PavlovsCat

The whole resentment on sales pricing is exactly why I always recommend that developers have price guarantees so if a price goes lower after you buy (within 30 or 60 days), they'll refund the difference or credit it to your account. That way customers won't hesitate to buy when they're concerned you may have an even better discount in the near future and if you do, customers who purchased at the higher price will be very happy when they see they got the difference back. All of you developers reading, take note.

I own it and like it, and I like the developer a lot and have been a customer since their early days, at least 20 years ago.

Seriously, I didn't even think of that. I own Intimate Studio Strings and some of the Century Strings and figured the bundles wouldn't be discounted further to reflect that. Did you get the discount automatically in the cart or did you have to contact customer support?

At this price point, I can imagine seeing a lot of people rethinking their opinion about subscriptions for sample libraries. Of course, EastWest has a big enough product portfolio to make subscriptions appealing.

That's completely understandable. The urgency of a sale, with an absolute hard stop deadline, is always going to trump something with the same price year round.

Agree.

Wait, you gave me an idea. I was just really just playing around with free sample libraries when I thought, why not just record myself playing a super simple chord progression so that people can hear these free sample libraries in action together. I actually was probably one of the first people doing song contests at KVR going back around 15 years with Orange Tree Samples and later Kirk Hunter. The guy who won one of OTS's contest later became a friend and we still keep in touch to this day (his daughter just had a birthday today). So yeah, you've given me an idea and I'd love to hear people's thoughts. We could do regular demo song contests using free instruments and I can get developer friends to give the winners free libraries or certificates. Also, that way I won't have to suffer the constant indignity of losing every month, because I can say that I am disqualified! We've got to do this. If people want to chime in with their thoughts I'd love to hear back from folks. I suppose we should make it 100% free libraries that play in free players and that way there's no barriers to entry and maybe people who might be short on cash but long on talent can have a serious chance at winning. I can make this happen. Thanks so much, @audioschmaudio.

What if I challenged you to put together a quick demo using all free sample libraries that play in free players and no more than one paid/commercial sample library? I've worked with developers and put together demo contests, but no one makes demos for free sample libraries from multiple developers, so why not us? I started with me tonight. I put together a quick approx. 1 minute demo based on a very simple piano progression. Everything was an improvised first take with mistakes included. If anyone wants to join me, I can create a thread in the song section and we can post links to there with each song we share. Any takers? Just like me, you can spend 15-20 minutes to come up with something really simple that lets people hear these libraries in action. Quick Honest FREE Library Demo Challenge Create a demo from these sample libraries that play in free players. using free sample libraries that play in free players with a maximum of one commercial/paid sample library. OBJECTIVE: Create a short demo to highlight free instruments that play in free players. RULES: - Improvise what you play. Try to use first takes. Play whatever comes to mind. - Any length demo. - Use as many always free instruments that play in free players as you like, with no more than more than one paid instrument. - Any external effects used must be freely available. - List all instruments snf effects used. DEMO NAME: Motive DESCRIPTION: - 10 tracks. Every track was completely improvised on the fly on the first take. No MIDI editing, a little quantitzing, but otherwise, warts and all [I didn't even write down the chords I played, for the various parts). FREE INSTRUMENTS IN FREE PLAYERS USED: SoundPaint 1928 Scoring Piano (2 instances) SoundPaint Free Angels IK MODO DRUM IK MODO BASS Cinematic Strings Tongue Drum KONTAKT Play Twenty Five Heavyocity Foundationds Nylon Guitar Sine Player Layers HALion Cinematique Sonic Guitar Essentials Spitfire Labs Micah's Choir PAID INSTRUMENT USED: Orange Tree Samples: Evolution Strawberry FREE EFFECTS USED: Sonible - Focustire Balanace (EQ) Rob Papen: Pan

Best guitar, bass and electric piano sample libraries in the biz.

Wait, @cclarry:

I think all of us forum regulars check that box whether we admit it or not.

I'm pretty sure that I stumbled across someone trying to sell the NI Session Horns Upgrade to Pro when I was doing searches at the unfortunately-named KnobCloud a couple of weeks ago. If you're not familiar with the site, it was created by a forum member from VI Control as a place where people can resell their sample libraries and plugins (in the cases where the developers permit it). I've found that people sell NI libraries for a small fraction of their list prices there. I've only done one purchase and it was Abbey Road Modern Drummer, and I bought it a couple of weeks ago, and paid around $21 USD, which is less than half of the lowest price I've ever seen NI sell it for. Everything went smoothly (I bought it from a seller with a lot of transactions with a top review rating). I think Izotope allows resale, so you might want to check search on that there too.

We've PMed a bunch of time but I don't believe I've ever talked about what genre (s) of music you do. What kind of music do you do? There's a lot of former rock musicians in this community (me among them) and then EDM seems to be the next largest group.

I mostly do rock and I have Century Strings and Intimate Studio Strings which are in two different bundles and I'm pretty sure that I paid more for them than each of these bundles! For my tastes, Intimate Studio Strings is more of my style as I have no plans for big orchestral pieces. But personally, I'm interested in the choirs. I've seen the choirs get a lot of praise even on VI-Control! So if people have the guts to praise them there, you know they must be pretty passionate to deal with the high probability the forum owner could be triggered. So personally, I'm probably going to start going after the choirs next as I think it would be awesome to use in even my rock songs and holiday songs.

Superb developer. I love every library I own of his.

I even keep checking the unfortunately named KnobCloud for deals on Toontrack libraries, but I think the fact that Toontrack charges a $15 transfer fee keeps even ezX resale prices a bit inflated. I picked up Abbey Road Moder Drummer for around $21 the other week (yes ,I realize no one seems to talk about that library, but I like it) which seems ridiculously cheap, IMO.

I've long been thinking about Ben Oesterhouse's Pathfinder Cello and Soneximema's Solo Cello. Bunker Sounds Viola sounds gorgeous, but it's already on sale and I'm trying to manage my spending pretty carefully this year plus I just bought an 8Dio library that has a solo cello that might be all I need (the reality is, my three SSDs are near capacity and I have a new one sitting around that needs to be installed, so yes, I just bought a bunch of sample libraries I can't install until I install the new SSD). If there's a huge discount on a Toontrack drum library I'd absolutely snap it up. So there are certain libraries here and there that if they are discounted enough, I'll buy them. From Toontrack's deep discounted flash sales last year, that I think were at least 70% or more off, they've taught me to hold out for the next one of those. I'm ready this year (I hesitated last year, then I forgot to buy by the time the sale ended).

You're good. It's appreciated. Larry's on vacation this week, so there's much less risk that we've double posted. So thanks for taking the time to post, it's appreciated! I'm a long time KONTAKT user and use it in literally every project.

Thanks Saverio. You've given us so many freebies and so many great deals this year that I feel guilty getting another free plugin. But thanks for your generosity and I'm sure I'll be making more purchases soon. - Peter AKA Pietro

90% Off All SampleTekk Grand Piano Libraries SampleTekk, if you're not already familiar with them, is a developer, mostly of piano libraries for KONTAKT. They've been around a long time. I think I've been a customer at least 20 years. They don't have sophisticated GUIs, features or a bunch of presets for their libraries and most of their libraries were originally sampled a decade or more ago. However, their libraries are high quality, and at these sale prices, I think they're a fantastic deal. https://www.sampletekk.com/

Unquestionably, you should be getting either a cash refund or that amount credited back. Please keep us updated.

Thanks to my friend @Peter - IK Multimedia for advocating for this change. It's greatly appreciated! You're a hero to our little group here. I'm grateful. I have a few libraries I've put off spending $10 to re-download that I can now start using!

Nah, even if you did make a mistake, if you correct it and you don't keep doing it, I don't think anyone is going to hold it against you. As long as you make excellent sample libraries. People here realize that you're running a small business and that no one is perfect.

Thanks for chiming in! On a friendly note, I thought your demos sound good.

Luca, I think you've handled this very well. I think I've bought from you once before, but candidly, I'm not totally sure because I spend too much on this hobby. But seeing how you handled a simple mistake, I'm now a fan. Plus it's cool that you visit our little forum from time to time. I wish you well. - Peter AKA Pietro