Hobbyists for a Synth Team!

[Ndustry99]

So you’re asking people to work for free with the promise of possible revenue sharing somewhere down the line? Why would any established developer do that?

I’m not established
It’s not possible revenue sharing it’s a team. Like when you form a team to create an organization. Like a hobby to get into that has a payoff..

I think your living in the 2000’s where developers had millions to spend and everyone was going to sell a million synths but everyone went broke because they only sold ten thousand. I’m considering 5000 sales a success here

Think about that if they only sell ten thousand to customers not that many people actually make them. That’s why I came here. See if anyone has free time and wants to join a synth team for a hobby.

No, I’m living in this place called “reality”, where skilled audio DSP developers do not sign NDA’s to sign onto someone else’s vision of a fun hobby which is simultaneously an unpaid, speculative business venture to sell some small number of products into some vaguely defined educational market.

You are not the first person to come here with such grand visions. It happens all the time. I’m sure you won’t be the last. But the reality is that what you’re looking for is not practical or realistic. My recommendation is that you acquire the necessary skills and develop this product on your own. You mentioned being a math whiz, so that already puts you ahead of the game. I don’t know where you’re at with programming experience, but I suggest brushing up on your C++, look at the JUCE libraries, download the VST framework, and get to work.

Stop polluting my thread with meanness buddy, are you trying to make me look bad? Me and my grand visions don’t want to work with you. A hobbyist team for a project, fl synth maker lets you start without coding. Plus all you’ve heard is Synth you have no idea of the scope of the project I haven’t even told you about yet. And it’s funner to work with ten like minded friendly people in our free time than it is to do it by yourself.

[Ndustry99]

So you’re asking people to work for free with the promise of possible revenue sharing somewhere down the line? Why would any established developer do that?

I’m not established
It’s not possible revenue sharing it’s a team. Like when you form a team to create an organization. Like a hobby to get into that has a payoff..

I think your living in the 2000’s where developers had millions to spend and everyone was going to sell a million synths but everyone went broke because they only sold ten thousand. I’m considering 5000 sales a success here

Think about that if they only sell ten thousand to customers not that many people actually make them. That’s why I came here. See if anyone has free time and wants to join a synth team for a hobby.

No, I’m living in this place called “reality”, where skilled audio DSP developers do not sign NDA’s to sign onto someone else’s vision of a fun hobby which is simultaneously an unpaid, speculative business venture to sell some small number of products into some vaguely defined educational market.

You are not the first person to come here with such grand visions. It happens all the time. I’m sure you won’t be the last. But the reality is that what you’re looking for is not practical or realistic. My recommendation is that you acquire the necessary skills and develop this product on your own. You mentioned being a math whiz, so that already puts you ahead of the game. I don’t know where you’re at with programming experience, but I suggest brushing up on your C++, look at the JUCE libraries, download the VST framework, and get to work.

Stop polluting my thread with meanness buddy, are you trying to make me look bad? Me and my grand visions don’t want to work with you. A hobbyist team for a project, fl synth maker lets you start without coding. Plus all you’ve heard is Synth you have no idea of the scope of the project I haven’t even told you about yet. And it’s funner to work with ten like minded friendly people in our free time than it is to do it by yourself.

If your looking for actual numbers the DX7 is one of the best selling synths of all time selling over 200,000 units and reaktors user library with free downloads has a chart with #1 being downloaded 40,000 times. These are not huge numbers and 5ey are the best selling hardware synths and software synths sell a fraction of a hardware one. So 5000 is no easy task!

This is not a great market to get into its just a fun one to be apart of.

[deastman]

I agree that this is a very difficult industry to enter with hopes of turning a profit. It is not my intention to “pollute” your thread with “meanness”. You came here with an idea, one which I don’t think is very realistic. I am trying to point out that your approach isn’t likely to get you the results you want, and I have proposed an alternate path forward. I wish you all the success in the world, and I look forward to seeing the results of this new venture. Best of luck!

[VariKusBrainZ]

If its just for fun why the NDA?

[whyterabbyt]

I think your living in the 2000’s where developers had millions to spend and everyone was going to sell a million synths but everyone went broke because they only sold ten thousand. I’m considering 5000 sales a success here

You clearly know nothing about the plugin industry in the 2000s. And that ignorance pretty heavily invalidates a lot of your assumptions. It doesnt bode well for your perspective and understanding of the industry.

in 2010, there was a thread here where some developers did release sales numbers. Its a point in time where there most plugin development companies, even the 'big names' were still basically one or three-man operations ("millions to spend", what a laugh, there's probably not ever been a single plugin-only company with that kind of budget), and market share was better because there was far less competition than there is now.

In 2010, 1000 sales of a synth would put you on the board as a big seller. Zebra, one of the best-known synths by one of the most highly regarded developers out there took 7 years to sell 3000 or so copies. By now, I believe it might have passed ten thousand. That's about 500-600 copies a year, for one of the major players.
Nobody went broke for 'only' selling 10,000 copies of a synth; if that were the case, there would only be about 3 companies actually survived. Most companies produce multiple products for a reason.

Of course 5000 sales would be a success. And its a level of success almost nobody reaches.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=274482

(And yes, despite being an old thread, those numbers are still relevant. Customers have less money to spend, they're fussier, and the entry level to hardware dropped massively. You'd know that if you'd

In actuality, you're probably the one living in the 2000s, though I suspect you may not have been wearing big-boy pants all the way through them. Your estimates of what's a 'success' now, is what was actually incredible success then. Right now, if you sell 1000 copies I reckon you'd be doing pretty well.

[whyterabbyt]

<sodding edit button in the wrong goddamn place>

[whyterabbyt]

<sodding edit button>

[vurt]

still not used to the new buttons?

[whyterabbyt]

still not used to the new buttons?

shaddap or i'll accidently report your post 7 times in a row.

[vurt]

[whyterabbyt]

christ knows how many times ive hit 'report' by mistake since the board update. must be driving hink etc mental.

[vurt]

no one said being a mod was easy

[Ndustry99]

So no one even wants to to hear the idea before they comment? Lol Please just PM me if you can read through this garbage and still want to hear an idea, and yes just as if I were to hire a programmer I require a non disclosure.

[Ndustry99]

I’m going to try to build a Synth is anyone else doing the same thing or want to join in together?

[Magnut]

There have already been a million topics like this. Totally "unique" and "game changing" idea, no competitor, no clue how to realize it, no budget, no idea of the market. In the end nothing followed. The idea either was unique in a weird and unusual way, no one wanted it or the poster had not done good research and his idea has already been realized.

You clearly want the people to know your idea, still you're doing everything to hide it. You're also looking for hobbyists to do the work - problem: hobbyists only have half the time, but such a project takes years in fulltime work for experienced devs.

My advise would be to either pitch your idea to bigger companies (if your idea is good, they may can adapt a module of your sythesis to their existing product and they already know about NDAs) or to do a crowdfund to get budget for a real project with experienced devs.
If you really like hobbyists to pay attention then be more openminded, give clues that keep people interested and have a plan for keeping devs working for free over that long period of time.