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SPINOFF - Musio viability and the current state of samplers and the sample library business

Mike Greene said:
That was Plan A. Before launch, they approached a number of us to see if we'd be interested in "making some extra money" by porting libraries, or subsets of libraries, to the new player they were working on. I don't think they got any takers, because speaking for myself, it's not worth taking time away from what I'm already working on, just to make a fairly small amount of extra cash.

And as Danish Becker & Fagen said, Musio is a fairly basic rompler, so there wouldn't be any fun in doing it. I guess I could spin off some RealiDrums sounds into a drum pack, but what would that sell for? $20 maybe? So my cut would probably be $10. Sample Development Lesson 1: You're not gonna get rich $10 at a time. ;)

Not to sound like a vulture, but if Mike P gets to a point where he needs to pull the plug (pure speculation, but "if"), he could definitely sell. It would be bought for the tech and for the properties, though, not for the "business." Like what corporate raiders do, where they don't really want the company, they just want the pieces of it, which are worth more than the whole.

For instance, Musio is a working sampler (rudimentary or otherwise), so that alone is worth some money, even if only to be step 1 for the custom sampler a few of us were thinking of building. And then, speaking for myself (cocky mofo that I am), I'd love to take a crack at re-packaging their orchestral samples into my own version (on Kontakt) of how I think they should be done. (That's not to say my version would be better, mind you, it's just fun to think about.)
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Yes! RealiMusio! I’d dig that. But you’d actually have to start hiring a programming crew at that point though, no? Otherwise RealiCineBrass releasing in 2033? 😄

But seriously if all their samples/mics could be better programmed and real features added that would be ideal. To me Sony stage and those samples are THE classic Hollywood sound. If I had serious money I would find out about buying that stage in Culver City. Seems like it’s not used as much as it use to be.
 
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X-Bassist said:
I forgot about Hise! Surprised David didn’t chime in (maybe he’s off on holiday). He was big on Hise a few years ago. Did that wane? I looked into it then, wonder how David and Hise are now?
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That discussion has been held quite a bit, I think all participants are tired at this point ;)
Tl;dr, there is a disagreement on a lot of the details, like licensing etc.
 
Meh, uJam only wants to work with people who already have sizable investments and userbases so I wouldn't say Gorilla engine is 'open'.
 
mbishop said:
TBH, it would be a relief for me if products only had one (reasonable) price and didn't go on sale. Love indiginus for that reason. I wonder sometimes if the non-sale price is higher than it would actually need to be if it never went on sale. I'm only speculating because I have zero-knowledge about any of this.
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Or sales that wouldn't get more than 20-25% off the full price.
Henrik B. Jensen said:
I’ve been thinking of something similar to crowdfunding:

Let’s say Spitfire could still record in Maida Vale.

What if there are enough people out there who are willing to pay X dollars in advance to have an additional layer sampled for these-and-these instruments in BBCSO?
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So, something similar to how they (Spitfire) started. Would you suggest that said "bespoke" extra content be kept exclusive to the partners who finance it?
thesteelydane said:
Exactly. To ad an example of my own, Sticks & Stones which I just released is a super niche product, but a cool one nonetheless, so I priced it at intro $19 to make up for that. But even at that price I made less than 2k in profit and it took a month of full time work to make - I have only sold 1 copy at the still reasonable full price of $29 since then, so I consider it pretty much a dead product now, we all know libraries sell almost all they’re going to ever sell at launch. For the hours I put in, I would have made more than 2k flipping burgers.

The end result is that I won’t be making any more experimental, niche products any time soon, unless it’s something I can do in a couple of days. It’s just not worth it, and that’s a shame for everyone.
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To make an analogy with games, indie devs tend to have a higher reach and sell more when they place their games in bundles. There are multiple types of bundles: 1) bundles with all the games from a certain company (i.e., the Nihon Falcom Bundle), 2) bundles with follow an specific characteristic (there are multiple "Roguelike", "RPG", etc... bundle), as well as 3) bundles for specific events and seasonal Easter, Christmas, Halloween, etc) bundles.

The ones in the first category help when users want certain games from a company, but still consider they don't get enough from their money with the original price.

The ones in the second category help extending the reach of other games. If a relatively popular game is in a bundle, it will boost the sales of the entire bundle, and will help people discover the rest of the titles.

And the seasonal bundles are a good substitute of the isolated sales devs can set up by themselves, but get more visibility.
nolotrippen said:
I'm thinking more consolidation, like Impact/RedRoom
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Or like how Agricultural Cooperatives work in Western Europe. Farmers do the work on their lands (or leased lands) and then deliver the product to the cooperative (in some cases, such as with olive oil, the product is divided into different categories depending on it quality, with different prices), who then sells the product to distributors and wholesalers. And the farmers get paid based in the quantity and quality of the product, albeit not in a perfectly individualistic account (because those categories still tend to have some broad definitions), and because they tend to sell futures with little margin to maneuver, so a major inbalance in the economy can affect the income. One such example is the current situation with the inflation and the Ukraine War (with Europe having lost one of its major providers of grain and sunflower oil), which has caused the prices to soar, yet the cooperatives fixed prices with the distributors have resulted in a severe decrease of profits (if not incurring in losses) for farmers.

Because cooperatives see through thousands of tons (if not millions) of the product, they have more negotiation power with the wholesalers and the other distributors than each separate small farmer, and the overhead costs are way smaller. Going back to the topic of oil, if cooperatives didn't exist, each farmer would require to have very expensive equipment to press the olives, or deliver the olives to a press, paid them, and then retrieve the oil.
Guy Rowland said:
is to open up to third party devs
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Didn't Cinesamples also distribute some third-party libraries in the beginning of their career? Continuum Guitars and Rio Grooves.
 
Francisco Relaño Peña said:
Or sales that wouldn't get more than 20-25% off the full price.

So, something similar to how they (Spitfire) started. Would you suggest that said "bespoke" extra content be kept exclusive to the partners who finance it?

To make an analogy with games, indie devs tend to have a higher reach and sell more when they place their games in bundles. There are multiple types of bundles: 1) bundles with all the games from a certain company (i.e., the Nihon Falcom Bundle), 2) bundles with follow an specific characteristic (there are multiple "Roguelike", "RPG", etc... bundle), as well as 3) bundles for specific events and seasonal Easter, Christmas, Halloween, etc) bundles.

The ones in the first category help when users want certain games from a company, but still consider they don't get enough from their money with the original price.

The ones in the second category help extending the reach of other games. If a relatively popular game is in a bundle, it will boost the sales of the entire bundle, and will help people discover the rest of the titles.

And the seasonal bundles are a good substitute of the isolated sales devs can set up by themselves, but get more visibility.

Or like how Agricultural Cooperatives work in Western Europe. Farmers do the work on their lands (or leased lands) and then deliver the product to the cooperative (in some cases, such as with olive oil, the product is divided into different categories depending on it quality, with different prices), who then sells the product to distributors and wholesalers. And the farmers get paid based in the quantity and quality of the product, albeit not in a perfectly individualistic account (because those categories still tend to have some broad definitions), and because they tend to sell futures with little margin to maneuver, so a major inbalance in the economy can affect the income. One such example is the current situation with the inflation and the Ukraine War (with Europe having lost one of its major providers of grain and sunflower oil), which has caused the prices to soar, yet the cooperatives fixed prices with the distributors have resulted in a severe decrease of profits (if not incurring in losses) for farmers.

Because cooperatives see through thousands of tons (if not millions) of the product, they have more negotiation power with the wholesalers and the other distributors than each separate small farmer, and the overhead costs are way smaller. Going back to the topic of oil, if cooperatives didn't exist, each farmer would require to have very expensive equipment to press the olives, or deliver the olives to a press, paid them, and then retrieve the oil.

Didn't Cinesamples also distribute some third-party libraries in the beginning of their career? Continuum Guitars and Rio Grooves.
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I didn’t think that far 🙂
 
doctoremmet said:
Personally, as an engine, I hugely prefer Soundpaint.

Sample import: check. Great timestretching: check. Ability to mix and match any and all samples across all owned and imported libraries into one’s own patches: check. Ability to easily create one’s own keyswitches: check. Multi mic: check.

All of this is mostly ignored on VI-C for what are no doubt great reasons. But strictly from a functionality standpoint it keeps getting better and better. The content is too.

My absolute number one sample playback engine is VSL’s Synchron Player. But I sure wish they’d adopt the “mix and match any samples you may have licensed from us in your own patches” paradigm that Soundpaint brought us. It deserves praise.
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How about Omnisphere? If only Spectrasonics would allow users to import their own multisamples instead of crippling user-generated patches with the one-sample limitation, it would be a super powerful Kontakt alternative.
 
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I think one obvious factor is general trends in musical styles. Compared to twenty years ago, a large portion of music creators are now not working in genres or styles that are characterized by the use of acoustic instruments. Thus they don’t need or want deeply multi-sampled acoustic instruments. From my understanding, the most successful virtual instrument of the last ten years is Xfer’s Serum.
 
Does anyone remember the huge Samples From Mars sale - happened one xmas a few years back? I think that really changed the industry a bit.

(Not blaming or being mean here - BTW - people react to whatever situation they find themselves in at the time - I don't think this was a planned thing. Not making value judgements! Big fan of Samples From Mars!)

Anyways, one Xmas, Samples From Mars just said screw it - you can buy all my stuff for like 30 bucks or something. The whole enchilada. It was such a crazy good deal that everyone bought it... and the timing was good also. I think Sample From Mars made a whole boatload of money from that. And a lot of people in the business took notice also - a huge cash injection, sell all the catalogue. A true sales #hmb #YOLO if you will haha.

So here we are a few years later and a few companies have tried that model I think, for better or for worse... As I say not making value judgements here. Just noting that for me that seemed to be a bit of a siesmic event in the business, and one that maybe didn't seem so at the time.
 
Musio viability I don’t know specifically, but sample library business seems very much driven by passion, so I doubt economy will ever be a show stopper. The biggest might suffer the hardest losses if they depend on scale.

The big issue now is the circumstances around paying creatives what we are due. I see many lose interest in music due to the AI invasion (pros and hobbyists alike), the demonetization of streaming, the increased expenses of live touring, the increased prices on gear, the shut down of live venues, the constant pressure to spend time on SoMe content, the decline of media demand, and the lack of recognition and support from policy makers. Sort of a perfect storm of events.

So the sample library business will likely also take a hit from all of this. The whole music business is shrinking as I see it. It’s just not sustainable to work in for as many as before.
 
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Draco Solis said:
I'll be honest, I find the pricing for the CS series a bit insulting. Not because of how they're priced, mind you, but because it's marketed as being "very affordable." I believe it's perfectly fine if the creator feels that these libraries are worth that amount of money and not a penny less. But if $400 for one section is "very affordable" to you, you live a very comfortable life.
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Not so long ago a string section would cost you €/$ ~1000-1400. In this context Cinematic Studio was affordable at the cost of reducing the amount of articulations to a minimum.

A few years later and people start complains that this is not affordable and an insult. That only shows how much pressure on orchestral sample libraries is in the market, that professional libraries were devalued, not only existing but also new once. The industry is in decline, I rest my case ;)
 
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Draco Solis said:
I'll be honest, I find the pricing for the CS series a bit insulting. Not because of how they're priced, mind you, but because it's marketed as being "very affordable." I believe it's perfectly fine if the creator feels that these libraries are worth that amount of money and not a penny less. But if $400 for one section is "very affordable" to you, you live a very comfortable life.
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You have to think about when this came out. $400 was basically free, especially for a halfway-decent section library. It single-handedly redefined what a section library 'should' cost.
 
Draco Solis said:
I'm only gonna reply to this point as I think your other two are perfectly fair and valid takes on it. But for cheaper libraries or all-in-ones, the thing is that there's also very few of them
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Hm, imo every all-in-one under ~800€/$ is a great starting point if it fits your taste. Not saying these are all beginners libraries, some were quite expensive in past.
On the premium side Berlin Orchestra, BBCSO, SSO, VSL Prime Edition.
On the cheaper side BBCSO Discovery, everything 8dio during sale, HOOPUS, Kontakt + Factory Library 1/2, VSL SYNCHRON-ized Special Editions, VSL Synchron Smart Orchestra.

And I probably forgot other offerings that are a great starting point.

Take alone the SYNCHRON-ized SE 1, without sale 300 bucks including solo strings, orchestral strings, harp, all most commonly used woodwinds and brass instruments, brass ensembles, a super high quality piano that alone is worth the price (Synchron Concert D Lite), as well as tons of percussion. And during a sale it costs around 200€/$ (over 40 instruments / sections included!).
If the sound is too classical for you you can safe up a bit more and go for the Prime Edition which also has an incredible value at that price point and might be in sale soon, who knows. And at least for our offerings you get upgrade paths to the larger libraries, making it easier to buy the big libraries part by part while starting with a great all-in-one. And most other companies offer something similar.
 
Mistro said:
I don't understand why a product that costs 100s of dollars is hidden behind a veil with no try before buying option. It's a huge risk for someone who have to save up for a while to buy a library they are interested in but have no idea what kind of experience they will have once they get it. Feels a bit predatory. I lost $200 because of this.
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The #1 reason is that the majority of developers use Kontakt, and there is no practical way to do a "try before you buy" model with Kontakt unless you create an independent free version, which costs more money to encode, develop, and maintain, and will necessarily be more limited than the free version.

I would love if we could give people 14-day trial access to our Kontakt instruments. That would be great. It's just not possible.

In our case, for our plugins such as our amp sim and tape emulation, we DO offer free trials that just have light periodic noise. So when it's possible to do it, we do.
 
It's not really clear to me what this is all about, but if Musio/Cinesamples is in some kind of trouble, I hope there will be a way to keep having access to the libraries. Should I buy lifetime instead of a sub?

I'd just like to say I'm happy with Musio. As someone who has recently started with production music, Musio was a great opportunity to have easy access to lots of quality samples for just $ 9,99 a month. All in one place, simple and clean, without depending on heavy and expensive Kontakt libraries.
I had some issues with Musio at the start, but it has received lots of updates and improvements and now works just fine for my purposes.
I realize it may not be suitable for advanced orchestral composers who require more flexibility from their instruments, but as a basic, extensive library for music that isn't too demanding, it's just perfect.
 
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