There are signs that Soundspot, the developer company of numerous synth, FX, and mixing/master plugins, is out of business.
New plugin developers appear on the market almost every week. Everyone with the aim of advancing or revolutionizing digital music production with their products. The market is full of developers. If you want to assert yourself there, you have to be different or innovative. You won’t do business with bread-and-butter plugins anymore in 2023.
However, only a fraction of new developers manages to be successful over many years and thus become a name in the industry. Thus plugin companies come and go all the time. Now one doesn’t seem to have made it.
Soundspot
Soundspot is a developer company that has released many effects, and mixing/mastering plugins in the recent past. They also have Union, a Synthesizer plugin in their portfolio. According to sources, Soundspot has the same lead designer (JD Young) as Denise Audio. The plugins are not particularly outstanding in terms of fascinating features but in terms of prices.
Retailers like Plugin Boutique often have special deals with discounts of up to 99% etc. Yes, unbelievable prices. The question is how can a developer company survive with such prices. For example, the reputation suffers with such a discount. Why does a company have to sell its plugins like this?
Out Of Business?
Apparently, the developers’ plan didn’t work out on the cheap trip. In social media as well as forums like KVR Audio or Gearspace (of course not GS) the reports that Soundspot is out of business are piling up. There is no official statement from the company, but there are clear signs that the fire has gone out. For a long time already.
First, the developer’s website https://www.soundspot.audio/ no longer exists. Already a few months ago it was reported that the domain was offered for sale. Then the activities on social media are stopped. The Twitter account is deleted, and they published the last post on Facebook in 2021.
There have been reports on KVR Audio about support requests that have gone unanswered for some time. For example, requests for license transfers, Apple Silicon support, registrations, etc. On KVR Audio, music producers report unanswered support requests regarding license transfers, Apple Silicon updates, registrations, etc. According to the forum entry, Plugin Boutique is still in contact with the developers but cannot guarantee updates.
These are all clear signs that a developer is no longer active. So I assume that Soundspot is out of business. It would be interesting to know what role Plugin Boutique plays in this topic. The UK plugin shop and long-time partner of Synth Anatomy continues to offer all Soundspot plugins as if everything were active and normal.
However, they hide from potential customers that the plugins no longer receive updates. There are also registration issues according to user reports. From a February KVR post, PB is still in touch with the developers. The question: do they both have a deal? Who knows. But it is very bad that PB continues to sell these plugins here
My 2 Pennies
This all looks like a dead manufacturer to me. I’m sure Soundspot is gone, but I could be wrong. For this, I advise everyone to not buy plugins from the company on Plugin Boutique. You’re only going to have problems here with registrations, updates, etc.
Interesting article. It again shows the danger of plugins and software in general. Although it may seem to “last forever” and “never wear out” like hardware, it in fact has a much shorter life. Suddenly it may be impossible to re-install or update.
hardware can also break. In times when everything is cheaply built on small circuit boards, it is almost impossible to fix anything. After two/three years after the guarantee, you will see how much support you get. In the worst case, they ask you as much as a new unit costs. Hardware or software both can break.
Who cares? Union is one of my favourite VSTi, which I have used in dozens of songs on our most recent albums and that doesn’t change just because the developer is no longer active. Halcyon is another SoundSpot plugin I use all the time and it will keep working, too, so why would I care? In fact, now might be a good time to go through their catalogue and see if there are any other things I might want form them while I can still get them.
the problem is: Plugin Boutique sells you Soundspot plugins but you can’t activate them because they are offline
Most of them don’t require activation, they work as soon as you install them.
I take it you use a Windows PC? The Mac versions will only work for as long as Apple says they can. Which is pretty funny really.
I hope you’re using Mac, not Windows. Union on Windows has very serious bug – all presets contains LFO will change if you press STOP on your DAW or when you start rendering (which also in most DAW-s activates hard stop all instruments before render). It’s like LFO begins from position where you activates stop, not from its original position. You can fix it using some automation, but still. You may sometimes do not hear it very much, because if LFO is connected to wavetable, it will play similar. But if is connected to the filter – it’s completely different. I liked Union too, but now when I know that bug, I only use it with careful preset review.
It does sound like Soundspot (and other devs) may have dropped off the map. As you say, Plugin Boutique could be more forthcoming about abandonware. In fact, even mainstream plugin publishers have been abandoning some of their plugins and those end up crowding PB’s “bargain bin”. For instance, AIR Music Tech has recently resumed their releases of new desktop plugins (after focusing on MPC). Some of these are replacements for key items in the old plugin collection (AIEP3)… which PB still sells and uses as “bait” during sales. Something similar has happened with a few iZotope products which have been “end-of-lifed” yet appear in the PB catalogue.
Not saying that PB staff is sleeping at the wheel or that they’re misleading on purpose. I simply wish they’d make things clear as to which plugins are currently maintained.
For those of us on Apple Silicon Macs, it’s a strong signal that a dev has abandoned a plugin when native support for the chip is still absent after close to three years. On the other hand, support for MTS-ESP, CLAP, MPE, and responsive design are indications that a plugin is up-to-date.
The “incredible discounts” on many plugins are based on overvaluation. For some reason, it might be a common trick in our scene. A dark pattern, often decried by consumer protection agencies. “Save 90% on our $1000 plugin!” (which is possibly worth the standard $30 per plugin that we get through most of the market). If anyone ever paid the full price for any such plugin, you get to wonder why.
In the case of Soundspot, part of the reason it worked is that they were cheap enough during sales (i.e., most of the time) that it could be a way to get another plugin which was “free with any purchase”. Either that or a samplepack (though “all you can eat” sample libraries made that less appealing).
As you say, Soundspot’s plugins were underwhelming. They were hyped as though they were revolutionary. Yet they weren’t the kind of thing which would drive passion. Not saying that they didn’t do anything. It’s just that they didn’t do as much as one might think from listening to their descriptions.
Denise plugins are way more useful, unique, and valuable. So it’s interesting that JD Young would be involved in both. At the same time, there’s a huge difference between a designer’s output and development work. Design can prove extremely important and it can involve a whole product development process. Yet our scene tends to focus on DSP prowess. Indeed, the marketing material for Soundspot plugins had more to do with technical features than with their overall design. In the end, maybe those plugins were like a design portfolio.
At any rate, the scene of audio plugins is in a weird phase. As Benn Jordan has been saying, the “microeconomies” involved may not be sustainable. In fact, since some of this is about Plugin Boutique, it’d be useful to get deeper insight as to what has happened with that team since they were bought.
its not gearslutz
sorry fixed
it was, before humor was murdered and the trigger patrol decided to make everyone change rather than grow up themselves
After a quick research, I found out that the domain “soundspot.audio” is owned by a company called Beatport LLC since mid april this year.
And if Beatport didn’t want to go into plugin development, soundspot is definitely dead.
It seems Plugin Boutique have taken charge and are now selling updated versions of some Soundspot plugins under their own brand. Union is now called WaveOSC and has a nice updated GUI. I can’t see any new features but there is a code on the web page that gets you the synth for $10 so I just used that to upgrade.
Plug In Boutique Bought out them updated the GUI of the effects they decided to keep and change the names. But, the dishonest way Plug In Boutique is doing it is not stating that these are formerly SoundSpot plug ins but revamped. If you had bought a Soundspot plug in through PB they have sent you a coupon to upgrade to their newer versions of former SoundSpot plug ins without actually saying hey we have bought soundspot we are only releasing upgrades of certain ones ect. Also, if you go download your soundspot plug ins the serial # is ownload with it and you have to install it because you can no longer go to soundspot.audio to register ect. Wish PB was honest because they just changed the GUI and names but all the features are the same no real improvement.