Is this sample company practicing good business? You vote.

[DevonB]

thankfull for selling the same product for half the price in another format?? Give everybody a break . daaaah

It's NOT the same product simply stored in a different file format. The samples in the Giga collection are completely different, and much more extensive in scope.

A few people seem to think that the difference between these two products being discussed is akin to the same text document stored in both "Word for Windows" and "WordPerfect" formats. I assure you that's not the case. The difference between the products is much more significant than that.

The buyer in this case selected the less robust format of the two, without knowing what he was doing. If he had asked the proper questions at the time of purchase, I'm sure the vendor would have told him of the differences in the two products. Most people that buy samples tend to know that Gigasamples are usually superior to Soundfonts.

I'm tending to fall on your logic here more than anyone else's. If you decided to buy something without enough research on your part, why does this suddenly become the companies problem and not your own? The 50% off is a very generous offer to me. You made a mistake, in your eyes. Own up to it, and don't take it out on the company. Considering they even offered you a pretty substantial discount, makes this company in my eyes even more attractive.

There are PLENTY of libraries out there that you get the same version across the board for the same price either in Akai, Roland, EMU, or Giga format. Some have more content, some have more control, some are identical. Just because I decide to change samplers later doesn't mean I should automatically expect them to give me another sample set for free, or cost, or whatever.

I wanted to upgrade from Miroslav Vitous Mini Loop from Emu format to Giga, which offered *NOTHING* new. They wanted $149 to trade the CD in. I used Translator instead, which probably did it just as well for $30. It was my choice. It would have been nice if I could have traded it in for cost, but oh well.

To me, they are being quite fair.

Devon

[BJoe]

If you feel the product that you purchased is inferior to the one that they demonstrated on their site, then you have every right to ask for your money back. Do not purchase anything from them again unless they resolve this current matter to your satisfaction. E-mail them immediately and tell them that the product you purchased is inferior and unacceptable and demand that they refund your money immediately. If you paid by credit card, call your credit card company ASAP and tell them the situation, and ask them for a credit on your account until the matter is resolved. Your credit card company may also advise you what to do about returning the item. If you do send it back, use a carrier that will allow package tracking.

Good luck and PLEASE don't give them any more of your money for anything.

[McLilith]

If you feel the product that you purchased is inferior to the one that they demonstrated on their site, then you have every right to ask for your money back.

That's true, but it only applies if you act promptly. If you let a lot of time elapse between the purchase and the complaint, your complaint won't get you anywhere.

As an extreme example, if you take two years to complain about a product not living up to the qualitly of a demo you heard before purchase, it could be somewhat fairly suggested that it was plenty close enough to the quality of the demo--if it took you two years to be able to discern the difference.

I'm not suggesting that much time has elapsed in this case, but I do get the sense that perhaps the buyer might have waited a bit too long to press the issue about the demo being higher quality than the product he received. I can't really say for sure. I don't know how long ago he purchased the product. If it was very recently, then by all means complain to the vendor about the quality issue.

[spikey]

The fact that they even considered giving you a special price were a real bonus. 50% off was generous. I was told to go to hell by software companies at occasions for asking much less.

Yep, thats the way its always been, the company (not the customer) is always right. So considering any company to make amends for selling different formats of a sample as the same sound, is now the buyers fault when he/she finds out otherwise, is wrong?

I'm tending to fall on your logic here more than anyone else's. If you decided to buy something without enough research on your part, why does this suddenly become the companies problem and not your own?

So when seniors who get ripped off by con-artist, and workers who invested heavely into enron loose it all, and all the other losers in the S&L scandals are accounted for, It can be said that "they" are the real "guilty" one's here, and not the companys and others involved? Is that correct? Gee whiz, Martha has nothing to fear then I guess, and no wonder OJ got off ...

Just how the hell is a guy who listens supposedly to the very samples he was buying, supposed to know just how many megs of size was skipped or not included versus another format, and would they (the seller) have gone into this kind of detail "before" they had his money? Chances are no, since they didnt bother putting up the sound file for the SF2 version to begin with...

What I am surprised at, is that fact that they admitted to this in the first place, with the price equal and all. And- there must be a whole lot more sellers than buyers here, judging from the all the "pro- company" and "con-customer" comments.
BTW- If you havent guessed- Im a buyer...

Let the buyer beware, and thats because its so true shamefully so. They should have reimbursed him, or traded out with a simple thank you, and please shop here again, so sorry for the mix up...

What he got was, Its your fault (you idiot). We are not about to help you out. We have good excuses as to why it was the way it was, and thats good enough for us... In fact, we offer to charge you even more now, so you now have to pay for your stupidity you know... And since we are "quite sure" that the brain washing has gone on for so long now in this area of the world (that the customer is never right) and that other buyers will back us up on this, we dont ever have to change (smirk). Oh - please come again, with more money- (idiot)...

[McLilith]

What he got was, Its your fault (you idiot). We are not about to help you out.

That's not true. They did offer to help him, by offering a discount on the second sample set.

Spikey, I think your very negative attitude toward the vendor is grossly excessive and needlessly polarizing to this discussion. I've had the misfortune to deal with a few arrogant companies that behave as you describe, but I don't think that description fits this discussion about Sonic Implants--at least not based on what has been revealed in this forum so far.

I do care about the buyer in this situation, but it seems to me that the only potential complaint he has is one of the product quality not matching the demo quality -- and that only applies if he bought the product recently. If he's had the soundfont version for some time, he can't expect to suddenly become tired of it and trade it in for something better, at the vendor's expense.

(The buyer mentioned something about learning more about sampling since buying the product, which is the reason that I wonder how long he had the product before he tried to upgrade from Soundfonts to the Gigasampler format.)

[precisionsound]

The NUMBER of samples does make a difference in the amount of work.To quote Sonic Implants(from the original post)" a lot of extra effort went in to creating the Giga version because he had to go back to the original tapes and get the extra samples that were added".More work higher price-less work lower price.Seems reasonable.Why would Soundfonts take more work than Gigas?

Ok, in this case it seems. But more in general; Giga libraries may have more samples but in "the older days", when there was AKAI and Sf2 it was more looping and tweaking to get a good result. With disc streaming samplers to many products is much bigger than they have to be because it’s easier to leave all samples un-looped.

lars

[Crackbaby]

To all of you who think sonic implants did ok, try this example.


A guy (or girl..) goes to a site to buy a samplelibary - Widdow Saxes. (Its great ). On the page for the libary he sees that there are five different versions of it: Akai, Kontakt, Giga, Halion and SF2. All for the same price.
Then he is listening to the demo - Wow! This is great!
He thinks .. "SF2 is the easiest one for me! I can use it in my SF2-player now, and when i get one of those bigger samplers i can import them there!"

So the customer buys the SF2-version.
When he recieves the product he is very disapointed. The samples sound really crap. Its nothing like the demo.

Where is this customer supposed to be so clever that he should have known about the fact that SF2 was a budgetversion in samples but not in cash?

You tell me DevonB.
Dont you think that they SHOULD enlighten the customer about this? Just a little message like "if you buy our SF2, please be aware of that its not of the same quality as the other formats"
Many of those new samplecompanies suffer the same dilemma as the ones in the IT-boom. Naive money-wanna-have who doesnt understand the importance of the customer.
As someone said, threaten about going puplic in SOS or FM or any other of those bigsellers.
I have learnt that in a store, it takes ten happy customers to get even with an unhappy one. IE, the unhappy one will tell 9 others (aprox). I wonder what the numbers would be on the internet.

[Crackbaby]

For what i can read on their site, SF2 version costs $199.95 and GIGA costs $229.95.
The most important thing on this site is... *drumroll*
They use the same mp3 demo for both the libaries. The SF2 libarys demo is using sounds from the GIGA library.
That is called false marketing. Lawsuit perhaps??

Pffft. Video games have done this for years, show you screen shots of the 'superior' version on whatever platform the 'superior' version was on, and you bought the inferior version. I'm sure that's not the only industry that does the same. But if you already knew there was 2 versions, and 1 demo up, you could have easily asked first which one was being demoed. It's not like the company isn't an EMail or a phone call away.

Devon

Well.. DUH. You are not that stupid, devon.
When you buy a game, is the graphix the most important part? I mean, if they run the demo sequense in 1600*1200 in the fastest computer ever with all GPU things enabled and you run it in 800*600. You still can play the game. You still can upgrade to a faster computer and get the things in the demo sequense.

To make it a fair comparision
Lets say its a mac and pc version. You download the demo so you can see how the graphix is on YOUR computer. You deside to buy the game and then realizes that the mac version only included half the levels of the pc version. Oh whell! You are supposed to know that mac isnt that great for gaming, supportingly speaking!

"But if you already knew there was 2 versions, and 1 demo up, you could have easily asked first which one was being demoed."

WRONG! All other samplecompanies does very well in writing what is being demoed. "the drums are samples, but the rest is our new ***** vsti."
How would you like it if hydra and scorpion used the same demo? Should each customer have to email or phone the company to ask about what is being demoed?

How are you involved in this devon? Are you working for that company or do you have friends there? Or are you just one of those "i hurt people so i can be happy"? <- there are lots of them in this forum

[DevonB]

Where is this customer supposed to be so clever that he should have known about the fact that SF2 was a budgetversion in samples but not in cash?

You tell me DevonB.
Dont you think that they SHOULD enlighten the customer about this? Just a little message like "if you buy our SF2, please be aware of that its not of the same quality as the other formats"
Many of those new samplecompanies suffer the same dilemma as the ones in the IT-boom. Naive money-wanna-have who doesnt understand the importance of the customer.
As someone said, threaten about going puplic in SOS or FM or any other of those bigsellers.
I have learnt that in a store, it takes ten happy customers to get even with an unhappy one. IE, the unhappy one will tell 9 others (aprox). I wonder what the numbers would be on the internet.

Do I think they should have listed, 'This is the Giga Format being used in this demonstration'? Of course. If they don't list it, then that means I have to ask. Ok, big deal. Go ahead, go 'public' with this. I can point you to another 60+ CD's on soundsonline.com right now that does this exact same thing, no demos of the 'cheap' version, IE the whole ProSample line.

This isn't new, this has been happening for YEARS. If you've been involved in the sample community for any length of time, this type of thing is VERY well known. The demo sounds better than what you could pull off. Damn, I *HOPE* that some day I can pull of some of the Vienna Symphonic Libary demos. Just because my skills aren't as good as the person who's had the libary for awhile, or just has better programming and writing skills makes the problem mine that 'I can't do that with that library?' No.

But if you don't do your homework on what is what, or know what questions to ask, why is this their problem?

Devon

[DevonB]

Should each customer have to email or phone the company to ask about what is being demoed?

How are you involved in this devon? Are you working for that company or do you have friends there? Or are you just one of those "i hurt people so i can be happy"? <- there are lots of them in this forum

Should? No. Is the option there if you wish to educate yourself? Of course. Certainly wouldn't be the first time I've called up or EMailed a company to ask a question about their product.

How am I involved? Because I don't agree with you, I must be out to hurt someone? Oh please, grow up. Go read my other 3000+ posts and see exactly how much I'm out to 'hurt people'. And no, I have nothing to do with Sonic Implants, I'm just a consumer who knows how to call up a company, and ask questions. Their offer I think is quite fair, and obviously, by looking at the poll, I'm not the only one that thinks that way.

Devon

[eDrummist]

One thing I have learned from this thread is that, many people claim that they would listen to a Soundfont MP3 demo with a knowledge that it wouldn't be made from that format. DevonB tells us that experience causes him to believe any demos are not made from Soundfonts and everyone should automatically know that. He also forgets that I did speak with and place my order with Sonic Implants head of marketing and asked him what is the difference between the versions. He told me that the Giga version had extra features that were not available to the Soundfont version (I didn't know exactly what that meant, because I did not know much about Giga/formats at the time and didn't ask for an explanation). Let the buy beware.

DevonB, I do understand your point. Although my years in marketing observing and assessing customer behavior tell me that you are unlikely to behave like you are claiming when it comes to other areas where you have less experience (actually, I only have to read some of your past posts...). You claim you would have known -- and I do believe you. But here's the problem, not everyone has the same knowledge about sample formats. Many people do not and will base their opinions on the MP3 demo. This doesn't make them stupid or ignorant. Further, the price of all sampler versions of the product is the same. Not everyone possesses the knowledge that some sample formats are lesser than others and will not be capable of sounding anything like the demo. So how does the average consumer, who is not an expert on all of this, know in advance, that the MP3 he/she is listening to are not accurate for the samples he/she is buying? Should everyone buying the Akai version also realize that their samples will not sound like the MP3 demo? I think that the retailer should help consumers understand this and should not use unrepresentative MP3 demos. I also think that they should allow people to switch formats, especially in this situation, for very little money. Perhaps they should also charge less for the Soundfont version, since they tell you, after you buy. just how inferior it is in an attempt to squeeze some extra cash out of you.

- eDrummist

[DevonB]

eDrummist -

Believe me, I understand your frustration with all of this. I had to start at 'the beginning' just like yourself. In the last 8 or so years of buying sample libraries, you get to know these things. Not that this will make your frustrations less, but $149 for a library is awfully damn cheap. Most start at $200, and that's a more recent thing. When I started, I was paying anywhere from $99 for a simple drum sample CD, and upwards of $500 for one CD's worth of samples. (It was usually the 'audio CD was $99, Akai CD was $199, and the EMu CD was $199 or $249' and that applied to almost EVERY libary.) The demos back then, *IF* there were demos at all (realize we're talking about 1997-1998 timeframe), sounded incredibly good. Good fuckin' luck you pulling off something that good. In short, you got used to it, but at least you got an idea of what something was like, which was helpful.

Still, I am on your side at least for that they should have said what version the demo was for. I've had to dig and dig and dig to find out on the ProSample CD's myself to try to make some kind of informed decision, but have decided against buying any of them so far.

But, I still believe the burden of education does fall upon yourself to learn what is what. From what you're quoting from the sales dude, it sounds like he had the expectation that you already knew what you wanted and you knew 'in general' what was what. A bad assumption on his part, I can see. That is my opinion, but I wasn't there listening to both of you either.

We are also missing a piece of the equation though, that since you haven't bought the Giga library, we don't know if you'd STILL have the same problem with that libary as well, achieving what the demo did. I know I have a difficult time achieving demos I've heard from libaries too, and I've been at this awhile.

Also do realize, in general, the sound libaries have been catering to guys that literally call up and ask 'Ok, what string libarries do you have? A, B and C? Ok, send them all' because it's been the 'pro' market that has the bucks to do this. Most figure if you get enough material, you'll be able to accomplish anything, and you can pick and choose what works best for you, because you're probably not going to like half the content of the disc anyway.

I look at demos of 'what the product can do in the right hands'. Difficult to swallow sometimes, for sure. But how many times have you had a buddy sit at your keyboard, or pick up your guitar, and you think to yourself 'Damn, I had no idea it sounded like that?'

The market is changing though, and it would benefit them to recognize this, for sure.

Devon

[munchkin]

eDrummist, soundfont files are 16bit just like Giga so the quality will be the same but perhaps the Giga format is using more layers? If they've included more variations in the Giga version then it's not fair to sell you a restricted sample set for the same price.

I still don't understand why some companies sell multi-format and others don't. If creating a multi-format product takes a lot more work then why not bump up the price a bit? At least customers will then have the flexibility of changing sampler in the future.

I started off with a soundfont player, then I bought V Sampler and now I'm looking to buy either Kontakt or Halion. I want my sample library to be flexible enough to accomodate this. All it takes are the various format files to be included on the CD's in Kontakt and Halions case.

[DevonB]

eDrummist, soundfont files are 16bit just like Giga so the quality will be the same but perhaps the Giga format is using more layers? If they've included more variations in the Giga version then it's not fair to sell you a restricted sample set for the same price.

I still don't understand why some companies sell multi-format and others don't. If creating a multi-format product takes a lot more work then why not bump up the price a bit? At least customers will then have the flexibility of changing sampler in the future.

I started off with a soundfont player, then I bought V Sampler and now I'm looking to buy either Kontakt or Halion. I want my sample library to be flexible enough to accomodate this. All it takes are the various format files to be included on the CD's in Kontakt and Halions case.

But you have no idea how much time went into making that 'restricted' sampleset either. If there was a lot of looping involved, compared to just doing a batch job whacking off tails on samples, the SF format could have been a LOT more work, but we don't know that either way, unless we talked to the programmer.

As for multiformat, it takes time. Most companies do bump up the price. There's still PLENTY of sample CD's out there that the audio version is $99, and the sampler version for whatever format is $199. You pay for that work to be done for you. Diva I believe is what? $20-$30 more for the HALion version? They came right out and said the price hike is to pay for the guy that translated it over to HALion, and obviously it wasn't something that took just an afternoon to do.

Doing different formats can also be a severe pain in the ass too. Some samplers offer a bunch of different features that don't make the soundsets compatible, and they don't transfer over well. Could you imagine doing new envelopes on EVERY sample for Battery, for example if you translated it over? Some libraries are raw ports of the samples, but that's not all libraries, as they take advantage of the power that's unique to each format... or at least you hope so. That's what you should be paying for, unless you want to do it yourself.

Also, the other consideration is cost. How much will it cost to include another CD for something that the end user will probably not use as well?

Devon

[eDrummist]

eDrummist, soundfont files are 16bit just like Giga so the quality will be the same but perhaps the Giga format is using more layers? If they've included more variations in the Giga version then it's not fair to sell you a restricted sample set for the same price.

I still don't understand why some companies sell multi-format and others don't. If creating a multi-format product takes a lot more work then why not bump up the price a bit? At least customers will then have the flexibility of changing sampler in the future.

I started off with a soundfont player, then I bought V Sampler and now I'm looking to buy either Kontakt or Halion. I want my sample library to be flexible enough to accomodate this. All it takes are the various format files to be included on the CD's in Kontakt and Halions case.

Yes, my guess is that the Giga version uses more layers based on Mr Fox's original comments . Although the file size is hugely different (around 5 times).

Of course, if I had everything to do all over, I know different now. Still, my experience with other sample companies such as Sonic Reality and Wizoo, is that some really do care about treating their customers well.

From a customer relationship perspective, consider that it costs a lot of money to gain a new customers (i.e., due to the cost of gaining awareness, promotion, etc. ) -- selling to customers is a lot more profitable. In the end, I offered Sonic Implants $30 to buy a different sample format of the product I purchased from them and would make an additional purchase -- I was actually, at that time, ready to buy another guitar CD, which, from memory, cost an additional $229.95 -- this would have been a total sale for Sonic Implants of $259.95 and the additional benefit for Sonic Implants of maintaining a customer, and even better, turning an unsatisfied customer into a satisfied one -- all while making a nice profit.

Sounds like a pretty smart deal for Sonic Implants to me. As someone else on this board put it, they lost a good customer for $45 (the difference between their offer of $75 and my offer of $30).

I'd be interested in hearing how other sample companies would have handled this situation. Anyone from a sample company care to answer?

- eDrummist