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Do instrument developers make a living?


53mph

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I'm asking this for a friend who has recently been made redundant from an audio engineering job of over 20 years. He was thinking of trying to get into making bespoke instruments for Kontakt player.

Do developers actually make a living doing this or is it a side gig for them?

Any insights greatly appreciated.

P

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You know what "asking for a friend" usually means, right? 😀

Anyhoo, FWIW I've always figured that the best way to make money online for a one man operation would be to take a small amount from as many people as possible  -  I just haven't figured out a way to do that. It seems that people can't resist cheap stuff and because it's cheap don't usually expect much from it or complain too much, because it was cheap so what do you expect, right? Take a look at the deals forum, they'll still buy the next one, lol!

Or you your friend could just make one plug-in a year, doesn't matter what, call it The Bapuometer and charge $100k for it. We all know someone who would just have to buy it.

Staying with the pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap philosophy, I always thought that whoever invented bin bags was an absolute freaking genius. Taking money from people for things that they take home and happily put straight in the bin and yet still come back for more once they've thrown them all away.

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12 minutes ago, paulo said:

Taking money from people for things that they take home and happily put straight in the bin and yet still come back for more once they've thrown them all away.

Gotta love that bottled water market!    Whoever said "Let's charge people to buy something that they already have" was a marketing genius.

Note that Evian spelled backwards is Naive.

 

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5 minutes ago, Philip G Hunt said:

I know, but this is really for a friend.😉

FWIW, I did once have a short email conversation with Marc-Pierre Verge of AAS who said that they don't make as much as people probably think they do, to which I replied that he almost has to say that to the likes of me, but as he pointed out it was a Sunday evening and if he really was spending a long weekend sipping champagne on his yacht, he certainly wouldn't be taking time out from that to email me.😁

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It sure is an over saturated market.

Gotta have thick skin dealing with the end user.

Don't waste time trying to lock down a product because of piracy. Some dude had a scheme where you needed a Blackberry.  People steal just to steal.  If it;s your top concern don't bother. 

Give some free stuff. Professors tell kids in "music college" not to do that.  Every famous band starting out gave free demos. If it's great people pay for it.

Know Kontakt programming really well.

Start as a side gig first.

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  • 2 weeks later...

As a solo audio developer it's probably just as hard as it is for any other solo developer, maybe even a bit more difficult.
Now as your friend is already an audio engineer, if the could also pick up a bit of programming (Kontakt too, but especially something like C++/JUCE)  a career could probably open up with one of the many companies out there.

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On 6/17/2021 at 7:57 AM, Philip G Hunt said:

I'm asking this for a friend who has recently been made redundant from an audio engineering job of over 20 years. He was thinking of trying to get into making bespoke instruments for Kontakt player.

Do developers actually make a living doing this or is it a side gig for them?

Any insights greatly appreciated.

P

Become an independent Luthier and make a good living.

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