8DIO bundles (Black Friday Bundles - Big Discounts)

[Carl Ewing]

6 hours ago, MusicMan said:

Thanks Carl, that's REALLY helpful!

I do have Komplete 14 Ultimate (thanks to their temporary price glitch) so it includes the Factory Library, but also includes the Pro versions of Session Strings and Session Horns along with a bunch of Symphony Essentials libraries. From what I gather, none of them are top notch, but should be fine for a lot of my stuff, which is why I hadn't jumped at the 8DIO stuff already. Like you said it's probably a case of digging through them and finding the gems in there, as I have stumbled across parts of them that I like. I'm also somewhat considering Musio1 so that's a consideration too.

I really haven't checked out  Audio Imperia, so I'll definitely check them out and the Youtube you shared as well.

I have Collectors Edition so have the full Komplete Symphony Series. I think the brass is extremely underrated. Although CineBrass Core / Pro are my primary brass, I'm still surprised Symphony Brass was received so poorly. There's some excellent patches in both the strings, brass. The percussion I think is absolutely excellent - it's one of the best orchestral percussion libraries for the price IMO. The winds are pretty awful though imo.

About the NI Symphony strings. There's a funny video of a guy comparing the Komplete Symphony Series Strings with Spitfire Symphonic Strings and how similar they are.

 Understand that when it came out, people were specifically shitting on those Komplete strings compared to that specific Spitfire library. It's so funny. I think some people just have to mentally justify the money ($800 for Spitfire Symphonic Strings) they put out for these libraries. The string library was made by Audiobro (LA Scoring Strings, Modern Scoring Strings, Genesis Children's Choir), and the brass were made by SoundIron.

I wouldn't trust impressions of that orchestra library - IMO it's much much much better than people give it credit for.  I've used it a lot, and amazed it came with a Komplete Ultimate CE update.

And for sure - I'd definitely recommend searching "Audio Imperia Nucleus" walkthrough videos. Very very good for the sale price. This is done with Nucleus:

(And sorry to hijack the thread. I actually love a lot of 8Dio libraries!)

Edited November 21, 2023 by Carl Ewing

[PavlovsCat]

11 hours ago, Carl Ewing said:

I have Collectors Edition so have the full Komplete Symphony Series. I think the brass is extremely underrated. Although CineBrass Core / Pro are my primary brass, I'm still surprised Symphony Brass was received so poorly. There's some excellent patches in both the strings, brass. The percussion I think is absolutely excellent - it's one of the best orchestral percussion libraries for the price IMO. The winds are pretty awful though imo.

About the NI Symphony strings. There's a funny video of a guy comparing the Komplete Symphony Series Strings with Spitfire Symphonic Strings and how similar they are.

 Understand that when it came out, people were specifically shitting on those Komplete strings compared to that specific Spitfire library. It's so funny. I think some people just have to mentally justify the money ($800 for Spitfire Symphonic Strings) they put out for these libraries. The string library was made by Audiobro (LA Scoring Strings, Modern Scoring Strings, Genesis Children's Choir), and the brass were made by SoundIron.

I wouldn't trust impressions of that orchestra library - IMO it's much much much better than people give it credit for.  I've used it a lot, and amazed it came with a Komplete Ultimate CE update.

And for sure - I'd definitely recommend searching "Audio Imperia Nucleus" walkthrough videos. Very very good for the sale price. This is done with Nucleus:

(And sorry to hijack the thread. I actually love a lot of 8Dio libraries!)

Carl, I admit, I read your posts and learn a lot about orchestral libraries and I know Kirk Hunter and the 8Dio folks (Troels and Tawnia), but as a musician,  I was trained on piano,  organ,  drums and had a handful of guitar lessons, I know very little about orchestral composition and arranging. Are you a professional or a very advanced hobbyist? 

Edited November 22, 2023 by PavlovsCat

[Carl Ewing]

1 hour ago, PavlovsCat said:

Carl, I admit, I read your posts and learn a lot about orchestral libraries and I own Kirk Hunter and the 8Dio folks (Troels and Tawnia), but as a musician,  I was trained on piano,  organ,  drums and had a handful of guitar lessons, I know very little about orchestral composition and arranging. Are you a professional or a very advanced hobbyist? 

Oh. Professional composer (not using my real name!).  I spend A LOT of time on library searching as I run a mobile system and multiple studio systems, so I have two totally different setups - one that is lightweight (as RAM, CPU, hard disk light as possible) and one that is heavy duty and with no memory, CPU, drive limitations. So I'm always looking for better lightweight libraries, which means trying as much stuff on the market as possible.

This means comparing a lot of cheaper / lighter weight stuff (eg. Audio Imperia, Musio, 8Dio, etc.) against the monsters like Orchestral Tools. There's some surprisingly amazing lightweight libraries that do an excellent job. Audio Imperia I'm especially impressed with right now (I'm a complete fanboi this week) - I've picked up most of the catalog during this sale and endlessly impressed with how small / simple the libraries are considering the immense / quality / versatility of the sound. Really great for fast sketching, or getting a great sound with minimal computer setup. Definitely not as detailed / natural as the big brand stuff (and has a more full / forward sound that perhaps isn't great for intimate tracks...although Nucleus and Solo seem more on the softer side....especially the 'classical' mixes), but really impressed so far.

I wish a colleague of mine was on this forum. He owns literally everything single thing on the market (it seems) and can go on and on about what each is good for.

As a piano player yourself - I recommend another recent purchase: Hammer + Waves. This thing is incredible. I think you can get just the acoustic piano for ~$80 on sale. The sound design patches are possibly better than the acoustic / electric pianos. Insane the sounds that come out of this thing - especially the prepared piano (different library from acoustic) sound design / experimental patches. Just beautiful ambient weird stuff...that sound design engine is wild.

https://www.skyboxaudio.com/collections/complete-bundle-instruments

 

 

 

Edited November 21, 2023 by Carl Ewing

[Yan Filiatrault]

22 minutes ago, Carl Ewing said:

Oh. Professional composer (not using my real name!). 
 

Nice to meet you John Williams!

[PavlovsCat]

1 hour ago, Carl Ewing said:

Oh. Professional composer (not using my real name!).  I spend A LOT of time on library searching as I run a mobile system and multiple studio systems, so I have two totally different setups - one that is lightweight (as RAM, CPU, hard disk light as possible) and one that is heavy duty and with no memory, CPU, drive limitations. So I'm always looking for better lightweight libraries, which means trying as much stuff on the market as possible.

This means comparing a lot of cheaper / lighter weight stuff (eg. Audio Imperia, Musio, 8Dio, etc.) against the monsters like Orchestral Tools. There's some surprisingly amazing lightweight libraries that do an excellent job. Audio Imperia I'm especially impressed with right now (I'm a complete fanboi this week) - I've picked up most of the catalog during this sale and endlessly impressed with how small / simple the libraries are considering the immense / quality / versatility of the sound. Really great for fast sketching, or getting a great sound with minimal computer setup. Definitely not as detailed / natural as the big brand stuff (and has a more full / forward sound that perhaps isn't great for intimate tracks...although Nucleus and Solo seem more on the softer side....especially the 'classical' mixes), but really impressed so far.

I wish a colleague of mine was on this forum. He owns literally everything single thing on the market (it seems) and can go on and on about what each is good for.

As a piano player yourself - I recommend another recent purchase: Hammer + Waves. This thing is incredible. I think you can get just the acoustic piano for ~$80 on sale. The sound design patches are possibly better than the acoustic / electric pianos. Insane the sounds that come out of this thing - especially the prepared piano (different library from acoustic) sound design / experimental patches. Just beautiful ambient weird stuff...that sound design engine is wild.

https://www.skyboxaudio.com/collections/complete-bundle-instruments

 

 

 

Aha, so I was right that you're a pro! It's you Hans, isn't it?!! Kidding. Yeah, I have one library from those Skybox Audio folks and it's the Wurli 145B and it is a beautiful, I'd even say perfect, sample library. One of my absolute favorites.  But I knew from how in depth you've written about sample libraries and music over the years, that it seemed rather obvious that you're a pro. I just wanted confirmation.  It seems like Skybox Audio -- the Hammer + Waves folks are one of those developers that consistently put out incredibly high-quality libraries. I definitely plan on buying more fom them in the future. Thanks for all of the advice, BTW. while I don't have the skill or budget to buy the stuff you own, I have learned from your posts and find your insights and stories interesting. 

P.S. 
To be clear, I had a typo that stated "I own Kirk Hunter." In fact, I've never owned Kirk or even rented Kirk, we're just friends and I've consulted to his company in the past!  I meant to have written, "I'm friends with Kirk Hunter and the 8Dio folks." But to be clear, I really don't know what the heck I'm doing with orchestral sample libraries. 

[kitekrazy1]

14 hours ago, Carl Ewing said:

Actually - scratch my comments about Kontakt Factory Library 2 orchestra. Just spent some time with it. It's not very good and really limited. It's deceiving, because there are a couple spectacular patches (eg. the Cello / string spiccatos are strangely excellent), but it's really just a "hey, here's some basic orchestra patches if you don't already have any".  My recommend would still be Audio Imperia Nucleus, considering the sale price + having strings, brass, winds, choir, percussion + being extremely intuitive / easy to use (meaning less customization) + quality is excellent for $225. And it gives you good crossgrade opportunities for their other products in the future.

It's suppose to be that way.   It's like those $99 guitar packages that came with a guitar, bag, and amp - and labeled made by Fender. It's an amateur package.  I remember first getting into Gigastudio 2.  You basically got the app and some watered down demos.  I couldn't afford any of those libraries and my first one was Kirk Hunter's Diamond and GOS Lite.  I was thrilled when Kontakt 2 came out and bundled with a whole orchestra.  They are basically for amateurs.

[kitekrazy1]

So did anyone upgrade that bombastic orchestra to the new version yet? I think the upgrade to the super duper version is about $50.

[Larry Shelby]

31 minutes ago, kitekrazy said:

So did anyone upgrade that bombastic orchestra to the new version yet? I think the upgrade to the super duper version is about $50.

The Upgrade to Majestica Ultra is $20

Edited November 22, 2023 by cclarry

[Carl Ewing]

9 hours ago, Yan Filiatrault said:

Nice to meet you John Williams!

Even adult entertainment needs symphonies. I can't compete with William's live orchestra though. He wins all the awards.

 

[Carl Ewing]

8 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

Aha, so I was right that you're a pro! It's you Hans, isn't it?!! Kidding. Yeah, I have one library from those Skybox Audio folks and it's the Wurli 145B and it is a beautiful, I'd even say perfect, sample library. One of my absolute favorites.  But I knew from how in depth you've written about sample libraries and music over the years, that it seemed rather obvious that you're a pro. I just wanted confirmation.  It seems like Skybox Audio -- the Hammer + Waves folks are one of those developers that consistently put out incredibly high-quality libraries. I definitely plan on buying more fom them in the future. Thanks for all of the advice, BTW. while I don't have the skill or budget to buy the stuff you own, I have learned from your posts and find your insights and stories interesting. 

P.S. 
To be clear, I had a typo that stated "I own Kirk Hunter." In fact, I've never owned Kirk or even rented Kirk, we're just friends and I've consulted to his company in the past!  I meant to have written, "I'm friends with Kirk Hunter and the 8Dio folks." But to be clear, I really don't know what the heck I'm doing with orchestral sample libraries. 

Seriously - so impressed with this Hammer + Waves stuff. I didn't grab the Wurli 145B yet - but good to know it's also high quality.  Don't know if it's done elsewhere, but they designed a mechanical hand contraption to do all their recordings - basically repeating perfect velocities over and over again for round robins. And there must be a TON of round robins, because there's slight noise in a couple notes, but you have to hit the note at the same velocity like 20 times before you hear it again.

And no worries on the advice. I yammer on a lot. Haha. Glad some info might be useful! I think you've mentioned before you did marketing for some of these companies? I've never used the Kirk Hunter stuff either. Sometimes there's just too much to try out. 

[Carl Ewing]

13 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

Yeah, I have one library from those Skybox Audio folks and it's the Wurli 145B and it is a beautiful, I'd even say perfect, sample library. One of my absolute favorites.  It seems like Skybox Audio -- the Hammer + Waves folks are one of those developers that consistently put out incredibly high-quality libraries. I definitely plan on buying more fom them in the future.

To follow up - ya, this Hammer + Waves collection is one of the best purchases I've ever made. This might the most beautiful keys instrument ever produced. I got the collection (piano, electric piano, chimes and prepared) and spent hours going through presets. It's both an incredible emulation of the core instruments (easily one of the best Suitcase 73 VSTs I've heard - I own a real own, and I could easily sell it now - it's the only emulation to get the random sticking mallets thing right), and absolutely stunning ambient effects machine. I had no idea the effects engine was that powerful. Some of these presets are beyond incredible. Just a gorgeous collection of sounds. 

On the 8Dio front - if you own either Silka or Insolidus, 8Dio will send you an invoice to get the other one for $30. You just have to message them. This Black Friday rules. 

 

 

[PavlovsCat]

@Carl Ewing It cracks me up how just about all of us have the same bad habits of tangents in this forum.  No regular could ever seriously accuse any other regular of going off topic with a straight face. So here we are after our gushing praise of Skybox Audio. Seriously though,  I bought their 145B Wurli after making a thread on Wurlis and two forum members I previously never interacted with persuaded me to check it out. They were right. I suspect you'll love it too. 

Back to 8Dio.  You guys are big into choirs for cinematic use. I do my little covers and re recordings of songs I wrote in the 80s and 90s. It's rock and acoustic piano based singer songwriter stuff. What 8Dio choir libraries would you guys recommend I check out? I've used big choirs in choruses on rock songs. But I really don't know what to look for beyond a library that sounds good to my ears. Are there other factors I should consider? I've noticed that, Carl, you've written about the versatility (I think that was the word, or a synonym of it) of these types of libraries. My style is just to play things. I don't want to edit MIDI. 

I'd love to get some good advice on what to look for. 

Edited November 22, 2023 by PavlovsCat

[Carl Ewing]

1 hour ago, PavlovsCat said:

@Carl Ewing It cracks me up how just about all of us have the same bad habits of tangents in this forum.  No regular could ever seriously accuse any other regular of going off topic with a straight face. So here we are after our gushing praise of Skybox Audio. Seriously though,  I bought their 145B Wurli after making a thread on Wurlis and two forum members I previously never interacted with persuaded me to check it out. They were right. I suspect you'll love it too. 

Back to 8Dio.  You guys are big into choirs for cinematic use. I do my little covers and re recordings of songs I wrote in the 80s and 90s. Their rock and acoustic piano based singer songwriter stuff. What 8Dio choir libraries would you guys recommend I check out? I've used big choirs in choruses on rock songs. But I really don't know what to look for beyond a library that sounds good to my ears. Are there other factors I should consider? I've noticed that, Carl, you've written about the versatility (I think that was the word, or a synonym of it) of these types of libraries. My style is just to play things. I don't want to edit MIDI. 

I'd love to get some good advice on what to look for. 

Although I don't own it - I am specifically looking at Audio Imperia Chorus. This is the "buy it and don't need anything else" choir (for adult choir at least). I've used it before at a colleagues place and it really is the best & easiest to use choir around. However, even on the current sale, it's over $300 (price will depend on if you're a first time customer, or have other products). 

I think for price / quality, 8Dio is still the best. For the cost of Chorus, you could pretty much buy every 8Dio choir - Lacrimosa, Liberis, Requiem Pro (quite old), Silka / Insolidus choir. Which would cover a lot of territory, including children's choir. (Although AudioBro Genesis is the best children's choir around, by a mile.) 

There's also Strevos Choirs - like Chorus, these are workhorse choirs. I don't own them, but they are used extensively in the scoring community. Storm Choir is the big one, but it's also over $300. Then there's the male / female choir splits "Wotan" and "Freyja". I can't comment on these - have never used them, but they are very very popular.

However. What everyone is waiting for right now is the release of Eternity (adult choir). It comes out on Friday. It's made by AudioBro, who also made the Genesis Children's Choir. They haven't listed prices, but the demos on their site make it likely that it'll be like Genesis, and likely be the best choir on the market. I would honestly wait until that's release, see what the price is. However - the AudioBro stuff can be a bit more involved (programming, etc.) so may not be right for you. Although, if it's like Genesis, hitting any note with sound amazing. Ha.

So my recommend is to wait till Friday and see what the Genesis price is, and maybe get some initial impressions. If it's a decent price I'll probably buy it immediately. But with the style you said you're composing in, and needing ease of use, AI Chorus is the one. 100%. It's just pricey.

 

 

Edited November 22, 2023 by Carl Ewing

[PavlovsCat]

Wow,  thanks much for sharing all of that knowledge. For anyone researching choirs your posts are a goldmine of information. 

My budget is tight -- and while your writing for large audiences, my audience is largely my two kids and some friends. The fact that I can even afford pro level choirs as a hobbyist and really don't have much use for them is a nice surprise to me. I know Tawnia from 8Dio and she told me that she was planning on some major price reductions, but didn't tell me any specifics, so while I  had an idea, I didn't know this stuff was going to get discounted this much and it puts libraries I previously considered put out of my price range into my price range. I've really only been using freebie choirs to date. 

So, to your point below regarding the 8Dio libraries having the best price/quality ratio on the market, and considering I'm on a limited budget and rarely use choir libraries and currently just have freebie choirs, I'm going to listen to all of the 8Dio choirs you mentioned, Lacrimosa, Liberis, Requiem Pro, Silka / Insolidus, and pick one or two that I think sound like the best fit for me. Eventually,  I want to get a children's,  men's and women's choir. But I'm also looking at drum and solo cello libraries, which I use incredibly more than choirs, and trying to hold to a fixed budget. 

40 minutes ago, Carl Ewing said:

I think for price / quality, 8Dio is still the best. For the cost of Chorus, you could pretty much buy every 8Dio choir - Lacrimosa, Liberis, Requiem Pro (quite old), Silka / Insolidus choir. Which would cover a lot of territory, including children's choir.

 

Edited November 22, 2023 by PavlovsCat

[Carl Ewing]

14 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

Wow,  thanks much for sharing all of that knowledge. For anyone researching choirs your posts are a goldmine of information. 

My budget is tight -- and while your writing for large audiences, my audience is largely my two kids and some friends. The fact that I can even afford pro level choirs as a hobbyist and really don't have much use for them is a nice surprise to me. I know Tawnia from 8Dio and she told me that she was planning on some major price reductions, but didn't tell me any specifics, so while I  had an idea, I didn't know this stuff was going to get discounted this much and it puts libraries I previously considered put out of my price range into my price range. I've really only been using freebie choirs to date. 

So, to your point below regarding the 8Dio libraries having the best price/quality ratio on the market, and considering I'm on a limited budget and rarely use choir libraries and currently just have freebie choirs, I'm going to listen to all of the 8Dio choirs you mentioned, Lacrimosa, Liberis, Requiem Pro, Silka / Insolidus, and pick one or two that I think sound like the best fit for me. Eventually,  I want to get a children's,  men's and women's choir. But I'm also looking at drum and solo cello libraries, which I use incredibly more than choirs, and trying to hold to a fixed budget. 

 

I was thinking - if you're on a super budget, there's also Musio subcription - which currently has 3 months basically for free - so $90 for the year. That has the Voxos Choir. It also has all the solo instruments from CineStrings, CineBrass, CineWinds + decidicated solo strings like the Tina Guo Acoustic Cello, and Taylor Davis solo violin, and a few others.

Voxos is fairly basic compared to other options, but it's definitely useful.  Honestly, Musio sounds way better for what you're looking for, because it's so cheap for a year, and gives you pretty much all the content you're looking for.

[kitekrazy1]

14 hours ago, cclarry said:

The Upgrade to Majestica Ultra is $20

So who has it?  I'm trying to keep this back on topic sort of.

[PavlovsCat]

2 hours ago, Carl Ewing said:

I was thinking - if you're on a super budget, there's also Musio subcription - which currently has 3 months basically for free - so $90 for the year. That has the Voxos Choir. It also has all the solo instruments from CineStrings, CineBrass, CineWinds + decidicated solo strings like the Tina Guo Acoustic Cello, and Taylor Davis solo violin, and a few others.

Voxos is fairly basic compared to other options, but it's definitely useful.  Honestly, Musio sounds way better for what you're looking for, because it's so cheap for a year, and gives you pretty much all the content you're looking for.

I have contemplated Musio, but, as cheap as Musio's promo pricing is, I don't find subscriptions are a good choice for me as a hobbyist. Add to that -- and I don't want to get into specifics -- but I've heard that Musio isn't selling very well. Consequently, I do question its future. To succeed Cinesamples is going to have to sell to A LOT of millennials on up, and hobbyists in those demographic groups are incredibly resistant to software subscriptions. I was recently reviewing some related studies. B2B/pros love subscriptions because they fit with the way businesses operate, while consumers feel very differently about subscriptions (note that Gen Y is significantly more receptive to software subscriptions than older generations). I posted in this forum that Waves and another developer would fail with their subscription-only services right after they introduced them and I received some pretty harsh criticism for it only to be proven right within a very short period -- but it was not exactly a giant leap to make. Anyone who knows the research and especially strategists, realize that making software subscriptions work with consumers is a significant challenge. So, it came as no surprise that both companies soon pulled that strategy. I do think that there is a way to succeed and eventually we'll see more developers in this space succeeding. Although I'm not certain if Cinesamples is on the path to success with the subscription model. Time will tell.

But that issue aside. If we only focus on Musio -- and not the question of whether or not the service will be around in a year or two -- the reason it's not a fit for me is very simple and practical. Right now, Musio is doing promotional pricing to get as many consumers aboard as they can get with this service in order to make it viable. 90 bucks is certainly a very appealing price for their libraries. But that is Cinesamples heavily discounted promo pricing that ends Dec 31, 2023. Musio is not going to renew at anything close to that price. It will be renewing at an amount that is a multiple of that price -- I would guess that is Musio survives 2024 and renews it would be at $299 - $399 per yr. 

299 or $399 per yr is far beyond what I want to spend to rent sample libraries.  And renting sample libraries for a yr leaves me with a future problem. Let's say that I use 40 Musio libraries in 5 dozen projects that I never completed over the course of the year that I had my subscription.  After my subscription ends I will be facing have to replace all of those libraries in 5 dozen projects and likely having to play or edit those parts over again with the sample libraries I replace them with. It's going to be a massive PIA. And that is the reason why I don't bite on a price that otherwise seems fantastic. 

Edited November 22, 2023 by PavlovsCat

[Carl Ewing]

2 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

I have contemplated Musio, but, as cheap as Musio's promo pricing is, I don't find subscriptions are a good choice for me as a hobbyist. Add to that -- and I don't want to get into specifics -- but I've heard that Musio isn't selling very well. Consequently, I do question its future. To succeed Cinesamples is going to have to sell to A LOT of millennials on up, and hobbyists in those demographic groups are incredibly resistant to software subscriptions. I was recently reviewing some related studies. B2B/pros love subscriptions because they fit with the way businesses operate, while consumers feel very differently about subscriptions (note that Gen Y is significantly more receptive to software subscriptions than older generations). I posted in this forum that Waves and another developer would fail with their subscription-only services right after they introduced them and I received some pretty harsh criticism for it only to be proven right within a very short period -- but it was not exactly a giant leap to make. Anyone who knows the research and especially strategists, realize that making software subscriptions work with consumers is a significant challenge. So, it came as no surprise that both companies soon pulled that strategy. I do think that there is a way to succeed and eventually we'll see more developers in this space succeeding. Although I'm not certain if Cinesamples is on the path to success with the subscription model. Time will tell.

But that issue aside. If we only focus on Musio -- and not the question of whether or not the service will be around in a year or two -- the reason it's not a fit for me is very simple and practical. Right now, Musio is doing promotional pricing to get as many consumers aboard as they can get with this service in order to make it viable. 90 bucks is certainly a very appealing price for their libraries. But that is Cinesamples heavily discounted promo pricing that ends Dec 31, 2023. Musio is not going to renew at anything close to that price. It will be renewing at an amount that is a multiple of that price -- I would guess that is Musio survives 2024 and renews it would be at $299 - $399 per yr. 

299 or $399 per yr is far beyond what I want to spend to rent sample libraries.  And renting sample libraries for a yr leaves me with a future problem. Let's say that I use 40 Musio libraries in 5 dozen projects that I never completed over the course of the year that I had my subscription.  After my subscription ends I will be facing have to replace all of those libraries in 5 dozen projects and likely having to play or edit those parts over again with the sample libraries I replace them with. It's going to be a massive PIA. And that is the reason why I don't bite on a price that otherwise seems fantastic. 

I'll have to entirely disagree with you on subscriptions. What you're saying defies every single business metric on the subscription economy globally. Subscriptions are growing in every single industry across the board. And that's not going to stop. What will happen in audio is what happens in every other industry - some subscriptions will succeed, some will fail. But they'll be around forever. The problem with subscriptions in casual talk is that every single subscription ever launched since and including Adobe's Creative Cloud was deemed "a total failure" and "will never work". There's is always, and I mean, every single time, the statements "i've heard it's not selling well". This was tried with publicly traded companies (Adobe, Spotify, Netflix, Disney, AMC, etc.) but the quartlery reports showed the opposite.

For private companies, we have no data to rely on, so it's rather meaningless to speculate. Time will tell. But there are few audio companies that have launched subscriptions and then abandoned them - and all of them have expanded content every year. Arcade, Plugin Alliance, Composer Cloud, Splice, Loopcloud, etc. are extremely popular globally. I see them in every single studio I go in, without exception. There are now a mainstay of the industry, and now baked into the budgets and workflow of thousands of commercial studios. (Musio will be no different. ) These corporations are not going to suddenly shut down these services to these studios / artists - it would make no business sense, since subscriptions are far cheaper to service (and easier to market) than a catalog of individual items, have far simpler infrastructure with low overhead and predictable monthly / annual revenue, and a massive paying customer base. I do agree having both options - subscription and traditional purchasing options are ideal - but depending on marketshare, that isn't always the case (see Adobe). 

I've had the subscription argument a thousand times. I always say "liking them is irrelevant - it all comes down to metrics". It's either working or it isn't. Everyone says they hate subscriptions (not realizing they are no different than what's been around for 100+ years with newspapers, gyms, cable packages). They are nothing new. And the hate clearly doesn't translate to reality, considering the largest corporations in almost every industry (Amazon, Adobe, Netflix, Spotify, Apple, Microsoft, etc.) all use them, and earn enormous revenue from them year after year. The subscription economy is projected to hit (and is ahead of projections) to hit 2 Trillion in 2025. Almost every single industry now relies on them - and they are more popular with young people than old. It would be virtually impossible to tell an 18 year old aspiring producer today that "we're shutting down Splice and Loopcloud and you'll start buying individual loop packs like we did in the 90s at $20 a pop, mostly filled with crap you don't want.". That's never going to happen again.

I'm sure we'll agree to disagree. But I still think, Musio for $90, to try out the whole catalog is totally worth it, even if it's abandoned in the future. I honestly would have saved 1000s of dollars having a subscription for Spitfire Audio - I would not have bought half the stuff I own had I actually tried it out first. And so much stuff I've bought from them has now been abandoned. It's what I like about Composer Cloud. I once spent over $2000 on East West's Platinum Orchestra, Ra, Storm Drum 1 & 2, the original choirs library, etc. many years ago. All of those libraries got replaced within 5 years - they were all risky purchases, and all eventually required paid updates to Player edition for compatability. (None of them will even run in Kontakt anymore because they can't be authorized. Although they may have fixed that. Doesn't matter, I don't use them anymore. Although the Opus editions are MUCH better, and make those libraries more useable.). So it's $2000 down the drain. $2000 is 10 years of Composer Cloud at my locked in rate (on year 5 I think)...where I get the entire catalog, only install what I like, get new stuff to replace old stuff over time. And all libraries are getting ported to Opus player, which I don't have to worry about. This is why I like subscriptions. 

EDIT: As a note - I would like subscriptions less if I could try all of this stuff before I bought it. But after 20 years, I get tired of "buy and pray" with every purchase. I love being able to install an entire company's catalog and find the stuff I like and delete everything else (and potentially buy what I like later). It honestly saves so much money and stress in the long run.

Edited November 22, 2023 by Carl Ewing

[BTP]

2 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

Musio is not going to renew at anything close to that price. It will be renewing at an amount that is a multiple of that price -- I would guess that is Musio survives 2024 and renews it would be at $299 - $399 per yr. 

They've talked about the pricing on live streams and they basically promised the price is going to stay the same. I get an impression they're doing fine financially and while it might be true that they've not sold a lot of perpetual Musios they have a lot of subscriptions already.

https://www.youtube.com/live/T-sAOFY68UI?si=0T936yupilsaHUNv&t=1425

[PavlovsCat]

11 hours ago, Carl Ewing said:

I'll have to entirely disagree with you on subscriptions. What you're saying defies every single business metric on the subscription economy globally. Subscriptions are growing in every single industry across the board. And that's not going to stop. What will happen in audio is what happens in every other industry - some subscriptions will succeed, some will fail. But they'll be around forever. The problem with subscriptions in casual talk is that every single subscription ever launched since and including Adobe's Creative Cloud was deemed "a total failure" and "will never work". There's is always, and I mean, every single time, the statements "i've heard it's not selling well". This was tried with publicly traded companies (Adobe, Spotify, Netflix, Disney, AMC, etc.) but the quartlery reports showed the opposite.

For private companies, we have no data to rely on, so it's rather meaningless to speculate. Time will tell. But there are few audio companies that have launched subscriptions and then abandoned them - and all of them have expanded content every year. Arcade, Plugin Alliance, Composer Cloud, Splice, Loopcloud, etc. are extremely popular globally. I see them in every single studio I go in, without exception. There are now a mainstay of the industry, and now baked into the budgets and workflow of thousands of commercial studios. (Musio will be no different. ) These corporations are not going to suddenly shut down these services to these studios / artists - it would make no business sense, since subscriptions are far cheaper to service (and easier to market) than a catalog of individual items, have far simpler infrastructure with low overhead and predictable monthly / annual revenue, and a massive paying customer base. I do agree having both options - subscription and traditional purchasing options are ideal - but depending on marketshare, that isn't always the case (see Adobe). 

I've had the subscription argument a thousand times. I always say "liking them is irrelevant - it all comes down to metrics". It's either working or it isn't. Everyone says they hate subscriptions (not realizing they are no different than what's been around for 100+ years with newspapers, gyms, cable packages). They are nothing new. And the hate clearly doesn't translate to reality, considering the largest corporations in almost every industry (Amazon, Adobe, Netflix, Spotify, Apple, Microsoft, etc.) all use them, and earn enormous revenue from them year after year. The subscription economy is projected to hit (and is ahead of projections) to hit 2 Trillion in 2025. Almost every single industry now relies on them - and they are more popular with young people than old. It would be virtually impossible to tell an 18 year old aspiring producer today that "we're shutting down Splice and Loopcloud and you'll start buying individual loop packs like we did in the 90s at $20 a pop, mostly filled with crap you don't want.". That's never going to happen again.

I'm sure we'll agree to disagree. But I still think, Musio for $90, to try out the whole catalog is totally worth it, even if it's abandoned in the future. I honestly would have saved 1000s of dollars having a subscription for Spitfire Audio - I would not have bought half the stuff I own had I actually tried it out first. And so much stuff I've bought from them has now been abandoned. It's what I like about Composer Cloud. I once spent over $2000 on East West's Platinum Orchestra, Ra, Storm Drum 1 & 2, the original choirs library, etc. many years ago. All of those libraries got replaced within 5 years - they were all risky purchases, and all eventually required paid updates to Player edition for compatability. (None of them will even run in Kontakt anymore because they can't be authorized). So it's 2000 down the drain. $2000 is 10 years of Composer Cloud...where I get the entire catalog, only install what I like, get new stuff to replace old stuff over time. And all libraries are getting ported to Opus player, which I don't have to worry about. This is why I like subscriptions.

Carl, you're a pro and every study I can recall ever seeing on software subscriptions has found that professionals (or B2B) feel completely different -- opposite -- from the average consumer when it comes to software subscriptions.I don't have that recent study at hand, but it's a third-party study focusing on consumers and the subscription software model (if I find it, I'll update this post later). I believe it found that millennial consumers on up have a mental limit of two or three software subscriptions. As you go up in the generation groups to Gen X and Boomers, they're far more resistant to software subscriptions. As I wrote previously, Gen Z sees this stuff very differently.  I'm pretty certain that the majority of Adobe's 12 million subscribers are business users. But that's not say that studies and real-life successes don't exist in the consumer world for the subscriber model for software and in the sample library world they're pretty rare.  I think we're seeing what appear to be B2C successes (I don't have access to these company's balance sheets) like LoopCloud largely due to their having a younger demographic than the multisample market. 

My company, a dot com, has a good deal of software subscriptions and as a business person, I like software subscriptions.  As a consumer, I have, I think 4 streaming service subscriptions in addition to cable TV.  But for my music hobby -- and I realize that I reflect my demographic (I'm in my 50s) -- I'm very resistant to subscriptions for my DAW and sample libraries for the reasons I mentioned earlier. If Cakewalk goes subscription only, I'll switch to another DAW. That mindset is pretty typical of consumers age 40 and up. Composer Cloud appears to be successful. FTR, I hope that Musio succeeds, I think it would be good for sample buyers, as it will help to bring done prices even for those of us buying perpetual licenses.  But Loopcloud and Splice are aiming at a younger demographic than Musio, one that isn't so resistant to the subscription model. Multisample developers like Cinesamples are trying to do what Composer Cloud does, but you obviously need a pretty extensive product portfolio. Perhaps Cinesamples has it. If not, they can always look into bringing in third-party developers, but of course, that will mean higher subscription fees.  

In any event, I really enjoy our conversations and thanks so much for all of the knowledge you've shared with me and the community in this thread. I appreciate it. 

Edited November 23, 2023 by PavlovsCat