Reasontalk users spend 3:1 on REs vs Upgrades

[stratatonic]

.
So, I added up all the REs bought from this thread: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=7513591
.

123 RE Suite.jpeg (115.17 KiB) Viewed 1463 times

.
and gave an average value of 49 dollars per RE. *
(the average full price is around 99, but I figure a lot of users grab a half off sale or intro/bundle price. Yes there was a freebie, but also
Parsec is more than 99 - not including the extra upgrade to Parsec 2)

123 Reasontalk users have spent over $34 000 @ $49 on these 15 REs from Suite.

I figure most have the Reason 10 upgrade which you need to use half the REs, and I gave a sale price here as well - $99* . Maybe some paid
full price, but maybe not all have Reason 10 either.

123 Reasontalk users have spent around $12 000 on a Reason upgrade in the past 2 years @ $99 .

That’s a RE/Upgrade dollar spent ratio of close to 3:1 just for 15 REs.

It’s little wonder that this company has concentrated on mostly sample based RE offerings, rather than poking into the code of Reason and spending
months on alpha/beta testing. It’s likely why there have been so few improvements to Reason in the past few years. It’s just easier and the payoff is better.

I wonder what the ratio is when you factor in the100s of REs in the shop bought vs amount of upgrades over the past few years?

*Of course, maybe the average price I used is wrong. Feel free to challenge that.

———

Anyways. my spending is pretty lame. $103 dollars on REs.
I bought the Reason 7 upgrade almost exactly 5 years ago which gave me R8 as well - which I am still on . Full price there - $129 (I think Propellerhead
started discounting at Reason 8) and a buck for the Pay What You Want for R6. Looks like my RE to Upgrade is 0.8 : 1 . Pretty sad, but it’s still 233 dollars
for Propellerhead.

—

What is your RE spending vs upgrade spending since Reason 6 (or later)?

[Loque]

A few RE can be received through a Reason update, like Rotor and Polar... Dunno exactly.

But it's obvious, that you can earn more money with more products.

A few RE doesn't were full revenue, because they were outsourced or licensed.

[Jagwah]

123 Reasontalk users have spent over $34 000 @ $49 on these 15 REs from Suite.

I figure most have the Reason 10 upgrade which you need to use half the REs, and I gave a sale price here as well - $99* . Maybe some paid
full price, but maybe not all have Reason 10 either.

123 Reasontalk users have spent around $12 000 on a Reason upgrade in the past 2 years @ $99 .

A point I was trying to make that got washed away in the mega merged thread was that me and what must be many other users went from spending $129 on upgrades roughly once every few years, from that to spending many thousands on REs. I dreamed that this would see Reason start advancing in leaps and bounds, because the turnover in Props land must have smashed any previous records and set a much higher new turnover standard. I don't believe there was any type of noticeable increase in upgrade features / size at all, things just stayed the same, and even now features still trickle down slowly. Dare i say I imagine some of the Prop's salaries must have noticed a sizeable increase, that ten fold increase of money had to go somewhere.

[Raveshaper]

Dare i say I imagine some of the Prop's salaries must have noticed a sizeable increase, that ten fold increase of money had to go somewhere.

Bank rolling being able to go on tour with their bands, making it worth their while after so many years of squeaking by. Etc.

If people loyally paid you for essentially nothing, repeatedly, would you work harder when you weren't required to? Just because it felt like the right thing to do? Or would you work smarter, not harder.

[Jagwah]

Dare i say I imagine some of the Prop's salaries must have noticed a sizeable increase, that ten fold increase of money had to go somewhere.

Bank rolling being able to go on tour with their bands, making it worth their while after so many years of squeaking by. Etc.

If people loyally paid you for essentially nothing, repeatedly, would you work harder when you weren't required to? Just because it felt like the right thing to do? Or would you work smarter, not harder.

You see a lot of business tactics going on in video games, seems more common now to have consumers paying more for less, and getting them used to it. I think ethics play less and less of a part when maximising profit is the main goal. If you managed to completely ruin a company but made a massive profit in the process, you and your business buddies would go out and celebrate, and you could look for the next company to do the same thing.

[Yonatan]

Ironically, many who bought REs thought that would make for more developing of the core of Reason, but market analysts rather seem to narrowly see and say "hey, look how popular new fancy REs are and how much more we earn by doing more of those than serving the main DAW".
So here we are, with lots of players and things we buy partly because main sequencer is old.
Now when anyone can use other sequencers out there, may finally RS team bring the DAW audio and midi workflow up to date.

[stratatonic]

123 Reasontalk users have spent over $34 000 @ $49 on these 15 REs from Suite.

I figure most have the Reason 10 upgrade which you need to use half the REs, and I gave a sale price here as well - $99* . Maybe some paid
full price, but maybe not all have Reason 10 either.

123 Reasontalk users have spent around $12 000 on a Reason upgrade in the past 2 years @ $99 .

...me and what must be many other users went from spending $129 on upgrades roughly once every few years, from that to spending many thousands on REs.
I dreamed that this would see Reason start advancing in leaps and bounds, because the turnover in Props land must have smashed any previous records and set a much higher new turnover standard. I don't believe there was any type of noticeable increase in upgrade features / size at all, things just stayed the same, and even now features still trickle down slowly.

Well, these are the changes/improvements to the core program on upgrade version release since Sept 2014

* New Browser (R8)
* Drag n Drop
* New Transport Bar

* Audio Pitch Editor for vocals and other monophonic audio (R9)
* Convert vocals to MIDI notes (R9)
* Bounce In Place(9)
* Dark Modes (R9)


* Devices can now be added to favorite lists (R10)


* Curved automation (R11)
* Audio clip crossfades (R11)
* Improved vertical zoom (R11)
* Mute midi notes, (R11)
* Draw multiple notes (R11)
* Show played and selected notes in key edit (R11)

R8 looks pretty good - but unfortunately that was the entire upgrade.

R10 definitely seems a bit thin but Propellerhead I suppose acknowledged the complaints and added a few improvements a year later.

This time out, they added the most improvements ever on a version release over the past 5 years, AND still we're saying it's not enough! They can't win, lol!
They should have just held on to the 10.2 improvements and dumped them into R11. (Though I think this version will do pretty good initially)

Their strategy seems to be offer as little as possible on version release, grab the hardcore users, and then trickle out a few more features on point updates to snag more along the way. And offer sales on REs through out the year. I'm sure they do pretty good on their owned branded REs - whether or not they are in-house or outsourced, as the numbers above seem to show.

I dunno, if you were Propellerhead, would you do it any differently?

...market analysts rather seem to narrowly see and say "hey, look how popular new fancy REs are and how much more we earn by doing more of those than serving the main DAW".

It does look that way, yeah.

[jlgrimes]

.
So, I added up all the REs bought from this thread: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=7513591
.

123 RE Suite.jpeg

.
and gave an average value of 49 dollars per RE. *
(the average full price is around 99, but I figure a lot of users grab a half off sale or intro/bundle price. Yes there was a freebie, but also
Parsec is more than 99 - not including the extra upgrade to Parsec 2)

123 Reasontalk users have spent over $34 000 @ $49 on these 15 REs from Suite.

I figure most have the Reason 10 upgrade which you need to use half the REs, and I gave a sale price here as well - $99* . Maybe some paid
full price, but maybe not all have Reason 10 either.

123 Reasontalk users have spent around $12 000 on a Reason upgrade in the past 2 years @ $99 .

That’s a RE/Upgrade dollar spent ratio of close to 3:1 just for 15 REs.

It’s little wonder that this company has concentrated on mostly sample based RE offerings, rather than poking into the code of Reason and spending
months on alpha/beta testing. It’s likely why there have been so few improvements to Reason in the past few years. It’s just easier and the payoff is better.

I wonder what the ratio is when you factor in the100s of REs in the shop bought vs amount of upgrades over the past few years?

*Of course, maybe the average price I used is wrong. Feel free to challenge that.

———

Anyways. my spending is pretty lame. $103 dollars on REs.
I bought the Reason 7 upgrade almost exactly 5 years ago which gave me R8 as well - which I am still on . Full price there - $129 (I think Propellerhead
started discounting at Reason 8) and a buck for the Pay What You Want for R6. Looks like my RE to Upgrade is 0.8 : 1 . Pretty sad, but it’s still 233 dollars
for Propellerhead.

—

What is your RE spending vs upgrade spending since Reason 6 (or later)?

I will say that I have curbed my RE spending vs like several years ago. Mainly due to me using Ableton more, and Reason less (due to Ableton's generally faster workflow over Reason)

I guess with the new upgrade, maybe I'm the type of user they are looking for.


REs are great though when you get them on sale, they generally have great sales and most high end ones peak around a little bit over $100 usd, where VSTs are often double or even alot higher. There are cheaper VSTs now though too and even some great free ones, but there are still some expensive ones.

[jlgrimes]

...me and what must be many other users went from spending $129 on upgrades roughly once every few years, from that to spending many thousands on REs.
I dreamed that this would see Reason start advancing in leaps and bounds, because the turnover in Props land must have smashed any previous records and set a much higher new turnover standard. I don't believe there was any type of noticeable increase in upgrade features / size at all, things just stayed the same, and even now features still trickle down slowly.

Well, these are the changes/improvements to the core program on upgrade version release since Sept 2014

* New Browser (R8)
* Drag n Drop
* New Transport Bar

* Audio Pitch Editor for vocals and other monophonic audio (R9)
* Convert vocals to MIDI notes (R9)
* Bounce In Place(9)
* Dark Modes (R9)


* Devices can now be added to favorite lists (R10)


* Curved automation (R11)
* Audio clip crossfades (R11)
* Improved vertical zoom (R11)
* Mute midi notes, (R11)
* Draw multiple notes (R11)
* Show played and selected notes in key edit (R11)

R8 looks pretty good - but unfortunately that was the entire upgrade.

R10 definitely seems a bit thin but Propellerhead I suppose acknowledged the complaints and added a few improvements a year later.

This time out, they added the most improvements ever on a version release over the past 5 years, AND still we're saying it's not enough! They can't win, lol!
They should have just held on to the 10.2 improvements and dumped them into R11. (Though I think this version will do pretty good initially)

Their strategy seems to be offer as little as possible on version release, grab the hardcore users, and then trickle out a few more features on point updates to snag more along the way. And offer sales on REs through out the year. I'm sure they do pretty good on their owned branded REs - whether or not they are in-house or outsourced, as the numbers above seem to show.

I dunno, if you were Propellerhead, would you do it any differently?

...market analysts rather seem to narrowly see and say "hey, look how popular new fancy REs are and how much more we earn by doing more of those than serving the main DAW".

It does look that way, yeah.

IMO though I think Propellerheads updates are pretty small, even their minor updates.

Ableton updates always seem big and their minor releases are just as big as Reason minor releases.

Studio One, Reaper, Logic all focus heavily on those minor updates as well.

Usually Props add only a handful of things.


Ableton upgrades though are alot more expensive though but it is fairly normal for them to have one or two big minor releases between upgrades (new instruments, enhancements on older instruments, workflow enhancements, major engine rewrites sometimes)

[FLVZ]

IMO though I think Propellerheads updates are pretty small, even their minor updates.

Ableton updates always seem big and their minor releases are just as big as Reason minor releases.

Studio One, Reaper, Logic all focus heavily on those minor updates as well.

Usually Props add only a handful of things.


Ableton upgrades though are alot more expensive though but it is fairly normal for them to have one or two big minor releases between upgrades (new instruments, enhancements on older instruments, workflow enhancements, major engine rewrites sometimes)

WHAT ABLETON LIVE 10 HAS TO OFFER
- Automation Mode (snap to the grid)*
- NEW DEVICES (a Wavetable Synth/Echo/Drum Buss)*
- Capture (a new feature that “recalls an idea after it has been played and turns it into a MIDI clip with feel and groove intact”)
- Multiple MIDI clip editing*
- Nudging, Time stretching, One-key zooming, and drag-and-drop Track duplication*
- Groups within groups
- Note chasing triggers (Your MIDI notes play if your playback starts in the middle of it)
- I/O Renaming*
- Assign Track or Group Color to clips*
- Saving and backups (you no longer lose your Undo history when you save button. In addition to that, it now automatically creates backup versions of your work)*
- Split Stereo Pan Mode
- Browser Collections (favourite folders essentially)
- NEW SOUND LIBRARY ( re-designed version of the core sound library with “richer, more detailed sounds”)*

As you can see, 8 out of the 12 features Ableton included in their A10 upgrade are already in Reason 10.5. The remaining four features if those were included in the R11 people here would still be crying about the upgrade not being good enough. Reason as is, is packed full of features, a high quality stock library and A+ usability. I have a feeling most Reason users here may not even use 60% of the features due to the power of habit, but will not stop talking about that one feature not in the upgrade. Honestly when you try using other DAWs you'll come back and appreciate the things Reason does have. It can feel doom and gloom in here, but go back to Reason 9 or even 8 and there is a big difference in how the program feels. I have a friend still on 9.5. I tried using his machine to work on something but it felt like I'd lost a limb because I was so heavily utilising the new features in 10.5. I probably wont upgrade to 11, but i have a strong feeling the features in 11.5 will convince me. I my own opinion R10 was worth it just for Grain alone.

Here's what Reason 10 has to offer including point updates (bare in mind it was all doom and gloom when it came out as well):
-Added Europa Shapeshifting Synthesizer
-Added Grain Sample Manipulator
-Added Klang Tuned Percussion
-Added Pangea World Instruments
-Added Humana Vocal Collection
-Added Drum Supply and Loop Supply ReFills
-Synchronous is now an included device
-Radical Piano is now an included device
-Added the content manager for optional content, accessible at first launch or by going to Window > Manage Content
-Devices can now be added to favorite lists
-Added support for Rack Extension SDK3, including support for Player Rack Extensions, pattern tracks and sample zones.
-Improved track selection behavior in sequencer track list to match the behavior of devices in the Rack and Clips
-Added Multi Lane Edit, for viewing and editing MIDI across multiple lanes and tracks at once
-Adjust faders, solo and mute across multiple mix channels at once
-A new snap setting, Grid, will adapt the resolution to zoom level
-Double click a sequencer track to open the rack and scroll to its device
-New +Add Device and +Add Track buttons in rack and sequencer
-New context menu item, Route to New Mix Channel, on audio outputs
-Easy MIDI Inputs automatically detects MIDI controllers when connected
-New setting in Reason’s preferences for returning the play cursor to its last start position when stopping playback
-Rewrote big parts of Reason's audio rendering code, now rendering audio using audio card buffer size, to improve performance
-Added Monotone Bass Synthesizer, a new bass synth device that's cross-compatible with Reason Compact
-Added Rytmik Drum Machine, a new drum device that's cross-compatible with Reason Compact

[stratatonic]

Judging by postings I have read over the years here about people's RE spending, I would say that the ratio is probably higher than 3:1.

And it does seem to be a valid concern by some, that the additional influx of money to Propellerhead has not translated into more improvements to the core program over time.

Anyways, I'm not sure if the REs included in Reason Suite are a permanent part of a Reason upgrade and can be transferred in a sale, or are separate from the program, (which would skew the ratio even more), but I wonder if the mass devaluing of Rack Extensions ($7.50 per RE if you buy Suite), will lead to a slow down of sales in this format - even with the potential increase in Reason owners with this Reason Plugin format.

Why pay full price (or even 40 / 50 / 65% off), when you can just wait it out for a super bargain deal down the road?

[QVprod]

Judging by postings I have read over the years here about people's RE spending, I would say that the ratio is probably higher than 3:1.

And it does seem to be a valid concern by some, that the additional influx of money to Propellerhead has not translated into more improvements to the core program over time.

Anyways, I'm not sure if the REs included in Reason Suite are a permanent part of a Reason upgrade and can be transferred in a sale, or are separate from the program, (which would skew the ratio even more), but I wonder if the mass devaluing of Rack Extensions ($7.50 per RE if you buy Suite), will lead to a slow down of sales in this format - even with the potential increase in Reason owners with this Reason Plugin format.

Why pay full price (or even 40 / 50 / 65% off), when you can just wait it out for a super bargain deal down the road?

I think sales have slowed down. Higher demand would keep prices high. That said most of the included RE in Suite are either old or were based on something old. Those are definitely not selling like they were previously. In either case There's a chance for RE to boom, depending on 3rd party interest. A possibly higher chance of it happening if RS releases a free version of the rack plugin.