Selling sample/loop packs

Does anyone make good money doing this? Any tips?

I’ve been making electronic music for about 7-8 years now, and it’s totally my passion in every way- I love gear, sound design, composing, DJing, producing, recording- all of it. But I’ve still yet to make a single dollar from anything other than playing live shows and it’s really weighing down on me. I don’t hate my job, but everyday I’m here it feels frustrating that my music knowledge and skills aren’t being put to use at all, and I’m having a hard time working hard and doing my best, which sucks.

I always think about going down the “selling beats” path but my friends always tell me how hard it is, and that being a “commission artist” like that is very unsatisfying because you’re forced to make stuff you may or may not enjoy making.

As a musician, I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m not able to just pump out tracks on a release schedule type thing. That kind of pressure doesn’t work for me and ends up with bland cliched sounding tracks. The best part for me is experimenting and making new sounds.

So now I’m thinking, if I really start to work hard on making sample packs, I think it would be fun for me because that’s anyways what I do with making my own music- make banks of awesome sounds and loops. I think I’m a pretty proficient sound designer and have a good ear. So what’s the next step? I’m going to go home and put together a few “packs” and pitch them to some websites. What are the best websites to do this? Is there anyone looking for sound designers to where I can apply and send some demos? Is this an unrealistic endeavour? I suck at marketing and hyping myself up so that’s the scariest part for me.

Sorry to rant- feeling frustrated with life right now :pensive:

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Never sold a sample pack, but I’d say be clear with your target and work on brand and marketing of that product as a whole. Great samples is a small part of selling them.

Also, we’re all suckers for samples and sounds created for specific products. People Google Analog Four Hip Hop or Model Samples Ambient - so target accordingly.

Good luck, and go for it.

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It’s old joke time!

What’s the difference between a pizza and a musician? A pizza can feed a family of four…

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Do it. In music, much like with investing, it is all about expanding your portfolio. The greater the changes you create for an income, the greater that income will become.

Sample packs is one area I haven’t gotten myself into, but I have a friend who does that and sells on sounds.com, splice, loopmasters… In addition to running a studio, producing music for clients, adverts, and for his own artist projects. What I learnt from him is that one should not focus on a single thing. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, they say…

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Start a Youtube channel focused on boutique synthesizers

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An educated guess would be ”no, they don’t”. Many people seem to release their sample packs on a free / pay what you want basis. Maybe there’s some money there to be made if you’re a well-known artist (say, have a decent niche following on Instagram/Youtube) or get your samples released by a company with decent marketing but beyond that the monetary gain is probably not worth it.

I did one sample pack once, kinda. Made 45 Lyra-8 samples as I was selling the device, decided to upload them on Bandcamp and only told about it to people on this forum in the Lyra-8 thread (i.e. ZERO marketing). About a month later I’m at seven downloads and 0€. To be honest, I practically told everyone NOT to pay anything, because I really didn’t want anyone to. Just an example of what is likely to happen to a sample pack nobody knows about and was made by a nobody. :grinning:

If you decide to go the sample pack route - and by all means do, if you enjoy the process anyway - I’d also say the same as @P580C did: targetting to a specific audience is the key here. That, and building an audience through social media, most likely.

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Also looking at what you’re competing against, the internet is FULL of sample packs. Samples From Mars is amazingly cheap and have a wide selection of different classic synths and drum machines. You REALLY have to find your own niche or sell for extremely cheap if you want anyone to pay for your samples.

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Recreate sounds from songs people love, and sell those. Radiohead’s top 15 synth sounds etc.

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Get em while they’re hot!

Also I know someone who makes soundpacks for Ampify/Retronyms (Lauchpad and iMPC2 ios apps). He gets a hundred or two a pop. He also states that novation generates about 20k/month in sample pack sales.

If you really want to put them to use and don’t mind making any money off them…or a promise to get paid in the future (lol!), check out Aggy Daggy. \adgd
They’re hobbyist\armature\independent game developers. Their biggest problem is always finding copywrite free music to use in their games. They usually have a contest on a bimonthly basis with a bunch of submissions. Ive thrown some of those developers my throw away stuff and they eat it up. They’re just like us, except they spend their time in their studios hunched over wacom tablets and 3d software instead of octatracks and weird guitar pedals.

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Teddy makes a TON of money.

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Thanks for all the encouragement it really means a lot. I’m going to start putting in an hour or two every day putting stuff together to see where it takes me. I’ll try to document my journey here or elsewhere and share…

I think my first step is “market research” like you guys said making sure I know what will catch peoples eyes when they’re scrolling and finding a niche. At the very least, all my sonic exploration can go towards something useful rather than a ton of unsaved patches and incomplete ideas.

Also making banks for all the gear I already own will be another good starting point.

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