I' in the process creating my new production environment but I'm a bit reluctant to spend serious amounts of money for plugins for one reason:

While hardware can be used even when it's not supported anymore using software you're completely dependent on the maker's policies. A hardware preamp from the 60s or a synth from the 70s may need some service sometimes, but will work then.

If a plugin stops working with a new OS version or a computer hardware becomes unsupported your investment is lost completely. Happened to me a few times. If you're generating lots of income each month being the go-to producer it may be no problem, my self I'm old enough to appreciate that long-term usefulness.

(Of course you still could use the old hardware and OS to run it, print the tracks and so on. But in laptop-producer times it will seldom meet the workflow.)

You even may not be able to load your projects just because some license server was shut down.
It's not all about the money, there's not much lost when (for example) Klanghelm plugins will stop working, but your mix will be kaputt anyway.

I'd like to collect some info on companies that actively deal with this problem and provide a solution in case they're stopping support or are going out of business completely. I'd like to use it as a guidance, which stuff to use and buy when getting completely legal.

I have no choice regarding my DAW, but plugins are optional.
So I only will buy from companies that clearly state what will happen to their software if they stop supporting it or cease to exist for any reason.

Some of my criteria:

- If they regulary use an online licensing system they promise to provide a free version that works offline
- If they stop selling their stuff they will opensource it, so all that nerdy programmers out there can take care about it.

Do you know companies that do not cultivate that "after me, the deluge" mindset qand care about their customers?

 

Eventually all plugins today will be obsolete. I highly doubt 20 years from now we'll be awaiting the next OS compatibility update for XYZ. The fact is we're making advances in dsp technology at a mind blowing rate. And it doesn't advance in a linear fashion. More like a logarithmic rate... Find something you like, is useful to you and your production workflow and forget about what you spent. It's gear not an investment. Mearly tools to get the job done. The investment is what's in between your ears, not a plugin manufacturer.

 

This is very feasible, and I'm doing that right now in fact. I'm using a 32bit DAW, on a 64bit OS, simply because my old plugins are bulit to VST2x86.

A lot of old 32bit software from W95 will run on W8 from 2013. That's eighteen years of binary compatibility, so M$ supports this.

Also, RE old projects, how often are you going to do this, from how far back? I have Audition 3 from '07 installed for occasionally exporting out of my old DAW to a new one. But really, I'm not going to do this too often. Audio projects should last 10 years or less. Workflow shouldgo like this: make your current project, sell/distrubute your music, and leave it. You don't wake up one day and think "oh, I made a bum note 6 years ago, lemme fix it now"

 

Well, at this moment no vital plugins are online-only. (thank God for iLok & eLicenser). You can see your current desktop/laptop as a "hardware instrument": pick your OS, pick your souncard, daw and plugins, give it a cool network name and maybe put a sticker on it. You'll have to get a new computer every 5 years anyway. Over a human lifetime the PC collection doesn't grow quite large assuming a decade of backwards compatibility. In the future, should you need access to old projects, worst case scenario you will access it via it's soundcard audio in/out ports.

I'd bet on augmented reality sooner than later.

 

My advice : Invest in hardware.

 

Buy what you can't live without and will use, that way he get your money's worth, if you want resale value in any form then as Bluerover says hardwares your best bet, but even that is pot-luck to what people in the future will want to use. maybe find out what top engineers are really rating at present and prepared to fill the ever dwindling studio's with. chances are if it digital it will lose it's value.

 

The reality that we are living with in the present time is that there hasn't been a vibrant market for software resale. It seems people for whatsoever reason (maybe someone else would to explore this as it is ripe for discussion) are not willing to spend their money, for example, on a used Zebra, Diva or Bazille, some of the greatest soft instruments so far created. However, even if the market changes from time to time, tastes and trends shifting every few years, there is a definite healthy return of one's possible substantial investment in hardware if the collection is curated thoughtfully with quality gear. And while what our member in good standing, Moogerfooger so importantly states, "Find something you like, is useful to you and your production workflow and forget about what you spent. It's gear not an investment. Mearly tools to get the job done. The investment is what's in between your ears, not a plugin manufacture"...the reality too is that tastes, what one can afford to spend as well as the perceived quality of the kit all are real investments, this in addition to the time spent growing and creating while we focus on our art. If we fall out if love with producing or for any other reason at all need to sell the things we have accumulated (been there, done that), hardware alone will show a decent return on our finances. Moogerfooger, I completeley agree with you when I say, a Neumann U-67 might resale for $8,000, but our memories of using it would be priceless.

 

That statement might be considered more seriously if we lived an eternal life.
Practically and realistically you only produce a few decades.Yes, we will see advancements more towards realism, but sound wise there will be no revolution any more, unless you go back to tape, lol.
The advancements are going to be more about usability, user friendliness, gui`s and editing not so much in the sound itself.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Oct 26, 2016

Thanks for all your replies!

I'm not expecting 20 years of support, rather 5-10.

Seems like I'm getting old, having the opposite feeling that the pace of progress was more exciting 20 years ago.

Exactly, plugins are more or less optional for me, that's why I think twice before I spend money for something that may or may not work in 3 years.

True for a dance production. But I've also written a lot of songs I would like to revisit from time to time. And I hate when creativity gets buried by technical issues then.

For now my solution will be
1. trying to use stock plugins only
2. to print each track and bus to a file, when I finish working on a project
3. look for companies with an exit strategy and post info about them here, if I find some.

Thanks!

timer

 

@Von_Steyr .. Which statement would be considered more serious? I really have no idea what you mean. Please use examples.

 

I don't understand this argument. For example, the MIDI standard was established in 1983. Having a synth without MIDI (70s synth) when producing with a computer doesn't make much sense. Also, even with MIDI, older synths may not be controllable 100% via MIDI (filters for example). And therefore you can argue as well that hardware synths experience just the same issues as plugins.

Here it is important to distinguish what type of plugin we're talking of. VST is an independant standard that has nothing to do with a computer or his OS. As long as VST is supported (and I currently don't know of a system that doesn't) your VST plugins will work, no matter how old they are. If they don't work anymore they haven't sticked to the VST standard to begin with.

This is indeed the only valid concern. This behaviour is not part of the VST standard, btw. You have to actively select a manufacturer that does not rely on this most stupid invention.

 

Hardware is good BUT it's necessary to repair it all the time. I have an old big console who need to be repair, same with an A80, a presonus mic preamp,... A friend of mine have a prophet 5 who need to be repair (more than 1000€ !). I recently launch cubase Sx 1 and 2 on windows 8.1 to convert an old project to studio one. And it works ! I also have a 2xUAD1 (bought then on 2005) on a 4770k machine. I think it's important to export all your tracks to remix them in the future with others plugs.

 

Hehe, my posts are so simple in the mornings.
I meant timer`s statement about the longevity and future of plugins how its smarter to invest into hardware.
Our lives are short so whatever you invest into you will have to let it go eventually.
And im not bashing his views i do sort of agree, hardware is hardware, but realistically you only produce for a certain amount of time.
I dont know, im just rambling here.

 

I feel you, timer. I will never spend a serious amount of money on plugins for all those reasons you mentioned, plus I will never buy a plugin from a company that bullies me into upgrading the operating system even though there is no viable reason to do it [Native Instruments].

I also won't support any company that pushes Internet connectivity on me. That's just also bullying and rubbish. My audio computers don't need Internet, and I won't have a Windows OS connected to Internet fullstop!

I respect a company that respects me in return as a customer. Simple as that. And the number of them that don't is growing constantly...

 

Last edited: Oct 26, 2016

That's why Waves rules the mixing market (something most ppl don't understand) : take a 10 years old project and it will open again.
Even Native Instruments dropped some plugins...end of the game. No more compatibility with new OSes.

And this game is going to be even funnier with Apple "new OS every year" syndrome. Win is more "retrocompatible" than OSX.

As far as plugins and projects in general, to me the best option still to export all individual tracks.
Never save a project, thinking you will open it the same way 5 years later.Y ou never know...

Plugins are a short time vision. You can't consider them as investment in any way. Treat them as "renting"...the new trend is here.
"Big money" plugins are for ppl with continuous money flow. And most of them are already full of hardware racks :D

 

I think most everyone will agree that Xfer Records is great and Steve Duda provides some excellent service while also having one of the most fantastic software based synthesis instruments I have ever heard. It's also obtainable for a more than fair price (Serum).

 

Since there's the older CV/Gate standard it's actually quite easy to use pre-MIDI synths with a computer. I have several old analogs connected this way, including filter control. But it's true that recording the audio signal is the better option here, especially if you're seriously turning knobs.

For the VST compatibility part:
I have no theoretical knowledge about the VST specification, but I see that there are at least VST 2 and 3, 32 and 64 bit, Windows and Mac, Intel and PowerPC variants, probably more. Will they all work with your host? Some plugins at least work with the 32/64bit wrappers, some not. And afaik there is another kind of "wrapper plugins": VSTs that are not self-contained, but point to an application or a framework, that again may depend on a specific OS version. And if you're unlucky the plugin would work, but it's "copy protection" is broken by an OS update.

I believe there's a reason why not all VSTs are available on all platforms.

 

I might be ignorant and stupid for what I'm going to say.

But what are we missing now, that we need in the future, to make music?
Right now, I think, most of us have everything (or have access to) that is needed to make literally anything we want.
I know I do: I just need more time, skills, and a bit of experience.

Plugins development could stop right now and nothing will be lost. You reach a plateau, a point where the advancement is so slow and unnoticeable that it's really not worth it anymore. I think von Steyr is right: what new sound discoveries/advancements could be done in the next years? I think it's all more towards interfaces, usability, etc.

So, in short words: you have everything you need to make music, no need to worry about the future.

 

That's why I pointed out that plugins need to stick to vst standard. VST is nothing more than a bunch of algorithms that were created by Steinberg in C/C++ and therefore are available (as a so called SDK) on all plattforms apart from consoles. I'm not sure about Android. A plugin must be compiled using the SDK and some people only have a compiler for the platform they are working on, for example a pc. Some don'T have a Mac to test their plug on and so just stick to a PC version (or vice versa). That all has no influence regarding the standard. A plugin that works on a PC would just as well work on MacOS or on Linux - it just has to be compiled for those plarforms, which is in the hands of the plugin developers, not Steinberg. VST is a half open standard, meaning everyone who registers as a developer at Steinberg (free), can download and use the SDK. But only Steinberg can and will make changes to it. This way all DAW producers know exactly what they have to support. And that means, only plugins that stick to the standard will work. But, they work forever. VST is downward compatible, if a DAW supports VST 3 it supports VST 2 as well. The big players, like Cubase, Reaper, Logic, etc., support both 32bit and 64bit plugins with internal bridging. For external bridging there are solutions as well, like jBridge.

I wanted to point out that VST is the only standard independent from a system. There are other plugins, like DX or AU, which rely on the platform (Windows only for DX, MacOS only for AU). Those may not work anymore when a new system version appears.

VSTs that are not self-contained are technically no plugins. They just bridge to the application. Which means if the application will not work on a newer system, the vst bridge will still function but cannot communicate correctly with the application.

I hope I could answer all questions?

Lastly, here's a practical example. Say you have a Mac and a PC. You have Cubase for both of them. You have a VST plugin, say XFer's Serum, that you bought twice, for PC and for Mac. It will work just the same on both computer. You can exchange presets between them. You can rely on them working as long as Cubase supports VST (which is like forever, since Steinberg created both). If Cubase doesn't support VST anymore in 2048, you just need to look for another DAW that supports VST, and Serum will work just like it did in Cubase.

Oh, and nothing is forever. If you plan on bequesting your music equipment, you might want to go for hardware. But within your lifetime you will have access to a DAW with VST. VST exists for 20 years now, I don't see it vanishing anytime soon.

 

Because 20 years ago the front end to the tech we take for granted today was being unveiled to the general public. Dig a little deeper and you find out through inventors like Ray Kurzweil just how "exciting" things are getting. Did you know Google is turning its AI into an artificial brain? The more we type into google the more it "learns". These are the baby steps to reaching a frightening thing called singularity. Something I believe could be the downfall of man. It's a subject that could host a whole thread of its own. Or what about self replicating structures powered by H2O and photosynthesis that follow blueprints? Not too far in the future - and I've seen the videos from MIT - we will put blueprints of a building into cellular robots, submerge them in water and out comes a 10 story apartment building ready to be inhabited. Don't believe me? Look up self replicating structors MIT. Or have we already forgotten the proposals of 3D printing? That tech wasn't created simply to print your own M16 rifle. We're making bold steps to print living organisms. Skin, Hearts, kidneys, Seeds, and food. Speaking of food, something we have today that would blow your mind is a thing called SUPER MEAT. Just google it. It has the potential to wipe out world hunger - as long as we remove the enslaving drug/warlords holding Africa back in the 13th century. The possibilities are endless. I'm forgetting some other amazing things I've seen the past 2 years, but they are slipping my mind at the moment. My intention wasn't to argue or disagree with you, I simply want to encourage you to go just a tad bit deeper in your tech searches and I promise the things you will find will not just amaze you, but frighten you...