I find it interesting that all these brands that do gear clones like Warm Audio, Heritage, Behringer etc…do all these influencer videos but the high-end brands like API, Neve, UA, do not (that I’ve seen, in comparison atleast). Nothing against these brands or influencers. I own Warm Audio and heritage gear and use them daily. Just an observation and a curiosity to understand why.

Is it because they have the name and don’t need the marketing?

They can’t afford the marketing expense because of the cost to make their products vs what they charge? A choice they are willingly making with confidence..

The clone brands cut manufacturing costs so they can afford to send influencer free gear in exchange?

Are influencers changing the standards?

What credits do these influencers have and how much should that weigh on their opinions?

Do we value a well-made 4k video by an influencer with unknown credits higher than a legendary engineer/ producer simply with a photo of them with a piece of gear or a quote in an interview?

I realize this might be somewhat controversial.. but can’t help to wonder why I’m noticing this.

The clone gear needs to convince you that it sounds like the established brands.

The established brand doesn't need to convince (influence) you it sounds like the real brand.

Because it already IS the real brand.

They certainly don't need to influence you that it's worth cloning.

Because the clones are already doing that.

So they get free influencers. Every time an influencer tells you the Heritage is "as good as a Neve," Neve gets free branding out of the deal.

I was going to say UA have done plenty of "influencer" videos for their UAD stuff - the stuff with Jaquire King for example - admittedly he's a "name", but it's still influencer-styling.

But it's all just marketing. Plenty of clone brands with "name" engineers endorsing them too!

They all do influencer videos. Why you are seeing more Behringer, Warm etc - is not just because they decide to do collaborations, but also that influencers need new content and many established brands are a lot slower in their release dates.

Obviously you will see more Behringer videos if they release let's say 10 products a year and Warm when they release 5 - compared to 1 from neve of 2 from API

Big name engineers are influencing you and me, cause we trust in them, so they are somehow "old time influencers".
How many bought the vintage sunburst Les Paul because watching Slash playing out of the church? We thought unconciously:
Gibson Les Paul=being successful.
Or
U47= i will have Frank's voice.

Whatever, at least they were talented, some internet based influencer skipped everything and sell you whatever, directly.

They are not the worst in internet: reactions are at the top of the ridiculeness (or whatever the word it is)

prosumer brands are going for the prosumer market. i think neve did do a little bit of that with the newton channel though, which seems to be aimed more at the home studio segment

old school approach/attitude here:

if i'm interested in new gear, i download its manual, read the signal flow chart, read reviews in relevant trade magazines, read aes and/or academic papers, talk to the engineers/manufacturer at a trade show, make an appointment with the national distributor, have a word with my favourite gear technician, rent a studio which has the gear i'm looking for, borrow it from a collegue, take it on tour etc....

...so i think i'm pretty immune to advertising in any form - 'influencers' you say? about as irrelevant as plugins! (same for paid posts by 'big names' btw)

___


Say what?
Say what?
When you're walking down the street
And you got your walkman and you're walkin' to the beat
And you got your walkman and you're walkin' to the beat
Say what?
Let me tell you somethin'
What i prefer
Instead of listnin' to the music in your ears
Try singing to yourself
Let me tell you somethin'
Say what?
Instead of puttin' on your walkman
Instead of puttin' on your walkman
Try singing a tune
Try singing
All kinds of beats for all kinds of feets
Hey what
Say what
Real soulful beat, when you wanna look cool
People sayin' "hey, how you get to walk like that"
You say "well i'm my own walkman"
I'm my own walkman

Bobby McFerrin, 1984

One check is to see if they still have and use the
software or hardware like a year or more later.


There are so many of these pump and dumpers;
that it is one way to sort of tell which is which.

If a hardware piece is gone after a few months,
they sold it lieu of payment.

UA has always come across as the most influencer-y of them all. With UAD, with Apollo, with Luna, with their pedals. There are TONs of videos with that stuff in the unclear realm of sponsored content, ”sessions”, Q and A, demos

Lot of hyperbole in their videos too. All in all it lowered my trust in their brand and was one of the reasons I backed off from buying an Apollo. Too much ad talk and salesmanship and ”deals” of all sorts.

Instead I went with Lynx and Burl which had all the hallmarks of real professionalism. Walk the walk vs talk the talk kinda difference, with UA wanting to milk their past prestige in too many ways, so I didn’t know where they in fact could be trusted

Not so much their outboard gear though (tube pres etc), even though I so far haven’t bought any of it, probably because I don’t trust the brand

RND have some cool ”this studio uses RND” videos which I like and see nothing wrong with

API has too few videos in my opinion. Kinda hard to get to know their stuff. But I guess they sell what they need to sell anyway. Same with Chandler

Heritage just need to sort out their pricing. I bought their Herchild and their Motorcity EQ, and they seem to have permanently slashed the price of both since, which was fast. It leaves me with a sour taste and an impossibly low resale value. I would only buy from them again if they sort out that stuff first, or give us customers who bought full price expensive items some kind of discount.

Feels kinda shit to pay nearly 10k for something that then next year gets sold new for 7k. With some deals going even lower.

It might also be a difference in culture. The “old” brands have been around for a long time, maybe their owners are also a bit old fashioned, growing up with print ads, and have a (sometimes well deserved) mistrust against newer marketing methods. A new company that was maybe founded ten, fifteen years ago will likely have owners that grew up with the internet and it’s marketing methods and thus more likely to adapt viral or influencer marketing.
I am still convinced though that whatever the marketing method, the company has to back it with quality, or at least enough quality that the price is perceived as fair value…

manufacturers/re-sellers are free to set their prices however they want and change prices at any time they want - you bought overpriced gear in the first place, it's as simple as that so stop whining!

Whining?

Get a grip deedee, have some manners and try to understand the point people make instead of that ad hominem nonsense

I just said I’m not gonna buy from them because they don’t have stable and predictable pricing. Which is a problem for their brand, clearly.

I agree, and also the comparable brands of gear they never review or mention.

Cheers

more whining...

again: manufacturers are entirely free to set and change the prices of their products any way they want, at any time. you didn't buy a guarantee that prices will remain stable: you bought a product - c'est tout!

Maybe I'm just an old fart, but when I'm scrolling through youtube and I see a thumbnail of some guy doing a soyjak face while pointing at a pic of a piece of gear superimposed over the frame... it doesn't influence me the way the creator intended heh.

Yes you both are neither immune to advertisement - nor do you guys seem to have a modern understanding of how it works.

Advertisment shifted from: hey buy this product to creating associations in your brain about the brand itself. So when it comes to buying you have that unconsciously in mind and then choose that brand.

We have extensive studies showing that it works even when people knew they were being advertised to and tried to avoid it, we know it works when people sourced ideas through alternative channels and we even know it works when people are not exposed to advertisment at all, but their friends are.

well... - i have had my students carry out such studies (albeit on *****' from a completely different field), so i do have a bit of knowledge of the subject...

i find it interesting that there are massive differences in terms of conscious or unconscious influence by advertising depending on the price range and age: in the 6-digit range, experienced people seem to be much less influenced by advertising.

and then there would also be socio-cultural differences, purchasing power, wealth, position, rank, education to observe...

My guess is the big brands aren’t going for small amateur consumer market. They probably do all their sales and marketing at NAMM show.

FWIW. UA have the best manuals. I will read their manuals extensively and get an idea if I want a particular emulation of vintage gear. Though I have to say. I sometimes worry it’s all snake oil. All these software dev companies are using the same algorithms, just making different GUIs and skins and maybe adding a extra feature. How many different ways can you possibly model the electronics of a LA2A or 1176 compressor from the 60s?

My feeling too. Traditional ads are more like goofy cliches now. The real action is algorithmic and very subtle, ultra fast behind the scenes decisions on what you see and who you see doing/using what.

Still the most advertised foods and beverages are the most consumed foods and beverages, so advertising works, to the tune of almost $400 billion in 2024 (spent in the US).

The people who swear they aren't influenced are just another subcategory demographic. I don't own a TV or a cell phone, credit cards, and I've never been on social media (other than this place), but I still have Neve, API and Neumann. I've also had Heritage, Audioscape, and Stam. I'm very predictable from an advertising standpoint.

The true heroes are using Kraco, Realistic and Radio Shack. Shure Vocal Master!

See CLA branded cheap knock off NS10 clones.

Given that luxury is striving and companies like Atlassian have such high revenues that sell stuff like Jira, it is clear that even if it goes to 7 figures contracts, people with very high education and experience also do fall for advertising.

First many aren't going for the small consumer market, but they rather insert themselves to where they are seen there. NAMM shows, being available at local distributors.

Something like a good documentation doesn't seem like advertising, but can be and companies like Elastic use excellent documentation to attract customers.

You are 100% correct. Looking at coke they unconsciously makes you associate yourself with the feeling from the ads. Same with Red Bull.

I agree with you, in fact they actually found that people who think they aren't as influenced are as much influenced or even more (due to having less risk of ad overload).

Advertisment isn't even bad - otherwise we wouldn't find companies. One just has to be aware that no matter what, we all get influenced.

Are you really this impossible deedeeyah?

I did not make a personal complaint. I said ”Heritage needs to sort out their pricing”. Go to the Herchild thread and see - that’s the consensus opinion.

When buying High end gear, of course we as buyers think about whether the resale/trade value is stable, reasonable and makes sense. Of course a brand loses trust if their prices jump up and down.

Also, I don’t really have any other examples than Heritage doing this recently. So it’s quite clear to me it’s a them problem and a problem they can easily fix with some clear communication.

You come in to a lot of very different threads and derail them with either:

1. out of context jumping on some thing someone said, like this. Coupled with a shitty superior attitude and no any wisdom attached - unlike other senior posters who are snarky at times but also have important things to say

2. Or you there to tell us nobody needs to buy any gear except digital mixers.

I wonder who got more sales...
Make believe mixhead. or spl machinehead...

wrong again, on all accounts...

...but let's stick to what i call whining:
who are you to tell a manufacturer to change policy or prices?!

you have made a decision (hopefully because of the quality of the equipment!) and of course you can hope that the market tends in a certain direction and be disappointed if it doesn't, but there is no protection against such a risk, not even with analog gear and neither when buying from well-know manufacturers.

maybe you'll have to wait for some 20 years and the gear you bought goes up in price again...



p.s. while we're at it: may i ask how long have you been in our business? (serious question/no trap/just wondering)
reason i'm asking is that i remember a time when people sold off their old gear as fast as they could as the prices were going down quickly - gear that only a few years later started climbing to insane heights.

Know your audience: influencers (aka "nobody's" with a lot of followers) are watched by the home studio crowd, and thus, they get gear from those brands targeting that market. Exceptions do occur, like SSL's line of home studio interfaces, and those do end up in influencer's hands, Neve probably too, with their 88M series.

It's a big market, higher volume, probably the same margins, so they're not ignoring as long as they don't dilute their brand.

High-end/Pro brands/products are a different beast. You're not buying a $100K console because Zakk the Rad YouTuber bro said it sounded sick with his Ableton loops; Zakk didn't even get his hands on one for starters.

i had given a specific example where this is not the case or to a much lesser extent.

anyway, more interesting to me is the question of why people actually buy something (or not): i, for one, have not bought a single piece of audio equipment in the last 45 years that i have not tested under real-world conditions.

my equipment is a testimony to the fact that i am not influenced by advertising much (if at all): my main working tool is a device that i know for sure that i am the only one in the whole forum who owns it and which has never been advertised here on this site.

short: i value experience MUCH higher than marketing!

ddy,
Would you not feel begrudged if you bought a Fairchild clone for $10,000 (that just came out a couple of years ago) and then just 3 months later - saw all of the major retailers selling it for $5,650?

I'm not sure its even a "sale", that actually seems to be the new price for the unit, which just a few months ago was $10,000.

Shit happens, as they say - but when I invest in a piece of high end gear, I want it to reasonably hold its value - thats a good reason to buy a quality unit. This will never happen with the likes of Manley, or Fearn for example.

I personally would be pretty upset, and I totally sympathize with Trem here

The root issue is that some gear/owners have seen prices skyrocket on everything "vintage" under the sun, from mediocre synths to old microphones, etc.

Because of this, the expectation is that gear is supposed to be some sort of slowly appreciating asset, when it really isn't. It might be, if it reaches cult status and has the appropriate scarcity effect, but chances are it won't.

The other issue is that -- this crowd in particular -- people are spending an awful lot of money on hobby/hopeful phantom ROIs and using a lot of words on here to justify those purchases, when the reality is, you're buying tools you don't need to not make any money out of it.

Sunk costs. It's why I harp so often on here to stop fantasizing about gear, because even the cheapest interface today, coupled with a pile of free plugins, is more than enough for you to create hopeful/wistful bedroom music.

Thanks, great advice!
I have deleted the parts that require a certain location or professional situation.
All of us can do the rest.

not that i would ever have wanted to buy a fairchild...

of course i can understand his disappointment, but a manufacturer does not owe him a guarantee that prices for their equipment will remain the same on end!

did you ever see such a clause in a contract? - imo it's totally unrealistic to assume/speculate that gear holds its (resale) value for long.