December
Ok, mid-December. Already. I’m a little late with this blog entry, because I had to recover: I just managed to survive the Black Friday madness, barely. But I did, so I got back to writing this blog-thing here. And now almost every shop and software vendor seamless ramps up for Winter, Christmas and multiple other Sales. It’s amazing how some try to outsmart the competition. Starting their sale weeks before the main event, or giving it just one more absolutely last overtime until it’s really over. And it’s not that I don’t like steep discounts. To be honest, I actually held off on some planned online shopping, to see if I could get it for less, in that period. But one or maybe two reminders in my inbox would’ve done the job perfectly. But no, a constant influx of advertising the same sale over and over again. To the point where I hesitated to buy a product I initially had on my shopping list, just because I could not stand seeing that promotional crap anymore. That’s how “black” this Friday has gotten. It’s not all bad though. I’ve gotten my hand on some very good deals of stuff, I otherwise would’ve missed out on. Stuff I already enjoyed using very much. And I’m talking mainly about software here. Virtual instruments and effects, spicing up my workflow in unexpected ways. And it’s interesting to see how each of these offering companies have a different approach to Black Friday.
Only a few resist to give any discounts at all. I can totally understand that. If a good product is priced well, it does not need to get discounted to find customers. At least in theory. How that plays out IRL? I don’t know. But judging from my own experience, there are definitely some very special products out there, that convince me easily to pay full price. They don’t trigger anything in me, but just wanting them. In a very honest way, for some very good reasons. Ultimately in the long run, those are among the tools I like the most. Stepic by Devicemeister for example, my favorite melody step sequencer plugin. I don’t know if it goes on sale at times, but I don’t care. It’s original price is 39 €, which is a more than fair price for what you get. It just recently got updated with substantial new functionality for no extra cost. It’s just one example of a software product in the realm of music production, that really doesn’t need any sale madness to appeal to me. A thoughtful and well-designed product is all it takes to convince me to pay full price sometimes.
And then there’s the whole “market” of free plugin instruments and effects. Offering so much stuff ranging from “ok, it’s there” all the way to “OMG, how is this not one of the more expensive offerings?”. And everything in between, not to mention the odd “pay what you like” or “buy me a coffee” stuff.
It’s really weird, but I kind of gravitated to the paid products for a very long time. They could come from very small and unknown developers. But I felt like I wanted to BUY a product. People put work into code I liked using, so I wanted to pay them. At least a “coffee” should be rewarded.
Well, while I’m at it, subscription models are not my cup of tea. With all the plethora of tools out there, I can’t possibly know how much and for how long I’m going to use a certain product. If I bought it, I can leave it alone and come back to it at any given time. Without having to pay for it in the meantime. To a very much younger me, such subscriptions could’ve been a very tempting offering, though. Get ALL the shiny (virtual) devices at once, for a pretty low monthly fee. That surely has some appeal to it. But then again, once you stop paying, no further usage allowed.
Interestingly, the same shady business model is applied to how most of us (me included) consume music these days. Who is really still buying music as download files or even saved to physical media? I recently did, but it’s a very rare occasion. I just ran across a Kraftwerk live recording and it was only available on CD. But usually I’m not, way to inconvenient. So, as most people do, I use streaming for daily music consumption. But this widely established and mainly used distribution method reflects in the compensation of the artists. In a bad way. What once was seen by some as a more easy entry to a potentially greater audience, turned out to be a lever for the “gatekeepers” over the pricing of the artists output. It only needs very barebone math skills to see how this doesn’t empower broader numbers of musicians to live by their often self-published work.
My brain keeps circling around this topic over and over again. I already very much like the possibilities to produce professional sounding output on a comparably low budget. I’m in the lucky position I always had some spare money to spend on all the beloved equipment and software I use. But when you’re young and just starting out into this world of production and publishing, you have to justify these then upfront costs with a realistically perspective of earning them back and make a decent living out of it. This—as sad as it is—seems to be unfeasible for the broad majority. Even very well established artist’s, with a decades long catalogue of publishing, often struggle to live by it at times. This isn’t how I imagine things to be, so my brain keeps circling. Observing and researching the workings of the music industry, because I’m so curious: will there be a solution to make all this work out in a better way?
Anyway, I wish you—the 1+ readers of these humble lines—a very relaxed X-Mas and a good start into 2026!
Best regards, Dareka