Synth vs preset packs = same price

[Tj Shredder]

If I made a synth, I'd sell it a bit cheaper and collect the income from extra stuff like preset packs, extra oscillator modes, if it has samples then some extra built in samples etc.

Then you would go out of business fast.

Plugins can sell by the thousand, expansion banks do not for the most part.

Its actually a common and successful busyness strategy. KV331 with Synthmaster comes to mind. You can even look at the big players. NI sells more sound packs for Kontakt/Reaktor than their raw engines, some even buy collectors ultimate... And some of their sound packs are in the same price region as their engines... Though in this case the line gets blurry, as those packs also contain special scripts and other code under the hood. Some are like new instruments and not just sound packs, they allow a much higher degree of tweaking, that way they are also interesting for sound designers, not only for sound consumers... (95% of all DX7s which needed repair had still their unchanged presets stored...)

[chk071]

That's fine, but, it doesn't change a thing about your lack of knowledge of what the developer intended when he developed his synth. Preventing what you described is as simple as stating it in a end user agreement.

What Tek is saying is that it shouldn't come to that, that people who are given a gift should reciprocate in kind, not see it as a chance to make money for nothin'. If you have to force people to do what is obviously the right thing to do, it kind of defeats the purpose of being generous in the first place.

Why would it be "the right thing to do"? The developer never said he has anything against people making money using his soft synth. It's not "the right thing to do", that is Teksonik's and your assumption.

And I'd be very surprised if you never used any free software, samples, or whatever in your music production.

[revvy]

I don't care if guitarists I like (know how to) string their own guitars on not.

I think charging for presets for a free synth is lame.

I have bought presets in the past but would be very unlikely to buy them now. If for no other reasons, most synths I have already cone with a ton, so what with them and I own patches/tweaking, unlikely I'd need more.

(these 3 thoughts on the subject are just opinions and are in no way attempts at stating universal truths)

[zvenx]

I am without shame a preset player/ preset tweaker.
Sound Design is an art form, a talent, and not for everyone, whether they realise it or not.

I usually have a slightly different dilemma. That over time I may spend more on soundbanks for a synth more than I have paid for the synth itself, and unless the sound banks are sold by the developer, I do feel a bit 'guilty' about it.

Then there is a synth like Omnisphere where I still haven't gone thru half of the sounds ten years later, what business do I have buying sound banks for it...... yet I do...

I use to buy a lot of synths because if I can use one or two sounds in a project, it has already paid for itself. But then I realise I have tons of synths that I never really use, that I forget about etc.

So now I take a different approach. I buy less new synths but buy more sound banks from talented sound designers whose work I admire, for my favourite synths which I use more often.

But I do have a limit to what I will pay for a sound bank......usually around $30-35 US.
For me, unless you have to mic an instrument, and get a good room etc to record your samples, I am not sure that having samples in a soundbank makes it worth so much more than banks with just presets. If you are going to use that logic, then shouldn't synths like rapid and avenger should also cost significantly more than synths like zebra, dune and diva etc....

Of course anyone has the right to determine what they want to charge for their sound design work and presets. The Market helps to determine if that choice of price was wise or not.


my two cents.
rsp

[Tannaliini]

Payed presets for free synths like Synth1 feel "strange". But then again, nobody needs to buy them... But as mentioned, it feels strange that some people make this free synth for everyone to use and then someone makes couple of presets and ask money for it (why they don't make presets for commercial synths and ask money for that)

Arguments like "the synth developer can get money from other stuff so they don't need money/that's why can make free synth but the sound designer needs to get money from presets" is a bit strange to be honest If a sound designer needs the money, maybe design payed presets for payed synths?

[telecode]

I have bought presets packs for some synths I own. Nothing wrong with that at all. I look at is as time is money. The time I saved from learning how to build my own patches/presets I can now spend working on a song and arrangement and ideas. Plus, there are people out there that are a shit load more knowledgeable and better at making the sounds I am after than I am. i have bought presets for various synths from the Arturia V-collection and also patchpool. It's also a learning experience, you can look at what they did to achieve those sounds and then make notes for how to go about approaching those sounds when you make your own user presets. It works a hell of a lot better than blindly trying different knobs and routing options.

[GeneralQ]

I have bought quite a few soundbanks in the past. But most of them were like 10-20$. Some soundbanks are really overpriced for what you get so beware of paying to much for soundbanks.

Nowdays I know how to make patches and make a majority of the sounds myself. If I know what sound I need I make that, which is faster than searching for the right preset. If I had no idea what sound could work with a melody for example I look for a fitting preset and tweak that. I think the answer to make your own sounds or using presets is both.

[e-crooner]

Yes, it's like saying a book written in a freeware word processing program such as LibreOffice, as opposed to MS Word, has to be free of charge.

No, it's not. That analogy doesn't really work because the synth is the thing that makes the sound, the patches simply reveal what is already in the synth. But with a novel, 100% of the creativity you get comes from the writer. The word processing software makes the writer's life easier but doesn't contribute in any way to the prose or the story, which are the things you pay for when you buy a book.

What Tek is saying is that it shouldn't come to that, that people who are given a gift should reciprocate in kind, not see it as a chance to make money for nothin'. If you have to force people to do what is obviously the right thing to do, it kind of defeats the purpose of being generous in the first place. I, for example, would never have even considered charging for my SynthEdit synths because SE only cost me $20 and it would not have been right to take that act of extreme generosity and use it to make money. But plenty of people did and Jeff said repeatedly that he was perfectly OK with that. But his being OK with it didn't make it right and didn't make me see any of those people as anything but grubby opportunists, people who think their time is worth more than that of the person/people who created the software that enables them to do what they do. I think it is massively disrespectful.

Also, a sound designer might need the money much more than a synth programmer, who does it for fun because he earns his or her money doing something else.

Then that "sound designer" can go and get a job stacking shelves at a local supermarket or make patches for a product he/she has actually paid for. Nobody has a divine right to make a living doing whatever the hell they feel like so if someone can't make money selling patches, they need to get a proper job.

Also ii, free synths usually come with few and mediocre patches, but good sound designers invest a lot more time and energy in their patches

This presents the perfect opportunity for them to give something back. If someone comes to your place for dinner and gives you a gift, do you then turn around and present them with an invoice for the food at the end of the night? No, of course you don't and the same moral principle applies here. Making a batch of presets available for free is the perfect way to repay the generosity of the developer who gives away the synth.

Absolutely, designers work is underrated

No, it isn't. In fact, I can't think of a more over-rated so-called job than what those guys do. It's about 5% of what any musician worth his salt needs to know about his trade. It's like a mechanic who only know how to change the engine oil - handy because it's one of the most common

i am really grateful to all people still buying sets, some of my inspirations like Rob Lee stop doing it, probably i'm just too stupid or love it too much to stop hihihihi

If you do because you love it, why don't you give them away for free? Why do you have to turn it into a grubby little financial transaction?

Strange views there.

I think my analogy fits. A synth as such is like a word processor. 99% of all possible parameter combinations on a synth don't sound good and musical. It is the sound programmer that turns a soulless frequency generator into a musical instrument.
Just like a word processing program offers all the alphabets and letters of the world, but it is the writer that puts letters into a sequence of words that makes sense.

SE is not even freeware. So why anyone would criticize a developer for making and selling a SE plugin is beyond me. In fact, SE needs money as well, and if SE plugin developers were not supposed to make money with their products, most of them would not make the effort in the first place, i.e. not buy SE and not pay the price of a SE license.

Your idea that things are supposed to be free is off in a world where everyone has to pay their bills. Most people don't lead lives of luxury, they have to think twice how they spend their spare time, and their money.

I agree that some sound designers are not good at their job, and most of them do make commercial sound sets for commercial synths.
Btw, I don't know any sound designer that makes sound sets only for free synths.

In fact, when a good sound designer makes a commercial sound set for a free synth, that is actually a huge compliment for the synth developer. And a kind of publicity that may make the synth developer turn from a freeware to a commercial developer, like TAL for instance.

The sound designer doesn't have to give anything back. If the synth developer wanted something in return they would not make their synth freeware in the first place.
The only thing that would be immoral is selling the free synth itself, which however is forbidden, anyway.

In your odd dinner analogy the guest has certainly been invited. The gift the guest brings already is the thank you for the hospitality and the food. Nobody invited the synth developer to make a synth, though.

[rezoneight]

You're arguing with one of the moral crusaders of this board who has no thought that other people have different ideas. Replying to that guy is a waste of muscle twitches.

Prisons are full of people with "other ideas" about what's right and what's wrong and, frankly, the attitude of people around here to doing what I am sure your parents would clearly see as the right thing makes me sick. So to all those who constantly wonder why I seem so angry around here, this is the explanation. You people disgust me.

Funny that I said nothing either way yet you chose to respond to my comment in this manner. I was pointing out that chk071 was trying to argue with someone who can't imagine a world in which people don't agree with him 100%.

What I wonder about is why the hell someone would post here over 10k times over 20 years when it makes them angry and "you people disgust me". Its like the old joke about the guy going to the doctor and says "hey doc it hurts when I do this" and the doctor replies "then dont do it".

All that said: there are endless examples of people releasing code, etc. to the world and have absolutely no problem with people making money off of it. Why should this be any different?

[vurt]

some people like to be disgusted.
takes all sorts to turn a world.

[Soundsauca]

Hi guys. Just starting out in the sound design world. I get both sides of the argument really. I think it comes down to value. Does the product have a tangible value to you?

If you’re just wanting to grab sounds “just in case” then the value of presets to you would be quite low. If the sounds in question offer something unique to you, then their value would be higher.

On the point of free plugins with paid sounds. I think it’s up to the discretion of the said parties. Some generate income in other ways, others don’t need to. I guess that’s up to them!!

[rj0]

True. Professional sound packs should (and almost always do) sound better than the factory ones.

Why should they? Most commercial synths will have factory patches created by professional sound designers. i.e. People they pay to make them. I would expect the factory banks to shit all over any 3rd party stuff.

When considering a synth versus sound pack (OP's query), that's certainly worth investigating. Smaller synth development companies don't tend to have much budget for paying pros to develop factory presets, so the included presets tend to be their own work, and/or donated by beta testers. Larger companies usually do have that budget for pros (and may even employ one or more). Sadly that puts smaller companies at quite a disadvantage when it comes to the quality of the factory presets. But, yes, if a synth comes with professionally designed factory presets, definitely can skew the new synth versus sound pack decision.

[chk071]

Payed presets for free synths like Synth1 feel "strange". But then again, nobody needs to buy them... But as mentioned, it feels strange that some people make this free synth for everyone to use and then someone makes couple of presets and ask money for it (why they don't make presets for commercial synths and ask money for that)

Arguments like "the synth developer can get money from other stuff so they don't need money/that's why can make free synth but the sound designer needs to get money from presets" is a bit strange to be honest If a sound designer needs the money, maybe design payed presets for payed synths?

How does it feel for you that people use Synth1 in their commercial music? Some people make a lot of money with that, more than any preset designer could even dream about.

[SoundHunterrr]

So much fight for presets. This was not why I started this post Everybody just relax ok.

[chk071]

Not fighting, just arguing.