Well I think performance technology is exactly where it's at. After watching the Expressive Osmose demo its clear to me that that's the way forward. I would KILL to have this much expressive control over an orchestral library.
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Well I think performance technology is exactly where it's at. After watching the Expressive Osmose demo its clear to me that that's the way forward. I would KILL to have this much expressive control over an orchestral library.
Well I think performance technology is exactly where it's at. After watching the Expressive Osmose demo its clear to me that that's the way forward. I would KILL to have this much expressive control over an orchestral library.
I agree with this 100%, perhaps not this tool, but expressive control is the next frontier
Well I think performance technology is exactly where it's at. After watching the Expressive Osmose demo its clear to me that that's the way forward. I would KILL to have this much expressive control over an orchestral library.
Most of the libraries that come out are very similar to other libraries on the market. The level of innovation is quite limited at this point. One you have a couple of orchestras, a bunch of synths, Komplete, a decent set of solo instruments, some drums and a collection of scoring and hybrid noises, you really are all set. Why would you ever buy anything else? Yet the instruments keep coming and the hype is going up rather than down.
It seems to me there must be four segments to the market.
1.) Old hands who more or less have everything they could ever need but have enough cash and enough child-like wonder to buy more.
2.) Old hands who don't bother so much these days.
3.) People legitimately gathering the above so as to have a workable arsenal.
4.) Students who will spend their loans but most of whom will never make a bean back from the industry.
5.) Hobbyists who just enjoy this stuff with varying levels of leisure money to enjoy spending.
I have been trying to match the hype to the market segment. Spitfire aim a lot at segment 4 and seem to be the company with the most cash to throw around, so I am assuming the sheer number of students makes that segment very profitable. Lower spend per head but many more heads. It would be interesting to see how it breaks down.
When is saturation reached? Can there really be profit in bringing out yet another orchestra?
Community is a potent strategy if it is approached with the right mind-set and skills. A strong brand community increases customer loyalty, lowers marketing costs, authenticates brand meanings, and yields an influx of ideas to grow the business. Through commitment, engagement, and support, companies can cultivate brand communities that deliver powerful returns. When you get community right, the benefits are irrefutable.
I'm also quite fascinated with this kind of stuff. It is and has been for a while, a huge multi-multi-million pound market that's growing every year. It's something developers from the early early days help forge hand-in-hand with other technologies and industries that some of the now-large developers tapped into, not created.
There's a lot to unravel, a lot of contributing factors sustaining this market, (too much to go into now but you hit on it with the list). In terms of saturation, it's a growing market and any 'good' brand will move the goalposts of what it means to have what you 'need', plus there are people graduating every year... saturation is then an addressed issue. So you set out the long term plan, you set the shelf-life of your product and release accordingly but beyond that, you become an 'authority' on the matter if you can. I remember reading a good take on this with heels (shoes) used as an example, and how it's essentially short heels and long heels, but 'somehow' the trend cycles (shelf life), the market isn't saturated and people buy into it. On paper that's an incredibly limited product with essentially two variants, but yet thrives, an 'authority' on fashion guides the sales.. Also these days, it's all about 'community', brands love community:
Article
https://marketinginsidergroup.com/content-marketing/5-examples-brilliant-brand-communities-shaping-online-world/ (Article 2)
Article 3
So your question regarding the market and what people will buy in the future, branding is huge and those that go down the 'community' route will probably stand the test of time, beyond the product which almost becomes secondary. Exploiting a community for profit though is a terrible way to spend your time and a pathetic reason to engage with community. As for using shill accounts, I don't know how anyone could look back and consider any kind of success real but that's a different story.
Your categories seem on the ball, pros, students, hobbyists, collectors, enthusiasts, the ambitious, the aspiring. There's this weird discrepancy between people working in the business and those looking to get into it with some companies playing a role in the middle ground, kind of presenting the industry (whatever it may be) as something it kind of isn't, which is a shame. Some palm it off as harmless 'how it's always been way of things'. Some consider it damaging and part of a larger 'problem'.
There's deeper psychological, sociological and cultural elements to consider as well, but that's an essays worth, depends how far down the rabbit hole you want to go! Certainly 'something tangibly attainable through purchase' seems to play a huge role in the majority of purchases, whatever it may be, sample libraries included. There's perhaps other elements to consider in the context of a creative industry.
In terms of innovation, the 'traditional' method of sampling has been around for some decades and most of what is around today stand on those shoulders. Peter Siedlaczek's Orchestra from the early 2000s (?) used a national media symphony orchestra, offered up textual orchestral patches and had a liveliness to it with player movements, natural recordings and a rawness and that was 20 years ago. So sales and success doesn't rely on innovation. There's a cool article I can't currently find, about a beer company in the 19th/20th century who hired in someone to help with branding. They showed him around the brewery and the processes involved in making the beer. The branding guy was blown away at the care and attention going in to each aspect and asked why it wasn't part of their branding. They just replied, well, everyone does it, it's nothing unique. The branding guy rebuilt the brand around these common processes and launched the company into the top handful of breweries in the US. Their product hadn't changed, the market hadn't changed, they just tapped into something people wanted to hear.
Thomas 'freaking genius' Bergersen, Nick 'sampling pioneer' Phoenix with Shawn 'John William's sound engineer' Murphey released incredible libraries now available at incredible prices. EastWest's customer support was poor, to put it gently (may have changed since), part of the branding story.
Sample Modelling Brass is something next-level. In terms of musicality, play-ability, versatility, these stand out as something untouched in my opinion. In terms of product, it's all there, however unlike the days of old when a magazine advert would consist of a schematic of the microphone components, the branding story is where it's at (from the website, shopping experience, support, to adverts, to social medias, to campaigns, to events, to sponsorships, endorsements, design, history, story, 'community') simply utilising tried and tested advertising and marketing tropes of other industries; the brand, https://ebaqdesign.com/blog/brand-storytelling/ (its story).
Eh, interesting stuff anyhoo! So anyway yes, there can be a profit in bringing out a new orchestra.
At the risk of making (yet another) thread about Spitfire, I think there's a couple of things to clarify here. Whilst it would be easy (and logical) to link Christian's vlog to the Spitfire marketing machine, I'm not sure CH's sweary musings from the top of Arthur's Seat are always relevant to the sale of sample libraries. Fun though.The one thing that has continually bugged me about Spitfire's comms is that the education and the marketing are so mixed up. The education is vast and honest if rather unrealistic while the marketing is unashamed hype and they move from one to the other with no apparent change of tone. Here's just one example. Christian Henson, in many of his earlier vids, explained in some detail why everyone should eschew big templates and make a new one for each project (the risk of two projects sounding too similar). More recently he as become a convert. Everyone should use their latest product as the only template anyone would need.
I gotta mention Heavyocity Ascend here. As the kids say, "It's all that". I think they are really showing us the way to the future. A lot of sample libraries are doing a decent job of "imitating" instruments. Ascend does that with the piano sound then takes the instrument to a different place.Reducing the price of yesterday's library and putting a high price on today's only works if today's library is significantly better. Maybe that is no longer going to be so clear-cut.
Too bad symphonies only play like the same 20 pieces. over and over.
A lot of non-public domain music is expensive to rent, that's one big aspect of it. Some composers (Menotti being one) are going to lose their legacy because the rental fees are too high. Some of it is playing the "hits" for the audience. Some of it is instrumentation, it takes a lot of extra musicians to play most Mahler, R. Strauss etc., while it doesn't take any to play Beethoven and Brahms.Hyperbole but broadly true. Do you think they like playing the same pieces? It's dictated by the audience who will pay for those concerts (which are bloody expensive to stage).
At the risk of making (yet another) thread about Spitfire, I think there's a couple of things to clarify here. Whilst it would be easy (and logical) to link Christian's vlog to the Spitfire marketing machine, I'm not sure CH's sweary musings from the top of Arthur's Seat are always relevant to the sale of sample libraries. Fun though.
The BBSO template is a bit of a red herring - it wasn't actually supplied with the sale of BBCSO and was presented as "here's a free thing that works great with our new library" but not an essential download to use the product. I got the vibe it was more of a pet project of Christians which he decided to share.
Buy yes, I completely accept your point about community building being the heart of modern marketing. It's easy to feel one has a "relationship" with a dev which in turn, encourages spending.
The question is the point, for Henson, helping people who want to make music or getting people who want to make music to spend money on his products? When those things are in conflict, how does he decide how to proceed?
How are you liking them?Looking at the new update for HZ strings which apparently 21 velocity layers with 5 round robins and 21 mics, I am going to say that maybe the decs does have a long way to go with innovation before the old threatens the new. I hope somebody somewhere has some seriously deep pockets.
How are you liking them?