So you’ve spent the last number of months writing and preparing your latest release, things are going well, you’ve done your homework, you’ve invested blood sweat and some tears making sure everything is bang tidy. The big day arrives when your new release will be birthed to the world, happy times!!

So you go about your morning checking the various streaming sites and yes there it is in all its full aural glory, hours pass and as we all do, we monitor sales from the above mentioned. As musicians and artists alike its comforting to know that other musicians and artists will support your latest and greatest effort, or will they?

Next up is a call from your best mate, eh mate just thought I’d let you know your new release is up on about 20 different sites for free, you’re well and truly gutted. What the fuck have I bothered doing all this for, only for it to be given away for nothing?

Ok so let’s backtrack a bit. I’m going to make a huge generalization and assume you’ve paid for your Daw, virtual instruments and the myriad of virtual fx, dynamics processors you used on your latest and greatest release. Oh, you haven’t,

well suck it up buttercup, you are part of the ongoing problem with people who whine like muthafuckers when your shit is stolen, but its ok to steal others?”

. I have been involved in music production for about 25 years and I’ve seen the jump from having to have a good sized room full of equipment to only need a computer of some power to produce high-quality music. When I first got involved in putting together my first studio, costs were through the roof, anything of quality cost an absolute fortune. This was in the days of having to have a half decent desk, tape machine, separate fx a truckload of compressors, gates, pre-amps, patchbays and some quality cable to make it all work.

You have it easy and at a much reduced cost, yet you still whine on about how expensive it is to get into the game. Again I’m going to generalize,

You probably haven’t even had the decency to invest in your main weapon of choice

whether it be Ableton, Cubase, Logic or whichever DAW you’ve decided to blag, not to mention the 5000+ plugins that reside in your Vst or Audio Units folder, you are no better than the muck maggot who uploaded your music to 20 different torrent sites this morning, does that sound harsh to your snowflake ears?

I sincerely hope it does, you are part of a problem that needs serious addressing, up till very recently I was one of those mugs who every time a new plugin came out that I wanted, would have to pay a couple of hundred euros for the privilege.

That all changed very recently when companies like Slate Digital, Softube and McDsp started to offer a subscription-based service. So for about 12€ a month, I can have a bunch of the best sounding plugins available known to man, so do I feel like the money I have previously spent with these companies has been wasted? Absolutely not!! I still hold on to the stuff I purchased and get a bunch of other toys that I couldn’t afford to purchase individually, as some of these bundles include up to 20 plugins.

I also use a number of other DSP based plugins that are tied to hardware, this has made pirating this software virtually impossible, this I’m a fan of as again I’ve spent a considerable amount of money on this software, unfortunately I feel these systems are just very expensive dongle protection systems, not detracting from the quality of the software they offer. But certain companies have stayed with DSP based systems to protect their products from piracy, not because the DSP accelerators are powerful but because they offer an unparalleled level of protection not afforded by other devices.

As someone who runs a production studio. I get to hear firsthand what truly wrecks peoples heads, music piracy being the number 1 complaint, yet some still feel its oks to run cracked software. I think the subscription-based model is the way forward as I personally could not afford to gather all the plugins individually. I recently opted for Slate Digitals Everything Bundle, which I can’t speak highly enough of.

There is nothing in this bundle that doesn’t sound absolutely stunning, this will cost you about 12€ a month and for a few extras euros, they’ll send you a shiny new ilok 3, this truly unbelievable value.  The larger companies have obviously suffered such massive losses so the only way for them try offset this is by offering their software in these neatly included everything bundles. The smaller companies who don’t have the same size wallets as the big boys will probably go by the wayside, supporting software companies should be something you don’t have to think twice about.

As I mentioned earlier,

Having to fit out a studio back in the day was prohibitively expensive

for every channel of compression you required, you had to purchase a dual channel unit or single channel unit, pending on the size of your budget and desk, this could very easily become a bottomless money pit. My old desk and recorder would easily hoover up 48 channels,

Think about that ..in order for me to fully use the desk and all its inserts I would need 24 dual channel compressors, lets not even start to talk about fx like reverbs, modulations, phasers, distortions, more money into the money pit and this obviously increases the more grandiose you want your studio to become.

In a nutshell, you have all this at your disposal within your favourite DAW and you won’t even purchase that, that’s just being a cheap ass. So next time your newest and greatest production is pirated, stop whinging. It really didn’t cost you a penny to make.

Declan