Opportunities for LM in the Year Ahead, and Why It Matters To You

[LinkedMusicians]

This week I will be attempting to reschedule a meeting I had planned with 8Dio/SoundPaint’s CEO and wanted to share some quick thoughts and invite your input.

I’ve consulted to 8Dio/SoundPaint, but Tawnia is also a friend, and I greatly enjoy speaking with her. I’ve been a customer for more than a decade before meeting Tawnia and own dozens of 8Dio and SoundPaint libraries.

I’ve been reluctant to speak to developers I know about LinkedMusicians due to the low interactions here. I’ve invested thousands of dollars and thousands of hours into the site, my heart is clearly in this, and it’s really not about being a deals forum, it’s about creating a community for people who love making music that is civil, kind, inclusive, and doesn’t accept the culture wars, developer wars, trolling, developer/employee/contractor shilling that’s become normalized in social media and at the big forums in this space. However, the low interaction on the forum is the challenge here. The vast majority of visitors to LinkedMusicians come for (A) the deals forum, and (B) the free Kontakt sample libraries list. We easily surpass 10x the traffic of the Cakewalk Discuss Deals subforum where a lot of us met. We only have a fraction of the traffic of the big online gear, plugin, and composer forums, but the growth patterns show that LM could grow to be the size of the smallest of the big three (GearSpace, KVR, and VI-Control, with the latter being the smallest) within a few years.

The big challenge is getting people talking. Most of our registered members aren’t posting even to say hello. They log in, look and go. We average very long visits. But 99% of those visits end without making a post. This results in a multitude of growth obstacles for a community. But the biggest are:

(1) The majority of new registrants don’t log in again. This is a common problem for communities without much activity. Basically, the mentality is, there’s not enough value to justify sticking around or logging in next time.

(2) Visitors have no idea about the traffic stats of the site, so the way people commonly discern if an online community is active is by the amount of activity that they can see there. The lack of activity makes visitors — and developers — think LM is a dead community.

What’s in LinkedMusicians for You?

I created LinkedMusicians based on my values and ideals about music, creativity, ethics and how people should treat one another — and yes, my contempt for the awful way many people conduct themselves on social media today. I loathe it. Especially as a parent, I’m disappointed to see culture wars, bigotry, dishonesty, deceptive marketing practices, and cruelty normalized in social media today. My desire was to create a little place on the web where kindness reigns, where we can focus on the joy of making music and our growth. Those who know me in real life know that these are values that have always guided me. If you share those values, you’ve found a place where you focus on music and not be distracted by any of that other stuff. But the fact that we have over 10,000 people each month that come here gives us a grassroots edge that we’d never have on a developer-owned forum or a forum driven by profit motives instead of ideals. Let me explain.

The size of our community earns us influence with developers and retailers that we do not have on a developer-owned forum. That can be used for:

• exclusive promotions, contests, giveaways
• input on products, current and upcoming
• direct communications with developers
• given greater attention to customers of developers who might have a situation where LM can provide their voice greater reach

As someone known to the Kontakt developer community, my reputation can help our community have greater influence in the products developers make.

How Can We Get Started in 2026?

Chime in and share your thoughts on the deals we post. It doesn’t have to be a great big thought. Do you think a demo sounds cool? Post that! Like the old saying goes, “Nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd.” I promised that I would treat LinkedMusicians members like friends, and I think I do that. Our volunteers share those values and are people I am very happy to associated with. Just really kind people who love making music.

We have a platform — a canvas, if you will. We get to paint it any way we like.

Thoughts? Let’s hear them!

– Peter

P.S. This thread is members-only.

CURATED BEST FREE LISTS: Kontakt Libraries, Sample Libraries, Virtual Synths, Effects
POWERSEARCH TOOLS: Synth Presets, Loops & Sound FX, Gear Reviews 
FREE TOOLS: Mixing Problem Solver, Songwriter's Toolbox, QuickGuides, Scale, Mode & Chord Finder
READ/WATCH: Mag Articles / Podcasts, Audio Production & Songwriter's Dictionaries

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[fretman]

I’d love to see threads about virtual instruments. Not deals, but discussions of how they’re used, discoveries on how to make them easier to use, favorites and go-to’s, things like that. I’m aways interested in short cuts to getting the sound I  want.

Studio One, Windows, RME UFX, Yamaha MSP7

5

[LinkedMusicians]

It’s NAMM week, but this month, I’m starting to reach out to developers to let them know about LinkedMusicians. I hope our community members will continue to tell others about LM, about the values of ensuring a non-toxic, grassroots environment where we focus on making music in an atmosphere of mutual respect, growth as music producers, and, hopefully, kindness and encouragement. Oh yeah, and great deals!

CURATED BEST FREE LISTS: Kontakt Libraries, Sample Libraries, Virtual Synths, Effects
POWERSEARCH TOOLS: Synth Presets, Loops & Sound FX, Gear Reviews 
FREE TOOLS: Mixing Problem Solver, Songwriter's Toolbox, QuickGuides, Scale, Mode & Chord Finder
READ/WATCH: Mag Articles / Podcasts, Audio Production & Songwriter's Dictionaries

3

[Jaap Visser]

Thank you for reaching out to me Peter and would love beside the deals to participate as active member in talks about music, production, passion etc. I think as developer I (and maybe others as well) see how we can use our network of clients can be made enthusiastic to join the board. I will also give it some thoughts on what I could do. It is easy to mention it for example in a newsletter, but would be even better if it could be combined with something that makes people enthusiastic to register and participate.

Composer and sound designer
Triple Spiral Audio

21

[Xandre]

One thing I sometimes struggle with is wanting to support developers, but also wanting to save a couple of bucks.

I assume buying directly from a software developer would give them the most margin. But I would like to know which resellers are most ‘ethical’, especially towards smaller developers. And maybe some developers don’t even have their own storefront because that is even more expensive for them than hand off a margin to a reseller.

So I’d love to have some more insight/transparency on that, when deciding on buying something.

Xandre
Chaos Scatterbrain with a plethora of 4 bar loop projects, and barely any songs

3

[LinkedMusicians]

On Xandre said

One thing I sometimes struggle with is wanting to support developers, but also wanting to save a couple of bucks.

I assume buying directly from a software developer would give them the most margin. But I would like to know which resellers are most ‘ethical’, especially towards smaller developers. And maybe some developers don’t even have their own storefront because that is even more expensive for them than hand off a margin to a reseller.

So I’d love to have some more insight/transparency on that, when deciding on buying something.

You’re right that a developer selling directly makes a higher margin. Retailers will typically take 40 to 50 percent of a sale (I don’t want to name specifics but some of the heavy discount retailer outlets take even higher percentages). However, a retailer will give a developer much greater reach, so it’s about the volume — the total revenue not margins — and also keep in mind that if a developer’s products don’t sell at a retailer, they’ll be dumped. Consequently,  I tend to buy where i find the best price. Developers I know are happy with that. For example,. I had a call with Steven Slate early on when he started out selling Steven Slate Drums. He was selling them directly. But when he got retail distribution, he saw sales increase far beyond what he was selling directly and it took the business to another level.

CURATED BEST FREE LISTS: Kontakt Libraries, Sample Libraries, Virtual Synths, Effects
POWERSEARCH TOOLS: Synth Presets, Loops & Sound FX, Gear Reviews 
FREE TOOLS: Mixing Problem Solver, Songwriter's Toolbox, QuickGuides, Scale, Mode & Chord Finder
READ/WATCH: Mag Articles / Podcasts, Audio Production & Songwriter's Dictionaries

5

[Author]

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