In the last 10 years or so the sampling industry has exploded online with more and more items available every week. Some of the pioneers in this field like loopmasters are still dominating an industry that is somehow young. Before this current era of digital downloads you needed to purchase sample libraries at physical stores or order them online. 10 years ago downloading 1 or 2 GB of data was an issue, today it isn't anymore. This mean the internet now contain an endless amount of sounds, they are available in all genres and formats from several outlets including independent boutique sites selling only their own products directly to customers.
Some of us remember the free sample CDs and DVDs included with magazines. Those were novelties. Prior to the market we know now the preset and refill market was a lot more popular. These expansion packs for hardware synths and sampler were costly and delivered very little in comparison to what you can get for 20$ today, While the choice has greatly increased since anyone can put out packs, there is sometimes very little control on quality. This is very similar to what has happened to the music industry as of lately.
The Sounds Market
The last few years have seen new players emerge in the market, like Beatport Sounds and Loopmaster. They dominated the market a few years ago; now, however, they only hold a share of the market.
Technology like Wordpress and Shopify enable anyone to build a store and sell their digital downloads. And even if this leads to great opportunities for labels and independent producers, it is less likely one can make a living solely operating a small sample site. The truth is that choice rules the market and smaller stores have a very limited reach. New players like Splice.com and Sounds.com have made their presence with the aim of taking a large share of the market. These companies have substantial capitals as well as obligations to their investors. Let’s say they are the majors of the sounds world. Sounds.com is owned by Native Instruments. Splice.com received investments of 47.2 Million dollars.
Operating a label
Running a sample label is a serious business. Some of the labels are earning several thousands of dollars every month from sales. Branding seems to play an important role as customers get to trust these brands as a reliable source of inspiration, Some popular music labels are now crossing over to selling samples as the revenues from music sales has steadily declined over the last few years. In most cases selling sounds means creating tracks and selling them as ideas for others to make their own tracks.
Selling Your Sounds
There are many outlets to sell your sounds today with many different options, from no ties to complete exclusivity and complex contracts. We opted for no ties and straight-forward contracts as we believe in empowering creators and not restricting them as it is already hard to make a living off your work. The shares are fairly similar from store to store: 50% is for non exclusive, 60% if you sell exclusively with a store. www.wemakedancemusic.com does not require exclusivity to give you 60%. You do need to have over 25 live products and actively promote your products with us to get 60% with our Elite Producer program. This will also open up opportunities for you to get more exposure through our sites.
Distributing Your Sounds
Sites like Producerloops.com and Loopmasters.com also offer distribution, which means you upload your packs to them and they distribute them to other sites. While this could be a great opportunity, there is also some financial costs involved. Producerloops.com takes a 40% cut on distributed products and takes 50% after taxes are charged on products sold on their own site. Loopmasters takes a 50% cut on distributed products and another 50% in store sales. Both of these also require exclusivity, which means you can't go to other stores and sell your packs yourself. Even if the number of products sold can increase, the cost seems high to justify distribution. There are only so many sites that actually get a good amount of sales. We believe it would be more profitable to be on fewer sites but deal with them directly. This in turn can lead to better relationships and more exposure with features, promotions and so on.
We offer free distribution to our 5 sites. All operations are centralized and automated. Just upload your packs and templates and they will go live on all of our 5 sites instantly.
Building and Marketing Your Brand
Creating a brand image is paramount these days. Creating a recognisable image and strong design will have people associate those with the product in no time. Being consistent with branding and logos on all platforms is very important. Regular releases are key to generating leads to attract the attention of the relevant audience. Posting new products frequently, creating quality audio and video demos of your products will lead to great organic discovery of your products and will lead to sales over time. Being present on as many platforms as possible, using related #hashtags when posting about your products will also result in better product exposure. Building connections with blogs and people that use your products is also key to giving visibility to your work. Collecting subscribers through your website and giveaways can increase visibility and create an immediate buzz around your products when released. Also, sending quality and targeted newsletters is still an important part of marketing these days. Reaching your audience is key to getting your customers back. We are the only brand that promotes most of the uploaded content in our social channels and among our newsletter subscribers, as we strongly believe in our role to market any products on our platform. With our elite program, artist interviews, “Behind the label” series and satellite sites we help producers and labels build their brand presence.
The Formats:
Sample packs or Loops
The original formats usually consist of WAV files; sometime they come in acid or Apple loops formats and contain additional metadata. This format is highly versatile as you can import it into any DAW software or sampler. These can include single shot drums, drum loops, complete music loops, synths, Royalty Free Vocals, sound effects, hits and more. Audio quality may differ slightly but generally samples are in 24 Bits, 41000KHZ or 48000KHZ. Some might offer better quality - the difference will not be audible if the material was recorded properly with some proper headroom.
MIDI Files
MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a protocol designed for recording and playing back music on digital synthesizers that is supported by many makes of personal computer sound cards. Originally intended to control one keyboard over another, it was quickly adopted for the personal computer. Midi files are highly versatile and can be used with most DAWs. They can be packaged in different ways. The more popular ones are packs including different instruments, MIDI parts like Melody, Bassline, Pads, Arp and more. We have also seen some packages arranged by keys, chord progressions in specific keys, melodies in specific key and so on. Standard MIDI files also include General MIDI. This format also features Metadata on the type of instruments used and is compatible with hardware workstations and Karaoke software. General MIDI is not a popular format in the professional music production field.
Synth Presets/ Banks/ Sounds (Software and Hardware)
Presets were available long before the sampling industry existed. Loading them to hardware synths via Sysex was complex and sometime yielded unexpected results. These days 90% of the music is made with virtual synthesizers. Adding presets to them is as simple as dragging and dropping files into the right folder. The presets choice has exploded lately with sites like www.adsrsounds.com offering thousands of presets for popular synths.
Music Construction Kits:
This format is one of the most popular ones at the moment. It normally includes the Sample & Loops, MIDI files, presets and sometimes project templates used to create the demo track. This means a lot of added value for the customer since it provides the toolbox with everything needed to make music in the genre of the kit.
Project Templates:
Project templates are now emerging as a very popular choice for producers of all levels. Templates are projects created in a music production software or DAW (digital audio workstation). They vary greatly depending on the creator’s technique and his/her intended purpose. With today's ever expanding electronic music genres, the possibilities for templates are infinite. Having a complete song created by an experienced producer offers valuable insight into the production process.
It's only in the last 2 years that more and more labels and stores are offering them. We started our templates marketplace over 6 years ago with the belief that this is the future of inspiration for music production.
The Spotify of Sounds
The new trend in selling sounds is subscription-based plans. This could be great for full time music producers and of a lesser value for recreational producers. For the labels this greatly lowers the value of packs that normally sell for 20$. In other words, if someone downloads the full pack sample by sample, you will only get about 15 to 30% of what you would earn selling the whole pack. While high volume of subscribers is beneficial for the businesses themselves, this development is degrading the value of packs. In the first phase the payouts to labels is be substantial but as the amount of content and labels increase, the payouts are less likely to scale.
Splice.com
To get access to splice sounds you will need to install the application and purchase a subscription plan. Of course they offer a free trial where you can test their offering for a month before purchasing 100 Credits for $7.99 or 300 Credits for $13.99 monthly. You will pay one point per one downloaded item. The site also offers Rent to own plugins, project management and sharing of your DAW projects.
Sounds.com
Launched last year, sounds.com is also a subscription service. This one does not yet offer a plugin to download sounds into your DAW. Being owned by Native Instruments, it will not be long before we see a plugin from them. The site is focused on audio only. They also offer a free trial with 75 free credits. There are three monthly plans to choose from at sounds.com.
Loopcloud.com
Owned and operated by loopmasters.com, loopcloud offers a plugin for Mac and Windows. The unit is well built and is the best in its class offering great search, time stretch, search by keys, genres, BPM, and import your own sample folders via the plugin. Every week you will have access to free samples inside of the plugin itself. There are no plans associated to this plugin - you will have to purchase packs from loopmasters.com to add to it.
Here are some sites where you can sell your sounds and some of the terms to expect.
https://www.wemakedancemusic.com + 4 Affiliate Sites
Direct upload to sites, set your own prices, update all products and demos at any time, sell Templates, Sounds, STEMS, Courses & Royalty Free Music.
Standard rate is 50%, Elite producers 60%, no ties and no exclusivity needed.
https://www.sounds.beatport.com
Separated Metadata + FTP upload, sell sounds, templates. Standard rate is 50%, if signed exclusively 60%.
Separated Metadata + FTP upload, sell sounds, templates. Standard rate is 50%.
Requires exclusivity, complex contract and demands, current shares are unknown.
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