Larry Shelby Posted November 9, 2023 Share Posted November 9, 2023 WHAT'S NEW? Majestica Ultra is the long-awaited release of 8W 2.0 and so much more... The 8W orchestra has been upgraded to our flexible Century UI, complete with Polyphonic Legato & Poly-Time Arcs that are found in both Majestica 2.0 & Majestica Pro. It also includes ALL the Hall and Spot mics found in the original 8W as well as the new Majestica Pro. The synths in Majestica Ultra are the same as what you currently own in 8W. For Majestica Ultra, we consolidated EVERY single 8W Add-on we ever made into this library. The most epic composers toolbox ALL in one convenient place! $98 Full and $20 Upgrade https://8dio.com/products/majestica 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PavlovsCat Posted November 9, 2023 Share Posted November 9, 2023 1 hour ago, cclarry said: WHAT'S NEW? Majestica Ultra is the long-awaited release of 8W 2.0 and so much more... The 8W orchestra has been upgraded to our flexible Century UI, complete with Polyphonic Legato & Poly-Time Arcs that are found in both Majestica 2.0 & Majestica Pro. It also includes ALL the Hall and Spot mics found in the original 8W as well as the new Majestica Pro. The synths in Majestica Ultra are the same as what you currently own in 8W. For Majestica Ultra, we consolidated EVERY single 8W Add-on we ever made into this library. The most epic composers toolbox ALL in one convenient place! $98 Full and $20 Upgrade https://8dio.com/products/majestica Wait, how much of a price drop has there been on this library? 8Dio's CEO, Tawnia told me about some upcoming plans that I can't share, but she didn't get into any specifics and I'm guessing this library's pricing is impacted by those changes. (I'm also a long time 8Dio customer who owns probably more than two dozen 8Dio libraries and maybe 20 SoundPaint libraries). I don't own this library, but I'm pretty sure that it used to list for several hundred dollars and suddenly it's less than $100 USD and the web page doesn't even mention that the price just had an enormous drop? Sorry, the marketer in me is puzzled because that should be huge news on that web page. I can't help but wanting to send Tawnia a note saying -- let people know that you just had a massive drop in the price of this library! Okay, if I can figure out how much this price drop is, I'm literally going to do exactly that. Larry, do you recall how much this library sold for prior to this price change? It looks like you've taken that copy from an email for current owners they're trying to persuade to upgrade for $20. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Shelby Posted November 9, 2023 Author Share Posted November 9, 2023 10 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said: Larry, do you recall how much this library sold for prior to this price change? It looks like you've taken that copy from an email for current owners they're trying to persuade to upgrade for $20. It was $398 prior to this PC... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fwrend Posted November 9, 2023 Share Posted November 9, 2023 They're also offering the Epic Orchestra & Choir Bundle which includes Majestica Ultra and Lacrimosa for $148. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Shelby Posted November 9, 2023 Author Share Posted November 9, 2023 1 minute ago, Fwrend said: They're also offering the Epic Orchestra & Choir Bundle which includes Majestica Ultra and Lacrimosa for $148. But sadly, the coupon for Ultra won't work on that! ( I already tried LOL) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fwrend Posted November 9, 2023 Share Posted November 9, 2023 (edited) That's got to be one heck of a profit margin!!! Edited November 9, 2023 by Fwrend Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PavlovsCat Posted November 9, 2023 Share Posted November 9, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, Fwrend said: That's got to be one heck of a profit margin!!! Huh? How does knowing production costs allow you to take the leap that you understanding profit margins when you have no information on sales volume or royalty agreements? If production costs are $605k, then you have a bunch of other costs to bring a product to market (e.g., packaging, marketing, sales, file storage and distribution, creative, etc.). Let's say that brings total costs to around $620k. If you price it at $400, you'll need to sell 1,550 licenses to break even on production; of course, if you chop the price down to $100, you're going to need to sell a lot more units to break even. That doesn't include royalties for musicians and any contractors involved in the production or account for the costs of distribution, customer support and credit card processing. It's really not possible to discern a profit margin when you have no information on that, on the number of units sold or royalties that need to be paid on a library is, well, just plain incorrect. What was your logic? Edited November 9, 2023 by PavlovsCat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fwrend Posted November 9, 2023 Share Posted November 9, 2023 No 8 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said: What was your logic? No logic, just light-hearted sarcasm (Sheldon) for which I have no desire to debate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PavlovsCat Posted November 9, 2023 Share Posted November 9, 2023 (edited) In any event, realizing how an orchestral library can cost more than a half million dollars to produce, might help folks understand how the sampling business can be pretty cutthroat and how the controversy in the sample industry over the sample developer who owns VI-Control having a year's worth of public meltdown rants about 8Dio "leading the race to the bottom" (referring to 8Dio selling orchestral sample libraries at very high discounts impacting the cost that buyers will pay for these libraries) came about. Orchestral libraries are especially costly to make, and small developers, like VI-Control's owner, don't sell a lot of product, so marketplace changes result in dramatically reduced the price he can sell his libraries at. It also means all of the projections they originally did regarding revenue, break even point and profitably are out the window. For example, if you invested $200+K in the production of a library and are running a small business that brings in less than $1 million per yr, and did your projections based on selling a certain number of units at $299 each and the marketplace had since changed so that you need to re-price those libraries at $99, your profit margins have radically declined and you now need to recalculate everything. These are serious challenges. You have to change your breakeven point. Let's say it was 6 months after release and at the new price, it will be 1.5 years if you can't increase sales volume by 3x. If you have enough debt from the production costs of multiple libraries that you have yet to break even on, it could end up in bankruptcy. This situation is the basis of Greene's rants against 8Dio over the past year. While I can certainly empathize with the situation marketplace changes in pricing put small developers in, it's just a standard part of business. But this public controversy does reveal the kind of fears and cutthroat, let's destroy competitors' type nastiness that has long been a part of the sample development industry. Of course, this is not atypical of other industries, but I think that sample buyers can often be unaware of the nature of the business and think they're all just friendly competitors. Some are, but some very much, are not. Consider this excerpt from one of Mike Greene's rants against 8Dio after someone posted sharing an 8Dio flash sale a VI-Control (also, SPOILER: Mike doesn't know Cory Pelizzari, he's never even had a single PM or email with him, as per Mike himself, but note how he leverages Cory and the a claim he knows is false from private correspondence when he claims that Cory was threatened; this is a pretty obvious con job): Quote "Their "race to bottom" pricing strategy is bad for the industry. It makes things difficult for those of us who are trying to invest in producing quality products and need to price them accordingly. In my own case, I'm over $160k in recording costs alone for our upcoming choir library. $160k. And that's before editing or advertising or licenses or paying myself for my time. Yet I guarantee someone will post on my Facebook ad that it's overpriced, because they got Requiem Pro for 35 bucks. Guaranteed. In fact, I got one of those yesterday on my Nightfall ad, as someone said it should be $39, because that's what Product X is. It's not healthy for the industry, and from what I've heard, Troels and Tawnia don't give a flying f*ck. (Before they sic Amanda on me again, they're welcome to correct anything I'm saying. I won't delete anything they post.) They've got a large catalog they can keep drawing from, so it will be a while before that well runs dry. I might add that a year and a half ago, Tawnia told us (here) that 8dio wouldn't be doing sales like this anymore. But ... did anyone really believe her? I didn't, which is why I bookmarked the post. So yes, I get really pissed off seeing that 8dio Flash Sale thread day after day, bumped to page one of Latest Posts, cycling blowouts on the same damn products (you know they're being repeated, right?) with the same damn discussions, over and over and over. Making a mockery of the companies I do respect. F*ck that. And especially f*ck anyone who threatens Cory Pelizzari, who is one of the nicest guys I know." Edited November 10, 2023 by PavlovsCat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kitekrazy1 Posted November 9, 2023 Share Posted November 9, 2023 1 hour ago, PavlovsCat said: In any event, realizing how an orchestral library can cost more than a half million dollars to produce, might help folks understand how the sampling business can be pretty cutthroat and how the controversy in the sample industry over the sample developer who owns VI-Control having a year's worth of public meltdown rants about 8Dio "leading the race to the bottom" (referring to 8Dio selling orchestral sample libraries at very high discounts impacting the cost that buyers will pay for these libraries) came about. Orchestral libraries are especially costly to make, and small developers, like VI-Control's owner, don't sell a lot of product, so marketplace changes result in dramatically reduced the price he can sell his libraries at. It also means all of the projections they originally did regarding revenue, break even point and profitably are out the window. For example, if you invested $200+K in the production of a library and are running a small business that brings in less than $1 million per yr, and did your projections based on selling a certain number of units at $299 each and the marketplace had since changed so that you need to re-price those libraries at $99, your profit margins have radically declined and you now need to recalculate everything. These are serious challenges. You have to change your breakeven point. Let's say it was 6 months after release and at the new price, it will be 1.5 years if you can't increase sales volume by 3x. If you have enough debt from the production costs of multiple libraries that you have yet to break even on, it could end up in bankruptcy. This situation is the basis of Greene's rants against 8Dio over the past year. While I can certainly empathize with the situation marketplace changes in pricing put small developers in, it's just a standard part of business. But this public controversy does reveal the kind of fears and cutthroat, let's destroy competitors' type nastiness that has long been a part of the sample development industry. Of course, this is not atypical of other industries, but I think that sample buyers can often be unaware of the nature of the business and think they're all just friendly competitors. Some are, but some very much, are not. It is basically a one time cost unless you get it wrong and then most of the time the developers don't fix it like having to redo recordings. There are libraries out there where you can hear other sounds than the recorded instrument. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kitekrazy1 Posted November 9, 2023 Share Posted November 9, 2023 So I guess some of us have to wait for an email for the code. Not sure I wanna put a 96Khz orchestra on my drives. I deleted the previous version and kept Majestica. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PavlovsCat Posted November 9, 2023 Share Posted November 9, 2023 (edited) 55 minutes ago, kitekrazy said: It is basically a one time cost unless you get it wrong and then most of the time the developers don't fix it like having to redo recordings. There are libraries out there where you can hear other sounds than the recorded instrument. Well, the production costs are one-time costs, unless, as you pointed out, you need to go back and make refinements. But royalties are not one-time or fixed costs. Royalties are paid on each unit sold and sample developers often have royalty agreements with musicians and may also have them with an engineer or a coder who worked on the library. Additionally, if it's a KONTAKT Player library, they take a piece of the cost based on your sale price, which doesn't apply in the 8Dio case, but is a factor for many KONTAKT library developers. As far as hearing other sounds in a sample library than the recorded instrument, there is a free library by a well-known orchestral strings library developer (okay, it's Performance Samples) -- I think it's for a solo cello, but it may be a viola or violin -- where you can hear someone clearing their throat and it's loud enough to make that note unusable for me, especially when you hit that note more than once in a performance. Going back a long time ago, I had an old EastWest library where you can hear someone cough at the end of the recorded note. I remember sending it off to other developers years ago for a laugh. I seem to recall it was a G# or Gb in a bass or electric guitar sample library in a lower octave. There's another library -- okay, I'm going to withhold the dev's name because I know him (it's not Orange Tree Samples or 8Dio, FTR) -- where a drummer, a well-known rock drummer from decades back, makes a loud yelp as he hits the snare drum. Edited November 9, 2023 by PavlovsCat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirean Posted November 9, 2023 Share Posted November 9, 2023 Is this new version a huge improvement over Majestica 2.0 or whatever it was before both in sound and features? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
husker Posted November 9, 2023 Share Posted November 9, 2023 40 minutes ago, Kirean said: Is this new version a huge improvement over Majestica 2.0 or whatever it was before both in sound and features? Pretty detailed thread on what this actually is here. https://vi-control.net/community/threads/8dio-majestica-pro-and-ultra-this-looks-very-cool.145315/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carl Ewing Posted November 9, 2023 Share Posted November 9, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, PavlovsCat said: (okay, it's Performance Samples) Speaking of Performance Samples - noticed someone on VI-Control posted this Legato demo for the upcoming Vista II. Was posted yesterday: I f******* love this developer. I love how they take customers through the entire development process. And have never regretted a single purchase. Just gorgeous libraries. And that's got to be the best damn legato (and possibly solo cello tone) I've ever heard in a sample library to date. By a mile. Edited November 9, 2023 by Carl Ewing 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PavlovsCat Posted November 9, 2023 Share Posted November 9, 2023 12 minutes ago, Carl Ewing said: Speaking of Performance Samples - noticed someone on VI-Control posted this Legato demo for the upcoming Vista II. Was posted yesterday: I f******* love this developer. I love how they take customers through the entire development process. And have never regretted a single purchase. Just gorgeous libraries. And that's got to be the best damn legato (and possibly solo cello tone) I've ever heard in a sample library to date. By a mile. Wow, that does sound is beautiful. I've seen a lot of posts praising Performance Samples. Do they sell the solo cello alone? I've been looking for a dry solo cello with great tone and great scripting. I've been looking at Sonixenima mostly. As they have a cello library -- actually two-- that just sound gorgeous to my ears. I know people have recommended the Embertone Blakus one, but I simply don't love the tone of the cello. And getting back to my point about pros vs hobbyists, I want a library that features great, intuitive scripting that I can play/record once not have to screw with midi editing. I'm just a hobbyist musician recording songs I wrote during my semi-pro playing days and covers mostly to entertain my kids and handful of friends. So, I'd love to get your thoughts on Performance Samples stuff if you think this solo cello might be a fit for me. I have your word there's no one hacking up a lung in and of the samples for that library, like their freebie? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PavlovsCat Posted November 9, 2023 Share Posted November 9, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, husker said: Pretty detailed thread on what this actually is here. https://vi-control.net/community/threads/8dio-majestica-pro-and-ultra-this-looks-very-cool.145315/ If I'm going to be completely candid, 8Dio has long been the whipping boy of VI-Control's tribe of personality cult wannabe composers who are eager to bully developers Greene doesn't like. It's a toxic series of personality cults and group think easily swayed by one semi-quasi talented semi- pro composers and the group trashes whatever that semi-pro composer trashes and praises whatever he praises. I'm basically paraphrasing what a number of pro composers have said about that forum, one of them being Christian Henson who shared -- prior to the tweet controversy -- that he finds VI-Control so toxic he can only handle limited doses before taking breaks. I agree with using it as an input, but always keep in mind that the bias there is pretty ridiculous and driven my group think. Pros don't really enjoy that forum (there was a time, a long time ago that Hans Zimmer used to go there as well as some other popular pros, that I knew a little bit from developers) and now that a developer owns it, it's gotten far more toxic and most of the full-time pros have abandoned it. Edited November 9, 2023 by PavlovsCat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kitekrazy1 Posted November 9, 2023 Share Posted November 9, 2023 1 hour ago, PavlovsCat said: If I'm going to be completely candid, 8Dio has long been the whipping boy of VI-Control's tribe of personality cult wannabe composers who are eager to bully developers Greene doesn't like. It's a toxic series of personality cults and group think easily swayed by one semi-quasi talented semi- pro composers and the group trashes whatever that semi-pro composer trashes and praises whatever he praises. I'm basically paraphrasing what a number of pro composers have said about that forum, one of them being Christian Henson who shared -- prior to the tweet controversy -- that he finds VI-Control so toxic he can only handle limited doses before taking breaks. I agree with using it as an input, but always keep in mind that the bias there is pretty ridiculous and driven my group think. Pros don't really enjoy that forum (there was a time, a long time ago that Hans Zimmer used to go there as well as some other popular pros, that I knew a little bit from developers) and now that a developer owns it, it's gotten far more toxic and most of the full-time pros have abandoned it. That's a very accurate description. I think this is often the case with artsy fartsy people. They like to inject slight political feelings into everything. which I hate. I almost hate it when people here reference to Vi-Control. As you know it doesn't take long for members here to mimic Vi_control when 8dio is brought up. Most sane people would never understand the drama created over sample libraries. I doubt most pros go to forums other than maybe write a sentence or two. I believe when you have a forum and you have off topic sections you invite toxic, The Garrigus forums were like and it's been over a decade I've went to that site. Meanwhile who is going to be the guinea pig and buy this? I'm good at downloading libraries and never testing them. I still haven't cracked open VSL Synchron Samrt Orchestra yet. At one time the Cakewalk Sonar forums were highly toxic and it was no secret. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PavlovsCat Posted November 9, 2023 Share Posted November 9, 2023 (edited) 3 hours ago, kitekrazy said: That's a very accurate description. I think this is often the case with artsy fartsy people. They like to inject slight political feelings into everything. which I hate. I almost hate it when people here reference to Vi-Control. As you know it doesn't take long for members here to mimic Vi_control when 8dio is brought up. Most sane people would never understand the drama created over sample libraries. I doubt most pros go to forums other than maybe write a sentence or two. I believe when you have a forum and you have off topic sections you invite toxic, The Garrigus forums were like and it's been over a decade I've went to that site. Meanwhile who is going to be the guinea pig and buy this? I'm good at downloading libraries and never testing them. I still haven't cracked open VSL Synchron Samrt Orchestra yet. At one time the Cakewalk Sonar forums were highly toxic and it was no secret. I've tried to make this point before. Some people think that the 8Dio vs Greene stuff is political. It's not. I've known Mike for two decades. I once gave him some marketing advice. Greene is very political (liberal). Troels and Tawnia are very non-political. Mike makes posts bashing the former president and his followers. So people who've asserted that the whole thing is political are dead wrong. Greene's rage against 8Dio has been over 2 things (1) he's furious that their pricing will change what people are willing to pay for libraries, causing him and other developers to have to lower their prices and destroy the present profit margins on sample libraries he's counting on and make it harder for small devs like him to make a profit when selling small numbers of units (Realitone titles aren't big sellers, so he's going to need to learn how to sell a lot more units to maintain the same profits he currently gets, because his margins will be smaller). and (2) Tawnia pushed him hard to stop cancelling any discussion regarding the Henson controversy and Mike's ego is not exactly small and his temper goes off easily. I've read their correspondence about this stuff. Tawnia attempted to appeal to Mike not to censor the conversation on the CH matter citing that she has two LGBTQ employees and a close family member who is LGBQ and this conversation matters to them. Greene was rude and dismissive and the whole thing went downhill fast and Tawnia criticized Greene's decisions and Mike is not someone who handles criticism well. Since then, Greene has been hyper-abrasive in his communications with 8Dio, primarily with Tawnia, not Troels. And he's expressed to me privately that he loathes her and has zero interest in wanting to work things out. Mike even tried to persuade me not to deal with her. It's a vendetta. I actually tried to get Mike to be reasonable and offered to facilitate a Zoom call with 8Dio's two owners and Greene, but Greene refused and told me he never wants to talk to them or have them at his forum, it's very accurate to say that he despises Tawnia and it's not reasonable, it's completely emotional and I know it's goes back to her criticizing him and his anger over their discounting of their libraries impacting prices for orchestral sample libraries to come down. As far as Cakewalk forums, I've been coming here from the earliest days as eDrummist and never thought it as toxic, but maybe you saw things, I didn't. All I know is it's not now, despite that once in a while you see toxic behavior and I've been stalked by a few people who don't like me. But compared to other forums, this is still the friendliest forum of its kind I know. As a marketing/branding pro, I actually do believe 8Dio should be suing Greene. He claims they're litigious, but didn't provide any examples of any of his claims. But this is an instance where they likely have a very good libel/harassment case and I suspect that Greene's email trying to persuade a consultant (me) to never work with them reflects harassment. At a minimum, it's as unethical as hell. Edited November 10, 2023 by PavlovsCat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Technostica Posted November 9, 2023 Share Posted November 9, 2023 VI-C also has some great people there, so defaulting to talking about a particular incident there and suggesting that therefore VI-C should be avoided seems unbalanced. There are people there that I block but I do that here also and at KVR. I only hang out out in the deals section here so I don't need to block many. People who regularly write essays on their pet peeves are included. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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