What's it worth? Selling VST or giving them away

Hlis93 · 18 Nov 2007

After reading these two thread again, I think I'll have to just give the stuff away as freeware. I don't have the time or patience to really do all this protection stuff or worry if it is being cracked...assuming anybody would even bother with my crap much less pay for it. Hosting it is expensive. Whole things seems like waste of time for me now that I'm here, the only benefit is personal sense of, "I did this..." on my own, but who really gives a shit, I think very few people care who made it unless you have made your name on some commercial product by a corperation like TC Electronics or NI. And freeware doesn't really convince my wife when I want to buy more stuff like Maya for a hobby, guess thats the breaks though. No one is happy if they get pirated, only the thieves. To bad I am an honest person, there is a lot of stuff I don't have. Guess some don't feel honestly is best, perhaps I'm just not up with the times, still suffering a hangover from my christain upbringing.

I'll post it on the forum and be lost in the numerous pages of post, but thats alright. LOL...big visions equal small results in the real world.

Its very hard to really do anything on the development end, even if thats just means making things that people may find user friendly as is my case. Especailly if you would like to make a few sheckles now and then, not so much for a paycheck just as a means of saying to one's self they aren't wasting their time and have a couple of buck to buy some Mountain Dew when I'm getting drowsy at the computer or go out for a few hours when Photoshop has me climbing the walls.

[old link]

Curse You people cracking software!!!

TomC · 18 Nov 2007

Just some random thoughts:

Hlis93 wrote: After reading these two thread again, I think I'll have to just give the stuff away as freeware. I don't have the time or patience to really do all this protection stuff or worry if it is being cracked...assuming anybody would even bother with my crap much less pay for it.

Wrong assumption!

From an economical point of view you just need a basic copy protection so Joe Average (who HAS paid for it) doesn't make copies for his buddies.

There WILL be cracks for your copy protection scheme, so it wouldn't male economical sense to invest more time and/or money for the protection as for the product itself.

Hosting it is expensive.

Hey, where have you been the last couple of years? Besides ebay there are several sites who offer complete stores (including the credit card/paypal handling) for small money. Put the data files itself on a different server and you're there for less then

Hlis93 · 18 Nov 2007

I think I sound a lot more downbeat then I intended. I took a quick peek at the site you posted, will look into this afternoon.

Some of the sites I looked into cost around 30 US or so a month, for my wallet right now that would be very expensive.

I'm not considering it as a profession or anything like that. I have my life and I know what is possible outside of it. This is a hobby for me. I think this is perhaps part of my fustration, how far does one take a hobby. Secondly, like you said you are a programmer, at least this is partly in the domain of where your expertise is...for me, I'm homecare for my kids and hang wallpaper on the side (although that doesn't mean that someone else who does this couldn't also be an great programmer). I get to peek into some of the stuff that people create and yes, I think they should sell that it amazing stuff and their hard work should be protected.

I don't really feel that the effort is really worth it for me, I do very basic stuff anyway, there isn't anything very impressive that needs to be protected in what I do, not yet at least...I should leave room for improvment. I think that is what my second post is trying to get at. As some one said in other thread people do see software as like the see a car or something. I think intellectual property is a hard thing to convince people of when it comes to software. My bother in law for example makes his living by working with computers, steal all the software he uses. Has never paid for anything but the computer.

But in the end, I agree with the real gem is that I have something I use.

Hlis93 · 18 Nov 2007

I gave it some more thought, I am thinking donations might be the best approach. I think it Jobro that said they have a button that link them to a place they can do this. This to me seems reasonable, it up the user to donate if they like what you are doing. I've done this an for stuff I that I used and it is perhaps the best way for me in my mind. If thier wallets are empty then they can use it without the privating, which would annoy me, but if they like it and want to see more they can donate, and as a bonus recieve some extras which is also on the others thread as a good suggestion. No demos or annoy noise bursts, just use it, if it works for you come up with a few bucks and I'll threat you good as a way of saying thanks for the time you gave back. Exchange of money is not a matter of greed or anything, it is support to the developer, and maybe not so much in a monatary way as much as a mental one, especailly for the small developer. Its motivational. In the end, just simply follow your bliss...perhaps the best advice I got today.

stefan · 19 Nov 2007

You could also give the "pay whatever you want" method a try. The difference between this and donations is that you pay first, and THEN get to download the full version / serial number / license.

You know, like Radiohead with their latest album or DDMF (plugins).

Hlis93 · 19 Nov 2007

Some sort of modification on that might be a really interesting idea. Thanks for pointing that out.

edit: Actually, I think that is a great idea, everyone's happy then.

angstrom · 19 Nov 2007

I like the pay whatever you want approach, one thing I would advise is to make your website be more 'personal' than 'business.' looking

The reason is that people are more likely to give a reasonable amount of money to you if they feel a human bond with you. If your website looks like "Faceless Megacorp.com" then people will think "this company doesn't need my money too much, it's probably run by off-shore investment robots anyway"

if the website looks like "Friendly Dave and his 5 cats musical empowerment zone and groovy area and blog" then people are much more likely to give you a bit more cash.

Radiohead can get away with having a terrible and impersonal site, because everyone 'knows' them and what they 'stand for'. In your case you need to demonstrate that you are 'OK' and trustworthy to give an appropriate amount of money to.

Imagine the difference between a real world 'high-street' shopfront which just has a metal slot in which to deposit any amount of money and receive product ... compared to an intimate market stall where the vendor is sat talking to his friends, the vendor has a guitar to his left and a weird beard . Which one would you give the most money too, or feel worst about underpaying ?

Hlis93 · 19 Nov 2007

How did ya know I had just that setup here in my studio. Yes, I have the wierd beard too! 😉

When I do this it will be a personal thing. No interest in trying look corperate, that is something I am very much turned off by myself. I can thank some one posting on the an old Reaktor site for that. This person suggested that nothing bets commercail products due to the fact those people are smarter, have more money to spend on research, and have spent years developing it. Ok I am not a complete idiot, I agree to a point. But do they really deliver what every musicain wants & needs? No, they don't. I went to Guitar Center the other day, listened to the demo's, combo's, etc on the synths. Its all based on the major trends. The small developer fills the gaps that the commercial industry will never consider. Very few of us, I feel and could be wrong, are not looking to mesh into the trend. If that were the case for the musicain, they wouldn't be seeking for that something else.

The point is that this person motivated me to keep it personal, keep it low budget, and avoid depersonalization. Music in general has lost something, in it major trends, that is intimacy. At its very core music is a socail activity, it belongs to the tribe at its very core. The instrument should be as well, handcrafted (even if its digital), unique, etc. I'm not into the ipod generation of isolated & disconnect listening, file sharing with unknown and synthic persons, etc. (uhm, communication on a forum is not the same) nor will the site be. drifted from the point I guess.

So yes, I am in total agreement with what you are saying. And Radiohead can be as odd as they want, I think people get it.

Dave · 5 Dec 2007

Problem is that the most SM-Synths sounding the same and/or behind actual other synths.

So why pay for such a synth?

If you do something really NEW with SM than it's worth something.

I also consider to get my invested money back somehow...

infuzion · 5 Dec 2007

[old link] http://www.atomsplitteraudio.com/info.php?id=32

exonerate · 5 Dec 2007

Dave wrote: Problem is that the most SM-Synths sounding the same and/or behind actual other synths.

So why pay for such a synth?

If you do something really NEW with SM than it's worth something.

I also consider to get my invested money back somehow...

i would have to disagree, there are lots of SM made synths that do not sound the same.

None of the developer challenge SM stuff sounds the same for example, the ones that do are usually just 'the example synth with added features'.

I'm pretty sure that everyone just uses the standard SM oscs, but this doesn't make all SM synths sound the same, theres a lot more to a synth that the osc's. Play a basic oscillator on its own on ANY synth, it's not very exciting, a saw wave is a saw wave it's what you do to the saw wave which makes the sound.

Oh and if you want to move away from the standard osc shapes theres the wave table components, you can feed this any wave shape you want.

cheers 😉

Exo

exonerate · 5 Dec 2007

Ok to get back to the topic 😇

For me I'm never planning to sell any of my work, even though I've paid for the standard edition.

This is just my hobby, i do it for fun. if i started to sell my stuff it would become more like work, having to deal with customer ect... which i wouldn't find fun. So it would kinda go against the whole reason i started doing this.

I understand peoples view that they've invested money and time into something and feel that they should be getting at least a little something back, or what's the point?

For me this is a complete non issue i get back what i put in and that is satisfaction, the amount of 'eureka' moment I've had while using SM is very rewarding to me, I set out to solve a problem.... and solving the problem is the reward for trying to solve it in the first place. LOL 😀

And when i create stuff I'm more than happy to share it with the world in fact for me it almost feels wrong not to, but i guess this is just a personality thing. I'm like this in the real world i don't like keeping things to myself, whats mine is yours.

I guess though if i thought i could make some serious money with making synths i might be more tempted to do so (so i could quit my job ect..). But i don't see any money in VST's in general not just SM made ones. The market is so saturated that it's very hard to stand out. The amount of effort needed to become 'know' is just too much, I think the best you could hope for would be some pocket money, but for me pocket money would not be as rewarding as giving my stuff away.

cheers 😉

Exo

Acrobat · 5 Dec 2007

exonerate wrote: But i don't see any money in VST's in general not just SM made ones. The market is so saturated that it's very hard to stand out.

What you say is right for the synth market, but I always thought at SM as more a development platform. When I first approached to it I realized, apart from the merit of Jorge & Malc, the great standard that Steinberg VST is and how it is under-used. VST can be used to develop interactive softwares in more general terms and not only for devolping sound instruments or effects for hosts. Apart from 3D graphics , the possibilites are already endless and IMO we must see longer than audio and synthesis processing. The sysex implementation starts to evidence, for example, how many people are now, in the last months, interested in developing "controllers" for hardware rather than synths. I think difficulties in penetrating the market share are dued more to our lack or rigidity of ideas than to the tools we have already in hand. SM can be used to make a quiz game or a cartoon easely. The market is also not a rigid thing, can suddenly react unexpectedely, change in response to a new, good idea because it's not made of machines but made of people that react very emotionally to interesting news from whenever they come. I'm not saying I'm doing revolutionary stuff now, no no, I see myself more in a "warmup" stage, but I'm saying that sure we all can do great things in the future and be rewarded, eventually. I'm an damn optimistic afterall!

A.

Hlis93 · 6 Dec 2007

“Problem is that the most SM-Synths sounding the same and/or behind actual other synths.”

Sorry, I really don't agree with that comment. But you are welcome to your view and I am glad that you posted it. Personally, you only have to check out the examples area to contend that view. If what you mean is that all my synth’s sound the same...well, then perhaps, variation on theme, lack of experience or creativity, or whatever flaws I have. I am just an average Joe and do the best I can.

What I am struggling with the idea of it selling my creations because I am not doing very advanced stuff. It’s not ground breaking. There is perhaps thousand of subtractive synth’s out there, and they sound amazing, with the price tag of 0 to $$ for them. What I am trying to have is an interface that makes it feel good to use, a sound that is a bit different, I like my synth’s very rough sounding. I do feel, from some of the proto-types I have been playing with, they do cut through the mix but they will not be for everyone, it would be a small crowd that would like them to say the least.

Why focus on the interface that is the least important aspect right? No, I have purchased instruments (that cost a good deal of money) that are a pain in the ass to program! They sound great, but I just don’t want to spend that much time programming them, I’m busy & I’m lazy. I wanted to have something that I could just pull up a bass sound or whatever from scratch very quick and get on with the process of making music. For me, and I am not a good musician, I find that I don’t use the presets that I created in advance, it just never works out, I will make the sound right there and then because I know what I want to hear or look to find that something I didn’t intend but like. This is the reason I bought Reaktor was so that I could do what I wanted, make it effective for me. I really enjoyed it, making the instruments, so I got into SM. I wanted to make something I could share outside the Reaktor community. My intentions are fair and honest. And on the same note, I have not purchased on commercial vendors stuff in a long time because I can make my own instruments now, I have few high priced VST that I keep because I like them, but for the most part I only use what I make. It's effective.

But there has to be exchange for me, it can’t just be me or someone else giving time away without concern for their investment in knowledge, time in development, etc. I have learned this by the Reaktor User Library. Yes, I have downloaded some real gems from there, and I have uploaded several things over the last two years, but there is no exchange, it gets a dead feeling after awhile. No one really wants praise and admiration, blah. Imagine going to work and your boss says great job, you go home empty handed. Would you go back the next day? Don’t get me wrong I love using Reaktor and the UL, but I am being honest, the only people that really benefit from it is NI, it helps sell the product.

With that aside, I really see no problem with asking for $5-15 dollars for my effort. I am not going to be asking for the hundred of dollars that companies do. If you don’t want it close the site and go away, no hard feelings. It’s really not an issue in the end I only made them because I want to, it would have happened anyway. If it is free I most likely will get it downloaded if I hook up the site to the search engine correctly. Why, should people just get if for free? That is the flip side the above question that I am asking myself. I am not going to get rich, I imagine that I most likely will not sell very much at all, and I am very prepared for the reality I most likely will not sell any. So what’s in it for me, it’s an experience I want to try out. Maybe there are people who will find what I do desirable…maybe. Mostly likely most will just pass on by. I Respect other people’s effort to earn their money and I would not want to waste it on something I made, so I can get paid. If I feel I have a good product that is worth a small investment then I will do this. It may very well be a subtractive type of synth at first, probably monophonic, I guaranty it. But my feeling lately has been why should I deny myself and adventure that I want to do, if the excitement of getting it all made and going is something I will enjoy.

There is not a whole lot that one can do in life if they don’t try; one has to make possibilities for themselves.

TomC · 6 Dec 2007

Dave wrote: Problem is that the most SM-Synths sounding the same and/or behind actual other synths.

So why pay for such a synth?

If you do something really NEW with SM than it's worth something.

I also consider to get my invested money back somehow...

"Having a Porsche won't make you a race winner".

And SM is a Porsche in the hands of DSP noobs, that means maybe > 50% of all results are closely based on the included stuff.

But more and more people (me included) go deeper into DSP programming, and here more or less anything's possible.

Tom

exonerate · 6 Dec 2007

Acrobat wrote: exonerate wrote: But i don't see any money in VST's in general not just SM made ones. The market is so saturated that it's very hard to stand out.

What you say is right for the synth market, but I always thought at SM as more a development platform. When I first approached to it I realized, apart from the merit of Jorge & Malc, the great standard that Steinberg VST is and how it is under-used. VST can be used to develop interactive softwares in more general terms and not only for devolping sound instruments or effects for hosts. Apart from 3D graphics , the possibilites are already endless and IMO we must see longer than audio and synthesis processing. The sysex implementation starts to evidence, for example, how many people are now, in the last months, interested in developing "controllers" for hardware rather than synths. I think difficulties in penetrating the market share are dued more to our lack or rigidity of ideas than to the tools we have already in hand. SM can be used to make a quiz game or a cartoon easely. The market is also not a rigid thing, can suddenly react unexpectedely, change in response to a new, good idea because it's not made of machines but made of people that react very emotionally to interesting news from whenever they come. I'm not saying I'm doing revolutionary stuff now, no no, I see myself more in a "warmup" stage, but I'm saying that sure we all can do great things in the future and be rewarded, eventually. I'm an damn optimistic afterall!

A.

I guess your just 'warming up' for the same thing as me THE NEW EVENTS SYSTEM. I know an so do you that where not going to being coming up with anything revolutionary on the synthesis side of things we are not DSP gurus 😉 after all. But theres so many other areas to be explored, i have some big ideas for the future as i'm sure you do too;)

There are many things I've tried though that are not currently possible or extremely difficult in SM, what we need is a simple scriping language added to SM. The event system and a scripting language such as lua, will open the doors to lots of possiblities such as piano rolls, complex (but simple to use) sequencers. Creating your own scripting language, and if we get access to the GPU, 3D games ect....

The future will be very bright 😀 , and I'll be here enjoying every minute of it. 🙂

cheers 😉

Exo

exonerate · 6 Dec 2007

@hlis93 It sound as though you have thought this through and you are being realistic in your goals.

Of course if this is what you want to do, then go for it! 😀 we all need to feel as though we getting something back from things we put effort into. Life is not give,give give in the same way it not all about taking, it's about balance.

And i agree with your point about NI they profit hugely from the user library, in fact i would go as far to say it's there main selling point for a lot of people. This is why reakor will never have export to VST because the library would then not be unique to reakor which would greatly reduce it's value.

cheers 😉

Exo

Dave · 6 Dec 2007

Give the synths away for free and offer good soundsets for low prices.