how to work with sound designers

[stratum]

Hi all,

The title says it all actually. Suppose I had made a new synth plugin, how do I find sound designers to make presets for it and what should I expect from such a service? What would the sound designer want to know about the synth or about the presets s/he would be developing? What should I expect in terms of costs of such a service?

Thanks

[Sampleconstruct]

There are various approaches, some devs hope that providing an NFR license will satisfy the sound designer and that he or she will provide as many good presets as possible. Other devs do a pitching, determine a set price for an accepted preset and if the sound designer is lucky, many of his presets will be chosen/approved. Other devs do commissions, make a deal with a chosen designer for a fixed number of presets and let him do what he wants.
Personally I prefer the third model and have stopped doing pitchings.

[tehlord]

The answer to most of your questions is 'it depends'.

It's as much about what you want as what sound designers want.

My personal preference is to work with a fixed fee/agreed product.

Sound designers will, for the most part expect a fully functional synth to work with where future changes won't 'break' the presets they've already made. Having to beta test while working is frustrating and time consuming.

If you have a brief for what kind of presets you want, that can make things easier, although may hamper an individual sound designers creative process.

Most sound designers I've worked with have approximately the same fee structure, although this will depend on the complexity of the synth in question and what's required in each patch.

For example, one well known synth developer (now no longer in operation) paid £25 per preset, which also included several 'macro' variations. This is a good estimate but could be +/- as much as 30-50% per preset depending on the complexity of the work, whether you require audio demos of the presets, how much 'beta testing' is involved etc.

I would personally avoid sound designers that continually pump out specific, single genre presets unless your plugin happens to be targeted at one specific genre of music.

[AnX]

Ask who wants to do it. Then check their history with other products to see what quality they produce.

Most SD's will want money. An NFR doesnt pay the bills.

You get what you pay for most of the time. If you want to throw NFR's around, be prepared to get a load of crap, if anything at all.

[tehlord]

You get what you pay for most of the time. If you want to throw NFR's around, be prepared to get a load of crap, if anything at all.

Well, yes.

It speaks volumes that whilst you can get presets done in return for a licence, all the dev's I've worked for don't do that at all.

[stratum]

Hi,

Thanks for your answers. Since there are many different approaches, I will ask a quite direct question then. It will sound odd, but as far as I can see this is the best way to proceed.

Which model would be more suitable for bootstraping a new company in a country where $25 buys you 4 pizzas? This should give a rough idea about the exchange rates involved, which have practical consequences both during development and afterwards. You can consider the developer to be an ex-metalhead with some DSP knowledge whose EDM knowledge is limited to a few 90's era hits from 2unlimited, capella, etc. So yes, I am not knowledgeable about a very large potential application area, and I realise that not everybody use synths for making cinematic tunes. Under these conditions a more suitable product would be a valve amp modeller or effect plugins, but I think the market for such things is very saturated. Probably the same is true for synths to some extent, so I'm not sure making a new one is a good idea. Let's say I'm just brainstorming at the moment. You can even influence the design decisions that will be made, if you want, or whether the product will be developed at all, or not.

[tehlord]

You may be better off following the ValhallaDSP business model.

Find one area you're good at, and nail some plugins and sell them at a very competitive price.

All areas of plugins are saturated, so perhaps look for a little niche somewhere.

[stratum]

I have seen somebody who tried to do that, basically under the same conditions. I guess his company will experience slow growth. The reason is that while there are people who would want to have a model of a British console, for example, other than that an EQ is just an EQ, a compressor is just a compressor, a chorus effect is just a chorus effect, and a delay is a delay while one could make many different variants, and a reverb is a labor intensive product that in many ways relies on ears to optimize. A synth is somewhat more creative, there is an opportunity to make something different.

[tehlord]

My point is that he identified a niche that HE was good at, and went all in with excellent products for a very competitive price.

You're never going to compete with Slate and their very good subscription deal or Waves and their constant sales, so do your own thing.

Fabfilter for example, put their own unique flavour on some stock plugins (the workflow is killer) and manage not to bargain basement sell them at every opportunity.

[Lotuzia]

Just contact the SDs you happen to enjoy the work, and propose them a 'fair' deal. Like Tehlord said, don't forget they also need money to live.

Then I'd suggest that you consider to approach the whole process of the creation of a plug in in a slightly different way : If big companies, with a lot of R&D power and ressources can decide that they will make a synth, or a chorus, just because 'hey we dont have a chorus yet, and it would be cool to offer one along with our gazillion other products', I think individuals and starters might have to take advantage of a different road. Rather think ' what can I add to a Synth, or a Chorus, or something else, to make it unique and distinct from all other ones. What are my specific skills and interests, and what can I offer to people in a -like you noted it- quite saturated market. Once you know what you'll create, choosing sound designers will be one of the many things still left to solve. All this ime & imo.

[VELLISLAV]

Send me license or at least working beta with save function and i'm gonna send you free presets - if you like them we can discuss commercial soundset or future collab - only subtractive and additive synthesis ,no fm.I guess cinematic oriented stuff will be better priced than regular fx or synth,but you have to start and show something then will receive opinions - but in any case it's better to ask people.Cheers

[stratum]

Hi Vellislav,

I have noted your offer. Thanks.

At the moment there is no beta. Just brainstorming. If I'll make a new synth for an already crowded market it has to be interesting in some way.