8Dio Blackbird Drum Kit Library for KONTAKT $20 USD - REG $248 USD

[PavlovsCat]

51 minutes ago, daveiv said:

Didn't Modo Drums leave all the sample-based drum libraries in the dust, as it was supposed to?

I beg to differ. First, there's a reason that MODO Drums is a 6 GB install. While MODO employs physical modeling,  it also uses samples. And like everything else, how  much one likes the character of the included sounds of drums and cymbals is subjective. I like MODO Drums, I don't  LOVE it. I greatly prefer the sounds of Superior Drummer and AD2. So, I definitely don't agree that MODO Drums leaves other drum libraries in the dust. I think it sounds good, but to my ears, SD and AD2 sound better. Of course,  if you love MODO Drums, that's great. That's all that matters,  IMO. 

Edited November 3, 2022 by PavlovsCat

[daveiv]

19 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

I beg to differ. First, there's a reason that MODO Drums is a 6 GB install. While MODO employs physical modeling,  it also uses samples. And like everything else, how  much one likes the character of the included sounds of drums and cymbals is subjective. I like MODO Drums, I don't  LOVE it. I greatly prefer the sounds of Superior Drummer and AD2. So, I definitely don't agree that MODO Drums leaves other drum libraries in the dust. I think it sounds good, but to my ears, SD and AD2 sound better. Of course,  if you love MODO Drums, that's great. That's all that matters,  IMO. 

I've never actually used MODO drums and basses yet. But they were hyped up quite a bit.

Just bought this Blackbird drum library, by the way. I like how it's piercing through my laptop speakers in the demo tracks.

[PavlovsCat]

3 minutes ago, daveiv said:

I've never actually used MODO drums and basses yet. But they were hyped up quite a bit.

Just bought this Blackbird drum library, by the way. I like how it's piercing through my laptop speakers in the demo tracks.

You should pick up the free version of MODO Drums.  It comes with one complete drum kit and cymbals-- and like I wrote before, it's good. I own MODO Bass, but I don’t use it anymore.  I did use it, but only for the Hofner before Orange Tree Samples came out with Evolution Vintage Violin Bass. It's also good, but I wouldn't put it in the same league as the Evolution libraries,  which, BTW, also use a combination of multisamples and physical modeling (samples alone aren't enough for a incredibly realistic virtual bass or guitar). I think MODO Bass does a very good job of emulating the tone of the Hofner bass, but it falls short of being totally realistic. It lacks depth and when you hear the bass very exposed in a mix without distortion or heavy effects, it becomes obvious. The clear advantage that MODO Bass has over sample libraries is size. It's really lightweight,  unlike MODO Drums. 

[daveiv]

1 hour ago, PavlovsCat said:

You should pick up the free version of MODO Drums.  It comes with one complete drum kit and cymbals-- and like I wrote before, it's good. I own MODO Bass, but I don’t use it anymore.  I did use it, but only for the Hofner before Orange Tree Samples came out with Evolution Vintage Violin Bass. It's also good, but I wouldn't put it in the same league as the Evolution libraries,  which, BTW, also use a combination of multisamples and physical modeling (samples alone aren't enough for a incredibly realistic virtual bass or guitar). I think MODO Bass does a very good job of emulating the tone of the Hofner bass, but it falls short of being totally realistic. It lacks depth and when you hear the bass very exposed in a mix without distortion or heavy effects, it becomes obvious. The clear advantage that MODO Bass has over sample libraries is size. It's really lightweight,  unlike MODO Drums. 

I am sampling my cheap Cort bass for my own use, and it's going to be the BEST cheap Cort bass sample library ever!

(I'm actually enjoying the process a lot!)

[PavlovsCat]

2 hours ago, daveiv said:

I am sampling my cheap Cort bass for my own use, and it's going to be the BEST cheap Cort bass sample library ever!

(I'm actually enjoying the process a lot!)

Here's a quick idea/plan for you as a new developer.

When you get started as a sample developer, it's going to take a lot of work beyond creating a good/great sample library. And, there's no doubt that your first sample library is going to be a huge learning experience. Here's some quick advice from my two decades of consulting to sample and plugin developers. And you know, you can always shoot me a PM. You may have already planned some of what I'm going to write out, but just in case... 

(1) When you get this first sample library finished, do the best you can to beta test it with people on various systems. Maybe you can find people in this forum. But when you officially release your first library, those initial impressions are going to stick with people. It's like the old adage, "You never get a second chance to make a first impression." So make sure that when you distribute the final product, it's been thoroughly tested and problems have been worked out. 

(2) When your library has been thoroughly tested and is ready to go, you have  a lot more work to do before distributing it. If you feel this library is good enough to market under a brand name, register a business name legally, register a website domain name, set up an ecommerce site, social media accounts for your brand, email marketing tool, a social media management tool and analytics. 

(3) Having a website no one really has a compelling reason to visit is like having a new phone number no one knows about. You still need to give people a compelling reason to use it. And to do that, the reality is, it's going to take money and effort. Even if you committed say 6 figures to promote the business, advertising isn't enough to launch a new sample library developer business. So here's a strong recommendation -- and I realize that the site has some harsh critics here, I would table that concern and use the site for your purposes -- put your new sample library on Pianobook. If you plan on charging, then create a scaled down free version you distribute there. Putting your library on Pianobook enables you to freely promote awareness of your new brand and sample library and creates product trial, something that is often very costly.

(4) The next step is to get your library -- and only if it's really top notch, be realistic and ask others you trust to be objective first -- in the hands of  influencers. That's largely going to be bloggers and YouTubers. Of course, you want the most relevant influencers with the most followers. Unfortunately, a lot of those influencers are looking for money for their "reviews," sometimes in the form of being affiliate marketers of your product (really, online salespeople) for the "reviewed"/promoted product (I use quotes because, the truth is that influencers are merely product salespeople that are compensated in some way for the products they review -- with some combination of free products, affiliate sales commission from people buying  the product they're promoting, and for the most successful influencers, cash from brands for doing "reviews"; of course, such folks are inclined to not give overly negative reviews, but for your purposes, it means that you're going to struggle to find popular influencers to talk about your libraries), so if you plan on selling your library or selling future libraries, it's a good idea to set up an affiliate marketing program and a referral program. 
 

Edited November 3, 2022 by PavlovsCat

[daveiv]

1 hour ago, PavlovsCat said:

Here's a quick idea/plan for you as a new developer.

Thank you very much, Peter, for taking time to share your expertise and wisdom, once again!

I will definitely start off by offering free products on my website, and I might be releasing new ones on a regular basis. I can even afford dedicating a year giving away freebies. That should be a good way to build an audience, as you said.

For collecting feedback, and having good connections with my target audience; Do you think launching a web forum in the beginning would be too much hassle for little gain? Or just a mailing list would suffice to engage with the community?

[PavlovsCat]

14 minutes ago, daveiv said:

Thank you very much, Peter, for taking time to share your expertise and wisdom, once again!

I will definitely start off by offering free products on my website, and I might be releasing new ones on a regular basis. I can even afford dedicating a year giving away freebies. That should be a good way to build an audience, as you said.

For collecting feedback, and having good connections with my target audience; Do you think launching a web forum in the beginning would be too much hassle for little gain? Or just a mailing list would suffice to engage with the community?

Using another old metaphor, you need to fish where the fish are. Establishing your own forum would take a lot of work, even established developers have not been successful in attempting to create their own forums. Instead, look at creating a brand forum on a heavily trafficked site like KVR. That also enables people who buy sample libraries who've never heard of your brand to learn about you -- and learn from fellow forum users they already know and trust, which is super valuable, of course. 

Funny, there are several developers that I helped when they started out that I urged to open communities there and they have very well established, successful businesses. I'm not saying that to boast, I'm saying that because it makes me feel super old. 

Edited November 3, 2022 by PavlovsCat

[daveiv]

10 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

Using another old metaphor, you need to fish where the fish are. Establishing your own forum would take a lot of work, even established developers have not been successful in attempting to create their own forums. Instead, look at creating a brand forum on a heavily trafficked site like KVR. That also enables people who buy sample libraries who've never heard of your brand to learn about you -- and learn from fellow forum users they already know and trust, which is super valuable, of course. 

Funny, there are several developers that I helped when they started out that I urged to open communities there and they have very well established, successful businesses. I'm not saying that to boast, I'm saying that because it makes me feel super old. 

That's a good idea. I can just have my own corner on KVR forums. That would save me from a lot of work needed to main a separate forum. And I wouldn't ever enjoy the same amount of population of musicians anyway.

Speaking of; do you think the cinematic scoring market is already saturated, compared to the virtual instrument products appealing to the rest of us who make songs?

[antler]

5 hours ago, daveiv said:

Didn't Modo Drums leave all the sample-based drum libraries in the dust, as it was supposed to?

The drums are modelled; the cymbals are sampled.

Being modelled, I was under the impression that brushes would be available by tweaking under the hood - maybe via expansion packs (like Pianoteq). I was wrong: there are no brushes in MODO Drum.

[PavlovsCat]

7 hours ago, daveiv said:

That's a good idea. I can just have my own corner on KVR forums. That would save me from a lot of work needed to main a separate forum. And I wouldn't ever enjoy the same amount of population of musicians anyway.

Speaking of; do you think the cinematic scoring market is already saturated, compared to the virtual instrument products appealing to the rest of us who make songs?

Both markets are very crowded. IMO, the best bet to establishing your new business is figure out something that no one is doing or no one is doing well. Are there certain sample libraries that are really difficult to use or not as good as you think could be where maybe you could do it better? Cinematic libraries can be extremely costly to record if you focus on the orchestral end and require a serious investment with studio time, musicians, engineers, etc. Look at the niche developers like Ben Osterhouse. He focused on a different spin on string libraries. He's a very talented guy at a lot of things, that's rare. Greg Schlaepfer of Orange Tree Samples is like that too. He was a genius at scripting KONTAKT that developers like Cinesamples used and he made a name for himself as an innovator in KONTAKT scripting. Back when Greg was working on Evolution, there was nothing like it on the market. The closest thing was RealGuitarist, which was cool, and I owned it, but the samples weren't very good and it didn't sound realistic. Just cool as a toy. Greg created the first guitar sample library used in commercial productions. I could tell you the names of film composers who used/use it -- which includes some of the most highly regarded film composers today -- but it also showed up on lots of television productions, games and in pop music (I think the first use I knew of was a hip hop track; if you go to the OTS site, you'll see some hip hop producers giving testimonials). 

So figure out what area no developer is knocking out of the park -- or an area where you are certain you can build an easier to play and better sounding library. Forget about over saturated areas.  You're not going to love this advice, but there are already more than enough guitar, bass, drums and piano sample libraries on the market. I would suggest that you don't attempt to go after bread and butter sample libraries because you're going to be competing with the very big boys and they're heavily discounting and the market could easily be considered oversaturated for instrument libraries of pianos, guitars, basses, drums and percussion (although I think there's still some opportunities here, but that's soon to change too as I know about an upcoming library that does what percussion libraries have always been poor at). Right now, another grand, baby grand, upright, felt or prepared piano, a drum kit, a guitar, a bass, or an electric piano sample library from a new developer is not going to get a lot of attention unless it's clearly superior in some way -- and I don't think price is going to be a good enough differentiator for a new developer (because the established players can easily beat your price and wipe you out). It's going to have to be something truly unique to breakthrough for a bread and butter instrument, and even that might not yield significant enough sales to keep your business going. It's a very challenging market for a new developer. The best advice I can give you is that I believe you're best off working for a successful developer who does things the right way, learn from that and then go off on your own. But if you do it on your own, find a niche. Do something no one else is doing, or that few else are doing, and do it differently in a way that's really immediately clear to sample users. I really don't think low price is enough these days because discounting has gone crazy. Look, 8Dio is selling a very detailed drum library recorded at a respected studio for $20 USD. SampleTekk has sales where they have high quality sampled pianos for under $10 USD. Anyone who owns KONTAKT can download a great little cello library for free with PocketBlakus as well as a bunch of free orchestral and choir sample libraries from Spitfire, Orchestral , VSL, Project Sam. I must have picked up two dozen free music box libraries for KONTAKT over the years -- most of them are super nice.

A branding strategy lesson to consider. When Target came around, they established a completely new niche. Kmart and Walmart were the cheap discount retailers. But the store experience was and is terrible. I don't know about you, but I want to shower after going into a Walmart. Target created a new type of store that had low prices similar to Kmart and Walmart, but was cheap chic. They created a low priced brand  and retail experience you didn't feel icky about. They thought differently and created a new category. While that's easier said than done, I would recommend starting there. Take a look at LootAudio and study how common the categories of sample libraries are. Then do Google searches on every category of sample library you're considering creating. Come up with say three types of buyers -- say a pro games composer, an old rocker and a young person doing current pop music and do the searches from each of their perspectives. Check out the various libraries and make your call on what you think they're doing right and wrong.  Unless you can find a category that is solidly priced very high, I would not create a plan and make a sample library whose only advantage is price over existing players, because I think the price competition has become too intense for that to be a sustainable advantage. Yes, a low price can help you penetrate the market, but you need a greater form of differentiation than that too and, even more, you're going to be able to have to easily communicate that differentiation to your audience to succeed. 

Oh well, that's it on the topic, This is basically me writing an article! But you and I have had a number of conversations and you've always been cool and I like seeing nice people succeed.  

Edited November 4, 2022 by PavlovsCat

[daveiv]

3 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

Oh well, that's it on the topic, This is basically me writing an article! But you and I have had a number of conversations and you've always been cool and I like seeing nice people succeed.  

Mister, I can't thank you enough! As usual, your posts are so relevant I wish they were twice as long!

I realized I focused too much on my capabilities. I've been simply ignoring what might be actually in demand.

I'm going to spend some time doing market research, as you suggest, so I can figure out what people really want, and how can I make a difference. Who knows where is my kismet at; maybe a set of obscure instruments that ware never sampled well before, or percussion libraries without the issues you hinted, or synths with unique programming capabilities...

Edited November 4, 2022 by daveiv

[antler]

1 hour ago, daveiv said:

Mister, I can't thank you enough! As usual, your posts are so relevant I wish they were twice as long!

I realized I focused too much on my capabilities. I've been simply ignoring what might be actually in demand.

I'm going to spend some time doing market research, as you suggest, so I can figure out what people really want, and how can I make a difference. Who knows where is my kismet at; maybe a set of obscure instruments that ware never sampled well before, or percussion libraries without the issues you hinted, or synths with unique programming capabilities...

Once you've created your instrument, maybe consider releasing on Pianobook...

If not, there are always sites like Gumroad to get you started