ReasonTalk.com

Have to echo some of the statements on here. Bitley your sounds are absolutely world class; but the shopping experience of buying your ReFills is not so much.

Definitely try a better web platform for selling your products, definitely try getting your ReFills onto Propellerhead's shop and definitely see about (at some point!) porting some of your sounds to RE format.

Whilst you are correct when you say such things "would not improve these sounds"; you have to put your commercial hat on when thinking about the whole picture. When a customer buys a product they are also buying into the experience. You need to offer them total excitement with zero frustration around these world class sounds you have; from initial interaction with your brand all the way through to when they play their first note using your products.

Good luck!

According to every podcast in the world, squarespace would be perfect for this!

Yes squarespace etc are nice but hosting and so on is already taken care of.

bitley wrote: ↑

25 Feb 2019

It's always been like that but I'm prepared to change things to get more attention I might create youtube videos nude and oiled up as well to get some action

there's a better way Bitley - just find you a good coder and a business guy (or someone who can do both - they exist) give him or her a fair cut, and you can spend all your time making sounds. imo your banks compare favorably with many i have heard from well known sound/patch designers and the 80s stuff you love is like, so hot right now - you won't even have to sell your body though i'm sure you look great oiled up!

i should clarify, i think a better site would be a great thing and help your sales a little, but i thing moving from patch banks/refills/kontakt stuff to RE and VST instruments would bring your work to the attention of an exponentially wider audience - that's just the reality of the market right now - for every sound bank sold there are dozens if not hundreds of VSTi plugins sold.

I don't know how you 'know' this as things are working out pretty good for me I'm actually more concerned regarding the activity among sound buyers on this forum. Perhaps the real customers are focusing on music making.

Hey bitley,

Not sure I completely understand. I think that you asked for advice in this thread. And people were nice enough to give you feedback that could potentially be useful to you and your business.
Not sure if you didn’t like the answers or what is going on, but I don’t think you doing yourself any favors going down that route. Just my 2 cents.

D.

Bitley, I think in this case the problem is with the potential market for the product rather than the shop.

Imagine a pie-chart of all electronic music makers. The slice who use Reason is fairly small. Then the slice who have bought the PX7 RE is smaller still. That RE comes with 100k patches plus a refill with another 168k patches so you are looking for someone who has bought Reason, bought PX7 and who is looking to buy better sorted and/or new patches rather than dive into the endless patches supplied with PX7 or make their own.

And add to that there are hundreds of FM synths out there as VSTs for little or no money, some of them bloody good.

So I think you have probably made a great product but for a very limited market.

I can only speak for myself here of course, but there are many factors that can make me buy or not buy a product. The quality of a product is just one of them.
For me there are probably more emotional factors rather than logical factors that makes me pull the trigger and buy something.

First of all I think the "make Rack extensions instead" advice is a fair advice. I'm much more likely to buy a good looking RE than a refill full of patches. Psychologically it's just more exciting to buy and play with. It's a new shiny toy to look at.
It seems like most of your refills are aimed towards retro sounds. Perhaps that's a niche or already oversaturated market. Personally I'm not particularly interested in those sounds. I want new sounds, but that's just me. That doesn't mean there's something wrong with the product itself.
I agree that selling it from the Propellerhead Shop might make a difference for some, it does for me for example. It's so nice to have one account for everything music/Reason related instead of having to make several accounts for everything you buy. As a customer I'd rather pay a little more just for that convenience. I remember winning a refill one time and I almost didn't want to download it just because I had to make a new account on a page where I knew I wouldn't ever visit again. Again it's not about being rational. Most people make decisions on emotions, more than we like to admit. I don't even have a paypal account and I'm not getting one just to buy a refill or two.
Making something cheaper or even free might work for some people, but it also sends the signal that the product isn't worth much and maybe isn't worth getting in the first place. Personally I don't care that much about the price. If I want something I'll buy it. If something is free and I don't want it, the fact that it's free is not gonna help. Most of us have way too much REs/sounds/presets already. It has to offer something new.

Having said all this, there are things that I think you are doing right.
It does seem like your refills are of high quality and the people the products are aimed at seem to like them very much. This is of course the most important thing.
You are here talking to potential customers letting us know about your stuff. And you are interested in our opinions.
You also have lots of demos/videos which is a must have, especially for refills. Since we can't try refills this is a major one. I'm not even gonna try a RE if there isn't some sort of demo to lure me in first.

That was a lot of rambling I know. Do what you want with it.

bitley wrote: ↑

02 Mar 2019

I don't know how you 'know' this as things are working out pretty good for me I'm actually more concerned regarding the activity among sound buyers on this forum. Perhaps the real customers are focusing on music making.

No need for a false dichotomy.

People can enjoy your sounds and make music, but still see the areas where the sales and marketing could be more streamlined and clear.

A prospect may also be all about the sounds, but just not give your sounds a chance because they are discouraged by a few things in the buying and browsing experience.

One must be cautious when feeling attacked by the opinions of those who are trying to help. Constructive criticism enables you to enhance areas you may have been as perceptive to like marketing, sales funnels, user experience or design aesthetics.

---

I'm quite confident there are many who desperately need your sounds but either don't know you exist, or have no idea that your sounds are what they are looking for.

That's room for marketing that could double or even quadruple your monthly income.

I don't want to see Bitley oiled up

No false dichotomies. Refills sell less than Kontakt banks right now but hopefully I will find a way. Thanks to all.

laconic

Yup Laconic sounds is a deep house label. Or a sleep house label.

Why is it exactly that you don't turn your wonderful refills into REs? I know you are opposed to that idea, but I don't understand why. Personally, I prefer REs over refills, and I think most Reason users would agree with that. Don't fight it like a fish swimming upstream. Although salmon is delicious, it dies after the journey.

You are a world class sound designer, Bitley. And I'm not sure why Props won't put your refills in their shop. Shame on them. Really, that is the best place for your refills to be. You need to take your products to the store on the busy street (ie, the Prop Shop), not selling out of the basement in the cul-de-sac (ie, your website). Props get all the traffic and your products need to be in their shop. So if they won't allow your refills, they will probably allow your REs. Get in contact with a developer who can turn your refills into REs and get them in the shop. I think you would see a big increase in sales.

Fairlight RE. Wooaah!!! Instabuy.