KVR Audio

aMUSEd · Post by **aMUSEd** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 4:15 pm

I think you should charge something for this if only $10-20. You've clearly put a lot of effort into it. A simple single page website with a Paypal link is feasible surely?

Lotuzia · Post by **Lotuzia** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 4:18 pm

eduardo_b wrote:There are really two sides to this -- seller and buyer. For the former, the goal is to be rewarded monetarily for your efforts, which seems reasonable, and you have set a low price, which is also reasonable.

The latter is more problematic. There was a long, contentious thread a number of months ago about someone selling presets for a free synth (which is relevant because ShortCircuit 1.1 is free, now). The issue was one of ethics -- selling presets for freeware crossed a line for many, who felt that the very essence of freeware was being compromised by asking for money for the presets.

I happen to think you might make the samples you have donationware. Those who think they are worth a small contribution will do so, and those who feel otherwise will not.

Just another opinion.

Hi,

Donationware is a great idea indeed.

Unfortunately all the people I've seen trying this made me think it's more a variation of freeware with a lot of desillusion added.

Just a personal statement though ...

Cheers,

LtZ

keyman_sam · Post by **keyman_sam** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 5:46 pm

Thank you all for the helpful advice (no, really, thank you).

Right now I'm leaning towards selling. People have been PM'ing me trying to help me out, whether its to sell, or to set it up as donationware/freeware. I can only hope that I'll be able to repay back in some manner in the future.

RedWine · Post by **RedWine** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 6:02 pm

I voted sell, but I very much like the idea of sending a bit of money to vember. Also if you have to pay for hosting etc, well you'd need to sell it. It's certainly a lot of effort and intellectual propety in creating sounds. There are synths like Wusik that you can buy quite cheaply - less than the cost of some of the good quality, good sized sound libraries availabe for it. I don't think it matters that much whether your tools are free or not.

mckenic · Post by **mckenic** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 6:11 pm

Hey keyman_sam!

Your effort must be of value - this took time and energy... while we all appreciate freebies you deserve something for your work...

I dont want to go too into it in public but I did a sampleset of retro wav files... It ended up paying for itself and thus was a success in my eyes... drop me a PM if you want to chat about it...

HTH

Dave

eDrummist · Post by **eDrummist** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 7:24 am

I like the idea that if do you sell it, you'll give something to the developer of Shortcircuit, Claes/Vemberaudio. On the other hand, giving the product away free may also be a nice tribute to the developer of ShortCircuit's generosity for giving away Shortcircuit for free.

Whatever you decide, also consider that if you sell your samples for money, you'll need to promote it, create a website, set up a credit card account and pay taxes. If your objective is to look at this as a learning experience, than you may want to do it, however, if viewed strictly from a financial perspective, all that effort may not be worth the hassle. Final thought, if you are trying to build a reputation as a sample developer, more people are likely to learn of and download your samples if they are good quality AND free. Word of mouth for something that is free (that is often not free elsewhere) and good quality travels much faster and wider, so make sure that people know that you created the library (perhaps a text file in a zip or rar). It might be a good place to start. Look at Crystal as an example, the developer created a great synth, gave it away free and it gained significant buzz. He soon found work doing what he enjoyed with a (I believe) soft synth developer (someone please correct me if I got anything wrong here).

lotus2035 · Post by **lotus2035** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 8:45 am

I dont see why you should have to give anything to Vember and quite honestly I think this is politically correct bullshit...
If Vember wanted money they wouldnt have stopped selling Shortcircuit, (as a second option they could have easily lowered the price and got more buyers)...
Sell them for a small fee to get something back for your invested time and dont worry about it..

keyman_sam · Post by **keyman_sam** » Wed Jan 23, 2008 5:30 pm

eDrummist wrote:I like the idea that if do you sell it, you'll give something to the developer of Shortcircuit, Claes/Vemberaudio. On the other hand, giving the product away free may also be a nice tribute to the developer of ShortCircuit's generosity for giving away Shortcircuit for free.

Whatever you decide, also consider that if you sell your samples for money, you'll need to promote it, create a website, set up a credit card account and pay taxes. If your objective is to look at this as a learning experience, than you may want to do it, however, if viewed strictly from a financial perspective, all that effort may not be worth the hassle. Final thought, if you are trying to build a reputation as a sample developer, more people are likely to learn of and download your samples if they are good quality AND free. Word of mouth for something that is free (that is often not free elsewhere) and good quality travels much faster and wider, so make sure that people know that you created the library (perhaps a text file in a zip or rar). It might be a good place to start. Look at Crystal as an example, the developer created a great synth, gave it away free and it gained significant buzz. He soon found work doing what he enjoyed with a (I believe) soft synth developer (someone please correct me if I got anything wrong here).

This is exactly what my brother was telling me.

Two things I don't understand :
1). Would this be considered a small business and thus I'd be entitled to pay taxes? How would I file for all that? How do I pay taxes?
2). If I set it up for free, and develop my reputation as a sample library developer, what's my next step? Develop more sample libraries and sell them?

The reason behind my pricing is to be as fair as possible. How about this : I'll do a commercial library first, and see how it goes and do a different library, and perhaps release it for free?

Man, I've started dreaming even before I've done anything at all...

keyman_sam · Post by **keyman_sam** » Wed Jan 23, 2008 5:33 pm

lotus2035 wrote:I dont see why you should have to give anything to Vember and quite honestly I think this is politically correct bullshit...
If Vember wanted money they wouldnt have stopped selling Shortcircuit, (as a second option they could have easily lowered the price and got more buyers)...
Sell them for a small fee to get something back for your invested time and dont worry about it..

Perhaps you're right. I wanted to give something back to vemberaudio as a sign of gratitude/appreciation for releasing shortcircuit for free. They may have done so for different purposes (perhaps just to attract attention for Surge) for which I'm not concerned. I feel guilty using their product and not being able to pay back, and this is only a small way of me saying thank you.

Another way I look at it is, if Claes sees enough interest in SC1, he'll be motivated to complete SC2.

lotus2035 · Post by **lotus2035** » Wed Jan 23, 2008 8:06 pm

..make a one time donation to claes if it will make you feel better about using SC..

eduardo_b · Post by **eduardo_b** » Wed Jan 23, 2008 9:11 pm

Okay, I'll play devil's advocate on this one.

First things first, I don't believe that money is the only value that can be placed on the works of others. Have you ever heard of the flow state? It's the state of being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. Those who have experienced it say it feels rewarding in ways that money cannot accomplish.

Second, if you sell the samples, you are now in business and have to adhere to all applicable laws. That includes taxes. Remember, tax avoidance (legal) is one thing, tax fraud (illegal) is quite another, and can have serious consequences.

Third, is this going to be a career or just something you do because you enjoy it? What is your time worth per hour and is keeping track of it and making enough money per hour important to you or necessary to justify the effort?

In my opinion, you give away stuff if it makes you feel good to do so, and if you decide to make it a paying hobby or career, you've also created some good will up front. All these voices saying you should be compensated for you efforts are completely missing why people do stuff for free. When it's about the money...well...it's about the money.

bluedad · Post by **bluedad** » Wed Jan 23, 2008 9:28 pm

eduardo_b wrote: In my opinion, you give away stuff if it makes you feel good to do so, and if you decide to make it a paying hobby or career, you've also created some good will up front. All these voices saying you should be compensated for you efforts are completely missing why people do stuff for free. When it's about the money...well...it's about the money.

I sort of agree. Give it away if it makes you feel good. Not out of guilt or feeling that you owe anybody anything.

dacaumodo · Post by **dacaumodo** » Wed Jan 23, 2008 9:58 pm

I say you should sell it. Create a blogger page in 5 minutes, register with something like Payloadz (https://www.payloadz.com/) and see how it goes.

Don't know how it is where you are (States?) but usually you won't have to pay taxes until it really start to make some money.

keyman_sam · Post by **keyman_sam** » Wed Jan 23, 2008 11:47 pm

I'm doing this as a hobby, and it was good doing it, but it was also a lot of effort and the thing that kept me going was that I can finally earn some money to build a new computer for audio(I have a 3-year old celeron thats more of an internet machine).

cyanogen · Post by **cyanogen** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 12:00 am

keyman_sam wrote:Ok folks, here's the dilemma I've been facing :

I've created a sound library for shortcircuit 1. I think it is commercial-worthy material. This is my first time doing a sample library (though i've programmed drum loops for some companies). I've spent quite some amount of effort programming Shortcircuit. Some of the pads are so freaking nice and atmospheric that I coulda sworn it fits a cinema-esque track well. The basses are dirty, the lead sounds are glitch-worthy and there are some traditional synth-elements in there too.

If I decide to make this library a commercial product, I'll probably be selling it for 10 bucks. However to do this, I need a website setup and all that crap - its too time consuming. Everytime I try to get started on the website, I think I should spend that time programming SC and making more sounds.

If I decide to make this library free-for-all, I'd want to put it in Vemberaudio's website (through Claes) so that I'll get some sort of recognition.
I'm sure many will benefit from it.

Decisions, decisions....

[edit] Forgot to mention that if i decide to sell it, 10% from all sales will go towards Vemberaudio as donation.[/edit]

How about putting a link to the download through an outside site? That way it wouldn't eat into Vemberaudio's bandwidth.

Btw, do you have a demo song of the library that you can post here? Your comment about the pads got my attention.

KVR Audio

Dilemma over Shortcircuit sample library

What should I do?