Synth Bank Prices

[Teksonik]

I'd say $15-20 sounds right. I'd love to sell my crap for that............

It's taking longer and longer to program patches it seems. Synths are getting so complex that it takes half the time just filling up the Mod Matrix with wheel, aftertouch, velocity etc and in the case of say Alchemy it's XY pads and performance section to assign. It's getting to be too much work to create commercial patches as people rightfully so expect patches to take full advantage of a synth's capabilities. I'm too lazy....

[rob_lee]

I'd say $15-20 sounds right. I'd love to sell my crap for that............

It's taking longer and longer to program patches it seems. Synths are getting so complex that it takes half the time just filling up the Mod Matrix with wheel, aftertouch, velocity etc and in the case of say Alchemy it's XY pads and performance section to assign. It's getting to be too much work to create commercial patches as people rightfully so expect patches to take full advantage of a synth's capabilities. I'm too lazy....

+1

[brok landers]

for the record, this is not a loaded question, just curiosity. Im not asking to get a reference point for my own work. Im not planning on making and selling soundbanks. Im just curious, so dont let the fact it is me asking influence your reply

so, here is the deal:

what would you consider a reasonable price for a bank of 128 sounds for a soft synth. Not a set of samples or samples/presets, just straight up preset sounds for a synth you use...and lets assume you like the demo of the soundbank and would like to buy it (not a shit bank, obviously)





thank you for your time

Yeah ! I'd be curious to know too

I'll let people express themselves then I'll give you some data, and eventually my own Pov.

Now just for information a single fact : A 128 presets bank, depending on the complexity of the synth will take around 15 days to one month. For a synth like Alchemy it can be worse (as it can be very likely metapresets ie 8 different instruments nested into only one name ) I formerly thought I was just too slow at designing presets, but people like Brok Landers or Himalaya confirmed their average time per preset was about the same than me, if not even worse

Edit : Btw if some SDs are visiting this thread I'd be curious to know their average time per preset too

And now I'll let the place to users expectations

LtZ

good saying lotuzia. [sarcasm]nice to see how high our work is valued [/sarcasm]. thank god the suggested price is _way_ off reality, i'd be dead otherwise ...

[glokraw]

$5 to S50 for useable sounds. $50 for something like IK Hendrix,
or a genre percussion refill like EZX Latin, and less for projects of smaller impact and design expense. The patch designer must compete with peers, and new synth releases containing good sounds and GUIs. Even an ala-carte price of
$1 per each preset would be appealing, assuming you could hear a demo reel. That might need a 5 patch minimum purchase to ease the skim from paypal fees.
But no dogs would be allowed
Cheers

[glokraw]

I'd say $15-20 sounds right. I'd love to sell my crap for that............

It's taking longer and longer to program patches it seems. Synths are getting so complex that it takes half the time just filling up the Mod Matrix with wheel, aftertouch, velocity etc and in the case of say Alchemy it's XY pads and performance section to assign. It's getting to be too much work to create commercial patches as people rightfully so expect patches to take full advantage of a synth's capabilities. I'm too lazy....

+1

I'm spending a little time each week going thru the Absynth and Massive demos, as I did with Largo, looking for enough sounds I might use, to justify cost, and its running about 4% useable. When I press a key, I don't want to cringe, I just want to hear a well thought out sound, with appropriate fx. Gladiator and Zebra offer lots of useable sounds. Around 10% of those could go in songs without deconstructing the epic/detuned/giberish that seems to fill out default banks too often. If everyonone uses 'all the features', just to compete, and everyone produces hundreds of very cool but very useless sounds, I doubt sales will justify the expense. I don't recall ever having heard a song, and thinking, 'Gee, what a wonderful use of the mod-wheel!'
The nearing-500-page thread about small effective synths from the past, says a lot about simple good sounds used for making music. I might buy a small focussed high quality soundset, if a downloadable mp3 of the soundset, containing each sound played once in its optimim range, is on a SDs website.
Cheers

[JimmiG]

It depends on the synth. There are some complex modular soft synths where a preset is almost like a new synth in its own right (e.g. Reason combinators, Zebra), and then there are really basic synths (e.g. Sylenth1) where I would rather create the sounds from scratch myself.

For a more modular synth, up to €15-20 would be reasonable (more if samples etc. were involved), where as €3 or so would be more in line for 128 presets for a basic VA synth.

[risome]

At Voltage Disciple we consider it good business to offer the end user good value for money when purchasing our sound banks which translates to lower pricing.
Our sound banks contain 70 to 128 sounds for a soft synth at approx $20 US dollars or less.Our motto is to "provide usable sounds" rather than complex landscapes which can either be lost in a mix or swamp the entire track.

[Kriminal]

.Our motto is to "provide usable sounds" rather than complex landscapes which can either be lost in a mix or swamp the entire track.

which is fine, ulness you tracks consist of only complex landscapes...horses for courses

[risome]

Fair point Kriminal

[Kriminal]

for the sake of this question, lets assume the bank is of your linking, whatever it may contain...

[mcnoone]

I bought presets from $5 to $30usd.
I'd pay up to $35.

It took me over a year to do the free Zebra presets I did.
That's working everyday for sometimes 10 hours a day.

[mellotronaut]

for the record, this is not a loaded question, just curiosity. Im not asking to get a reference point for my own work. Im not planning on making and selling soundbanks. Im just curious, so dont let the fact it is me asking influence your reply

so, here is the deal:

what would you consider a reasonable price for a bank of 128 sounds for a soft synth. Not a set of samples or samples/presets, just straight up preset sounds for a synth you use...and lets assume you like the demo of the soundbank and would like to buy it (not a shit bank, obviously)





thank you for your time

Yeah ! I'd be curious to know too

I'll let people express themselves then I'll give you some data, and eventually my own Pov.

Now just for information a single fact : A 128 presets bank, depending on the complexity of the synth will take around 15 days to one month. For a synth like Alchemy it can be worse (as it can be very likely metapresets ie 8 different instruments nested into only one name ) I formerly thought I was just too slow at designing presets, but people like Brok Landers or Himalaya confirmed their average time per preset was about the same than me, if not even worse

Edit : Btw if some SDs are visiting this thread I'd be curious to know their average time per preset too

And now I'll let the place to users expectations

LtZ

good saying lotuzia. [sarcasm]nice to see how high our work is valued [/sarcasm]. thank god the suggested price is _way_ off reality, i'd be dead otherwise ...

the problem is, almost nobody needs 128 sounds for one synth except people, who work for the film/TV/clips business. When i buy a soundset (and i like your work, Nico and Laurent, a lot) i usually use up to 20 sounds.
Laurent's sounds are always quite useful, because they fit into songs of almost every kind easily. Nico's sounds are like sculptures. One has to put them on a prominent place to shine (and they shine!), where nothing disturbs them. For backings, they're mostly useless.
The value of a soundset is it's useability for different kind of tasks. Sometimes i'm happy, when i find the one super-sound and i'm happy to pay for a whole set then, sometimes i'm happy with a lot of good sounds, which fit to my daily needs.
No sarcasm needed. Neither just the customer should be king nor the sound-designer. Let's meet somewhere in the middle

btw., i would have bought more Brok Landers soundsets, if they weren't as expensive as they are. I like LeLotusBleu's price range.

thank you for your attention!

chrismel

[D N A]

Here are my 'statistics' I have two soundsets offered on http://www.designasound.com as donationware / 'pay as much as you want'.
1. Novation V-Station soundset (114 presets), suited for EDM genres. Mostly people donate about 2 $, quite often it's 1 $ and 'sometimes' it's 5 $.
2. Wusikstation soundset (63 presets) - warm, soft leads, pads. Mostly people donate 5 $, sometimes it's 10 $.

Conclusion ? I would say that price doesnt matter that much, as long as it's in 0-10 $ price region.

How long does it take to finish 128 presets soundest ? One month or even more. One month means 3-4 presets per day. So far I'm able to create 2-3 presets 'per evening'.

[kelldammit]

i think i bought transmission and science presets for zebra years ago. that's about it for my preset purchases though.
lately, i've been SERIOUSLY tempted by the himalaya (beautiful work) and ambient soundsets (@ the sale price) for alchemy, and the new set from aas for ultra analog (likewise on special offer). so, i guess if i'm really hot for them, i'd still bite for around $35-40 tops. seriously, there is some INSANELY great work being done here...if only the extra $ were in my wallet!

on the flip side, though, i try not to amass so many presets as to just bury myself with them. i rarely use them as-is, they're more just springboards. but scrolling through a zillion sounds to find one close enough to work with can be an exercise in frustration. as was previously pointed out though, it's certainly easier than building them from scratch!

either way, there's plenty of value, and the hard work is certainly appreciated.

k

[R'yleh]

i never bought presets for a softsynth and likely never will.

i have SOLD presets ( for hardware synths not software synths ) and the prices
were about15 - 25 USD per bank. The pricing very much depends on

the complexity of the synth

the suckiness of the GUI


i.e. the worse the GUI is designed the more likely are people to buy
presets instead of making their own sounds.

Even more for Softsynths IMO, as you don't have to build everything
on a 2x80 LCD display.