I'm getting close to finishing the orchestral bank, finally!!

[medienhexer]

Well, Urs has such a lovely section on his website for that

[hollo]

I've got to figure out how to sell this thing. I want to stay independent I think, so that means me doing LOTS manual e-mail correspondence and verification. I also have a really good friend who I'd be willing to pay some of it's sales to do that for me. I haven't quite decided yet, I guess I should hurry up with that.

If you have paypal, you can use this site to get a buy button,
and automatic download without any cost or percent.

https://tinypay.me/

It's working well for me since august.
You can then relax about checking and manually sending emails.

Cheers,
Joseph

[audington]

Thanks! With my current workload, I have a feeling I'm going to squeeze it in just before the New Year.

Please please please release as soon as possible! I want an orchestral bank to play with over the Christmas holidays, so if I can't get yours before Christmas I will be buying the Nexus Hollywood Orchestra bank while it's on sale. But I'd rather have your bank!

For pricing, how does $50 regular with a $30 intro price sound?

[jdoo]

Thanks! With my current workload, I have a feeling I'm going to squeeze it in just before the New Year.

...

For pricing, how does $50 regular with a $30 intro price sound?

I am a preset junkie, and over the past couple of months have picked up around 19 u-he AU preset banks. I would be happy to share a spreadsheet with you, detailing pricing of the various sound sets. One thing they all have in common... is a pricing structure of anywhere between .08 and .28 a patch. $50 for your 83 patches (83 being the number of presets you said you had, on December 3rd post) - would be asking .60 / preset , which would be off the charts for pricing. Not that they might not be worth it. Like many - I am anxiously awaiting this sound set. The demo songs are strong, and like many - I can see a spot for these patches in my (ever growing) patch library for Zebra. My recommendation would be to price your presets between .020 and .25 and see how they do. That would be between $17 and $21. $50 for 83 patches would be high, in my opinion.

Pricing out of the way... Would also like to see variations in your presets.. An excellent example, is what Michael Cavallo has with his sound sets. For example, in Soliton - all presets have 4 XY controllers assigned by default, all have Mod wheel settings, all have excellent write-ups in the Info panel. 85% have after touch settings, 35% have pitch wheel settings controlling other parameters besides pitch, 90% of the patches have arppegiator settings. In fact - he loads many of his patches with settings, and parameters that are turned off by default, with explanation of how to get the most out of a patch, by enabling or tweaking the settings. It's extra work for him - but turns his libraries into both a learning experiences for some of us, and opens up his sounds with a boatload of additional sonic capabilities . If I sound like a salesman ... sorry. I have no affiliation with Michael or monomo sound design. Just learned a boatload from his banks. I would highly recommend looking at how a library like Soliton is setup and documented.

All that said.. if you are looking for an early adopter, to help you get your arms around documenting and pricing this sound set.. please PM me.

[bmrzycki]

My recommendation would be to price your presets between .020 and .25 and see how they do. That would be between $17 and $21. $50 for 83 patches would be high, in my opinion.

Your argument, while interesting, does not address one very important factor: the amount of time invested per preset. Just because the average preset pack costs X and contains Y presets does not mean all presets are created equal.

Several preset packs contain init or starter presets or sounds that fall into "that's a nice bass, I'll save that one". It's a whole different thing to reverse-engineer a realtime spectral analysis of a violin pluck or a french horn sustained note and then work out how to make that happen convincingly with any synth.

Ultimately the right price is the one the creator decides to set. If market pressure forces him to lower it (few sales) so be it. I don't think presets like these are really represented anywhere else, except for a handful by Howard in the factory bank and possibly a few in Michael Kastrup's extensive work.

[jdoo]

Agree.. this sound set should be priced at whatever the market will bear. Interesting that you bring up Michael and Howard. Both have excellent sets that I am the proud owner of. Unless there are sound sets that they have created, that I am unaware of, both price their sets in the range I mentioned. I make my living as a computer programmer (unfortunately, not as a musician or sound set creator ) - and been doing development work for years, as an independent. Time is money, and if these talented folks can't make a good return on their time investment in making these sound sets, they may move on to other things -- and we all lose. So, I am in violent agreement that they should charge as much as they can, and be rewarded for the fantastic sounds they are making available to us. I was only pointing out the current prices that folks are charging. I have zero insight into how many sets are selling, and you do... so if prices should be higher, I am on board.

[Esgalachoir]

Wow, thanks for the suggestions, everyone. I think this discussion is going to help me make some decisions.
Also, I think jdoo mentioned being thorough with the XY pads. It's something I've definitely been doing, but not with all the patches. Where you'll see that the most in the bank is the soundscapes, of course. The modwheel is functional and actually quite necessary for probably 90% of the patches. The pitchwheel does some neat things to some of the brass and a some of the comb filter based patches. I definitely put some time into the XY pads for the percussion so far as well. The patch count is around 90ish now, and there are some more ideas on the way that I would like to squeeze in, particularly some expansion with the woodwind section and some experiments with envelopes concerning those. Oh, and I need to organize the scraps, put some more sequences in...you all get the idea, it's not done yet...

[tehlord]

Without being a 'named' soundset producer I think you'll really struggle to sell a soundset containing 83 presets (no matter how good they are) for $50.

I think a more realistic level is $30 (which is still high) with an introductory price of say $20.

I think you'll need to rely on a high volume of sales, good demos and presence on Youtube etc to recoup your investment of time.

[bmrzycki]

Agree.. this sound set should be priced at whatever the market will bear. Interesting that you bring up Michael and Howard. Both have excellent sets that I am the proud owner of. Unless there are sound sets that they have created, that I am unaware of, both price their sets in the range I mentioned.

I'm sure your numbers are correct for Howard's and Michael's sets. Most of the sounds that would have overlap are actually in the factory soundbank for Zebra. Presets like HS Drums of Modor for example.

I make my living as a computer programmer (unfortunately, not as a musician or sound set creator ) - and been doing development work for years, as an independent.

I hear that. This is very much a hobby for me and I want it to stay that way. Once money enters it changes everything.

I have zero insight into how many sets are selling, and you do... so if prices should be higher, I am on board.

Actually I don't really have much more insight than you do. I occasionally talk with the sound designers via PM but they rarely mention sale details other than something like "I had a good month and sold XX copies!"

For all I know you could be spot-on with your analysis. I was merely mentioning that price per preset isn't necessarily linear. I would love to talk to Howard and ask him about the process of creating The Dark Zebra sounds. I'm sure there were some that came easier than others.

(I hope you didn't take my post as any kind of attack, just providing an alternate view on the subject!)

[jdoo]

...
(I hope you didn't take my post as any kind of attack, just providing an alternate view on the subject!)

Not at all... This is a good discussion, and I appreciate your POV. Sorry if we derailed the original thread. Back on topic ... Along with a lot of folks, I really am anxiously awaiting the release of these patches. I already threw out the Arturia V Collection 3 through the use of u-he Diva and Zebra presets. I am hoping this set, may put the nail in the coffin of my Miroslav Philharmonik set.

[timaeus222]

This may or may not be reasonable, but in comparison to Impact Soundworks stuff, $50 for 90+ Zebra patches is expensive. I would suggest $30 as well and a $20 intro price---$50 is a lot, even for patches of this awesome quality.

[moosethree]

If you have MANY presets that cover the whole range of the orkestra, with basic articulations you should charge at least same price as DARK ZEBRA itself.
It has more worth as a cinematic sound set....especially if it can be layered and tweaked.

[tehlord]

If you have MANY presets that cover the whole range of the orkestra, with basic articulations you should charge at least same price as DARK ZEBRA itself.
It has more worth as a cinematic sound set....especially if it can be layered and tweaked.

The difference is that Dark Zebra has additional technical content and the name Hans Zimmer attached to it.

Not only is DZ a kickass product in it's own right, but that name can attract a premium price, like it or not.

The way to go is volume sales and word of mouth, not niche price and small customer base.

[Howard]

If you have MANY presets that cover the whole range of the orkestra, with basic articulations you should charge at least same price as DARK ZEBRA itself.It has more worth as a cinematic sound set....especially if it can be layered and tweaked.

The difference is that Dark Zebra has additional technical content and the name Hans Zimmer attached to it. Not only is DZ a kickass product in it's own right, but that name can attract a premium price, like it or not. The way to go is volume sales and word of mouth, not niche price and small customer base.

The Dark Zebra isn't an orchestral soundset, but a Hans Zimmer / Dark Knight synth soundset (25c per sound, BTW). Corin (Esgalachoir) is competing with sample libraries - and doing a fine job, from what I've heard so far!

[pdxindy]

Pictures and Mazes is excellent stuff! Just listened to it...

There is so much that can still be done in Z2.5 that I'm in no hurry for 3... Zebra is such an inviting creative tool!