Yep, Tony if you are listening please get some products in the $25-$50 range and use PayPal I think you would get a lot of sales that way.

That's a pricing model I've never heard of...absolutely unique!

And it's some kind of SEO, because if many people check your site (every day), then your site is higher rated in the search engines.

So I'm checking daily and waiting for it to get to $40. Of course if it were $40 you could have my money today, Tony

Tricky-Loops: Indeed, my pricing model is like my music... unique. Thanks for noticing!

Dave Elson: Thanks man! I take this stuff very seriously because I care. I care a hell of a lot and the content that I provide is my own creation. It's a personal stab hearing things like what was said previously. I worked very hard to create the very best product/website I can.

Braj: I will see about getting some package deals into a standard pricing model that will fit into that range, until then keep watching for $40 it sometimes gets there!

I created these patterns because I got sick of having to work up a drum beat or a chord progression every time I wanted something to jam over or something to spark my creativity.

I also got tired of purchasing a loops library with 100 loops only to find six that were cool and one that would work in the current song. So I created a lot of them with lots of variations. Are they the best in the world? I have no idea, but they work for me.

Music is still a craft. The day hasn't come [yet!] when you can press a button and out comes a kick ass album. (thank god!) It takes time, patience, craft, molding, skills and these patterns are no exception to that.

There's always room for improvement. I have lists of things to improve, upgrade, redo. But this stuff is complicated and it takes time... a lot of time. I'm listening, I'm learning, and I actually USE my product so there are upgrades I want too... the next edition is going to be way better.

I'm a creative artist. I'm not much of a salesman, and I honestly don't want to be one. But, I'm willing to learn... and learning I am. I'm taking careful note of what you guys are sharing with me and I very much appreciate your feedback (even though it stings on a personal level).

The website is almost 10 years old now and it needs to be upgraded. I have plans to do it right after I finish the current update on the Midi Browser. (Should be within the next couple of weeks.)

I had PayPal in the site a few years back but there was problem after problem with it. Mainly because people wouldn't click the "return to merchant" link on the PayPal site. [So they would get stuck at PayPal... never getting returned, after purchase, to download the files. (and of course I would get phone calls from angry people wondering where their files are)]

I've been meaning to get PayPal back into the site, as I think they have made the process better since then. I was waiting until I upgraded the whole site, as implementing PayPal where customers are redirected back to the site for automatic licensing is a royal PITA, but I see now that I'm probably going to have to do that before the site upgrade.

With that said I really like PayPal as a customer. I use them all the time and I DO still take PayPal orders through Prosonic, but I don't do it through the website, I manually create an invoice using PayPal's invoicing system. (Just let me know what items you want, and your PayPal email address, through the Contact Us form on the site.)

As far as risk. I've never hesitated to give a full refund as soon as I got the request to do so. Even though refund requests have been rare, I've been reluctant to make it a "formal policy" on the website, as midi files like this aren't like other types of product that can be returned. (People can simply get the refund and keep the product.)

But I can see now that a lot of people are afraid to commit to a purchase unless they know they can get a refund without a hassle. So I have put a "formal refund policy" on the website this morning. It reads: If you aren't 100% satisfied with your order contact us within 30 days of your purchase for a full refund.

This has always been the way I operated. There's no reason you should be stuck with a product that sucks or that doesn't work in your environment. Doing business with me isn't a gamble. But me doing business with others IS a gamble, as many people will purchase the product, then get the refund, but keep using my blood, sweat, and tears anyhow. Such is life as a content provider I guess.

Again, thanks for the feedback guys. I'll be making changes in the coming weeks and rest assured your time has not been in vain.

Tony

With loops or other things that you can't easily 'give back' ie revoke a license so it doesn't work, I don't mind a 'no refund' policy myself. Just the original price is still kind of high for me personally, that's all. I'll keep my eyes out for a deal. If I find one, can I buy it via PayPal? ie. can I email you and you can note the time and that i qualify for the discount? Is there any way you can let me know when it gets to $40 so I don't miss it? sorry I'm lazy! Maybe you can run a sale and announce it in the KVR Marketplace!

Oh, you want *ME* to watch it for you? I charge extra for that! $29.95 (watcher's fee). lol Just kiddin!

Man I'm REALLY busy. I can't do that... besides if I did it for you, then someone else would want it, and before you'd know it - I'd have 300 people I'd be watching for (and very few of them would actually end up purchasing).

One of the reasons I have dynamic pricing is so that I don't have to run "SALES". My stuff is on "sale" *EVERY* day. So, my stuff *is* on sale!

Sales are really kind of silly. Every other day these companies have another SALE. What's the point? If they can afford to sell it at that sale price, then why don't they just sell it at that price all the time? (It's just an excuse to send you another advertisement. A marketing ploy.)

The Commodities Pricing Model is somewhat of a marketing ploy too. Except it's way more interesting... and COOL! Plus, I'm not firing off a bunch of advertisements every week. Sales take a lot of time/money to create and promote. (Just the email alone takes hours. I don't have a Sales/Marketing Department like most of these companies do so I have to run lean-n-mean.)

Anyhow, I admire your tenacity for a better price!

Yes, you can purchase through PayPal. Just let me know what items you want through the "Contact Us" form on the website: http://www.prosonic-studios.com/contacts.aspx. (Be sure to include the email address you have with PayPal in the message so I know where to send the PayPal invoice.)

Tony
Prosonic Studios
The Ghosts of Orion

I have to tell you that this still seems ridiculous to me when it is posted EVERY SINGLE DAY, it is a marketing ploy that I find unpalatable:



Anyhow, no offense just I'm not going to check your site daily for a deal, so no sale from me unfortunately, not yet anyhow.

Back to EZkeys and back on topic...

I'm finding the limitation that you can't maintain the same chord progression and switch out patterns a bit limiting. What I am finding really useful though is creating really simple chord progressions, working out arrangements, then editing them in the piano roll. I'm finding the plugin VERY useful but using it in my own sort of way.

sorry for the delay fell asleep (aussie time now 712 am here) will be contacting you shortly cheers Tony

ps you're not greek backround by any chance with that name??

I stagger between "genial" and "ridiculous"...

For many customers it's a bit tedious to check your website and prices every single day. On the other hand, I love people with refreshing new ideas. "Dynamic pricing" is the opposite extreme of the pricing model by Urs from U-he ("Static pricing"?) who NEVER makes any sale (I can't compare the products, just the pricing model.)

It would be interesting to know how many people actually are checking your prices every day, and how many don't do that at all... But I don't want to derail the thread to a "Tony Pappas" thread, even if I appreciate you as a honestly working "developer"...

After demoing both EzKeys and Liquid Notes, I found EzKeys much more useful than I anticipated for basic song structuring, so I pulled the trigger on the $89 deal. Liquid Notes seems very interesting, but after toiling with the setup for quite a long time, I could never get it to properly play all my synths from the midi files. It would play around half I would say. So, I never got to properly test-drive it. It seems promising though, and perhaps I'll look at it again down the road.

Question for all you EZkeys users out there.

One of the biggest issues I have while songwriting, is the lack of proper harmonisation. I have a lot of ideas for a melody, but I lack the supplementary chords and bass lines. On rare occasions, it's the other way around (I know the chords, but I miss the melody).


Anyway...
Let's say I have a melody that I want to harmonize in some sort of way... can I drag and drop the MIDI pattern into EZpiano and it's like "yay, you have a key of G, and here are some suggestions" or does it not work like that?

If it's analysing my melody properly, and I can mess with chords, this would be a definite winner for my tool box.

Not exactly, it would transpose that part, not arrange other patterns around that part. But it will figure out the chord progression from your part, then you could copy the progression using different patterns in another instance. I'm actually having some issues with Ezkeys regarding this myself, it is useful for some things but at the end of the day I still have to figure out arrangements myself, it is not magic.

So it analyses the melody, ports them into "chords" and then you edit it in another instance?

It figures out the chords of the melody (which really are arpeggiated chords when it comes down to it) and gives you its best guess at the chord progression, then you can transpose it, slice and dice it, so your phrase can be a good starting point. But it doesn't generate a harmony for your melody.

What about stretching the pattern that you dragged in from the MIDI library?
Or what about the 25EUR MIDI Library Update. Is it worth it? What does it add?

And... does Toontrack maybe think about extending that even further?


Took another look, but I kind of miss a global song key function? Only key per pattern, is that correct?