I’ve looked at the Elektron EULA but I can’t really find any info on this. Coming from the VST world a lot of plugins often prohibit sampling from the synth and selling the samples, or even creating a custom VST with those samples.
Is there any information as to whether I can sell sample packs or even make e.g. a Kontakt instrument with samples made with the Digitone?
yes you can use the synth for whatever you want
Is there any reference to this on the website or something? Not that I don’t believe you, but having looked into this a bunch in the VST world there’s so many nuances, i.e. not being allowed to sample builtin presets since they’re copyrighted, and so on. So I just want to make sure I get things exactly correctly.
I keep trying to search but can’t find any details and the EULA is very short.
Hi. Out of curiosity, can you cite any example of such vendors?
Never heard of such limitation in hardware world, even Roland do not do this.
Gears…pace link (with similar opinion)
bro we live in a time where people are selling GIFs and memes and feet pics i’m pretty sure you can sell your own loops you’ve created lmao
I think Polyend tracker is one of the only boxes I have ever heard of coming with demo songs and samples under a non commercial creative commons license… so technically you aren’t even allowed to sell music that just uses samples that were used in the demo songs, same goes for the patterns (which is more understandable). Still most all gear I have ever come across is totally open for commercial use, even just recording a built in pattern with a preset sound (although I would like to think most people would like to do a bit more) I wanna say there were a few very famous bands over the years that did that.
I don’t know of any in the hardware world, but in the VST world here’s a few examples:
The main limitation is that you are not allowed to use them to make a sample library or another kind of sample-based product. You are also restricted from giving away or posting online any loops or samples created using Spectrasonics Virtual Instruments. However, you are able to use them in all your musical recording applications without paying for any additional licenses.
As for others, I explicitly asked u-he, Kilohearts (Phase Plant), Arturia (Pigments 2) and Serum, and they all said that you can’t sell samples of the existing presets (which are bound by copyright), but you can do anything you want with your own presets. In the case of Arturia’s Pigments 2, you’re allowed to use the wavetables but not the builtin samples (which are bound by copyright).
I don’t know what to tell you, but just because people are selling GIFs and memes doesn’t mean you’re legally allowed to sell whatever samples are lying around on your computer. Copyright laws exist, and unless you have permission to sell something you can’t legally sell it.
Here’s another example (from Image-Line’s support) - you’re not allowed to sell anything derived from FL Studio’s demo songs. If you do that you’re violating copyright.
This is also true of basically all the sample libraries. In this case I checked all the Kontakt instruments and Spitfire libraries I have, and they all prohibit selling derivative non-musical work. This means you are allowed to sell music tracks you create, but you are explicitly prohibited from resampling, remixing and modifying the samples and selling those individually or as part of a VST instrument or a sample pack.
Here’s an excerpt from Spitfire’s EULA
This license expressly forbids resale or other distribution of the Products or their derivatives, either as they exist in the library, reformatted for use in another sampler, or mixed, combined, filtered, re-synthesised or otherwise edited, for use as sounds, multi-sounds, samples, multi-samples, sound sets, programmes or patches in a sampler, microchip, computer or any sample playback device
It’s also worth noting that some (i.e. Spectrasonics/Omnisphere) actually prohibit you from distributing stems of your music and only allow you to sell mixed tracks with more than 1 instrument. Yes it is dumb, but that is what their license says.
Of course there’s the question of “do I get caught?”, but with how advanced digital printing is getting (and AI), personally I’m extremely wary of doing anything illegal w.r.t. selling samples, because it could very well end up being automatically picked up by a bot that scans for said fingerprints in all sounds uploaded to libraries where you sell them.
In general, based on what I’ve found so far it seems that anything that relates to samples in any way (including i.e. sample oscillators in Pigments) is generally prohibited to process/re-sell in any way, and synths in general only prohibit sampling their builtin presets as they’re copyright protected. Since the Digitone only has presets and no builtin samples, my question was mostly about those.
edit: One more important addition. Keep in mind I’m not a lawyer and I could be wrong, but imo caution is always good with these things. The license of the instrument is one thing, but services for selling tracks (i.e. audiojungle or pond5) often explicitly prohibit certain things too. So while your Kontakt instrument might allow you to create SFX for games and sell those, the site where you want to sell them might explicitly prohibit selling samples which aren’t your original work.
Thanks… wow, never thought about it.
I think even if Elektron explicitly forbid reselling of the presets (which I really doubt), other uses must be totally valid since it is algorithmic general purpose synth.
And even with the factory presets (ok, I know, this is a bit different case)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p025kqfZrI
Yeah there’s a big distinction between selling and just “using” and performing. Even different usages are often not allowed, e.g. some prohibit usage in games but allows in general broadcast media), or some prohibit creating SFX and only allow musical use … it’s pretty confusing indeed, I ended up making a spreadsheet with everything I have to make some sense of this, and Digitone being my latest addition I was curious as to where it stands.
In general anything that’s just performing or creating “music” (in mixed format) is usually allowed (unless it’s demo songs), but selling stems or selling loops or even creating virtual instruments/sample libraries is tricky.
better to ask forgiveness. YOLO
As your attorney I advise you to rent a fast car with no top.
It seems that in many of the cases cited, it is only illegal if you use the preset or sample libraries provided? I only scanned over them quickly. Since Omnisphere is heavily (entirely?) sample based I see the legal issue there. The same with Kontakt. It seems to me the solution on the DN is to make your patches and then your own samples and loops.
I sell patch and sample packs I’ve made with Elektron gear (currently, Digitone and Model:Cycles) on my Gumroad site and haven’t had any issues. I’m pretty sure Elektron are aware of what I’m doing as well.
Haha yes I’m pretty sure they are aware.
It’s totally different for sample-based software instruments, because the sample is the product.
With a synth, there’s no way to tell whether you programmed a particular sound or someone else, it’s irrelevant.
Use the DN as a synth. Make your own sounds. Use those. Samples are so 20th century 
Not really the point of the thread.
Samples are great. I’ve been using tons of sampled sounds in my soundtrack projects and it’s way quicker than pulling out a synth, plugging it in, turning it on and spending even longer dialling an appropriate sound in. I still love pure synthesis, but sometimes I just don’t have the time.
Same, personally I love creating drones and soundscapes and spend quite a bit of time doing it … but when I’m making a soundtrack and need a drone I usually just pull one from a generic library, because creating my own is usually not worth it. Especially since by the time I create it I’ll forget what was the initial idea for the rest of the track 
you should be able to make your own samples/loops and sell them as long as you don’t use any of the presets that come with the DN as many others already do with it and other machines