Slate Digital Vcc Team Air
Mariam Obregon
Since its founding in 2008 by Steven Slate and Fabrice Gabriel, Slate Digital has been known for accurate digital modeling of boutique and high end analog audio hardware, making it one of the most respected names in professional audio. For many budding audio engineers and music producers, purchasing such analog hardware is simply out of the question due to budgetary constraints, but Slate Digital has democratized music creation for a whole new generation with their ever-growing collection of equalizers, compressors and high-end gear. The Slate Digital Virtual Microphone System takes hardware modeling a step further by including a hardware microphone and interface with digitally accurate models of rare and highly prized microphones that would otherwise cost upward of tens of thousands of dollars to attain.
With their extensive analog hardware research and revered product catalog as a foundation, Slate Digital continues to evolve their offerings to meet the changing needs of creatives as the way they work changes.
In 2018, this earned them the Sound on Sound Best New Microphone Award for their innovation, a trait that shows not only in the development of groundbreaking technology like the VMS, but in their visionary adoption of subscription plans. These plans lowered the barrier to entry for millions of music creators, but Slate Digital needed a secure and easy to use licensing platform in order to make subscriptions successful.
In the early 2000's, many digital products were being cracked, significantly affecting the sales of software companies, especially in the Pro Audio software market. Without effective measures to protect intellectual property and control licensing, piracy and unauthorized distribution were causing significant financial harm and jeopardizing the sustainability of many businesses. The Slate Digital team had a vision, but unless they could secure their revenue against these cracks, the return on investment for product development and support cost coverage was uncertain and the risk of not making enough money to fund future product development was real.
Slate Digital's initial products sold well and had a loyal following, but the Slate Digital team wanted to offer more value and to continue to grow the business in a healthy manner by supporting updates and delivering on-going value to subscribers. Around the same time, in 2014, PACE started to consider how to extend the 10-year-old iLok licensing platform to support not only trials, timed rentals, NFRs, and beta licenses, but also subscription licenses for monthly, annual, and other types of subscriptions. By 2015, companies like EastWest Sounds (soundsonline.com) and AVID Technology, maker of Pro Tools, were also adding subscription plans, and PACE was working to offer a great solution to all of these industry leaders. Using the PACE licensing platform, Slate Digital released subscriptions in mid-2015, making a huge new commitment to their customers to provide continuous and regular product development and updates.
Andrew Kirk, Vice President of PACE Anti-Piracy, said, "Slate Digital has been a model partner, challenging us to make our tools easier to use for their users and their developers. We remain committed to delivering on our promises to protect their revenue by making our tools more secure and easier to use".
With PACE's support, Slate Digital was able to implement a robust licensing platform that enabled them to offer trial versions, perpetual licenses, and eventually subscriptions. Through innovative solutions like iLok and iLok Cloud, Slate Digital was able to simplify the licensing process for their customers and reduce the risk of piracy and unauthorized use.
Slate Digital is recognized as a leader in the pro audio industry and a model for how software companies can successfully implement subscriptions. PACE's licensing platform has played a critical role in their success, enabling them to provide a secure and user-friendly experience for their customers while protecting their valuable intellectual property.
Today (mid-2023) the iLok Licensing system serves over 9.2 million users with over 160 million licenses being serviced. Looking to the future, PACE is set to release its 6th generation toolset in 2023, offering even greater ease of use and security for software developers. And with Slate Digital's ongoing commitment to customer value and innovation, there's no telling what groundbreaking products they will come up with next.
In October 2022, Audiotonix, a global market leader in the design, engineering and manufacturer of professional audio mixing consoles and ancillary products acquired 100% of Slate Digital. Audiotonix, also the owner of PACE client Solid State Logic, is committed to increasing the value of the Slate Digital subscription and continues to work with PACE to make the best possible user experience.
Audiotonix is a global market leader in the design, engineering and manufacture of professional audio mixing consoles and ancillary products. Audiotonix brands use JUCE and Audiotonix is a continuing sponsor of the Audio Developer Conference.
I think Steven Slate's company (or technically, former company) is the only subscription model in this business that I really haven't seen many people complain much about. How many folks here have it?
I had it like 4 or 5 years ago for 2 years. It was really good value for the money, but I could hardly justify the expense considering that for me this is a hobby I dedicate less than a couple of hours weekly (with luck). So I finished my subscription.
When Steven was just starting out he called me up for some marketing advice. We really hit it off and he's a really fun and interesting person -- and he's written and sung some pretty cool rock songs (he plays drums too). We both share a love for the Beatles. He even told me, get the compay's name *Yellow Matter Entertainment"? Of course, I'm a huge Beatles fan! But I'm just a hobbyist and can barely even play for 5 minutes without stopping from tendinitis pain, so I limit my spending and would never buy a subscription, we already have enough of those for cable TV, streaming services, etc. I don't want more! But I did hear Steven's stuff is really good and it seems like the only subscription service I have heard people really say good things about and have yet to see anyone complain about it (as compared to some others like Waves). I suppose I haven't heard anything bad about Musio, I just haven't heard much talk about it at all, beyond when they had their lifetime deal. Every dev with a lot of plugins or sample libraries thinks about the subscription model, and I think the dev best positioned to pull it off successfully is NI/Izotope.
I know I had a few things on Gobbler but they locked out getting into website as far as I can tell so I can re-download the license application to see. Hopefully they make a way available that we can get back in there.
I own and enjoy using some slate plugins (VTM, VMR, VCC, FGX) from before they went subscription. They're good stuff. But I'd be hesitant to get into the brand at this point with the huge number of alternatives available.
Biggest concern is the future -- Slate Digital was founded by Steven Slate and Fabrice Gabriel, who Steven hyped up as a DSP genius responsible for lots of technical magic. But the founders are no longer there. The Audiotonix team and Slate alumni are probably awesome people but at least to me the future seems less certain.
I don't like subs in general but especially those where you basically lose playback on old projects if you forgot to freeze. Feels like ransom though I'm not an anti-capitalist. Some vendors handle this well, like Plugin Alliance giving you vouchers to spend on perpetual licenses at the end of a year, as well as having deep sales on those perpetual licenses a year or so after release.
When the Slate subscription was released, they promised don't worry, they'll still develop lots of high-quality Slate plugins. They promised don't worry, they'll still have sales. The pace of new first-party releases seems to have drastically slowed down, the new stuff seems different than the old stuff, and discounts seem to have evaporated. I haven't been watching super close though. The pricing on new products is well above what competitors charge... $249 for their LA2A and custom variant for example. It feels like when PA backed down from their brief "some future products are subscription only" stance, by pricing perpetual licenses super high, like setting MSRP at $449 for that first Amek console and saying "you wanted a perpetual license, we listened, here you go!"
That's all not to say I don't like or use my Slate plugins. I do! In 2023 though, there are so many options compared to re-spending $150 every year. Black Friday is coming up and with a couple years of subscription money you could get a whole collection of PA plugins. Or most of IK's range in a group buy. I can't believe we now have UAD plugins, running natively, in the $30 range with coupons.
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