With the price drops in recent years, $500 gets you a full blown flagship DAW software - Sonar, Logic, Digital Performer, Cubase, Pro Tools.
These all come with tons of synths, effects, loops, and libraries that are always more and more extensive... I can speak for Logic in particular, which is comes with GBs of very usable instruments and loops.
Of course, those libraries may not be as extensive, but, man... That's your DAW!
Seeing how Waves are constantly lowering their prices these days, I get a feeling that plug-in manufacturers will have to follow along or just vanish.
I think IK really are onto something with their Singles and Custom Shop. Lower the prices, and people will even buy stuff they don't really need. I know I do. I don't need more virtual amps, yet I just bought two amps, three cabs and a pedal in the last 2 or 3 days. lol Same with Singles. I bought 4 of them in July, but I'd never buy T-RackS itself, even if I spent more $ on IK products than a full package would have cost me.
If were to sell, say, an orchestral library, I think I'd do something similar - sell, say, the string section, the horns, the percussions, all separately OR as a full package.
Lastly, if there's one thing I'd avoid, it's spending $5000 or $1000 on a bunch of NI products, considering the rate at which they discontinue and repackage the same stuff... I'd much rather carefully evaluate and pick only one or two that I really need, if ever.
post edited by Rain - 2011/08/02 20:51:36