Are finances curbing your purchase of plugins, music software, upgrades, hardware?

[aidan o driscoll]

This is NOT to spoil Larry and the deals section AT ALL. Or to stop anyone from buying. Just getting a feel for things financial

I am just relaying a personal thing .. I have not bought any new plugins, software or new systems since pre pandemic years ( only buy was recent for full disclosure - €25 for a bundle including Samplitude Pro X5 from fanatical ). 

REASON - here in Ireland and same for rest of Europe I would say ( not sure of US ), its the large energy cost hikes, huge Cost of Living hikes leaving less or no disposable income - its really noticeable .. even more so than that crash back in 08

I am just wondering has this affected purchase decisions of others here in the last recent while? Do ye find there is alot less cash to go around in recent times?

As an aside i notice with my IT clients that they are not buying new as much. I am doing alot more SSD and RAM upgrades to existing core i3 i5 etc systems 

 

Edited July 19, 2023 by aidan o driscoll

[user 905133]

18 minutes ago, aidan o driscoll said:

REASON - here in Ireland and same for rest of Europe I would say ( not sure of US ), its the large energy cost hikes, huge Cost of Living hikes leaving less or no disposable income 

I am just wondering has this affected purchase decisions of others here in the last recent while? Do ye find there is alot less cash to go around in recent times?

Speaking just for myself, in the US, the price of everything has gone up. Yes, energy has gone up, but in my experience food, most consumer goods and services, and essential repairs (parts and labor) have gone up more than energy prices.

[jude77]

I've been cutting back on plugins in general not because of the economy, but because I have tons I don't use.  So, the economy isn't directly affecting my decision, but it would definitely be a factor  if there were more plugins I wanted to buy.

 

As I think about it, maybe the one person who should respond to this post is the plugin king himself, @Bapu The rest of us on this forum stand humbled before him!

[aidan o driscoll]

BTW I am not saying economies are going bad or recessions and job losses on the way. It just seems everything has gotten way dearer of late so now i am noticing less disposable income .. maybe this is due to peoples wages NOT rising enough along with cost of living. So before i would just buy stuff without much consideration but now I have to justify and am cutting back

Edited July 19, 2023 by aidan o driscoll

[OutrageProductions]

With Hollywood on strike, many projects have been put on hiatus or canceled so my budget is strict for new instruments. Luckily my arsenal is well stocked.

And to top that off, Lifetime TV just reduced their soundtrack allotment to $5k for 80 minutes of original music. I expect other majors to follow suit shortly.

I won't work that cheap, so retirement is looking really good.

Edited July 19, 2023 by OutrageProductions

[Byron Dickens]

That and its at the point of how many console, Pultec, 1176 and Minimoog emulations do I really need....

[MrFigg]

Nah. Opposite. I’m buying more stuff. Had so many friends and family die the last year or two, some younger than me, I’ve just thought ***** it…and in the words of the song …”enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think”. 

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

In the end, you gotta ask yourself: are you a plugin user or a plugin owner?

[Yan Filiatrault]

1 hour ago, aidan o driscoll said:

 

I am just wondering has this affected purchase decisions of others here in the last recent while? Do ye find there is alot less cash to go around in recent times?

 

When I see 'why not' and 'installed' here, for some here the answer is clearly no.

[Bapu]

1 hour ago, jude77 said:

As I think about it, maybe the one person who should respond to this post is the plugin king himself, @Bapu The rest of us on this forum stand humbled before him!

I'm slowing down my plugin purchases of late. Not because of the economy but my tool chest is approaching overflow and some of the tools still have the shrink wrap  on them.

 

8 minutes ago, Bruno de Souza Lino said:

In the end, you gotta ask yourself: are you a plugin user or a plugin owner?

Why can't I be both?

 

5 minutes ago, Yan Filiatrault said:

When I see 'why not' and 'installed' here, for some here the answer is clearly no.

Copy that.

[Bapu]

10 minutes ago, Bruno de Souza Lino said:

In the end, you gotta ask yourself: are you a plugin user or a plugin owner?

FYI to be a plugin user one must be a plugin owner. That's child's knowledge.

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

28 minutes ago, Bapu said:

Why can't I be both?

In practice, the vast majority of people are just plugin owners. But they fall into FOMO by hoarding plugins because what if they need that specific plugin and they don't have it? And said time never comes because they might even forget they own said plugin or even have it installed. Not to say you shouldn't strive for better tools, but those are a dime in a dozen these days and there's very little, if any, innovation in plugins at the present moment.

Edited July 19, 2023 by Bruno de Souza Lino
Removed response to blatant baiting attempt.

[Carl Ewing]

I have a large budget for purchases if I need them. Most of it goes to hardware. But I think I probably buy less than most amateur / semi-pro peeps I see on forums, which is always funny to me. Although I've ran into a lot of amateur musicians, especially guitarists, who have better equipment than the pros I know. 

Most of my colleagues, and myself included, use subscriptions where possible. $1000 / year for instrument / plugin subscriptions would give you almost anything you need to do excellent work. That's about $100 a month.  Composer Cloud, PA Annual plans, etc. are the smartest way to a) have fixed annual costs, no update costs and b) try out expensive software for long periods of time to see if you even use them. Same goes for bundles like Komplete. These are no brainers, especially on sale.  You can tell someone doesn't run a business when they complain about fixed costs like subscriptions provide.

Audio / music work doesn't have to be expensive. There are excellent, absolutely excellent free plugins and instruments. There are excellent subscription options. And routinely excellent sales across the industry. This applies to software and hardware. I tend to do 90% of my purchases during Black Friday sales, and follow sales (to see what something should actually cost) and releases over the year to create a large list of what I want. And then wait (usually).

20 years ago, software budgets could go well into $10s of thousands per year. A single string library could be $1000+, and rarely ever go on sale. For that same price, you could get 5 years of composer cloud today - and 5 years is about the lifetime of a competitive sample library. Libraries will either be discontinued, lose compatibility, or require paid upgrades in that time. 

Economic downturn or not, this is the THE cheapest time in history to get into music / audio production. There are way too many cheap paths to excellent quality stuff. Unless you pirate, then every year is the cheapest year I guess. Haha. But I think people really have to become more disciplined. There is no need to have 10 tape emulations. 14 reverbs and 8 LA-2A emulations. Imagine running any other business where you're constantly just buying more and more shit because it's on sale. Like a construction company that has 80 types of a hammers because of "flash sales". Haha. Excessive software also creates legacy  / compatibility nightmares over time, and just adds tons of logistical headaches (i.e. total wastes of time) trying to keep track of it all, or doing new system installs or troubleshooting. 

Edited July 19, 2023 by Carl Ewing

[bitflipper]

2 hours ago, Bapu said:

I'm slowing down my plugin purchases of late. Not because of the economy but my tool chest is approaching overflow...

"Approaching"? 

How big is your frickin' tool chest?

[ralfrobert]

I reached a state of plugin saturation about a year ago, then started to sell off and consolidate. Mainly Fabfilter and u-he now and a few more brands. Things have slowed down, and higher prices and the same income are a factor. I like it this way and get more stuff done. 

[paulo]

Nope. I haven't bought anything for ages but only because I haven't really seen anything that has been irresisitable.

I would have bought  the K14 upgrade, but the parts of it that I want won't install on my pc and almost everything else I find a bit boring TBH. If I ever change my PC I would probably buy the upgrade to Komplete whatever it is by then, but otherwise unless somebody comes up with a vst that writes the lyric for me, then I already have enough stuff for my needs, it's the lyrically uninspired idiot attempting to use it all that is standing in the way of my path to endless riches. 

I do kinda want a Waldorf Quantum 2 synth more than I've wanted anything for quite a long time, but sensible me won't let me buy it because I really don't need it. I've just always thought that if Spectrasonics ever made a hardware Omnisphere synth I'd be all over it and that seems to be the closest thing there is to that. 

 

[Bapu]

30 minutes ago, bitflipper said:

"Approaching"? 

How big is your frickin' tool chest?

It's so big it's beyond compare

[AndyB01]

I think I'm done with plugins for a while. I need to replace my ageing laptop when Win 10 goes out of support but I'm milking every last ounce out of it before I do.

I've been looking at potential suppliers of a replacement and they seem extortionate for a dedicated music PC, so not sure where I'll source one yet.

Meanwhile I'd better hope that contract extension comes through... ?

Andy

[Byron Dickens]

1 hour ago, bitflipper said:

"Approaching"? 

How big is your frickin' tool chest?

[Marc Cormier]

4 hours ago, Carl Ewing said:

There is no need to have 10 tape emulations. 14 reverbs and 8 LA-2A emulations.

I agree with you on everything except the reverbs.  And I have no excuses. 

For everything else, yes, I've slowed down but am taking a more tactical approach and actually thinking of use cases before buying vs. collecting.  This is the first year in a while I haven't upgraded to Komplete Ultimate or CE.  I was talking myself into it based on the Stresov choir and Playbox.  Then I realized I have FOUR choirs from 8Dio that I haven't used and LCO Contemporary Orchestra that does a lot of what the new NI multi-layer instruments do.  And Playbox - it was intriguing as a fire starter.  BOOM!  Got Playbox and a bunch of PA plugins for a little more than a tenner a couple of days ago.  I'm good for a while.