Yup. They did it. $179/yr subscription.
Pfffft…
Bit of a disappointment, especially considering the hype that Dirk was generating (talking about cheaper plugins then releasing some of their most expensive, “Deal of your lifetime!” etc…). Although I get that this is the business model that makes the most sense for them at the moment, so it is what it is… PA has been great to me in terms of customer service and whatnot. The rage online is insane tho
They are awesome! 
I’m actually really happy to see PA go the subscription route. It does 2 things for me:
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No more PA sales to compete with. Now that they are doing subscriptions, they have every incentive to make sure their plugins are expensive and never on sale. That way they can say “You get $20,000 worth of plugins for just $179/year.” So as far as I’m concerned, PA has pulled out of the plugin market. They are no longer my competitor in any way.
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I don’t have to worry about making bread and butter plugins. If people want analog style EQs, they are going to go with PA or Slate. Both of them have a million options. Nobody is going to buy one off channel strips from anybody. Good. Now I don’t have to make them.
I think the PA move to subscription is great for all small developers. Now small developers can focus on making new and/or interesting plugins while the subscription guys keep putting out more compressors.
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But Waves and UAD aren’t on subscription packages either. How or why do they not pose the same kind of competition in your market?
Waves definitely is a competitor. I don’t think UAD is at all. Their main selling point is their hardware processor. Hardware processing is objectively worse for 95% of people.
I would think that people are still buying that stuff because of how insanely useful their modeling stuff works. I dunno…I’ve always really really liked what their emulators do. Much more so than anything from Waves, PA, or Slate. I would have never spent all that cash on their stuff just BECAUSE of the hardware. Matter of fact, the hardware is a major inconvenience to me personally.
On the flip side, their digital tool seem pretty worthless. Its like the opposite of Izotope, where all UAD seems to do well is model things. Excluding plugs that someone else built (like the Masterworks EQ or Anteres Autotune for example), I’ve found never found a use for stuff like their precision package which just seems like a run-of-the-mill digital compressor/EQ.
I don’t know. It could be. Back when they started out, their selling point was “because we use DSP processors, we can use more processing power to get more accurate models in a way that would burn through your CPU.” They sort of became the defacto analog models because of that.
Fast forward to today, CPU’s are way better for doing audio DSP, unless you need near zero latency or you don’t want to lug a computer around. So they have no real reason to be the best analog models other than brand inertia.
That doesn’t mean they aren’t good at it. But it’s not like you have one guy who is really good at modeling making every plugin.
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Anyone else disappointed at the price point for their subscription? I own over half of their plugins and still was going to be charged $179/yr (not even a monthly option). WHy would I do that, since I own most of their top titles, I’d rather save a few bucks a month and go with Slate for 14.99/m or even McDSP for 12.99/mo. I’ll just keep waiting for the flash sales (hopefully still some $29 flash sales in the works) to grab the few plugins that they have that i don’t own yet.
It’s a drag… but it is what it is. That’s the prevailing business model that companies with larger catalogs are moving towards. I own most of their plugs and got the $149/year offer and took it. At just over $12/month it’s a WAY better value than Slate (even at the 179/year it’s a better value), and when you factor in the new plugs coming down the pipe, it will hold it’s value for the foreseeable future. McDSP is a great deal, but I’ve just never gotten along with their stuff… probably because I was already a heavy user of Slate/PA/Waves. I’ll probably re-assess whether I want to keep the Slate bundle now too.
My understanding is, the flash sales will become more of a rarity… which makes sense, they want to drive people to the subscription. There’s a reason you never see Slate talk about individual plugin sales anymore.
The price point to me makes sense ($180) but the value of it is dependent on what I already have, which like you and Blair, is a LOT of their stuff.
I only picked out stuff I needed - that I couldn’t get anywhere else. I need cared about collecting their entire library. There are 2 plugins I wish I had that I don’t - the Iron and the Focusrite strip. For $700 I’ll gladly do without them lol.
Blair - why do you feel the value is better?
Very interesting - I was up in the air on this question. I lean toward the position that Slate is the overall better value because its a lower quality but more diverse collection. I think PA does ~some~ products better, but the scope and range of the entire collection is narrower.
I’m completely open to changing my mind on this. Just what I’m thinking at the moment.
To me, it comes down to volume/quality, diversity of plugs, and what I tend to use the most.
In terms of volume, PA has a ton of plugs and a lot of them are of (to me) high quality. Slate has a good number, some of them are also great. Of the newer things being added to each bundle, I’m way more excited about the things PA has added and will be adding. For Slate, the Kilohearts thing looks cool but it appears more geared towards EDM production. Lustrous Plates is excellent, but the TH-U amp sim has been a pretty big disappointment. For PA, between the stuff they’ve added in the last month and the stuff they’re projecting to add, it’s pretty exciting.
I think PA has a wider diversity of plugs, BUT there are still areas where there’s no overlap: Tape emulation and a distressor clone just to name a couple. I’d be shocked if they didn’t add tape emu at some point in the near-ish future.
So for what I use on the regular, I won’t break down into specifics, but I use way more PA stuff than I do Slate. With the BX console plugs, I’m finding I use VCC less and less. I still use VTM a lot, but I also own the license for that (and VCC), so if I kill the subscription I can keep using it. etc…
I think when I factor everything together, if I had to choose between the two, I just feel that I would get more from the PA sub. Especially when I consider the Slate plugins that I actually bought before the subscription came about, and equivalents I have from other vendors (i.e. Arousor, Abbey Road Plate, the waves tape emu’s etc…).
It’s a pretty personal thing though, if I was coming at this with no experience between the two bundles, and no vouchers… it would become a much harder choice.
Interesting. I agree that Slate is the logical bundle for the beginner coming in with no experience and no vouchers. I think they have the most usable, best rounded, overall most cover-all-bases package.
I agree that PA has higher quality more specialized stuff. I’m glad they added that 1176 because those are super important to any overall bundle (for music of course).
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