Soundbank/Preset Demo Player

[hakey]

Brace yourselves! Here's my latest brainwave.

Buyers and sellers of soundbanks face one big stumbling block - audio demos are imperfect (bad presets can be made to sound good and vice versa) and there's no way for potential customers to try before they buy.

A soundbank/preset demo player is a possible solution. It would require a very basic GUI and would time out after 15 minutes. Soundbanks would have to be converted to an encrypted format and made available somewhere, possibly in the u-he patch library.

This would improve the market for third party presets, rewarding quality sound design, which would surely be beneficial for plugin sales.

[hakey]

Anyone?

(I can guess Urs' response - too busy with Hive, Z3 etc, it'd increase pressure on customer support, encrypting soundbanks wouldn't be straightforward, the benefits for u-he aren't guaranteed...)

How about the sound designers? Wouldn't this address an obvious problem with buying and selling soundbanks, and allow good quality sound design to stand out from the noise?

[tehlord]

I think you're trying to address an issue that doesn't really exist.

It's fairly easy to offer 15-20 sounds from a bank as a taster, and once you have a bit of a reputation as a decent sound designer a good portion of your sales are repeat business anyway.

[hakey]

At least one sound designer sees the problem (at least, that's my reading of the following):

You have a lot of flashy marketers out there who are great musicians, but the soundset itself fails to live up to the promises. On several occasions, I've purchased several soundsets from a few vendors who seem to be more popular and have better sales than I do. I assumed they had better quality work than my own products, so maybe I could learn from them on how to provide better work for my own customers.

Only 2 of those vendors I thought provided better work, and felt it was worth the high prices I paid. About 30-40% were on par with my own work. The rest were clearly just in it for the money, and I could have done much better, myself. Lastly, I'm not gonna mention the name, but one very popular vendor I purchased a few sets from is big on flashy advertising, does great demos and is clearly a very talented musician, but the soundsets themselves were complete and utter SH1T! I only rarely ever buy soundsets anymore because of this. It really seems that strong marketing and product presentation is FAR more important even than product quality, which is bullsh*t, but that's how it is in the business world. Otherwise you wouldn't have so many people nowadays getting away with delivering second-rate material to their customers. It's ridiculous, and lowers the bar for what people think is acceptable.

To me, this is indicative of a sleazy marketplace infested with dodgy spivs looking to fleece the unwary. And that isn't good. We don't know how many people buy one or two disappointing soundbanks and are put off ever buying again.

The prevalence of flashy merchants of mediocrity certainly puts me off. Both buying and selling.

[Urs]

I've thought about this before, but it's a highly complex matter.

[tehlord]

There are dodgy plugin coders as well peddling half finished products. I don't think the issue lies with just preset makers, it's just a case of buyer beware.

What I do think is a good idea is for a reputable and active plugin developer to sell very high quality 3rd party banks through their website and package the preset packs with a serial number so if user A buys it, user B can't use it with their plugin licence.

There is a LOT of profitz to be made with this model. It's been done before.

[hakey]

There are dodgy plugin coders as well peddling half finished products. I don't think the issue lies with just preset makers, it's just a case of buyer beware.

Plugins can be demoed, which makes it easy for the buyer to beware. The only sure way to apply 'buyer beware' to buying presets is not to buy presets!

What I do think is a good idea is for a reputable and active plugin developer to sell very high quality 3rd party banks through their website and package the preset packs with a serial number so if user A buys it, user B can't use it with their plugin licence.

Yes. That was going to be my next suggestion.

@Urs - thought as much.

[jdoo]

I have bought presets from most of the u-he sound designers. I typically download the sample sounds that are offered. I use the samples to check out:
- How the presets are constructed. Are they unnecessarily complex?
- Are effects applied?
- What naming conventions for the patches are used
- Has the author baked in aftertouch, mod wheel, etc... to the sounds?
- Is there sample midi files included
- etc...

Point is - there is a lot of stuff you can tell about a patch library by examining the samples that are provided. Stuff you can't see by listening to a demo, or MP3. That said - there are very few sound sets that I have demo'd and NOT picked up. There's just too much goodness to learn from just about all designers.

Bottom line for me though, is If no samples are supplied - I just don't buy. Thankfully, I think there aren't more than one or two folks who don't supply sample soundsets.

Funny - the link above to Xenos and Michael. I would buy from either of them, sight unseen, mostly because I have several of their banks and consider them best of breed. I'd also agree with the comment above about sleezy marketing. It's pretty easy to see past that, if you have sample banks offered.

[Robert Foster]

At least one sound designer sees the problem (at least, that's my reading of the following):

You have a lot of flashy marketers out there who are great musicians, but the soundset itself fails to live up to the promises. On several occasions, I've purchased several soundsets from a few vendors who seem to be more popular and have better sales than I do. I assumed they had better quality work than my own products, so maybe I could learn from them on how to provide better work for my own customers.

Only 2 of those vendors I thought provided better work, and felt it was worth the high prices I paid. About 30-40% were on par with my own work. The rest were clearly just in it for the money, and I could have done much better, myself. Lastly, I'm not gonna mention the name, but one very popular vendor I purchased a few sets from is big on flashy advertising, does great demos and is clearly a very talented musician, but the soundsets themselves were complete and utter SH1T! I only rarely ever buy soundsets anymore because of this. It really seems that strong marketing and product presentation is FAR more important even than product quality, which is bullsh*t, but that's how it is in the business world. Otherwise you wouldn't have so many people nowadays getting away with delivering second-rate material to their customers. It's ridiculous, and lowers the bar for what people think is acceptable.

To me, this is indicative of a sleazy marketplace infested with dodgy spivs looking to fleece the unwary. And that isn't good. We don't know how many people buy one or two disappointing soundbanks and are put off ever buying again.

The prevalence of flashy merchants of mediocrity certainly puts me off. Both buying and selling.

Yeah i don't like marketing to - especially the words "this sounds set squeeze all from this synth" (common thing) are getting on my nerves.

And Xenos sales a lot for Hip Hop enthusiasts and these always have lower IQ's

I sell mostly ambient - i got programmers and geeks for customers (so no problems no stupid questions/ mistakes) - and when you sell hip hop you have to place a sign that says:

IMPORTANT NOTICES!:

1. We do not sell VST plugins - only expansion soundsets for plugins the user already owns.

2. Preset banks DO NOT work in any other synth than what it is advertized for. For example, a Massive bank will not open in Sylenth. The user needs to have the synth plugin the bank is for, otherwise it will not work.

3. Please consider the above carefully before hitting the "Buy" button. We have been getting a lot of "mistakes" like this and will no longer be offering refunds as a result.

After 3 years only got 2 questions like "where to put my sound set in" one from buddhist Hippie and second from Hip Hop producer.

[hakey]

And Xenos sales a lot for Hip Hop enthusiasts and these always have lower IQ's

I like Hip Hop.

[Robert Foster]

And Xenos sales a lot for Hip Hop enthusiasts and these always have lower IQ's

I like Hip Hop.

Well ...that's instant rebuttal then.

http://musicthatmakesyoudumb.virgil.gr/ ... eLarge.png

[hakey]

I don't really like Hip Hop.

I just thought that was a bit of daft thing to say.