Since 2016 I’ve been producing music and mastering for clients and even if it began as an hobby, the pandemic turned it into a side hustle, sometimes prolific and remunerative, sometimes not.

Although I enjoyed the highs when I could delete what I had installed unofficially and purchase softwares I used extensively, the benefits of going legit weren’t as great as I thought, now I stand here trying to sell my licenses, sometimes of recent products, knowing that the value will never come back to its original and considering if others ever felt the same towards this scenario.

At first the drive, motivation and force pushing me to use and understand deeply what I bought was high, but considering the current global economy, I just feel that the cost to benefits ratio isn’t the best, and I deeply regret going down this path…

 

Everyone steals, and the rich steal the most, the world is not beautiful, and people are not good, this is what life has taught me.
That's why I keep listening to this kind of music.

 

Dont wanna sound like a preacher, but the global economy will never be "stable". Sometimes it'll go up, sometimes down. But, if you're making money by using the plugins, you should probably pay for it eventually. Saying it cause i do the same. You can use warez as an " unlimited trial", but whenever possible, we gotta support the devs, or they will lose the incentive to make more plugins.

My 2 cents - Always buy them during sales, or buy second hand licenses.

P.s - If you're not making money out of it, you can skip through the above, lol. :P

 

And we shouldn't steal cars or they'll stop making cars.

 

most of the money you paid for the idea of supporting the developer of the plugins (bigger devs), half of it went to the developer of the protection, quarter of it went for misleading promotions and other marketing means. It's like thinking of paying taxes so the money will be spent for the people and country's development back but the government rather use it to fund war nobody wants to be involved. Supporting the small dev also seems strange these days, they somehow got bigger and then becomes iLok client for the next version of the plugin. I never thought of using full legit because I have done that before 6 7 years ago back in my Mac days and not happy about a lot of things. I just do whatever makes me happy now, it's either me getting burned or them, so, only one good logical choice there. I'd rather donate/buymeacoffee some random creator, pledge to some random awesome kickstart project rather than plugin dev these days.

 

That is why I always thought all Plugin must have maximum 19,99$ price tag :D .. affordable and no gimmick ..lol
Hate to say this but I just upgrade my Nuendo 13 .. and few hours later I saw it on sister site ..

 

That has nothing to do with going legit or not.

Your mistake was to think you could get the invested money back easily if you wanted to.
Every time i buy a new plugin i consider that money lost forever.

Now that the economy is shit, im even happier that i bought my stuff before when i had the money, because i wouldn't be able to afford that stuff now;

The whole takeaway is:
You gotta think twice before buying stuff, not just act on an impulse.

 

I believe in the "pay it forward" philosophy. If I'm making enough money, I'm making enough money to pay it forward to the people who made the tools that got me here. It, however, doesn't change my beliefs in copy protection and bad business practices. Some stuff should be pirated, even if you buy the license and never activate it.

I don't know you personally, but my opinion is that you might be spending money in plugins you don't need. Every time I see some famous mixer on YouTube pull up an old ass plugin, I get it. It's really easy to drop $200+ on a plugin like Oeksound's Bloom, but the truth is that no one really needs it. I bought Harmony Bloom and just a month and some change after, it was on the sister site. Still haven't regretted my purchase, because I know I supported a dude who deserves that money, and more importantly, at that time, I was able to pay him for his work. That's what I think that matters the most.

 

I come from the inside out future where the ideas of the Star Trek television series is but for us a living, breathing reality. Once we got our hands on the secret stolen scientific papers of Nikola Tesla and able to on a planetary level harness what amounts to free energy, the cost of goods and services was slashed by 90%. Then once we broke the code of creating absolutely anything at all with the hydrogen atom (including pure and healthy foodstuff) there was no longer reason for capital and money was worthless as a medium of exchange. Intellectual property therefore was no longer property and everything was available to all at no cost. Recycling of material to it's constitute state of hydrogen atoms means that there is virtually no waste, and the infinitesimal amount that is is sent in carbon containers, hurled at a nearby sun by star ships tasked with this duty. People and groups design and create for the benefit of all and not for monetary gain. They are celebrated for their good works and it has become enough for those that do.

Suffice it to say that virtual instruments and plugins are no longer protected by iLok or any other system, and the descendants of Markus Florian Krause of infamous Tone2 debauchery are actually the leading proponents of United Planetary Vision in charge of the free distribution of virtual DAWs, instruments and plugins. Music creation is flourishing. Things have changed for the good.

The future is destined to be...yesterday's tomorrow's today.

Peace be with you.

 

If marriage can be considered as "going legit", I deeply regret my past choices...
I don't think my previous wives' "developers" deserve any kind of "support"!!!

 

Now I am interested in what they have to say about you ...

 

the thing with modern western economy is that the amount of real Value creation is going down in extreme curve . noone can eat music nor .......
all this creative stuff which makes millions in the citys is prosperity shizzle and has no real value....
mark my words and remember in 10 years if you located in n merica or eu .

 

I gave up going legit cuz honestly... I'm making little to no money nowadays, the cost of plugins is absurdly high here because of the currency conversion and in many cases, I'd be paying for the plugin and the dumb DRM that comes with it and slows it down. The only exceptions here are indie devs (my highest regards to FirComp 2, which is one of the only devs actually offering regional payment).

 

i think wa production is one of those devs which were mainly producers in the first place and now making their money selling audio software to edm kids

 

Pick-and-Shovel strategy
To summarize : ppl made more money by selling picks and shovels to gold seekers than most gold seekers themselves.

Anything related to "music making using 'pick and shovel' legit products" is pure coincidence

 

Everything was going great until 2020

 

Plugins are a rip-off - analog emulations of eqs aren't even properly modelled,they are just using digital eqs with an "analog" interface.

 

eh eh as cherry on top they go subscription
----
there so much icons in their genre which even use xp and never would dare to alter their set ups of ancient plugs , on the other hand i can understand sounddesigners reaching for newest synths but they could done it bythemselfs in reaktor or so without fancy gui of course .
what im intersted in is whats really new ? desq and this other vox processor are just dynamic eq set to very specific curves or parametrs or what ever , am i wrong ?
leapwing comes to mind but in the end just new and smart schematics /chains and nothing from the ground up new .correct me if i am wrong .and all these smart eq/comp stuff for the unity sauce , no thanx , i prefer ozone 5 .
new to me would be a diva on 100 tracks with an old cpu , that would be cool .imo this like every else has become consume addiction you can compare to so much other thing like bass anglers and softbaits , you cant imagine the money spent and the one trillion different variations of the same stuff .
bout the new acustica stuff the one says meh the other say yai .
i think even guys like steve dude or finalmaster should not go testing further , in the end it would be better for their craft .i think this is a trap or a snowball system for a decaying music industry and musicians and creative ppl (the ones who do real music not this chart shit, and even them dont make the old numbers besides some labels which work lets say verical and the very very few toppeak artists)
isnt that so that small ppl in the meantime make more income with sample/preset packs and creating plugins than with their inicial goal making money with their own music they like the most .
oh gosh and i dont even begin with the poser dj/clubscene nowadays .

 

Last edited: Jun 18, 2024

Xfer - Serum : $189.00
Sonic Charge - Microtonic : $99.00
Sonic Academy - Kick 2 : $63.35 (not compatible with Apple Silicon)

Xfer OTT - : Free
Yum Audio - Crispy Clip : $79.00
XLN Audio - DS-10 Drum Shaper : $49.95
Fabfilter Mastering bundle : $439.00 (on sale now for $329.25)

Xfer - Serum FX : Free
Native instruments Raum : Free
Devious Machines Duck - $25.00

Nuro Audio - Xvox Pro : $319.99 (on sale now for $159.99)
Nuro Audio - Xrider : $59.99 (on sale for now $29.99)
Antares - Auto-Tune unlimited subscription : First month $12.50 then $24.99 (50% off everything now)

At full price + 1 first year of Autotune unlimited ($149.94), all those plugins are worth $1474,22
Next years Autotune unlimited is $174.99

Total : $1499,27

If you choose to add a few Leapwing Audio's products :

Leapwing Audio : StageOne2 : $249.00 (on sale now for $174.00)
Leapwing Audio : CenterOne : $199.00 (on sale now for $139.00)
Leapwing Audio : RootOne : $199.00 (on sale now for $139.00)
Leapwing Audio : DynOne : $199.00 (on sale now for $139.00)

Total : $2345.27

I forgot to add a Daw !
Apple - Logic Pro : $229.99

Total : $2575.26

If you didn't earn 25K with your music I don't think it's financialy responsible to buy $2500 worth of plugins.

In this screenshot, only a single one is not "available".