XLN Audio - XOpaks 50% off

[Reid Rosefelt]

50% off

https://www.xlnaudio.com/products/xo/xopak?utm_campaign=2022_q4_xo_campaign&utm_source=xln&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_content=button_xopaks

Still only four paks.   How long will it take them to add another one? 

This company...  ?   I believe the last ADpak, Boutique  Mallets, came out in 2016. 

Sales all the time.  There are so many people whohad everything years ago .  They would buy more if they sold more.

I truly don't understand this company.   Particularly when you look at Toontrack, which constantly releasing new stuff.  The legendary @Bapu  buys practically all of it.

Don't even get me started on Playbeat, which releases new expansions all the time--most of them free.  Expansions demonstrate what a drum machine can do.  Anybody can hear the new stuff in a YouTube video.  The more of the expansions out there, the more you can see what a drum machine is capable of, and the more appealing it is to buy it.

Edited September 20, 2022 by Reid Rosefelt

[Bapu]

Speaking of Toontrack, new SDX droped today.

 

Edited September 20, 2022 by Bapu

[Yan Filiatrault]

2 hours ago, Reid Rosefelt said:

50% off

https://www.xlnaudio.com/products/xo/xopak?utm_campaign=2022_q4_xo_campaign&utm_source=xln&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_content=button_xopaks

Still only four paks.   How long will it take them to add another one? 

This company...  ?   I believe the last ADpak, Boutique  Mallets, came out in 2016. 

Sales all the time.  There are so many people whohad everything years ago .  They would buy more if they sold more.

I truly don't understand this company.   Particularly when you look at Toontrack, which constantly releasing new stuff.  The legendary @Bapu  buys practically all of it.

Don't even get me started on Playbeat, which releases new expansions all the time--most of them free.  Expansions demonstrate what a drum machine can do.  Anybody can hear the new stuff in a YouTube video.  The more of the expansions out there, the more you can see what a drum machine is capable of, and the more appealing it is to buy it.

With all the new stuff available all the time from Toontrack, I don’t feel the need to have anything new from XLN Audio 

[abacab]

3 hours ago, Reid Rosefelt said:

I truly don't understand this company.   Particularly when you look at Toontrack, which constantly releasing new stuff.  The legendary @Bapu  buys practically all of it.

XLN's loss...

But they haven't abandoned ship. Still pushing out maintenance updates to their software.

[Bapu]

3 hours ago, Reid Rosefelt said:

I truly don't understand this company.   Particularly when you look at Toontrack, which constantly releasing new stuff.  The legendary @Bapu  buys practically all of it.

 

28 minutes ago, abacab said:

XLN's loss...

But they haven't abandoned ship. Still pushing out maintenance updates to their software.

Actually, I own all of XLN's line except XO and Trigger. Don't want XO and I already have Slate's Trigger2. I'd never replace/augment with XLN drums but I'll use them as a MIDI drum machine.

[Reid Rosefelt]

3 hours ago, abacab said:

XLN's loss...

But they haven't abandoned ship. Still pushing out maintenance updates to their software.

Yes, it's not abandonware.  They are committed to keeping it working. 

[abacab]

1 hour ago, Reid Rosefelt said:

Yes, it's not abandonware.  They are committed to keeping it working. 

Yes, and Addictive Drums is a great MIDI drum machine!

[PavlovsCat]

I like Addictive Drums 2 a lot. But it's been -- what, a decade that they've been on version 2?  And it's been a long time since they've put out any new libraries. Yes, it's awesome how they've kept doing updates that keep AD2 running smoothly. I really appreciate that. But I'd love to see AD3 come and step things up a bit and some new kits.  Toontrack has done a lot in that time. It does make me wonder how XLN is doing as a company, if they're healthy or not. I own all of their keyboard sample libraries, which are good, and RC-20, which is excellent, and I've found their customer support is excellent and very friendly and personable. But XLN don't appear to be a thriving company.  I would love to see them release AD3 and new libraries. They've proven they're a solid developer. I want to give them more money. Please help us do that XLN!

[abacab]

4 minutes ago, Peter Woods said:

It does make me wonder how XLN is doing as a company, if they're healthy or not. I own all of their keyboard sample libraries, which are good, and RC-20, which is excellent, and I've found their customer support is excellent and very friendly and personable. But XLN don't appear to be a thriving company.  I would love to see them release AD3 and new libraries. They've proven they're a solid developer. I want to give them more money. Please help us do that XLN!

Agreed that it would be cool to see some new XLN developments, as their products are solid.

But I really wouldn't worry about their status as a thriving company. They are backed by co-owner, Max Martin, who is one of the most successful songwriters and music producers in history. This is probably just a hobby for him!  https://www.xlnaudio.com/about

Max Martin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Martin

"Martin is the songwriter with the third-most number-one singles on the chart, behind only Paul McCartney (32) and John Lennon (26)."

[PavlovsCat]

I wouldn't make a correlation between the co-owner's success in his career with the future of XLN. If XLN isn't thriving,  it's a real possibility it could be sold off or shut down and the lack of activity for so long is not a positive sign. 

[abacab]

5 minutes ago, Peter Woods said:

I wouldn't make a correlation between the co-owner's success in his career with the future of XLN. If XLN isn't thriving,  it's a real possibility it could be sold off or shut down and the lack of activity for so long is not a positive sign. 

On the contrary, XLN could be sitting on a cash cow with the existing products, and a cost benefit analysis may show that continuing to milk the cow could produce more revenue than expensive investments in new product development would.

Just look at the market saturation for plugins these days, products that used to sell for $100+ now going for $29, or $10, or even for free! It's a big business risk to bring new products out in a market like this. Just look at Soundwide, and the consolidation in the music software industry, i.e., Native Instruments, iZotope, etc. https://www.soundwide.com/

[Zo]

I do think xln lib is already deep , don t see what could be added at this point ´ talking xo the preheated pck looks interesting....

[PavlovsCat]

9 hours ago, abacab said:

On the contrary, XLN could be sitting on a cash cow with the existing products, and a cost benefit analysis may show that continuing to milk the cow could produce more revenue than expensive investments in new product development would.

Just look at the market saturation for plugins these days, products that used to sell for $100+ now going for $29, or $10, or even for free! It's a big business risk to bring new products out in a market like this. Just look at Soundwide, and the consolidation in the music software industry, i.e., Native Instruments, iZotope, etc. https://www.soundwide.com/

I won't belabor my point, but XLN is a well established player in a very healthy and growing market (I just read an analysis on the market several weeks ago and it's doing very well) . A cash cow strategy in software in a growing market doesn't make a lot of sense if you plan on keeping a brand around; by definition,  a cash cow strategy is not a strategy used for a brand with future growth plans. A cash cow strategy is an end of life strategy when a brand is no longer considered viable and worthy of investment. 

The majority of your customers have nothing more to buy and you're not paying for new customer acquisition (the case with XLN). A cash cow strategy is one that a company takes when it has plans to not grow the brand long term, but to get as much money out of it as possible, eventually leading to the close of the brand.  You wouldn't go with a cash cow strategy, because a cash cow strategy is not one used by a relevant thriving brand.  Anyho,  back to deals. 

Edited September 21, 2022 by Peter Woods

[abacab]

1 minute ago, Peter Woods said:

I won't belabor my point, but XLN is a well established player in a very healthy and growing market (I just read an analysis on the market several weeks ago and it's doing very well) . A cash cow strategy in software in a growing market doesn't make a lot of sense if you plan on keeping a company around; by definition,  a cash cow strategy is not a strategy used for a brand with future growth plans.

The majority of your customers have nothing more to buy and you're not paying for new customer acquisition (the case with XLN). A cash cow strategy is one that a company takes when it has plans to not grow the brand long term, but to get as much money out of it as possible, eventually leading to the close of the brand.  You wouldn't go with a cash cow strategy, because a cash cow strategy is not one used by a relevant thriving brand.  Anyho,  back to deals. 

Whatever... ?

[Reid Rosefelt]

The staff of XLN Audio.   What do these 17 people do every day?   

I think the jeans-wearing guy in the middle of the front row making the peace sign with both hands looks like Max Martin.

 

Edited September 21, 2022 by Reid Rosefelt

[abacab]

Ride around and eat ice cream?

[Joakim]

1 hour ago, Peter Woods said:

I like Addictive Drums 2 a lot. But it's been -- what, a decade that they've been on version 2?  And it's been a long time since they've put out any new libraries. Yes, it's awesome how they've kept doing updates that keep AD2 running smoothly. I really appreciate that. But I'd love to see AD3 come and step things up a bit and some new kits.  Toontrack has done a lot in that time. It does make me wonder how XLN is doing as a company, if they're healthy or not. I own all of their keyboard sample libraries, which are good, and RC-20, which is excellent, and I've found their customer support is excellent and very friendly and personable. But XLN don't appear to be a thriving company.  I would love to see them release AD3 and new libraries. They've proven they're a solid developer. I want to give them more money. Please help us do that XLN!

In swedish but one bar is turnover and the other profit. Multiply the numbers with 10 to get the dollar value (in thousands). I’ll do one for toontrack as well for comparison 

[PavlovsCat]

37 minutes ago, abacab said:

Whatever... ?

Don't take it that way. It's just business strategy 101 talk. I like XLN. I want them to succeed.  I'm just stating some very basic things about business strategy and branding. It's part of my professional background, so I naturally think about this stuff when looking at the situation. The outlook for XLN doesn't look promising based on the long term inactivity with regard to new releases.  AD2 came out like decade ago, right? That's an incredibly long time for one of their flagship products to go without a major update. 

Edited September 21, 2022 by Peter Woods

[abacab]

Just now, Peter Woods said:

Don't take it that way. It's just business strategy 101 talk. I like XLN. I want them to succeed.  I'm just stating some very basic things about business strategy and branding. It's part of my professional background, so I naturally think about this stuff when looking at the situation. The outlook for XLN doesn't look promising basing on the long term inactivity with regard to new releases.  AD2 came out like decade ago, right? That's an incredibly long time for one of their flagship products to go without a major update. 

You are the marketing expert. My background is 30+ years in IT.

Agree to disagree, OK?

[Joakim]

Toontrack must have made some changes to their legal structure, but here is anyway the results for 2021. Their turnover is roughly 3 times that of XLN. Max Martin is an owner in XLN btw, or at least he was. 
 

Both companies may have a different international legal structure etc, but these are anyway the mother companies of both.