Monetizing custom programs for keyboards

[eric]

The other topic on sharing charts prompted me to think of this and would be interested to hear your perspectives.

 

The topic is the creation of custom patches/programs that go beyond the presets found in keyboards. There have been professional patch programmers for decades. I remember buying DX7 sounds from Bo Tomlyn back in the '80s and Sound Source Unlimited was an AMAZING resource for my DX7IIFD. I think I ended up buying every one of their disks of sounds, which did a nice job of making the DX sound like a D50 and other cool things. Another one was Kid Nepro and I think that company is still in business! I have bought sounds from them and still get their email newsletter.

 

Nowadays there are companies like NarfSounds and similar.

 

For the past 20+ years, I have been almost 100% in the camp of creating my own programs. It's relaxing and satisfying to me. On the Nord User Forums, I frequently share my work (for free), along with demonstration videos that I upload to YouTube. These are typically 2-3 programs needed for popular songs that many folks play in bands. I feel like I'm paying it forward by helping others.

 

I am curious how much effort is involved, and value derived by monetizing what I'm doing? It's not large scale, yet if I look at some of my posts over the years, many of my programs have been downloaded hundreds if not thousands of times. What if I'd set up a digital storefront and charged money for my programs? Not that I'm in this for the money, and I suppose the download count wouldn't be as high if the programs had a $ cost associated with them.

 

Not long ago I noticed a seemingly anonymous member on a FB group come along and ask everyone to tell them how to create a specific sound and lots of advice and examples were provided. A week or two later, the same member was selling variations of this sound for a pretty high cost (I think it was like nine sounds for $50 or something). I don't know that this member launched a successful business from this, though the whole thing kind of weirded me out to see someone taking what appeared to be free advice and turning around to try and charge money for it.

 

I've also seen folks that appear to offer private consulting such as "contact me to discuss pricing for my services in programming your sounds needed for the Foreigner tribute band" as an example. 

 

I wonder if I'm missing out on a revenue stream and if I should start thinking of a model to monetize programming sounds? Has anyone done this kind of work or have thoughts on it? 

[Baldwin Funster]

I'd tell you but I'd have to charge you for it.

[J.F.N.]

If you really bring something interesting to the table, don't be afraid to charge for it, your time is someone elses profit..

 

Here's a guy who is a real talent on VAST, I assume he's doing a nice little extra on his side hustle (I can also imagine he's spending quite some time hanging over his Kurzweil) judging from the quality of his work.

 

https://enjoythesirens.com/

 

[jerrythek]

29 minutes ago, J.F.N. said:

Here's a guy who is a real talent on VAST who I assume is doing a nice extra on his side hustle, I can also imagine he's spending quite some time hanging over his Kurzweil, judging from the quality of his work.

 

https://enjoythesirens.com/

 

Just listened - his stuff is really good.

[Stokely]

Oddly while I can appreciate how good stuff like the Narfsound patches sound, I never was all that tempted to get any for cover band use.  For one thing, I've found that "exactly like the record" may or may not actually work in your particular band.   For another, what if I want to improve it to my own liking   
If I was using Kurzweils live I'd DEFINITELY appreciate someone willing and able to work with vast.  I'm something of a programmer in real life but I found it pretty tough to deal with!

That said, I have bought a few preset bundles for Diva when they had some great sales.  For my own use (ie, not covers), I tend to be a "preset tweaker" as I usually don't have a particular sound in my head as I work on music--I go where it takes me.    So I definitely appreciate good preset makers.  U-he in particular gets some top-notch people to build the stock presets.   And of course Eric Persing is famous for his presets and that is a big draw of Omnisphere (for some).  I might actually finally get Omnisphere this year, depends on how much I spend on my "last" (I really mean it!) hardware keyboard for gigging!   

[eric]

The mention of Eric Persing reminds me that I should also give a HUGE shout out to all the sound programming heroes that have created iconic preset libraries that take on a life of their own.

 

Off the top of my head, Eric Persing is definitely one starting with the classic Roland days and beyond (met him once at NAMM), then there's Jack Hotop, well known for Korg sounds (met him more than once at NAMM), there's Manny Fernandez for Yamaha, Dave Weiser for Kurzweil, Dave Polich for Yamaha, and I know I'm missing many others! If I'm not mistaken @jerrythek was also very integral to many Korg sounds and probably other brands...(met him multiple times at NAMM).

 

If there are other iconic sound programmers you know of, please share them here!!!

[J.F.N.]

20 minutes ago, jerrythek said:

Just listened - his stuff is really good.

 

That guy is amazing, he's doing custom work as well. I sent him a message when I found that site, with some nice words as I was really impressed, and he got back to me so we were in mail conversation for some time there. I had just bought my PC3 and he gave me some encouragement for the VAST programming etc. Very nice guy too!

[jerrythek]

18 minutes ago, eric said:

If I'm not mistaken @jerrythek was also very integral to many Korg sounds and probably other brands...(met him multiple times at NAMM).

 

Thanks Eric. Honestly, for all my time at Korg I did very little programming (until the Kronos). With a team that included Jack Hotop, John "Skippy" Lehmkuhl and so many others I was seriously outclassed! Seriously, my role (as a Product Manager/Brand Manager) was as a producer, a talent scout to add others to the team, and more of the product spec etc. As I had done at Ensoniq as well. But for the Kronos I did a lot of work on the pianos/electric pianos and organs, including bringing in and working with all the artists who did Signature Series presets (I had first done that for the CX-3 V2). Since leaving Korg, I did start doing more sound design work for various companies. I really enjoy it.

[ProfD]

Back in the old days, some KBs only contained a limited # of presets and/or they were harder to program. Cue up DX7.😁

 

Brilliant programmers did the heavier lifting so that musicians could get on with the business of music composition and/or performance. 

 

Fast-forward to present, I find it interesting that despite the fact that with modern KBs costing thousands of dollars and containing thousands of onboard sounds, folks are too lazy, er, cannot find or program sounds that work for their particular gig.🤣

 

Brotha @eric, there's nothing wrong with monetizing your time and labor especially in a capitalistic society where folks are willing to pay for anything.   Go for it.😎

[Iconoclast]

1 hour ago, eric said:

The other topic on sharing charts prompted me to think of this and would be interested to hear your perspectives.

 

The topic is the creation of custom patches/programs that go beyond the presets found in keyboards. There have been professional patch programmers for decades. I remember buying DX7 sounds from Bo Tomlyn back in the '80s and Sound Source Unlimited was an AMAZING resource for my DX7IIFD. I think I ended up buying every one of their disks of sounds, which did a nice job of making the DX sound like a D50 and other cool things. Another one was Kid Nepro and I think that company is still in business! I have bought sounds from them and still get their email newsletter.

 

Nowadays there are companies like NarfSounds and similar.

 

For the past 20+ years, I have been almost 100% in the camp of creating my own programs. It's relaxing and satisfying to me. On the Nord User Forums, I frequently share my work (for free), along with demonstration videos that I upload to YouTube. These are typically 2-3 programs needed for popular songs that many folks play in bands. I feel like I'm paying it forward by helping others.

 

I am curious how much effort is involved, and value derived by monetizing what I'm doing? It's not large scale, yet if I look at some of my posts over the years, many of my programs have been downloaded hundreds if not thousands of times. What if I'd set up a digital storefront and charged money for my programs? Not that I'm in this for the money, and I suppose the download count wouldn't be as high if the programs had a $ cost associated with them.

 

Not long ago I noticed a seemingly anonymous member on a FB group come along and ask everyone to tell them how to create a specific sound and lots of advice and examples were provided. A week or two later, the same member was selling variations of this sound for a pretty high cost (I think it was like nine sounds for $50 or something). I don't know that this member launched a successful business from this, though the whole thing kind of weirded me out to see someone taking what appeared to be free advice and turning around to try and charge money for it.

 

I've also seen folks that appear to offer private consulting such as "contact me to discuss pricing for my services in programming your sounds needed for the Foreigner tribute band" as an example. 

 

I wonder if I'm missing out on a revenue stream and if I should start thinking of a model to monetize programming sounds? Has anyone done this kind of work or have thoughts on it? 

There's not ENOUGH guys doing this.  I certainly don't mind a dude asking around to try to increase his knowledge. We shouldn't all have to pay our friends.  I'm certain that in the history of man many breakthroughs have occurred because someone working on a problem hit a wall and needed some advice from someone farther away from the issue to break through. That's just the way things work.

I really wish more dudes who had skills would build more "tribute packs" of programs. The amount of time saved can easily be worth the money depending on your day job!

I really enjoy building patches from scratch, but sometimes I'm just not getting it and I go take a preset or buy a preset. Sometimes these are great...sometimes they need a tweak, and sometimes they're no better than I can do.

If you're good at it, good luck and more power to ya!  As a Nord user, I'd love to see your work.

[cphollis]

I think there's a small-money business out there, but not sure if the juice is worth the squeeze. 

 

On the NS4, there's this guy with a great library of modern cover band and worship programs (www.patchfoundry.com) but little of what he's done would really work for me. 

 

I *would* pay something to see how he went about putting the sounds together -- so I think the "how you did it" videos could be monetized via Youtube. 

 

Everyone goes there to learn how to do stuff these days, so it'd be a nice marketing front end to actually selling the libraries.

[Stokely]

Yep, that's kinda what Narfsounds does...he demonstrates using his patches, if not putting them together.  They are plenty impressive, just overkill for me for the most part and I've never minded putting together patches.   I would not have the patience to go to the length he does.

Another problem with buying his sounds is that he puts them into set packs full of songs that I mostly don't need or want.   So that's a consideration--a la carte!

Where patch-making gets annoying to me, and where I welcome others' work, are sounds effect and very specific samples...like in Uptown Funk, if you bothered trying to get those low vocal tones and hits etc.  Thankfully we don't do that song or many like it.  I did grab a patch off the Nord forum for "Too much time on my hands" that included that intro sweep as a sample....that's a pretty distinctive sound and it was one iirc on an oberheim that would be difficult if not impossible to emulate using the Nord a1 engine.

[K K]

4 hours ago, Iconoclast said:

There's not ENOUGH guys doing this.

I have been wanting to start selling such stuff for the Kronos, but as much I have no problem creating custom sounds, I don't have a clue about the eCommerce part. If anyone can simply list decent cheap eCommerce sites, is it safer to use PayPal or credit card transactions, or similar simple stuff, I am all ears. I started a topic about this here months ago and I had zero replies, so I thought this is some kind of taboo topic.

[ProfD]

6 minutes ago, K K said:

I have been wanting to start selling such stuff for the Kronos, but as much I have no problem creating custom sounds, I don't have a clue about the eCommerce part. If anyone can simply list decent cheap eCommerce sites, is it safer to use PayPal or credit card transactions, or similar simple stuff, I am all ears. I started a topic about this here months ago and I had zero replies, so I thought this is some kind of taboo topic.

It's not a taboo topic.  While selling gear is relatively easy; when it comes to selling sounds and music, it's a different kettle.😁😎

[David Emm]

Yes, Kid Nepro is still active. Over the years, I've bought several sets from them and it was always a quality mix. I won't cover the same ground again at length, but reverse-engineering 3rd-party sound sets have had as much to do with my tweezing skills as everything else combined. Look at it this way: you get the set you buy- which is usually inspiring enough- but then you get the second set you make your own.    

 

https://www.kidnepro.com/

[Dave Weiser]

After leaving Kurzweil R&D full time in 2013, I experimented with creating and selling sounds for Kurz boards. I quickly found that there just wasn't enough volume to make third party sound design in and of itself worth my while, especially since I was only creating sounds for Kurzweil, which is a smaller brand.

 

It was a different story back in the golden years of hardware. I remember there were plenty of companies that seemed to do very well creating third party content in the 90s. The sales numbers for hardware back then were HUGE compared to now, so you had a lot of potential customers out there. Also, back in the day, many keyboard sounds that used samples were only one or two layers deep, which meant creating sample sets for multiple platforms wouldn't be as labor intensive as it would be today. 

 

I did end up finding a business model that worked for me. I've created large-ish sound sets for recent and current Kurzweil boards, like PC3/K, Forte, SP6, PC4 and K2700. I've tried to fill in any gaps in the factory sets and try to offer more flavors for things like piano, EPs, bass and analog synth sounds. I give these sound sets away free of charge to members of this forum and the Kurzweil Facebook groups, while asking the recipients to mention me and my Kurz dealer business online. Word of mouth referrals drive my sales, and this model has worked fairly well. Still, I don't make my living from keyboard sales - the volume just isn't there. But it's enough to justify the time spent on sound design. (My main gig is programming keys for theater shows, and renting gear to a small subset of these shows.)

 

I'm also happy to share the sounds for free, as it's a small way of giving back to a company and community that has opened up lots of doors for my career in music. If it weren't for Kurzweil and their customers, I'd still be waiting tables and bartending in Boston. Anyone with a Kurz board, feel free to hit me up and I'll send you my sounds.  weiserdav@gmail.com

 

Also, Malc, the guy behind Enjoythesirens.com is absolutely brilliant. His work is top notch - I give him my strongest possible endorsement.

 

 

[rickzjamm]

I don't think "Enjoythesirens.com" is active anymore. I tried to reach out to them with no response.  

[Iconoclast]

I had the same experience with that website when I had a Forte. I thought the guy had closed up shop and just left the website active.

[J.F.N.]

I was in contact with him late in 2021, that's a while ago now. I guess he's busy with life.

[nursers]

You should absolutely try to monetize them eric, would love to see how you go. Frances from Narfsounds is a good example of it being done right - he's a great guy and does excellent support. I've bought his packs (but yeah I'd love if you could buy inidividual songs / patches)....

 

Same goes for Purgatory sounds - still use them

[SteveCoscia]

My two cents about online entrepreneurship, unrelated to custom keyboard sounds.   

 

After earning more than seven figures in developing & selling online courses, the two things that matter most are:

 

1 - A robust distribution channel (via valued partners).

2 - Quality that is noticeably different (better).

 

There's an abundance of trial and error along the way, therefore perseverance and tenacity are mandatory.

[YashN]

18 hours ago, J.F.N. said:

I was in contact with him late in 2021, that's a while ago now. I guess he's busy with life.

Fairly sure he's around the forums, including this one.

 

Then again, maybe he's busy working synth sounds for a forthcoming synth of interest? (merely speculating, I have no insider info)

[Dave Weiser]

6 hours ago, YashN said:

Fairly sure he's around the forums, including this one.

 

Then again, maybe he's busy working synth sounds for a forthcoming synth of interest? (merely speculating, I have no insider info)

Malc is active in the Kurzweil Facebook groups - PC4, K2700, PC series, etc.

[YashN]

Good to see you still active around Kurzweils too, Dave.

[eric]

On 5/10/2024 at 12:14 PM, Iconoclast said:

 As a Nord user, I'd love to see your work.

 

I've been sharing sounds over on the Nord User Forum for both NS2 and NS3 for years. Here's a link to one of my threads in which I have bundled a bunch of different programs, many based on requests from forum members. Included with most programs is a scrappy YouTube video with me demonstrating how I use the program.

 

https://www.norduserforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=21504

[Malcs Myth]

The reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated.

 

Thanks to everyone for all the positive comments, it’s super appreciated.

 

I’m the sound designer of Enjoy the Sirens. Sorry to those who didnt get a reply,  I changed provider and started paying for Google Workspace a few years ago, so I’m surprised that this has happened and can only apologise. I usually answer within 24 hours. Happy to answer questions about sounds or anything VAST.

 

Re monetisation, it’s the amount of time which is the issue. I dont even have my own youtube channel yet and I’m already very busy with everything else involved in trying to get a hobby business turned into something more. I used to be a video editor and post production chap, so I’ll go back to that if this doesnt work out. Hopefully I’ll be doing my first Enjoy the Sirens video this year.

 

You can’t really self promote on facebook group pages, so you need enough critical mass from happy customers that people chime in. While I’ve had lots of very nice emails from tremendously appreciative customers (infact this was one of the nicest surprises of doing all this, having great chats with people from all over the world), it hasnt scaled up into online comments. Unfortunately I’m still a bit under the radar. (Though by some coincidence GearNews did a small piece on me yesterday!!).

 

In my case, the biggest effort I made over the last 10-15 years was the ton of analysis of original sounds and records. With AI coming, I may have to put all this to use in a new way somehow.

 

In the meantime I’m alive and currently visiting Superbooth in Berlin.

Thanks again.