New Comp for Duende!

[Lownotes]

I'm going to have to consider this one. Not too bad of a price too.

SSL

[The Beatsmith]

it's serious business.

[andrewj]

looking good, but their ad is real bad! cxomparing it with freeware and bundled comps means to me it is low class!!

[feck]

It looks interesting. But honestly, how many compressors do we need?

[Doc No]

Originally Posted by feck

It looks interesting. But honestly, how many compressors do we need?

This one is very, very flexible!!!!

Duende for President!

[Doc No]

Originally Posted by andrewj

looking good, but their ad is real bad! cxomparing it with freeware and bundled comps means to me it is low class!!

Did you check it out?

[audiomichael]

Originally Posted by feck

It looks interesting. But honestly, how many compressors do we need?

According to this guy...You need 2 of each.

[manthe]

Originally Posted by feck

It looks interesting. But honestly, how many compressors do we need?

I was sort-a thinking that too. That will make 3 for the Duende now (Bus comp, channel strip comp and now this one). I know it is retartedly flexible...which is great, but I think it will come down to character, sound quality, flavor, the ability to be transparent when desirable, etc. The price seems fair for the most part, and I'm sure it will be amazing, like everything else.

I agree that the marketing seemed weird. That was the 1st thing that struck me as well. Strange choice of words and phrases!

Has any one installed this version on a quad-core machine yet? The last rev rendered me dead and I had to back-rev and rebuild my entire OS!

Very curious to to give it a listen. I also LOVE that their demos are 10 hours of processing and not a strict, date-driven time line. That has screwed me more than once with UAD-1 demos!

[sexxy]

Duende - Console-Grade Processing for your DAW

[peeder]

249 quid sounds reasonable, but over $500 DOLLARS U.S.?

SSL we need weak dollar relief. More importantly, YOU need weak dollar relief. How many people are going to buy a limited-instance hardware-based compressor plugin for $500USD? Your total profit for this development is not going to be optimized with that kind of king's ransom involved. The cost of sales is negligible and you need some revenue to pay off the development...don't let dollar policy price you out of your largest market.

[manthe]

Relatively speaking your correct. The *value* of the plug is one thing in the UK and Europe and the *value* is something much higher in the US/Canada/Australia/etc. It would be nice for SSL to think of those massive markets with currencies weaker than the GBP, but I've already learned that this falls on very deaf ears. Plus, people tend to get racist and think that is is US Americans asking for a handout and proceed to admonish us for our government, policies, lifestyle...whatever...its not a beg for a handout, but folks do not tend to see it that way...some folks, I should say. I would think that the combined markets of Canada, AU, USA, South America, etc might warrant consideration...but it doesn't. I would be willing to bet quite a bit that the volume of sales would increase exponentially.

Compared to the $600 EQ, this is a bargain and Drumstrip is an absolute giveaway

I am, essentially not going to buy any more Duende plugs, I've decided, until the local currency strengthens or some other arrangement is made...whatever it is. Voting with my wallet, so to speak. Its NOT that I cannot necessarily afford to spend $1100 on 2 plugins (I could if I needed to or if I perceived the value to be there), its just that the product itself is over priced for what it is, IMO...ESPECIALLY when you consider that I can only run 16 of one, total, or 8 of each...total.

In the real world, with the Channel Strip on a few tracks, the Bus comp on a few busses, etc, one wopuld really only be able to run a very small handful of these extra plugs. Maybe 3 each?? I can't justify $1100 for 6 instances! Oh well...what to do...I'm still exceedingly happy with the 3 Duende plugs that I do own!

Originally Posted by peeder

249 quid sounds reasonable, but over $500 DOLLARS U.S.?

SSL we need weak dollar relief. More importantly, YOU need weak dollar relief. How many people are going to buy a limited-instance hardware-based compressor plugin for $500USD? Your total profit for this development is not going to be optimized with that kind of king's ransom involved. The cost of sales is negligible and you need some revenue to pay off the development...don't let dollar policy price you out of your largest market.

[wrenhunter]

Originally Posted by peeder

249 quid sounds reasonable, but over $500 DOLLARS U.S.?

SSL we need weak dollar relief. More importantly, YOU need weak dollar relief.

Totally. I mean, that's two of the fancier UAD-1 plugs ... or a used LiquidMix, almost.

Speaking of which, it's interesting that SSL is going the route of the former (charging for new "plugs") rather than the latter. Presumably, the convolution stuff that Focusrite is using is less work, or ...?

[Factory101]

Good point - I've noticed the disparity between prices across the Atlantic - both ways; some gear in the US is same price in dollars as the cost in UK sterling here...also, apparently any firewire devices coming into the UK incur an extra tariff.

[manthe]

Originally Posted by Factory101

Good point - I've noticed the disparity between prices across the Atlantic - both ways; some gear in the US is same price in dollars as the cost in UK sterling here...also, apparently any firewire devices coming into the UK incur an extra tariff.

That is just absurd! There is NO WAY I would pay that, if I were English. So, something that was, say $300 US was marked at 300GBP? Ridiculous! Greed and thievery!

Why the FW tax? Is that imposed by the govt or the traders?

[eugd]

Originally Posted by peeder

249 quid sounds reasonable, but over $500 DOLLARS U.S.?

The exchange rate today is rough 1 to 2 (pounds to dollars). You choose which currency you want to pay with (because you just go on their online store to buy the unlock code for the plugin). So it's pretty easy for people to transfer funds to the other currency or find a friend on gearslutz to buy the code for them. So how could they NOT set the US price at $500!? If it was less, everyone in the UK could just paypal me $500US and I'd buy their unlock codes for them. (Plus, not being in the UK they'd pay no tax doing this).

[peeder]

Originally Posted by eugd

The exchange rate today is rough 1 to 2 (pounds to dollars). You choose which currency you want to pay with (because you just go on their online store to buy the unlock code for the plugin). So it's pretty easy for people to transfer funds to the other currency or find a friend on gearslutz to buy the code for them. So how could they NOT set the US price at $500!? If it was less, everyone in the UK could just paypal me $500US and I'd buy their unlock codes for them. (Plus, not being in the UK they'd pay no tax doing this).

That's totally OK as far as the manufacturer is concerned...they make their sales. The gubmint might not like that though.

Pricing policy is an interesting discussion in itself. Usually there's a cost of goods sold but in software there isn't (or it's negligible). In software all the costs for the producer are up-front...the first copy costs a few million dollars to make (or however much) and each additional copy costs a few cents. So your profits only appear after the upfront costs are paid off.

You are therefore free to set any price you want, and what you do is set the price that will result in the largest gross revenue figure, whatever that is. You also want to keep an eye on supporting the market as a whole, keeping customer expectations at a certain point and not below lest you cut off potential profit. So while you might find that pricing a given plugin at $100 might net you the largest overall sum, it might set expectations such that people aren't willing to spend $250 on a plugin any longer which may hurt future efforts.

In this case, the customer expectations of the price of a single compressor plugin in USD in the US Market is well below $500...and I predict they won't be getting the largest overall figure internationally as a result of their pricing. 249 sterling (too lazy to find that L character on this US keyboard) may be consistent with UK customer expectations but over the last year the dollar has collapsed, and this pricing will cause a lot of disinterest.

They also have to consider the platform as a whole. I predict UAD will make a major announcement in 2008 (perhaps as early as NAMM) that will finally satisfy the power gap between the platforms. Given the UAD plugins are priced well within US expectations, they are in position to take the lion's share of the accelerated plugin market. The high prices for Duende add-ons, plus the absolute processing limits, and the relatively few choices of plugins compared to UAD or Powercore combine to threaten the whole Duende product. Changing the pricing policy to be more US-friendly would go a ways to bolstering their position.

Otherwise they are aiming for a niche, high-end positioning...but I don't think plugins will have an easy time getting that kind of credibility. People are generally used to pirating plugins, and so "exclusive cachet" is a bit tough to achieve with a product that doesn't obey scarcity economics.

Note also that none of these hardware-accelerated (or decelerated, these days) plugins are susceptible to piracy, so they can't argue that the opportunity cost of piracy has to be factored into these prices as their native competitors do.

They might want to look at UAD, Apple, Digidesign etc. and start thinking about selling chassis instead of plugins. "Buy a second Duende chassis and get your pick of two additional plugins free." "Buy the new Duende XL chassis and run 96 channels at 96KHz, plus get four add-on plugins free." The chassis are probably made in China which floats closer to the dollar.

But as it is I'm very averse to buying any of these Duende addons at these prices, after how well I feel I've been treated by UAD.

[psmworld]

430,- EUR is way too much for the x-comp. and over 550,- EUR for the x-eq is nonsense...

when ssl sells enough at this price it´s ok for them, but i can´t believe it. noone of the duende-owners i know, bought extra duende plugs cause they were and are too expensive.

you get the whole uad precision series + deesser for this...

i could only imagine how much they would earn, when the extra plugs would be priced reasonable. but i bet it would be far more.

duende is very good, but it´s not THAT better to justify the prices.

[manthe]

Where were you guys a couple of weeks ago when I was getting shredded, berated and literally insulted for saying the exact same things about the XEQ? The fact that this comp is $100 less was a shock to me at first and I thought that it might be reasonable...to a degree...now that it sinks in more, reality strikes!

The 33609 from UAD is $300 US and practically unrivaled in he plugin world. With vouchers and specials, I got it for $100. SSL never runs any specials or customer appreciation stunts. In fact, with all of these new UAD-1 plugs, I will likely spend the same amount for the last 7 plugs from UAD that I need (actually $100 less with discounts and free vouchers). It really isn't the money. It is the VALUE...what I actually get for my hard-earned money. I mean, look what I'll get for $1000US:

SPL Transient Designer
Precision Deesser
Precision Bus Compressor
Precision Maximizer
Helios 69
Cambridge EQ

That represents a true value for my money. The bottom line is, I have the money to spend, but SSL is not getting it because they are pricing their tools too high for the current market. UA IS getting my money because they are pricing their tools appropriately and continually show customer appreciation. This is REALLY too bad in my mind. I like SSL, I love their tools and I REALLY like Jim. I'd like to give them my money, but I can't. I'd feel like I was burning it...especially knowing what I CAN get for it vs what I WOULD get from SSL. Oh well.

[Jim@SSL]

Originally Posted by peeder

The chassis are probably made in China which floats closer to the dollar.

Like everything else we do the Duende hardware is made in the UK with love, care, and attention

X-Comp is a really really flexible plug-in that allows you to coax a number of different characters out of it.

[Doc No]

Originally Posted by Jim@SSL

Like everything else we do the Duende hardware is made in the UK with love, care, and attention

X-Comp is a really really flexible plug-in that allows you to coax a number of different characters out of it.

Why don't you post a video were it is demonstrat. Don't tell nice things, make a video and show us all!

If I buy a second Duende, do I have to pay the same price? Channelstrip and Busscomp+ first Duende = normal price, right? second Duende = lower price or 2 plug ins for free, right?

I hope SSL will give the Duende a VHD Plug In! pleaaaaase!!!

cheers
yours SSL-Fan from Berlin
Doc No

[Duardo]

How many people are going to buy a limited-instance hardware-based compressor plugin for $500USD? Your total profit for this development is not going to be optimized with that kind of king's ransom involved.

I don't know how many exactly, but people have been paying over $500 for higher-end compressors for years on the Pro Tools HD platform, as well as for some of the higher-end Powercore plugins. $500 is hardly a "king's ransom" and how do you know whether their total profit will be optimized or not?

Plus, people tend to get racist and think that is is US Americans asking for a handout and proceed to admonish us for our government, policies, lifestyle...whatever...its not a beg for a handout, but folks do not tend to see it that way...some folks, I should say.

It has nothing to do with racism...but it's not practical to adjust the price of something to compensate for ever-changing currency, and there's no reason any manufacturer should make less than they need to on any given item just because their currency is stronger than someone else's at any point in time...

In this case, the customer expectations of the price of a single compressor plugin in USD in the US Market is well below $500...and I predict they won't be getting the largest overall figure internationally as a result of their pricing.

Again, where are you getting your information on what customer expectations for a single compressor in the US are? The Duende is a fairly high-end and relatively niche-y platform and should be compared more to the HD platform than the UAD or native platforms. I'm sure SSL knows how many Duende units they've sold and how many they anticipate selling and have based their pricing on those numbers. Why would you expect your plugins for this premium platform to be the same as those for the UAD and native platforms, for which there is a much larger market?

I predict UAD will make a major announcement in 2008 (perhaps as early as NAMM) that will finally satisfy the power gap between the platforms.

People have been predicting that for years...but it would certainly be nice if that happened. That may indeed change things.

Otherwise they are aiming for a niche, high-end positioning...but I don't think plugins will have an easy time getting that kind of credibility. People are generally used to pirating plugins, and so "exclusive cachet" is a bit tough to achieve with a product that doesn't obey scarcity economics.

I think that the Duende platform has already gained that kind of credibility. Being an SSL product it started off as a high-end and relatively expensive (although, for what it does it's still a great value) and platform and based on feedback from people who own or have tried the product the quality is really not in question. And while piracy is certainly common and a problem for most plugin manufacturers, saying that "people are generally used to pirating" them is an overgeneralization.

you get the whole uad precision series + deesser for this...

This may change if UA ever does upgrade their cards, but for now, how many instances of those plugins can you run on a single card? And how do they compare to the SSL plugs?

I mean, look what I'll get for $1000US:

SPL Transient Designer
Precision Deesser
Precision Bus Compressor
Precision Maximizer
Helios 69
Cambridge EQ

That represents a true value for my money.

Again, how many of those can you run at once?

UA IS getting my money because they are pricing their tools appropriately and continually show customer appreciation.

Funny, as the general consensus I've felt around here was that if UA really wanted to show customer appreciation they would have upgraded their cards years ago...the Powercore came out at about the same time and they're on the verge of releasing what, their third generation?

I don't understand why releasing a relatively expensive product should be considered an insult to a company's customer base. If it's too expensive in your opinion move on to something else...why get offended?

[psmworld]

Originally Posted by Duardo

Again, how many of those can you run at once?

more than duende when correct compared.

for the price of duende you get 3 pci-e cards. that´s actual a total voucher of 1050,- $ to spend for plugins.

for the price of x-comp you get another pci-e card, another 350,- $ voucher.

with the 3-card setup you get 39 instances of Neve 88RS, or 30 instances new bus compressor, or 27 instances spl transient designer.

with the 4-card setup even more...

and uad1 is rock solid.

[Jim@SSL]

Originally Posted by Doc No

Why don't you post a video were it is demonstrat. Don't tell nice things, make a video and show us all!

If I buy a second Duende, do I have to pay the same price? Channelstrip and Busscomp+ first Duende = normal price, right? second Duende = lower price or 2 plug ins for free, right?

Video will be done in the New Year - things have been pretty busy of late... However, a free demo version is included in the V2.3 software, so you can try for yourself over the Christmas holidays!

If you have purchased plug-ins for one Duende we will provide codes for the second one that you buy if registered to the same address with us. If you've paid for it one one Duende we're not going to charge you to run it on your second...that really would be unfair.

As I have posted a number of times before we are looking at ways that we can offer incentives to Duende users. This is something we will be hoping to get set up sometime in 2008 once some back-office issues have been resolved.

More Duende news coming in sunny Anaheim.....ssssshhhhhh

[manthe]

Originally Posted by Jim@SSL

More Duende news coming in sunny Anaheim.....ssssshhhhhh

Such a tease! Thanks for making me anxious!

[manthe]

The Duende and UAD-1 are as close to an apples/apples comparison as you're gonna get. There is empirical and hard data all over the place to support the utter adoration for UAD-1 plugins. People complain about DSP power, but they also absolutely adore the plugins. Customer appreciation is decidedly NOT the release of a more powerful UAD-1 platform. Customer appreciation is getting an e-mail every month or 2 saying: 'such and such is discounted by X% all month, and OH, BTW, we're giving you a FREE $25 voucher for every card you own!!' Cool - now I have $100 of free money to spend on discounted plugins! This is a real scenario that has happened more than once!

UA's heir plugins and even DSP cards are used with PT all over the place. I know and know-of many, many people that use both the UA DSP versions and the TDM versions. They are decidedly as 'pro' as the Duende plugs in terms of 'pro' market saturation...in fact, raw numbers would almost certainly show exponentially higher UA saturation in 'pro' studios than Duende. This is obviously due to time, but I don't see or hear of any one throwing out their UA stuff to get the Duende. They are a great 1,2 punch and add equally and in different ways to ITB mixes.

It isn't a question of which is more 'pro'. It is a question of value and what the market will truly bare. Just because *some* people will pay $1100US does not mean that it is what they are worth. It is also no way to guage what the market will *truly* bare. That is to say: If 100 people will pay $1100, but 500 people would pay $600, where the *real* market?

In relative terms, people in the UK are paying far LESS for the SAME THING! Why are those plugins WORTH more in the US/Canada/AU/South America/etc? The truth is, they aren't. They simply are not. The investment for a UK studio is proportionately far less than a studio's investment in the above places for the EXACT SAME TOOLS! A UK engineer's ROI is going to be much higher than any one else's because 300GBP is RELATIVELY far less to in the English market than $600US. Just because there are differences in currency values does NOT mean there are differences in the *values* of these plugins. That is why we are having issues with this stuff. No one is saying that the stuff does not sound good, it does. What we ARE saying is that we can get tools that are also fantastic for half the price or less, and THAT is why we judge the relative value of a plugin compressor/EQ to be less than what SSL is charging...because there is COLD, HARD precedent!

We are a little offended...(not *really* the right word, but I'll use your word)...because we bought in to this 'system' and dedicated to it. We've all put in a lot of long hard hours getting this thing to work smoothly, battling bugs and issues, etc only to find that when new plugs come out we have to fork over 2 and 3 TIMES what we pay for the same thing from another vendor!! Trust me, I have a Duende and 4 UAD-1 cards, I know very well how they compare. As Duende owners, with a vested interest in the platform, we feel completely justified in complaining about the prices. No one saying 'move on' or 'shut up about it' is going to shut us up. We have a real, and IMO legitimate gripe here!

Comparing the price of a plugin compressor from a 3rd part DSP processor to Digidesign TDM stuff is not a fair comparison. First of all, people DO and have been complaining about those prices for years and years. People get frustrated with it every day. Every PTHD studio owner I know here locally bitches about the inflated cost of TDM plugs! But these SSL plugs ARE NOT TDM. They compare far more directly to UAD, Poco, etc., and *that* is where we are drawing the lopsided 'parallel'. For the record, I believe the TDM stuff, and even Digi's native stuff is also ridiculously over-priced and would always look elsewhere for plugins if....actually *when* I move to PTHD.

My list of 6, diverse plugins, compared to 2 from SSL is very apt. Not only do I pay LESS for all 6, I can run a lot more of them for a lower price over all. You asked for instance count, so here it is (this is STEREO only...I can get a lot more for mono):

SPL Transient Designer - 32
Precision Deesser - 64
Precision Bus Compressor - 36
Precision Maximizer - 16
Helios 69 - 16
Cambridge EQ - 52

SSL Xcomp - 16
SSL XEQ - 16

Instance count really has little to do with it. I don't even use that many plugins in a given mix. But, in raw numbers, UAD wins. And these are very high quality tools. The 33609 is a very 'high-end' plugin compressor, as is the Prec. Bus Comp. Fairchild, etc. You say that $500 is not a lot for a 'high-end' comp plugin, I beg to differ. I can get 3 or 4 from UAD for the price of one from SSL. With the constant barage of discounts and free vouchers I get from UAD, I have NEVER paid full price for a single plugin. In fact, I looked back at it and for the $600 that I would have to pay for the XComp, I got:

UAD Neve 33609
UAD LA2A
UAD Fairchild
UAD 1176LN

I could juggle this around and show several instances where I got 4 compressors for around $600 from UA.

I played around with the Xcomp from for a few hours lat night. It was very nice but, honestly nothing special over the UA stuff. I'd say equal, really (but at 3 to 4 times the price!). Therein lies our issue and dilemma. If that is not understandable, then I don't know what is.

One last point...you (and others) have made note of the perception that we get 'offended' by these prices. It seems like the rebuttals are sort-of the same thing...some one being 'offended' that we're 'offended'. Doesn't make sense, really. We are simply pointing out an issue that truly bothers us in the hopes that we might get a point across to SSL and (who knows?) *maybe* effect some changes. Thats how I typically tackle issues...reveal them, iterate my point and hope someone takes it into account.

I believe SSL will do the right thing somehow. I believe Jim when he says they are looking at incentives. I also very, *very* resolutely believe that the *volume* of sales would net SSL exponentially more money at a relatively equal price point than the they will get from the prohibitive pricing. There is evidence right in the 1, single thread that at least 3 Duende owners will be opting to close their wallets to SSL...in my case, in favor of another company!

Maybe I'll start a poll. It would be interesting.

/rant off

Originally Posted by Duardo

I don't know how many exactly, but people have been paying over $500 for higher-end compressors for years on the Pro Tools HD platform, as well as for some of the higher-end Powercore plugins. $500 is hardly a "king's ransom" and how do you know whether their total profit will be optimized or not?


It has nothing to do with racism...but it's not practical to adjust the price of something to compensate for ever-changing currency, and there's no reason any manufacturer should make less than they need to on any given item just because their currency is stronger than someone else's at any point in time...


Again, where are you getting your information on what customer expectations for a single compressor in the US are? The Duende is a fairly high-end and relatively niche-y platform and should be compared more to the HD platform th