Questions about sample format preferences.

[StreetG33k]

OK so I have a few general questions. It would be extremely helpful for me to get a consensus on a few things so if you have a moment, please reply.
For years I have been accumulating loops, one-shots and sampler patches of my own creation and just stockpiling them onto an external drive. As a byproduct of my obsessive beat-making/audio-engineering hobby, i also added sound design and foley to that list of hobbies. I've been at it since around 1996. LOTS of material made and lots of experience behind it.
Recently, around last year or so had the thought to try my hand at distributing my sound design works and creating more often.
Right now I am in the process of organizing, editing and finishing the bulk of what I already have. What I need is insight into personal preferences of my target audience.
For example, out of the box fidelity.
Personally? I like my audio clips im editing for use to be as raw as possible. Pre-mix. I dont want reverberated, phase shifted chorus heavy drums to then try to mix again after im done composing. But that may just be me. Im not malong these for myself. So...

1. Raw audio, processed, or both? Its nice to have a quality sounding sample out of the box, but what if it is now too far off from the rest of your project? I find raw audio easier to mix. When i have a DRY and WET section in a sample pack I only copy the dry section. Don't even want the wet part, it just takes up space.
But will that make it unappealing to you as a commercial product? While previewing the samples they may not sound as great if I only have raw audio included. I can't choose what to do here.

2. When it comes to a loop that has a tail that would fade out through the first beat of the next bar in a composition, do you wrap it on export, then make a second version without the tail at tbe beginning. Do you cut the tail and make a separate "tail" sample. Or do you just leave extra space with the tail attached and BPM marked? I prefer the third option myself, but im not sure about others. Not an issue for an experienced editor, but some people want convenience I guess?

3. Sampler formats. Personally, it annoys me to have 7 different file formats to deal with. I prefer a simple .sfz above all else. Kontakt is ok too but I usually convert them to .SFZ when possible. But that's me... How about you guys?
Do you just prefer simple .wav files you can toss into any sampler however you wish? Or you'd rather have the options there to use out of the box instantly?

4. Pay up front business model, or donation based? Which is a better model in your eyes? I feel like a "pay if you want" model is just BEGGING to be taken advantage of. But at the same time, I have zero issue allowing those who can't afford to buy my product a free license to use it as they wish. It is also potential free marketing as well in certain situations. So while I will most certainly have those who CAN afford to pay for my product taking it for free anyway, I feel the pros of it helping those who truly cannot afford, along with the potential word of mouth marketing overshadow the cons.

5. How to put a value on your work? When it comes to sou d design its all so random. What is a good scale for appraising a product and putting a reasonable price on it? I see some of them emphasizing on how many gigabytes their packs are. But then there 3 file types of each sample so its really only 1/3 the size anyway. File size is a horrible metric for this.
I could never track the time spent creating. Cannot really consider a profit margin, the overhead doesn't exist, but money has been spent over the years for equipment. I dunno. Anyone have some I sight I to this specifically?


I recently lost my job and I need some immediate income. Am considering a trial run at this within a few days. So i need to figure this all out and come up with the template I will follow for my products. Getting this info will REALLY remove a barrier that has been stopping me from moving on with this.

Thanks in advance for any opinions.

[MachineClaw]

1. RAW always - heavily processed reverbed samples don't fit in the mix well and become troubling. Always RAW, sperate folder with WET for examples of you the creator's intent is welcome, I generally throw the WET folders or samples away (keep archived if needed). but if your pack only contains WET, totally useless for me as a product.

2. 3rd option preferred. I generally don't deal with loops all that much.

3. WAV files. nice if there are extra's but WAV fits everything, Mac or PC. I can throw a WAV sample file into many different synths, different DAWs. I generally don't like to be limited. - make sure your files have meta tagging. this is YOUR work, your copyright which you are giving a license to a user. non tagged or meta's WAV files for commercial use everything needs to be cleared. nothing worse then having non tag'd WAV files. If I don't know the source I don't use it. period. way too much commercial stuff to deal with a non sourced sample in a mix that could come back to haunt later on. - this is the bad side of the business - someone will be taking your samples, claiming them as their work and trying to make money off your work. it's going to happen. make sure you have your ducks in a row and protect yourself.

4. Pay model. your efforts are valuable and managing users liences of your product, server downloads, administration all take time and effort. there is value. if you want to put your pack or product at a cheap price sampler/teaser at $1.00-$5.00 and general at everything pack at $10-$20, don't devalue yourself. IF your doing it as a hobby or providing a teaser/sampler pack donation might be nice but limit it and give a free taster but don't give it away.

5. Don't give it away, you and your time are valuable. be realistic. nobody knows you or your product or your sampling, that comes with time and branding. There is always server download costs, storage of files, processing of payments fees, administration of clearing samples (legal stuff), customer Q&A, marketing time and effort. only you can determine but start a bit realistic and low get's people interested and coming back. the market is so saturated and there are so many different avenues and markets these administrators take a cut of your profits (hosting fees etc), so unless your doing it all yourself as a one man website shop there are costs. you have copyright costs, trademarking your name or brand, there is business costs. Also , there are tax implications depending on how much you make, you have reporting requirements to keep track of.

my 2 cents, take it for what it's worth.

you might want to go watch this video of Artist Ren on YouTube about his issue with purchasing a sample and what it cost him. was interesting take. Ren bought a sample for $99 and then had a world of time and effort to clear the sample etc. just an interesting world we live in nowadays.

[pljones]

Agree with all of the above -- the only way to affirm that you've made something of value is when other will give value in exchange. So your work, if you think it's of value to the community, deserves reward.