Archetype Plini from Neural DSP

The impression I get is that Neural DSP aren't developers, they are licensers backed by some stupid Djent VC crew attempting to cash in on the djent craze. :lol:

They have four products, and every one is licensed.

The whole point of Digital Signal processing is that since code is infinitely flexible, and there is no such thing as "name brand code", since it's all just 1s and 0s, you can offer all this awesome stuff without the snooty culture of "this is name brand/hot right now" in physical amp products.

Neural DSP doesn't have any standalone "Neural DSP" products. They have four products, that are all licensed versions of a trendy physical object. :lol:

I'll bet that the Mehtab venture capitalism firm is involved somewhere here.

Wouldn't be surprised if these weren't even modeled after the physical products, might have just made some generic vsts and slapped branding on them.

I'm not buying a VST if 70%+ of that VSTs cost is there because they licensed a trendy name and slapped it on there.

It doesn't inspire confidence when you look at their "artists" section. They are a relatively new brand, and they have all the "hip" artists on there. That doesn't mean they are really good, that just means they sent all those people free plugins and asked if they could use their picture on their site.

They are also "hiring" for a shit ton of positions. :lol: Many of the smaller vst brands are just one dude. Even highly regarded ones. That is a shit ton of positions for a company that only offers four VSTs, all of them generic things with brand names slapped on them.

These guys have been around for about a year (all of their social media pages were created in Feb 2018), they don't have any super complex plugins, mostly just generic sims with slick UIs, and they want all these positions?



Come on. These guys paid for someone to do their website. Unless it's a huge company like Waves or Toontrack or UAD, the same guy coding the VSTs does the website. :lol: I'm not giving $100+ to a startup pedaling products that get 70%+ of their value from licensing a name that clearly hasn't even broken even yet.

They're also partnering with ilok, which needless to say, costs money. Do you know how many start up VST makers partner with ilok?

The only thing that would make these guys less legit is if I went to buy one of their plugins and they offered Affirm backed financing. These guys aren't trying to sell cutting edge VSTs they designed, this is 100% an attempt to cash in on a highly impressionable audience prone to suggestion.

Nick said:

Does it matter who is making them if the products are good, which in this case they, without question, are?

It certainly doesn't matter to me.

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It's the industry equivalent of strip mining dude. :lol:

Not even the big brands do that. Toontrack and Waves like, might send out relatively unobtrusive emails about, "Hey, we've got a new thing out, it might not even be in your niche, but it's out there if you are interested".

Companies like this, when they come out with a product, they are just like, "THIS IS THE BEST MOST ADVANCED THING EVER, YOU NEED THIS TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY, THIS IS THE APEX, THAT'S WHY IT'S $150."

Which is all well and good, but the buyer will eventually notice that a new product 3-6 months later comes along, and they say the exact same thing about it, and the thing you bought three months ago that was the most advanced ever and totally lifelike isn't good enough.

It's a business model based around building a massive amount of hype and peer pressure when a product comes out, and charging as much as they possibly can. Whether that's a good business practice or not is up to you, but I will say this, In 4 years do you think they'll be on version 3.5 of the Plini VST? Fuck no. That is profitable for the span of less than a year and how well it sells is based on the massive explosion of hype and peer pressure social media culture. Their next product is going to replace it. When a company releases multiple products in the span of a year that are suddenly unequivocally the "best thing on the market by a huge margin", that's a huge red flag. Because either;

A) They have a massive and highly skilled R&D team who make regular industry shattering breakthroughs every one to two months.
B) Their products are all hype.

This is a start up with four products, and every product has been industry shatteringly good if you believe the hype. Four products in the span of one year. Gimme a fucking break.

Sure, marketing is inherently dishonest, but that sort of marketing is more dishonest than most.

Look at every legit brands product life expectancy. Look at the R&D cycles for any other VST from a legit brand. How many years were there between Superior Drummer 2 and 3?

On the other hand, how many months are there going to be between Neural DSPs hot new item that blows everything else away and the next groundbreaking VST by Neural DSP? Maybe 2 if you are lucky.

Expansive Suite of VST tools that shatter the industry's preconceptions of what amp sims are capable of, or a relatively generic amp sim program with slick UI, licensing the name of whatever is most in at the moment, and aggressive marketing? That's up to the user to decide, but when you look at the time frame involved in developing their products it pretty clearly points to only one of those.

The objection to a lot of these modern brands isn't even stylistic, it's that they operate on the same model of "planned obsolescence" as industries like smart phone manufacturers.

With VSTs there is no physical waste, but the issue with planned obsolescence is that they sell you this really sweet idea that you are getting the most cutting edge thing possible, when in reality they have something even more "cutting edge" coming out in 8-12 weeks.

I would always rather spend money with someone who has a passion for advancing what they are doing instead of someone who is more interested in a license to print money. Stuff like Strymon and Mesa and shit like that is expensive, but I have faith that the company made it as well as they possibly could, not that they have something lined up that is going to make it obsolete in 3 months time.

I think you are taking this too personal.

Of course being Companies they want profit as any company wants. They target their potential user base and throw out products that gather to them. The Nameless guess it was a "success" or else they would not have released more. Having coded one Amp the rest is most certain just some tweaks to get other sounding one and then capitalize on the R&D.

Ever wondered where is the guy behind Le Pou VSTs? or Vadim Taranov? or Nick Crow? Those guys kinda dissapeared from the scene (except Vadim), pretty sure they are working for some company if they are still on the VST Amps area.

As long as people are willing to buy these and they aren't total ripoffs (like that certain VST that came out last year with the name of a famous guitar player an doesn't really sound that good), let them make the flavor of the month. I think the Plini being 3 Amps with some FX is much more appealing to me than paying the same for the other two Amps they released. Will I buy it? Maybe, not sure. I pretty much prefer the new Ax thing to be honest so I might save the money on this one.

Greg McCoy said:

the same

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sorry now that its not 1 am I have taken the time to fully read your post.

You seem to be alluding to the fact that the marketing scheme for these products is inversely proportional to how good they are by saying their products are all hype. Well I agree that their marketing is relentless, but the fact is the products are actually good, I have tried all of them. The bass vst is as good as my axe fx 2 for bass and it doesn't cost 2 grand, so if you are looking for a very easy to achieve heavy as fuck bass tone - by very easy i mean activate it on your bass DI track and do nothing else, then $100 is reasonable if you ask me.

I think your issue may be that you are getting bombarded with the marketing for all of these. I had that problem also and it gets tiring, so every time I see one now I block it, problem solved.

Let them get their fast money off of idiots who will buy anything with a hyped up brand name attached to it if it means I get good products to buy when I want to.