Is the Music Tech Industry a Scam? 

Whenever a new plugin comes i think, all my favourite music was made without that plugin, so i dont need it

Selling the sizzle and not the steak is as old as time.

I agree 100%! I started doing this when I bought the SSL controllers, UF8, UC1 etc. I started only using the channel strip plugins for everything, much like as if it was a real desk. The mixes started getting better, magically... Thanks! I've smashed all the smashers! Salutations from astonishingly grey & chilly Ireland! ☘☮🤘🏽🤠👍🏽☮☘

infinite VST plugins and sample packs are like Band-Aids for your creativity, only what they actually accomplish is take the creativity out of your process

Well, this is not only about audio tech industry, but about consumerism in general. In typical western consumeristic society, we are in fact brainwashed and conditioned to believe that "more is better", "newer is better" etc. The same thing applies to woman who thinks new dress or pair of shoes will make her happy, and it will for a few hours, as for audio engineer who believes new sound library or compressor will make his life easier or better. I think we all would benefit a lot if we stopped buying new things for one year, and truly learning to use the ones we already have.

I started mixing & mastering 2 years ago. I figured out by now that there are only a couple of plugins you need to buy. But they'll usually be top dollar. For example, God Particle, Gullfoss, EzDrummer 3. They're elite plugins. Most EQs do the same thing, and so do most compressors. Also, a multiband saturator or something that let's you choose what frequencies to apply saturation to can pretty much emulate any channelstrip sound. It's crazy how much money I spent on plugins I will never use.

I can relate. I use a couple of plug-ins these days that I got to know really well over the years and stopped caring about the new shiny. Same for sample libraries. Stopped caring about new string libraries and focused on learning the ones I have really well.

Yes 😂! You can do best mix in any DAW just using Level, Pan and a bit of Eq

Several years ago I did the same, decided to not buy any gear/plugin for a year. And it worked great, I learned a lot during that year. And now I am shrinking down my plugin collection even more, because I learned how to properly use DAW Stock ones to get the result I need. But I mix my own and my band's music only, so I am not doing some paid work in this field, it's just my semi-professional hobby :D

Couldn't agree with you more! I'm a professional mixing/mastering engineer myself. Mostly freelance online. I mix between 150 - 200 projects a year so I work A LOT! It was getting to the point that I wasn't even downloading demos anymore. I would just see it, watch a few videos, check out the website, and BUY! I can't even tell you how many of those plugins I never used. Not even once! I'd buy them, try them in the project I was working on, like what I already was using more, and never touch it again! I didn't realize till recently how bad it was. I did a plugin cleanup and deleted over 200! plugins I never use. That's insane to me. Plus, I'm one of the lucky ones! I beta test for many large plugin devs and some hardware devs too so I don't even have to pay for a lot of my plugins. I can't imagine what this would cost of I had to pay for all of them. You earned a sub today!

💯🤦🏾‍♂️I’m getting there.

Shortcuts programmed into us through manipulative advertising and influencers selling us the pipe dream

When fixing audio issues before recording and have a great sound at the input will solve most problems. Always remember to fix issues at the source. Using a high quality d.i. box improved my recorded signals significantly, when I started using a high quality pre-amp with great input and output transformers my sound quality increased again significantly. When you have great sounding recordings you don’t need a lot of plugins to make it sound good. A good sounding recording will get you a decent sounding mix by just proper volume balancing. Fix it at the source and stop putting bandages on something that isn’t good to begin with. Hope this helps 😉

This is actually really good advice, not just for the audio industry, but anything that is gear motivated. Limitations encourage you to find other paths and potentially even more optimizations. I work in game development as a technical artist, Not having the latest GPU encourages me to think of new ways to efficiently achieve the same effect but with limited memory/performance etc. Same also applies to the camera industry, nutorious for it's gear problem - you don't need a Sony FX3, your A6400 is still a decent camera that does 4k 24fps or 1080p 60, and slomo. You've got everything you need in a $500 camera. Go make your movie.

NO ONE HAS SPENT MORE MONEY ON PLUGINS THAN ME! I’ve spent way too much money on plugins and gear. When I think about Grammy records that were made back then with what we call obsolete and outdated gear and plugins it makes you wonder why am I spending so much money on that stuff, especially plugins

yess this is for sure true!! thanks for the thoughtful presentation

Can't believe how quickly my hard drive is full off plugins

Absolutely true! I had to have LA-2A compressor plugins. Almost never actually use them....

Yes, agree - been there, and stopped. SSL 4k daily 1988-95 - no plug-in I tried is “it”. And, it doesn’t have to be. Bought big brand name collection in 2011, kept it current and updated. Only two-three handfuls of new ones later. Dug in, using 15-20 of them 80% of the time, the rest for specifics. Still prefer aiding any musician to excel in front of my mic - not me to construct “products” beyond them. Always made my own samples - from my recordings and mediocre performances. No trouble with greedy corporate IP that way, and no rented software either. Hehe, well… says me, silly engineer-producer-session-musician through 40 odd years - don’t listen to me. Do stuff, have fun! 😊

Lots of truth in there. Good stuff!

Loved this video. I'm in video production, and have started learning a bit about the music world. Lots of parallels between the two when it comes to this. I wonder if this is true for any creative field.

I do get A LOT of plugin ads. But started backing away from them, with only one acception, Arturia. As I have V Collection. But I also have a Yamaha Motif 6, a Yamaha MODX6+, and a Sequential Pro 3 SE, and more into recording from my real instruments like I used to way back when. I do still record MIDI along with the audio track, just in case I want to try something with a V Collection plugin. I lean on my Pro 3 a lot, because, I think I like designing the sounds the most. I may end up packaging a bunch of patches together for others to use. I dunno. Even though I had the MODX longer than the Pro 3, I still need to go back to the MODX and make patches there too. I just really love the Pro 3 subtractive synthesis and a knob for everything, and endless mod matrix.

Some are nice to have and come cheap in bundles. FX are like food taste; debateable. I have enough and will only buy a few in the future.

Totally agree. Famously Eddie van Halen came up with his sound because he could not afford fancy effects. It's about the engineer/artist/musician that makes the difference. Never the gear. Mozart did not have any of that gear, still made lasting music.

Another excellent video and perspective, thank you!

Great point. Made me hit Subscribe. 🙏🏻

Such a great video!

oh my...plugins....got sooooo many and often the new ones I do get I use them not so often but started to reduce a lot and really focus on very specific crazy tools. True the companies do a lot of spam to get us to buy some. Happy that my channel is still small that they do not spam my channel mail with nfr or stuff to test

I would not say the audio tech industry is a scam (but then again I sell audio tools like presets so take my take with a grain of salt). Of course people can overspend on plugins & get too many tools, but that is unfortunately the way people make money. You make more money by constantly releasing new tools for people to buy and tell them they need those tools so they buy them. it's not something that is exclusive to audio tech. it's a consequence of people needing money to live... Creativity and capitalism just don't mix very well...

80% of the time the best plugin is stock gain plugin (and volume fader) . And the rest of the stuff can be done with stock plugins in most cases. There are amazing plugins out there but out of 500+ plugins I own, I tend to have only couple that I use regularly.

For me i only buy a new plugin if i can do something i couldn’t do before and if i will definitely USE that in a mix. Like if it’s something where I’m like omg i have a use for this right now on a project that i was struggling with and now i can do it in a few clicks! It’s very rare at this point, but the last one was the verve suite plugin by UAD. I don’t think i have a real need for another EQ plugin though. Also i just canceled my plugin alliance subscription since i had it since 2020 and now own everything I’d ever use from them. If they do release something i would use i’m happy to wait until more come out and buy a couple of plugins in a bundle for like 20/plugin. But i don’t foresee them releasing enough stuff that I’d want since their plugin release schedule has slowed a lot, which also doesn’t justify the subscription. Also i agree on severe GAS with studio culture. Most studios it’s mics and guitar pedals i find. Personally i don’t buy many pedals and if you need an effect I’m happy to add it in post/as a plugin i got enough amp sim suites with anything you can imagine i feel. But also guitarists like pedals for the tactile feel and get weird sounds that way. Engineers like mics, but honestly these days microphones are becoming more and more rare in recordings as more and more of them are done mostly in the box.

So videos like this tend to be preachy. Engineers who worked in the era of having a great mixing board, a great room, with mics costing 40,000 dollars, with big bands, basically having their sound from the get go, is entirely different to mixing a house track. Different environments and tools are required for totally different styles of music. Does the gear have to cost 250, 000 dollars? No not at all, that's why, these days, we are lucky to have companies such as UAD, to give us a good emulation of a Neve 88rs. Also there are many recordings in the 60's and 70's, which are supposed to be classics, however, in actual fact sound rubbish. But again, it depends on what you are trying to achieve with the brief. If you need ducking and side-chaining and that club feel, versus recording a string quartet, the two styles speak for themselves and cannot be compared. If you know how to mix, get as many plugins as you want, it's not a dictatorship or teachable moment, if you don't know how to mix, get as many plugins as you want, explore, you never know what you mind find, curiosity is the mother of invention. You will never hear a camera expert say, do you really need this lens in your kitbag. Don't worry about how others spend their money, you are not their bank.

Well, the thought leaders in the industry tend to be rich snobs.

Know your tools. This is the base. In anything Thanks for the video

Wise words!!

Holy cow am I the only one that uses stock plugin's? I have never bought one yet and just use whats in my DAW.

So smart!

Great video!

My colleague spent 20k on plugins, i spent it on hardware

I used reason for the longest 7 years without vst? some plug-in do help honestly 🤷

Buy controllers instead

What's your biggest piece of advice for a producer trying to get recognised?

UNPLUG

💯💯💯💯

Snek öl

We live in a hyper consumer world. The amount of “buy this plug in” videos and ads and emails I get daily is mind boggling. You hit the nail on the head. Learn what you got, most of it is snake oil anyway.

Between 2012 and 2019 I spent nearly $40,000 on sample libraries, mostly orchestral strings. This was out of loneliness. I recognize that now. Having been in bands most of my life, I now was stuck in the studio, mixing radio spots all by myself, the sample libraries and plug-ins helped me to feel part of something, part of a big creative push and that was exciting and fulfilling. So, maybe the money was well spent.

So solid. I try to only buy gear/plugins that makes me create more, solve very specific (real) problems or improves my workflow. I also try to read the manuals for gear/software I own. That has a HUGE impact. Exploring the native plugins and features in your DAW of choice can be mind blowing too. I also discovered a hack to satiate your gear lust - watch demo videos/reviews of gear/plugins you already own. I find I'm immediately inspired to go and try something with what I already have. Super thoughtful/helpful video as always!

The more options you have, the less music you make. You spend all time testing stuff and never finish anything. I've been recording with bands and solo since the 80's and to my ears, most plugins just sound the same.

I see it as one of the most interesting and fun things to do, keep a small toolset and when you hear something or think of something, figure out how to do it with the tools you have. Only if you really find that you truly can't solve a problem with those tools, seek a new tool. And even in that case I usually try to find free software, because there's plenty of good stuff out there that solves most problems.

Good video all facts bro ❤🚨💯

Couldn’t agree more

I need 500 compressor plugins and an emulation of those 500 compressor plugins so I can have my friends pretend to listen to my music. ❤😍

Demo plugins. Always

Best audio engineering video I've watched in a long time!! Keep it coming mate

This is EXACTLY the sort of video us idiots need to see! Many thanks! 🙏

Just get back in years 2010-2014 for exp.How many of these "plugins" were used in the best time of at last the electronic music industry.

Yeah, I haven't bought a plugin in maybe 4 years however there are 2 I definitely must have.

My biggest waste was a plugin for 300 bucks that I ended up not using... I felt so bad that I've been much more careful since.

Reaper's plugins are literally all you need.

I frequently go through a purge and optimization of my installed plugins to make sure I know what I have, what I really need and what I don’t need or I already have a better version of. With that said I do still make impulsive purchases when there are sales going on. Which these days feels like there is always at least a few going on. But I try to stick to a wish list

don't buy gear, get a trained deer

Do a essential plugins video

So much talking.