8DIO NEW RELEASE! ? Introducing Opera Soprano Maria

[Larry Shelby]

$40 - requires FullKontakt

https://8dio.com/products/studio-vocals-operatic-soprano?variant=42568615624904

[PavlovsCat]

Interesting. I'm friends with 8Dio's CEO, and she's very passionate that sample library prices as a whole are too high and need to come down, largely due to the 8+% CAGR for the market, and the maturity of the market. Basically, there is a large enough amount of buyers in the market that developers can afford to price libraries lower, as production costs can be spread among the larger group, whereas in the past, developers have looked to smaller numbers of sales to get to the break even point. Of course, that makes high quality sample libraries more accessible, putting them in more hands, instead of charging more money to get higher profit margins out of a small group of customers as has been the historical practice -- and one that a lot of sample library developers don't want to abandon, because it's been the path to high profitability and fast ROI.  But we've never discussed any specific new releases, and, as a hobbyist musician, seeing a new 8Dio library released at this low of a price point is pretty exciting (I've been a customer for far more than a decade). The pricing has inspired some competitors to go into attack mode, making defamatory attacks instead of using traditional, ethical marketing strategies in response to 8Dio's past sales. I anticipate that this could end up unintentionally inspiring a new round of attacks. 

Consider how far prices have come down from effects plugin developers like UAD, Waves, Izotope and other leaders in the past few years. A lot of us -- including me -- have picked up effects plugins from high end developers we never be a consideration only 5 years ago due to prices being far out of our range. But in the past couple of years, you could pick up a native UAD plugin on sale for $29 US that has historically been selling for $30 US. Then look at what sample developers like NI, 8Dio, and Cinesamples (with Musio) have been doing. CineSamples created their Musio line and is selling some of their superb sample libraries like Tina Guo Cello and Piano in Blue for a small fraction of what they cost a couple of years ago (or what they still cost in the KONTAKT format).  NI is discounting at unprecedented levels. They previously held to a 50% deep discounting maximum, but last year, they discounted their own sample libraries and third-party sample libraries more than 70%. Their Alicia's Keys acoustic piano library that lists at $100 US is now on sale at Plugin Boutique for $13 US. 

I have spoken with a number of sample developers about this trend and they're all, rightfully, paying attention to what's going on. and thinking about their pricing and questioning if they too should be adjusting their pricing, contemplating what they might do and how it all might work if they do lower prices. Of course, it means that they're going to have sell more licenses to make the same profits if they're going to cut their profit margins tighter.  So, a lot of them are apprehensive. If enough competitors follow this "race to the bottom" as one competitor puts it in long, defamatory attack rants made on another forum, they're not going to be able to maintain their current high prices for their product lines. As a hobbyist musician on a tight budget, I love seeing prices come down dramatically. I want it to catch on for my own sake and for others. I want sample libraries -- and music creation as a whole -- to be more accessible to everyone, but especially to those who simply cannot afford current prices. The idealist in me would LOVE to see music creation to be accessible to everyone (no exceptions). This clearly isn't that ideal, but it is a lot closer than we've been in the past. It's actually a BFD and represents far more than one developer doing low pricing and that is what worries some competitors, but should excite all buyers of sample libraries. 

Edited March 6 by PavlovsCat