessed three months before they give up on this strategy,  but this letter makes me think that process could be much faster. Or he's so stubborn he sticks to his guns and goes 6 months. I'm going to revise my guess to 6 months because he's literally rationalizing a strategy he clearly knows on some level is a bad idea by using sign-ups as a key performance indicator comparing it to past releases. I'm guessing they haven't had great success yet in sales and those subscriptions, while higher than past unit sales are not enough to pay the bills. That, in the end, is what leads some small business people terrible at strategy to a wake-up call. 

Looking at their staff, it does blow my mind that such a small business has someone whose job title is strategy executive.  That's odd for a small or medium sized non consulting services firm.  You just couldn't cost justify that at a small software company. As a former Fortune 500 strategy director,  it just seems bizarre. What would he do all day in a full time role at a company with a dozen employees? Maybe come up with ideas like "Subscription software is the future for our company!" That's my guess where this idea came from. 

Edited October 12, 2023 by PavlovsCat

[Kiloteq]

4 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

The rent to own market and the reasons for brands using it is significantly different from the subscription model. I really appreciate that Arturia doesn't charge rent to own customers interest, as that is often how rent to own works in many industries. The subscription model isn't primarily used in this business to spread costs for big purchases,  even though it can be seen that way. Consider Waves attempt at moving to the subscription model. They weren't targeting low income consumers.  Most of their plugins are constantly selling for $29 USD. They were promoting access to most of their products to entice consumers.  Rent to own targets lower income consumers or those with a very limited budget. From the brand's perspective,  it moves people who previously were not likely customers into the realm of being customers. When it's done without charging interest,  I like that model. In some industries it has outrageous interest rates, and that's a different story. And to well educated consumers in the US, the phrase "rent to own " has a bad stigma tied to retailers charging excessive interests rates exploiting the poor.

On a personal note, a super rich very successful payday loan company founder and race car driver called me up after reading something about me he liked and tried to persuade me to lead marketing for his sleazy payday loan company maybe a decade ago. Offered me $1 million a year., a lot more than my normal income,  Im sorry to say. Boasted about charging poor people interest rates that should be illegal (it turned out they were illegal). Called me an idiot after I repeatedly turned him down (he first offered half a million and kept going up and was very angry when I turned down his highest offer). Now he's a less rich guy in prison. I love a story with a happy ending. 

I am embarrassed to say that I did not know that Rent-to-Own had such a history.

I thought subscriptions were about finding something you liked and buying it.
I had interpreted Rent-to-Own as a kind of trial period where you can try out different things before you decide you want to buy, and when you decide you want to buy, you pay the remaining balance.

I certainly don't like to be charged excessive interest rates.
I also love happy endings.
In the future I will look at the content carefully and make a decision. Thank you for your informative story.🙂

Edited October 12, 2023 by Kiloteq

[satya]

Even MEGA Sampler is a subscription based synth , nobody tend to criticize Plugin Alliance 

Another sub based plugins are of Splice ,  and loopcloud , nobody say about them too , except u can own loopcloud plugin

, but whatever u say subscription is a great way to make money , they have failed to sell their sample packs and are relying on plugins , and other plugins are on the way , I think they will keep the effect plugins for buying but not the instrument until they reach the cost of development and profit .

Edited October 12, 2023 by satya

[PavlovsCat]

1 hour ago, Kiloteq said:

I am embarrassed to say that I did not know that Rent-to-Own had such a history.

My understanding is that subscriptions are for finding something you like and buying it.
I had interpreted Rent-to-Own as a kind of trial period where you can try out different things before you decide you want to buy, and when you decide you want to buy, you pay the remaining balance.

I certainly don't like to be charged excessive interest rates.
I also love happy endings.
Therefore, I will make an effort to make a decision after carefully looking at the contents. Thank you for your informative story.🙂

I actually shared a link to his story in an edit to the last post.  I swear I was saying some hilarious responses to  him. He told me that he's charging interest rates to poor people that end up at 1,000 percent and it's all legal. Being someone with ethics and empathy,  I was disgusted, but instead of saying that outright I said, "Well, I am Italian,  and I've already worked in the insurance industry,  so I'm pretty sure that getting into loan sharking would fulfill some kind of ethnic stereotype gold medal, so I'm going to have to stick with no as I enjoy my status of having a soul." 

So yeah, I had an upclose experience with a major scumbag in the business of exploiting poor people,  and that is the same thing the rent to own industry does in poor American neighborhoods. They charge poor people outrageous amounts of money for things like TVs, furniture and appliances, far beyond their value and they take advantage of poor people who aren't savvy. Rent to own is largely associated with those kinds of businesses in the US and if my business was using that model ethically, as seems to be the case with Arturia (whose products I love), I would call it something different like "play now and pay on installments with no interest." Well, something like that but catchier. 

Edited October 12, 2023 by PavlovsCat

[Kiloteq]

1 hour ago, PavlovsCat said:

I actually shared a link to his story in an edit to the last post.  I swear I was saying some hilarious responses to  him. He told me that he's charging interest rates to poor people that end up at 1,000 percent and it's all legal. Being someone with ethics and empathy,  I was disgusted, but instead of saying that outright I said, "Well, I am Italian,  and I've already worked in the insurance industry,  so I'm pretty sure that getting into loan sharking would fulfill some kind of ethnic stereotype gold medal, so I'm going to have to stick with no as I enjoy my status of having a soul." 

So yeah, I had an upclose experience with a major scumbag in the business of exploiting poor people,  and that is the same thing the rent to own industry does in poor American neighborhoods. They charge poor people outrageous amounts of money for things like TVs, furniture and appliances, far beyond their value and they take advantage of poor people who aren't savvy. Rent to own is largely associated with those kinds of businesses in the US and if my business was using that model ethically, as seems to be the case with Arturia (whose products I love), I would call it something different like "play now and pay on installments with no interest." Well, something like that but catchier. 

I have read the article you linked to.
600% to 1000% in 15 years was far beyond my imagination.
When I think of this content as a part of history, I think I understand the stigma that was written earlier.

[PavlovsCat]

20 hours ago, satya said:

Even MEGA Sampler is a subscription based synth , nobody tend to criticize Plugin Alliance 

Another sub based plugins are of Splice ,  and loopcloud , nobody say about them too , except u can own loopcloud plugin

, but whatever u say subscription is a great way to make money , they have failed to sell their sample packs and are relying on plugins , and other plugins are on the way , I think they will keep the effect plugins for buying but not the instrument until they reach the cost of development and profit .

I absolutely think it's possible for successful models to exist in the multisample world -- of course, they already exist for the loop world. I think the reason that the model can work in the loop world and not the multi-sample world is the demographics of the avg. age of user of loop libraries being lower than the multisample user. Okay, that's completely based on observations and no research. I haven't worked with any loop developers, just plugins and multi-sample developers. Again, without research, I think millennials consume loops at a higher rate than older generations (Gen X and Boomers) , which tend to be incredibly more resistant to subscriptions overall. I'm thinking of a recent consumer study on streaming subscriptions and it found that the avg consumer wants to limit his/her subscriptions to a max or 2-3 and generally is comfortable with adding new subscriptions due to the required commitment, as opposed to one-time purchases. As I recall, Boomers tend to be the most resistant of all to subscriptions. Whereas a middle-class Gen Zer doesn't think twice about paying for a Spotify subscription for ten bucks a month (or whatever) to avoid ads and listen to exactly what they want and skip as they like. Other than that, as I said earlier, business buyers tend to prefer subscriptions to perpetual licenses with software, they want to spread out payments. Consumers, for various reasons, largely don't feel the same way. But I do think that there are categories where, especially Gen Zers and millennials are largely more receptive than older generations. 

So, in the case of Plugin Alliance, I wonder, if they sell their subscriptions to a lot of studios and pros as opposed to hobbyists. I'd love to see the stats on that. Yes,. I am nerding out! 
 

Edited October 12, 2023 by PavlovsCat
I realized when I wrote "lower" I didn't write in age before it, basically, my point is that consumers that are avid loop users who take subscriptions tends to be lower than multisample users and older consumers tend to be more resistant to subscriptions.

[Nick Blanc]

I'm happy with my subscriptions to Plugin Alliance (the forever 29 one, which is kond of a hybrid? but I'm counting it), Splice and Arcade. The last one offers a LOT and has very high standards on what they offer. What I'm seeing here (I haven't watched any videos yet) is a synth with an online collection of sounds. Basically endless. If it's up to par with Arcade, it could be interesting. Especially when you haven't got a lot of other flagship synths. Still a bit expensive though.

What's more interesting is watching the fallout in synthfluencer land. It seems nobody got the heads-up this was going to be subscription and all the usual salespeople are mad. I'm seeing them flocking to X, complaining that they feel they have broken the trust of their Discord or Patreon community. Even some are calling for (extra?) compensation. I'm not sure on which side I am. Probably somewhere in the middle. My boiling blood from the Behringer thing still hasn't cooled down, but they do have a point that Minimal Audio should have disclosed this information to the zero day reviewers. It's not a small detail. On the other hand, it doesn't/shouldn't affect the technical review part. And I wonder how many would have declined the opportunity to do a zero day review IF they had known.

[PavlovsCat]

9 minutes ago, Nick Blanc said:

I'm happy with my subscriptions to Plugin Alliance (the forever 29 one, which is kond of a hybrid? but I'm counting it), Splice and Arcade. The last one offers a LOT and has very high standards on what they offer. What I'm seeing here (I haven't watched any videos yet) is a synth with an online collection of sounds. Basically endless. If it's up to par with Arcade, it could be interesting. Especially when you haven't got a lot of other flagship synths. Still a bit expensive though.

What's more interesting is watching the fallout in synthfluencer land. It seems nobody got the heads-up this was going to be subscription and all the usual salespeople are mad. I'm seeing them flocking to X, complaining that they feel they have broken the trust of their Discord or Patreon community. Even some are calling for (extra?) compensation. I'm not sure on which side I am. Probably somewhere in the middle. My boiling blood from the Behringer thing still hasn't cooled down, but they do have a point that Minimal Audio should have disclosed this information to the zero day reviewers. It's not a small detail. On the other hand, it doesn't/shouldn't affect the technical review part. And I wonder how many would have declined the opportunity to do a zero day review IF they had known.

But  then we've seen your synth room. You're a complete addict. Outlier!

I'm just having fun with you! 

Also, anyone who hasn't seen NIck's video with him in synth utopia, you really should check it out. It's very hard to watch and not be envious! Plus, the tune he's doing sounds really good, so everything about the video is cool, IMO. 

[Brian Lawler]

Well, that was quick.