Reply To: What are the BEST/WORST sample library & plugin purchases you’ve made & why?

[peter]

@fretman I’ve had developers and pro musicians tell me about various issues with sample libraries on the market. I can’t say which ones told me about various libraries, but problems are not that rare. Although I will share one because of the developer’s ethically problematic practices of using his contractors to attack his competitors and make shill posts over at VI-Control. Impact Soundworks Shreddage. I was told from a well-respected expert that there is a Shreddage library where you can hear a television on in the background in the samples. The other library that I’ve been told from multiple pros — including a pro musician and a developer — that it is an unredeemable mess on multiple levels — sampling, velocity layers, and scripting is Aria’s string library. Consequently, you won’t see me post deals from that developer. I don’t know the developer. I’ve never interacted with them. It’s nothing personal, I just have enough input from experts who don’t know one another that I don’t want to lead people into buying sample libraries that I know are not very good.

If I know a developer doesn’t make very good sample libraries or, like Fluffy Audio, Impact Soundworks, and Realitone, engages in practices that I — and pretty much anyone who cares about ethics — find problematic, I won’t even post their sales. I have severely limited what I post from Karanyi and — beyond being spammed — I haven’t had a single issue with their products or customer support. I just witnessed how poorly they treated one of our members, @jorge.

This place is about basic values of decency, respect for others, kindness, and ethics. That encompasses how people treat each other, integrity, and transparency. Those values are really pretty simple. Treat others with respect and try to help one another. When I know a developer’s products or support isn’t up to expectations, I won’t simply give them a pass. I don’t even care if it’s a developer I had a pre-existing relationship with. When a person starts a business, they have an obligation to deliver on promises, expectations, and hold to basic ethical standards. The reality in this space is that the forums, the blogs, and the subreddits are little more than a money grab. I realize that I’m using affiliate links to pay the bills, but they’ll never result in censoring people from sharing honest experiences — and smart, ethical developers respect that. Of course, as I’ve shared, there is a small group of developers that don’t respect that — and their fellow developers know it.

I hope that Skybox will work on resolving this issue. Please follow up on it! I own one of their libraries (Wurly 145B) and really like it.

LinkedMusicians Founder. Your friend who keeps the beat.

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