charlieclouser
Senior Member
Yes, it's another long read - but there's a point if you make it all the way to the end.
Few give Spitfire the benefit of the doubt on their motives, but I do. I've been good friends with Christian, Paul, Harry, Stanley, and a few more of them for a bunch of years now, and I've had more than a few long days (and long dinners!) with them - so this isn't just me guessing based on stuff I read on the internet, this is all coming from close personal experience:
- Not everyone and every decision is driven by a desire for more market share, more customers, more money. Spitfire has got more customers and products than they need in order to keep their company of seventy-plus employees a "going concern".
- They spend a lot of time and effort on products that are decidedly "niche", and probably don't make any sort of economic sense in terms of money spent on development vs sales revenue. How many of you paid full pop for Euphone and Scraped Percussion? I did, but I'm a "niche" composer and a sound/sample fanatic who's willing to spend whatever just to taste the sweet sweet nectar of a sound I've never heard before. (I also pay no attention to how much money I spend on sounds and software, but that's another discussion!) Even their more mainstream products veer strongly to the left - Evo Grids, Whitacre, etc. aren't what you buy if you're doing "epic trailer" tracks, and their oft-criticized love of the soft flautando aren't going to be heard in a Two Steps From Hell soundalike any time soon. So why would they spend all that time/money/effort on these niche products? Because they genuinely want to hear and use those sounds, want to reward and appreciate the sonic and musical innovators whose work they respect, and hope (perhaps naively) that there will be others out there who do as well; hopefully enough who will pony up the price so it's not too big of a loss for their company.
- Whether you believe it or not, there IS a wholesome motivation behind a lot of the stuff they do, whether it's Piano Book, Labs, tutorials, the free/cheap versions of BBCSO, templates, those "Salons" they put on a while back, or Christian's wacky YouTube channel. While that stuff might expand their reach, grow their customer base, etc., none of it is by any means a sure bet, or a move dictated solely by sneaky strategic marketing. Lots of folks will download Labs and Piano Book and the free BBCSO, and will happily use that stuff and never spend more than a few bucks on actual paid Spitfire products. In fact, I'd guess that their "conversion rate" of people who come for all of the free stuff and wind up spending thousands is so low that the end result is a net loss of time, effort, and money on Spitfire's part.
- It would be so much simpler, and save them hundreds of thousands of $/£/€, just not to do any of that stuff, and simply do what every other library developer does: release a product, make one walkthrough and one tutorial video, offer a reduced introductory price, send out an email blast, and move on to the next. That business model certainly seems to work just fine for developers both large and small.
- None of the other big players in this space do anywhere near the amount of extracurriculars that Spitfire does. Sure, some of them flirt with the idea or make token efforts like releasing a few freebies as a very thinly-disguised way to harvest email addresses for their next promotional email blast, but none of them even approach the level of "community involvement" that Spitfire does.
- Besides the ridiculous planning and recording logistics involved in acquiring signal to tape, the editing and programming work involved in turning a ProTools session of single-note recordings into a playable, sellable product is IMMENSE, and has only grown more so over the years as more articulations and mic positions have become the norm, resulting in a logistic/production/IT nightmare, and a "smart" businessman would have tried to find ways to shave costs at every turn long ago. Outsource the recording to buy-out sessions in Eastern Europe? Outsource the sample editing to Mumbai? All of these would have been on the table if this was simply a money grabbing operation.
So... why? Why doesn't every developer do it the Spitfire way? Is it solely because Spitfire are so successful that they have deep cash reserves that nobody else has? And, if so, why aren't Paul and Christian just stacking the chips and preparing to fold up shop when the cash meter hits some pre-determined red line? Don't you think they've got enough cash already? I mean, why do they even BOTHER?
You'd be forgiven for assuming I'm naive, but after 35 years of fending off attempts to screw me over in every facet of the music industry (with mixed results) I can confidently say "I may be a lot of things but naive I ain't."
I really think that most of what's behind Spirfire's motivation to do all this "other stuff" is a genuine love for the craft and a wholesome enthusiasm for what they do, what other composers + sound designers do, and what their "customer base" will do with their products - even the free stuff like Labs or Piano Book. Sure, it might stoke their egos, and probably "builds the brand", but let's be real - nobody's going to be "tricked" into buying a thousand-dollar library just because of Christian's enthusiasm while taking his dogs for walkies on his YouTube channel. And if the products weren't up to snuff then anyone who felt tricked wouldn't keep coming back for more on the strength of a slick website or a quiet-talking voiceover on a video.
Here's the point that not everyone can wrap their brains around, and which, embarrassingly, I was unable to wrap my brain around until I got to a certain point in life/career/experience:
Not everyone is driven by the lust for filthy lucre.
Not everyone is always in "Cash Rules Everything Around Me" mode.
Some don't give a shit about money. Or, at least, not so much anymore. Most did at one point, out of sheer hunger while living in an unheated warehouse next to the Gowanus Canal while eating discount Ramen, bike messengering, and collecting returnable bottles and cans out of the trash in NYC for money to buy MIDI cables (Yes, I've actually done this), but (and here's the cringey part), once you get "enough" money, it can sort of... cease to have any meaning. At first, you stop looking at every plan of action in strict terms of spend-vs-return, figuring, "It's okay if I lose money on this because it will lead to better things." Later, you start thinking, "It's okay if I lose money on this because it's what I want to do." Even later, you might start thinking, "I don't care what it costs, it's the RIGHT thing to do."
For sure this isn't a universal truth - for every rich idealist for whom "money means nothing", there's a dozen Steve Mnuchin types whose boundless lust for filthy lucre has turned them into Smaug, perversely scheming and hoarding money or power over others for reasons that have long ceased to have actual relevance to them, and, once their soul is no more than a charred cinder on a bed of shiny coins, can only do harm to the rest of humanity, the planet, and everything and everyone that has nourished them during their demented quest.
But I really don't think Paul and Christian are like this at all.
I don't think they're in it solely for the money. If they were, they'd be making a lot of different (smarter?) moves than the ones they so publicly make, and for which they are often pilloried on ze forums. They started doing sample libraries just for themselves, were then harangued into selling them to other composers in their bespoke era, and it just sort of snowballed into what it is today - because of their enthusiasm and the enthusiasm of other composers for what they were doing.
The money is nice, sure - it eliminates barriers to achieving goals and dreams, provides security for the family and the future, yadda yadda yadda - but they spread it around like nobody else. Seventy employees on a London standard of living? Freebies, give-aways, and "community-building outreach"? That's all very generous - and mostly unnecessary if all they wanted to do was to stack chips.
If they were all about that C.R.E.A.M. then they'd have found ways to cut costs and raise revenues long ago - and we wouldn't have as much stuff like Piano Book, Labs, BBCSO free, or the damn Westworld contest that so many people got pissed about for any reason they could pull out of their ass. (The fix was in! He broke the rules! Puh-leeeeeeze. They tried to do everyone a solid and y'all still found something to complain about, as always. I guess no good deed goes unpunished. Aaannnyyyywaaayyyy...) Sure, these things help "build the brand" in some intangible way, but it would be simpler and cheaper to just skip all that mess. They don't need to do that stuff, they want to do that stuff.
But then they'd be just another library developer with high-end, expensive products. People would still bitch and moan about the legato transition volumes, just like they do about every other freaking library out there, but all they'd have when they sit back and reflect would be the Smaug-like pile of coin and that feeling of "the big empty". That's nothing more than hollow joy - they know it, and I think they run their company and lives accordingly.
As to their products, buy or do not buy, it matters not. As to the contests, enter or do not enter, it matters not.
But cut 'em a break before assuming that all this stuff is just various manifestations of some big cash grab.
Few give Spitfire the benefit of the doubt on their motives, but I do. I've been good friends with Christian, Paul, Harry, Stanley, and a few more of them for a bunch of years now, and I've had more than a few long days (and long dinners!) with them - so this isn't just me guessing based on stuff I read on the internet, this is all coming from close personal experience:
- Not everyone and every decision is driven by a desire for more market share, more customers, more money. Spitfire has got more customers and products than they need in order to keep their company of seventy-plus employees a "going concern".
- They spend a lot of time and effort on products that are decidedly "niche", and probably don't make any sort of economic sense in terms of money spent on development vs sales revenue. How many of you paid full pop for Euphone and Scraped Percussion? I did, but I'm a "niche" composer and a sound/sample fanatic who's willing to spend whatever just to taste the sweet sweet nectar of a sound I've never heard before. (I also pay no attention to how much money I spend on sounds and software, but that's another discussion!) Even their more mainstream products veer strongly to the left - Evo Grids, Whitacre, etc. aren't what you buy if you're doing "epic trailer" tracks, and their oft-criticized love of the soft flautando aren't going to be heard in a Two Steps From Hell soundalike any time soon. So why would they spend all that time/money/effort on these niche products? Because they genuinely want to hear and use those sounds, want to reward and appreciate the sonic and musical innovators whose work they respect, and hope (perhaps naively) that there will be others out there who do as well; hopefully enough who will pony up the price so it's not too big of a loss for their company.
- Whether you believe it or not, there IS a wholesome motivation behind a lot of the stuff they do, whether it's Piano Book, Labs, tutorials, the free/cheap versions of BBCSO, templates, those "Salons" they put on a while back, or Christian's wacky YouTube channel. While that stuff might expand their reach, grow their customer base, etc., none of it is by any means a sure bet, or a move dictated solely by sneaky strategic marketing. Lots of folks will download Labs and Piano Book and the free BBCSO, and will happily use that stuff and never spend more than a few bucks on actual paid Spitfire products. In fact, I'd guess that their "conversion rate" of people who come for all of the free stuff and wind up spending thousands is so low that the end result is a net loss of time, effort, and money on Spitfire's part.
- It would be so much simpler, and save them hundreds of thousands of $/£/€, just not to do any of that stuff, and simply do what every other library developer does: release a product, make one walkthrough and one tutorial video, offer a reduced introductory price, send out an email blast, and move on to the next. That business model certainly seems to work just fine for developers both large and small.
- None of the other big players in this space do anywhere near the amount of extracurriculars that Spitfire does. Sure, some of them flirt with the idea or make token efforts like releasing a few freebies as a very thinly-disguised way to harvest email addresses for their next promotional email blast, but none of them even approach the level of "community involvement" that Spitfire does.
- Besides the ridiculous planning and recording logistics involved in acquiring signal to tape, the editing and programming work involved in turning a ProTools session of single-note recordings into a playable, sellable product is IMMENSE, and has only grown more so over the years as more articulations and mic positions have become the norm, resulting in a logistic/production/IT nightmare, and a "smart" businessman would have tried to find ways to shave costs at every turn long ago. Outsource the recording to buy-out sessions in Eastern Europe? Outsource the sample editing to Mumbai? All of these would have been on the table if this was simply a money grabbing operation.
So... why? Why doesn't every developer do it the Spitfire way? Is it solely because Spitfire are so successful that they have deep cash reserves that nobody else has? And, if so, why aren't Paul and Christian just stacking the chips and preparing to fold up shop when the cash meter hits some pre-determined red line? Don't you think they've got enough cash already? I mean, why do they even BOTHER?
You'd be forgiven for assuming I'm naive, but after 35 years of fending off attempts to screw me over in every facet of the music industry (with mixed results) I can confidently say "I may be a lot of things but naive I ain't."
I really think that most of what's behind Spirfire's motivation to do all this "other stuff" is a genuine love for the craft and a wholesome enthusiasm for what they do, what other composers + sound designers do, and what their "customer base" will do with their products - even the free stuff like Labs or Piano Book. Sure, it might stoke their egos, and probably "builds the brand", but let's be real - nobody's going to be "tricked" into buying a thousand-dollar library just because of Christian's enthusiasm while taking his dogs for walkies on his YouTube channel. And if the products weren't up to snuff then anyone who felt tricked wouldn't keep coming back for more on the strength of a slick website or a quiet-talking voiceover on a video.
Here's the point that not everyone can wrap their brains around, and which, embarrassingly, I was unable to wrap my brain around until I got to a certain point in life/career/experience:
Not everyone is driven by the lust for filthy lucre.
Not everyone is always in "Cash Rules Everything Around Me" mode.
Some don't give a shit about money. Or, at least, not so much anymore. Most did at one point, out of sheer hunger while living in an unheated warehouse next to the Gowanus Canal while eating discount Ramen, bike messengering, and collecting returnable bottles and cans out of the trash in NYC for money to buy MIDI cables (Yes, I've actually done this), but (and here's the cringey part), once you get "enough" money, it can sort of... cease to have any meaning. At first, you stop looking at every plan of action in strict terms of spend-vs-return, figuring, "It's okay if I lose money on this because it will lead to better things." Later, you start thinking, "It's okay if I lose money on this because it's what I want to do." Even later, you might start thinking, "I don't care what it costs, it's the RIGHT thing to do."
For sure this isn't a universal truth - for every rich idealist for whom "money means nothing", there's a dozen Steve Mnuchin types whose boundless lust for filthy lucre has turned them into Smaug, perversely scheming and hoarding money or power over others for reasons that have long ceased to have actual relevance to them, and, once their soul is no more than a charred cinder on a bed of shiny coins, can only do harm to the rest of humanity, the planet, and everything and everyone that has nourished them during their demented quest.
But I really don't think Paul and Christian are like this at all.
I don't think they're in it solely for the money. If they were, they'd be making a lot of different (smarter?) moves than the ones they so publicly make, and for which they are often pilloried on ze forums. They started doing sample libraries just for themselves, were then harangued into selling them to other composers in their bespoke era, and it just sort of snowballed into what it is today - because of their enthusiasm and the enthusiasm of other composers for what they were doing.
The money is nice, sure - it eliminates barriers to achieving goals and dreams, provides security for the family and the future, yadda yadda yadda - but they spread it around like nobody else. Seventy employees on a London standard of living? Freebies, give-aways, and "community-building outreach"? That's all very generous - and mostly unnecessary if all they wanted to do was to stack chips.
If they were all about that C.R.E.A.M. then they'd have found ways to cut costs and raise revenues long ago - and we wouldn't have as much stuff like Piano Book, Labs, BBCSO free, or the damn Westworld contest that so many people got pissed about for any reason they could pull out of their ass. (The fix was in! He broke the rules! Puh-leeeeeeze. They tried to do everyone a solid and y'all still found something to complain about, as always. I guess no good deed goes unpunished. Aaannnyyyywaaayyyy...) Sure, these things help "build the brand" in some intangible way, but it would be simpler and cheaper to just skip all that mess. They don't need to do that stuff, they want to do that stuff.
But then they'd be just another library developer with high-end, expensive products. People would still bitch and moan about the legato transition volumes, just like they do about every other freaking library out there, but all they'd have when they sit back and reflect would be the Smaug-like pile of coin and that feeling of "the big empty". That's nothing more than hollow joy - they know it, and I think they run their company and lives accordingly.
As to their products, buy or do not buy, it matters not. As to the contests, enter or do not enter, it matters not.
But cut 'em a break before assuming that all this stuff is just various manifestations of some big cash grab.
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