Re: Johnny Amato - My thoughts on Slate Plugins

Though, to be accurate not really the same as a house or car either, for many reasons, but just an obvious few. (1) Due to the enormous price tags, you require a loan for both of those and pay interest, which isn't the case here. A house/car is not something people can buy in a lump sum, but a plugin is if it's priced right. Many companies sell their stuff at reasonable prices that, even if you can't afford today, you can save up for. (2) at the end of a house you don't really own it outright since if you don't pay property tax the government can take it, and the same is true if you don't register or insure your car, so ownership is contingent upon paying more each month. Did you know "mortgage" is French for "until death"? :/ But I agree with the sentiment that at least you're off the hook from the bank at the end of both purchase. In that sense you own it from the bank, just not the government.

If Slate was a good guy he would setup payment plans where that $15 per month actually goes toward purchasing it rather than leasing it. Now that is a model that I could get behind and would show, through actions rather than words, a nice guy who cares about the end user. This would be like the "rent to own" model in the housing industry. But what he is doing is actually taking the most amount of money possible from the financially vulnerable people who can't afford the product outright.
 
Good point Jonathon. I am one of those, but I have no choice. But it isn't like a mortage (where you get to own the house) or car paymnent (where you get to own the car).
I think they might consider a cut-off point.

Certainly, from a commercial perspective, it's the way to go.
I didn't say it was like a mortgage, I said it was more akin to paying RENT.

When I used mortgages as examples, I was talking about something different. I was referring to the distinction between affordability (which means someones ability to pay for something at the moment in time) vs cumulative price (which means the money they pay for the overall thing). An object can be expensive or inexpensive, but still be unaffordable. For example, consider an inexpensive $50,000 house, or a $2m house. A person may not be able to afford it without the mortgage, but afford it with the mortgage. There are people who can afford to pay a $50k mortgage, but not a $2m mortgage. I was simply stating that affordability is not the same thing as price. This is where Nola incorrectly crossed Stevens terminology.
 
This would be like the "rent to own" model in the housing industry. But what he is doing is actually taking the most amount of money possible from the financially vulnerable people who can't afford the product outright.
First of all, the morality of that is completely irrelevant to any except for the person making the moral judgement on it - In my case myself, in your case yourself...correct? - insofar as the question "will I get these plugins or not".

...of course its geared toward the 'financially vulnerable' people as you put it. That's who this bundle is FOR. Look at his target market. He's not designing plugs that are positioned to go toe-to-toe with UAD and Cedar. They're designed for the independent musician that is living paycheck to paycheck.

If all you really have to spare is $5/wk ($20/mo) until you get your next paycheck, what other options do you have that will give you anywhere close to what that Slate Bundle does? He's not ripping off your broke day to day musicians. He's doing them an enormous favor.
 
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If all you really have to spare is $5/wk ($20/mo) until you get your next paycheck, what other options do you have that will give you anywhere close to what that Slate Bundle does? He's not ripping off your broke day to day musicians. He's doing them an enormous favor.

I think someone broke would be better off using their free stock DAW plugins than taking on a recurring subscription that would cost them $180 per year, unless they are making more than that per year selling their finished product. It's decisions like that why they are living pay check to pay check to begin with. Just a few bad decisions like that add up.
 
I think someone broke would be better off using their free stock DAW plugins than taking on a recurring subscription that would cost them $180 per year

I don't. And the reason why is that you can do more with the Slate plugins than you can do with free stock DAW ones regardless of the DAW. And if someone is looking to move into recording semi-professionally, they need to be using a set like these, Nomad, Melda, Waves, or a number of other affordable packs. What it comes down to is which company has the most affordable professional toolkit. Its not like the person is locked into that contract with Slate for the rest of their life. If in 6 months they are able to move off the slate subscription until they have earned the money to invest in a perpetual license bundle, they can simply cancel their Slate bundle. This is the EXACT same thing as a kid out of college renting an apartment until he/she can save enough cash to put a deposit on a house.

unless they are making more than that per year selling their finished product.

How could you possibly conceivably not make more than that per year??? Look, if these plugins are the difference between you making $20/month and nothing pr month, then the problem has nothing to do with the plugins. If you CAN'T make $20 pr month, then you have no business investing in a plugin subscription and should definitely be spending that $20/mo on a groove 3 subscription because you clearly need to learn how to track and mix. But do you seriously know an aspiring professional mix engineer that is that incapable of booking one hour pr month at $20/hour?

It's decisions like that why they are living pay check to pay check to begin with. Just a few bad decisions like that add up.
Not necessarily. It could easily be because they are just starting their career...once again the target audience for a lot of Slate technology.
 
JKeuhlin, almost everyone I know making music makes less than $180 selling their music. That's what I'm getting at. Not income. Income from music.
 
Didn't mean to start an argument about whether or not subscriptions were good or bad, sorry about that. I basically was just asking him what he thought of the actual plugins, which I like a lot, but use in conjuction with Waves and stock stuff.

I wish I could afford the whole bundle, but nearly $4,000 is quite a bit. With the subscription, I "have" them all in my arsenal. It doesn't mean I'm broke (I'm not saying you were implying that), but I just can't shell out 4grand.

I'll go back to my earlier analogy: When you rent studio time to make a record, you're renting those tools to make the record (room, gear, engineer, mixer, etc) And a record can cost much more than 4 G's to make. When your time is up, all you have is the record, not the gear. But the gear were mandatory tools needed to accomplish the goal.

Sure it's a weird way to look at it, but for a small $15 a month I feel like I have pro sounding mixing tools at my disposal.

And the learning experience I get mixing with them is invaluable. $4,000 over 20 years is a small price to pay for that 'hands on' schooling that I'm getting. And I have a long way to go, but loving the journey.

It just works for me. Call me crazy, but it does.

All this said, I do agree with you, Nola, on most points. For some, subscritions work, for others they don't.
 
Jonathon. YOU DID!!!
The point is so that everyone can have it. So its like a mortgage, monthly housing rent, or a car payment.

It is nothing like a mortgage, (or hire purchase) whether you are talking about affordability or anything else. With a mortgage, there comes a day when you OWN the propertry.

As to rent allowing people access to property more affordably than a mortgage, check that one out. More than 50 % or rents in this country are more expensive than mortgage payments on same property.
 
JKeuhlin, almost everyone I know making music makes less than $180 selling their music. That's what I'm getting at. Not income. Income from music.

Ouch. That changes things. Given THAT scenario I would agree with you in that free plugins is the way to go.

I was talking about someone with bare-bones basic recording gear looking to get their career going in audio recording. They're selling services. I see where you're coming from now. If the Slate plugins will not help the person advance from making $0-$180 pr year off their music to where they will make $180+, then I agree. There is no need to buy plugins at all, because the tool set is not the problem. Something else is.
 
Jonathon. YOU DID!!!

It is nothing like a mortgage, (or hire purchase) whether you are talking about affordability or anything else. With a mortgage, there comes a day when you OWN the propertry.

As to rent allowing people access to property more affordably than a mortgage, check that one out. More than 50 % or rents in this country are more expensive than mortgage payments on same property.

Here. Lets clarify.

Affordability = the immediate monetary amount required to attain it NOW. (A moment in time)
Cumulative Price = the total amount you will pay over time.

Slate plugins = affordable now.
I realize the subscription model may not be for everyone. I acknowledge that you won't own them.

All I was saying is that the rent price makes them easy to get to. And yes, I realize the cost will accumulate over time. So yes, I concede they are nothing like a mortgage in THAT regard.
 
Didn't mean to start an argument about whether or not subscriptions were good or bad, sorry about that. I basically was just asking him what he thought of the actual plugins, which I like a lot, but use in conjuction with Waves and stock stuff.

I wish I could afford the whole bundle, but nearly $4,000 is quite a bit. With the subscription, I "have" them all in my arsenal. It doesn't mean I'm broke (I'm not saying you were implying that), but I just can't shell out 4grand.

Johnny, don't sweat it. Several others are adamantly against a subscription model and that's fair. They're completely entitled to an opinion that differs from mine and I respect that. I really do. That's part of what makes forum discussion meaningful.

No one was suggesting you were broke. I'm sure many Slate users are doing just fine financially. I wasn't implying they were ONLY for people on a shoestring budget, I'm saying that I think they're a great option for people that ARE.

I'll go back to my earlier analogy: When you rent studio time to make a record, you're renting those tools to make the record (room, gear, engineer, mixer, etc) And a record can cost much more than 4 G's to make. When your time is up, all you have is the record, not the gear. But the gear were mandatory tools needed to accomplish the goal.

Sure it's a weird way to look at it, but for a small $15 a month I feel like I have pro sounding mixing tools at my disposal


And the learning experience I get mixing with them is invaluable. $4,000 over 20 years is a small price to pay for that 'hands on' schooling that I'm getting. And I have a long way to go, but loving the journey.

That right there is exactly the value I see in those Slate subscriptions. Along with not having to have the $4K all at once, and being able to back out of the contract at any time. I didn't realize (unless I'm misreading your post) that Slate had a $4k buy option. I would recommend going Mercury + Isotope at $4k. I don't think $4k is enough cash to go into UAD. What I found (and this if for me personally) is that the UAD library did not become comprehensively superior to the Waves (in what I needed it to do) until I had $9500 invested into it. Until you have $8k available, stay with Waves, Izotope or Slate. But even now, if you took my Waves library away I'd be hurting real real bad because I use tools in that Waves bundle that no other manufacturer can give you.

I get a TON of questions about this stuff (which is why I'm working on developing this thread). The people coming to me for advice are students who are just getting out of audio school, startup home studios, and institutions that are setting up media/broadcast/editing/streaming rooms. My typical advice is to immediately subscribe to the Slate bundle unless you can skip it and go strait for a substantial Waves bundle. If not, I usually tell them to start with the Slate Bundle and then snag certain plugins as the respective Waves bundles go on sale. If they are broadcast oriented, they need to acquire the Izotope line before investing in Waves. Only when these other libraries are in place do I tell them to go after the UAD. The one exception is facilities that handle large amounts of single source tracking such as voiceover and field recording groups. They will benefit from the UAD unison technology. If they can't afford it, that's where I recommend Slate's VMC tech.

I want to make one more comment about the 'schooling' you mentioned via the Slate bundle. This is valid, practical, and meaningful in my opinion. The things the Slate bundle can teach you about the tools you'll be using day-to-day for the rest of your life are invaluable. Having exposure to the units inside that bundle that look like and somewhat resemble their analog counterparts in real life is huge. Spend a good amount of time playing with that distressor. Take time to listen carefully to the presets inside of that Slate verb. Spend time experimenting with his Red 3 on your Busses. Use the virtual console drive every chance you get. Try and memorize the differences in the sound from the SSL, API and Neve EQ's. That Neve red knob 1290 that Slate gives you is a crown jewel in modern recording. Spend time understanding this thing. And pay particularly close attention to the Bomber. That's the only transient designer he gives you, but you're gonna need it a lot.
 
Well, the "problem" is many of us have careers and recording music is simply a hobby.
That's a whole different conversation. I can totally understand why a hobbyists would NOT want to be stuck with a perpetual $15/mo subscription. I didn't realize you were approaching this thread completely from that perspective.
 
That's a whole different conversation. I can totally understand why a hobbyists would NOT want to be stuck with a perpetual $15/mo subscription. I didn't realize you were approaching this thread completely from that perspective.

Cool, no problem!
And I agree, if you're making wages off music and have the ambition to be pro it might be worth it. That would depend on what you make off engineering and how into it you are as a career, etc.
 
I'm gonna toss this in this thread so I can find it later if we need to.

From Steven Slate:

The software industry is evolving. And it’s going fast. The things we can do with 1’s and 0’s is quite astonishing these days, as I’m sure you’d agree. But along with the evolution of of the actual software applications is the evolution of how software is being distributed to users.
I’ll get straight to my point, and I’m aware that this may strike some people in a conflicting way, but hear me out:

Unlike hardware, purchasing software [in 2018] is actually a BAD INVESTMENT.

Software doesn’t hold its value. That’s a fact, and if you’ve ever tried to sell software, one you know all too well. So considering something that depreciates in value so drastically, and which you may even have to pay fees to keep updated is…like I said…not a great investment.

Slate Digital is not getting rid of customers’ ability to buy our software outright, but at our new pricing plan of $14.99/mo (which includes all of our software, all updates, all NEW software plugins, and even third party plugins), it’s become quite obvious that the more logical way to access our tools is not to continue spending hundreds on each of them…I mean, our Verbsuite Classics Reverb costs $199 alone, and that’s $20 more than an entire year of the whole Everything Bundle!

But naturally, there are concerns, common questions, and skepticism. So let’s get it all out and you can understand where we at Slate Digital are coming from:

Q: At $14.99, it’s going to add up and in ten years I’ll have spent way more money than if I just bought the plugins!
A: Not even close. Let’s do the math: $14.99 is only $180 a year. In ten years, you will have spent $1800. Now, if you bought each plugin for an average of $150 per plugin, that same $1800 would get you 12 plugins. There is more than double that number in the Bundle right now, so imagine how many will be in your plugin arsenal in ten years! In terms of money, you’ll never spend more getting access to the plugins than buying them.

Q: Ok, I’m not buying it. This price seems a bit too good, so how are you screwing us? What’s in it for YOU???
A: Fair question. Let’s go back to 2014. We had some great plugins that cost around $150 to $199 each, and we were expecting to grow with each new release. But it didn’t happen. At that pricing, the barriers were too high for much of the audio industry who simply could not afford to buy our plugins, and many of them were using pirated software instead.
So the Everything Bundle changes that outdated business model completely. Instead of focusing on maximizing profit PER customer, it minimizes profit per customer to eliminate the barrier to entry, and then simply relies on customer QUANTITY. So you pay less, but we get more of you, and this becomes a true WIN WIN for everyone. We grow our business, and you get tons of great plugins for the price of two pints of beer at the pub. There’s no catch. It’s just a better way to do business.

Q: I already own some of your plugins. Does it still make sense to get the Everything Bundle or should I just buy?
A: If you believe that you’ll enjoy just a minimum of two plugins that we release every year, it absolutely makes sense to join the Everything Bundle rather than keep buying. It’s a far more logical way to go forward, regardless of past investments. The new VerbSuite Reverb alone would cost you more than an entire year of the bundle.
I’ll give you a real world example: In the early 2000’s, I purchased a ton of movies and television series on DVD…I imagine I probably spent over $1,500. Then I joined Netflix, and I’d wager that almost every one of those movies and TV shows that I purchased on DVD was available on their list of content. But it still makes sense to pay the $8.99 a month to watch new stuff on Netflix, despite the fact that it also contains content I’ve previously purchased, because frankly, spending $15 per show on DVD seems ridiculous!
And I’d say this is the same with the future of buying plugins. Spending big dollar amounts on software is going to be a thing of the past.

Q: I’m not going to need all the tools that are introduced each year, so maybe it makes more sense to buy?
A: Well, again, if you think you’ll spend at least $180 each year on buying single plugins, then why not get the whole bundle, and then have access to the entire toolset to use what you need! You may not need every plugin for every mix, but it’s sure nice to have a lot of crayons in the box for when you need that one certain color!

Q: What if I stop my membership and then in several years I need to recall a mix?
A: This is actually an advantage of the Everything Bundle. If you need a recall, simply activate the bundle again for a month, pay the $14.99, and you’ll be assured that you have every plugin back, all updated and working flawlessly, and the best tech support available if you need it.

Q: But I like to own my stuff. It just feels good and makes me sleep nicely.
A: Well, the point of creating our plugins is so that you can USE them on your mixes. Whether you buy the plugins to use on your mixes or you ACCESS the plugins to use on your mixes, it won’t matter. But it will matter to your wallet when you realize that buying them is a ton more money!!
I’ll be adding to this as we go, but I hope this clears your mind if you are considering your options! Either way, we are here to support you and help you get the greatest mixes possible!

Cheers,
Steven Slate
 
I added up the prices to outright buy price of Slate plugs

Repeater 100
Custom 150
Bomber 100
Preamp Collection 150
Bundle:
Tapes
+Bus
+Console 350
Distressor 200
Verb 200
Mix Rack 200
API 200 (not for sale yet and not included in the VMR. But lets assume its the same price as the distressor)

$1,820

So... $1800 (give or take) will get you a Mercury bundle. Then you're looking an extra $300 for the SSL which is not included in the Mercury and I think the whole waves collection is horribly lacking without the SSL Strip and G comp.

Also none of the Abbey Road plugs are in the Mercury set, but you can probably do without that ADT and the Abbey Road plates with the rest of that Waves set.

The Waves is a better value in my opinion, the issue is that they don't have a lease-to-own option on the Mercury. Here's my main objection to buying any Slate plugins outright: Waves makes a similar tool to everything on that list (except for the distressor and Red 3) and sells it for $30-$60. This is partly why I feel the best value for a beginner (who's aspiring to go pro) is to start with the Slate bundle then opt out (or keep paying) once the Waves package is in place.
 
I get where he's coming from...buying software is a bad investment. So is renting it.
In buying it, it will still work for decades, though. It just won't be the latest version. A compressor will compress even if it's 10 year old software.
 
I get where he's coming from...buying software is a bad investment. So is renting it.
Well, what else are you gonna do? I guess you could borrow it or steal it? The list of good options grows thin here.

note: This is going off the assumption that you need the plugin. If you don't the answer is simple. Just don't get it. But when you have a task that requires tools beyond what yours currently can...the question is what do you do?

In buying it, it will still work for decades, though. It just won't be the latest version. A compressor will compress even if it's 10 year old software.

Will it? Think about the other implications of depending on a compressor plugin to work for 10 years. Look at where we were 10 years ago. Not everyone is OK running a DAW in 32 bit mode on Logic Pro 6 using Mountain Lion. What happens when you want a new plugin and it will only work on El Capitan or later? What happens if the new technology is only coded for 64 bit? What happens if the company completely drops support for anything beyond four generations previous to the current version? So you buy the update. Right?

At the end of the day, what is the difference between paying for an update, paying for a subscription that updates automatically (like Adobe and Microsoft do), and paying for an update contract (Like Waves and Avid do)? Either way you pay to stay current, and if you don't stuff eventually breaks.
 
I added up the prices to outright buy price of Slate plugs

Repeater 100
Custom 150
Bomber 100
Preamp Collection 150
Bundle:
Tapes
+Bus
+Console 350
Distressor 200
Verb 200
Mix Rack 200
API 200 (not for sale yet and not included in the VMR. But lets assume its the same price as the distressor)

$1,820

I think you might've missed a few actually, unless I misread your list. The FG-X and VTM are $250 each, I believe. And the Bus Compressors collection another $250 (Grey, Red, MU) Not sure what the Eiosis Deesser goes for. The bundle also comes with the full S-Gear sim collection. The new API EQ is $149, I think.

So maybe it's not quite $4,000 like I mentioned, but still not too far off. I also have (own) the Slate VMS mic and pre, along with the software. This I bought and was $999 (although I caught it on sale for $799)

I love the Repeater Delay, but it's been giving me problems lately. I open up a session, and it's been set back to 'default' on whatever channels I had it on. I actually stopped using it because of this. Doing searches online to try to figure out why it's doing that...
 
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