New Sound Effects site

[Mixomera]

Hi, and most welcome to Mixomera. After months of work our site is finally online and fully functional. Now we start the real work, to add professional sound effects. We hereby invite all sound designers with their own high quality sound effects to participate as contributors.

Why Mixomera, you might ask? Well, we think there is a need for a professional sound effects site. With high quality sound files, carefully recorded by experienced sound designers. That are easily accessible in a database with all the necessary meta data like time, location, file type etc. And why not make the site good looking and easy to navigate, aswell?

We sound designers have a lot to learn from the graphics world, there are a lot of really good images banks. But no sound effects libraries that meet professional requirements. Not until now. Mixomera will focus on the professional market. Made by professionals, for professionals.

We hope you will like and use our site, Mixomera
_________________
Mixomera Admin

[TWoZ]

Just wondering, but why would I want to you give you sound effects that cost me a lot of money and time to record/edit/etc?

I'm just curious.

[soundguydave]

What prevents some joker from posting licensed SFX to the site and some unsuspecting user downloading it, using it and getting sued?

TWoZ- it looks like they'll give you a cut of sales.

[Brent Hahn]

Cute model.

[TWoZ]

It would have to be a LOT of money.

I'm sure alot of you understand what it takes to get good quality recordings out in the world.

[soundguydave]

I think pretty much everyone does. I'd be more concerned about getting sued though.

[santacore]

This is odd. There does seem to be to many legal issues with running a site like this. Plus, I can't believe they started a SFX site with only a handful of effects? That seems odd to me too. I think they need to clarify what they are looking for and what they are offering in return.

[hollowsea]

Who cares? There is an attractive lady on the front page, and she is holding a large microphone.

[Dopamine]

VERY bizarre to have this website with just a handful of sound fx. ?????

[Mixomera]

Hi
Dear fellow Sound Designers. Sorry for not being totally clear about our concept.

We have set up this website with the ambition to let you, professional sound designers, upload your sound effects, AND of course earn money. Please have a look at the Contributing page, there you can read all about the conditions. We are VERY aware of that your sound files represent a lot of work, and Mixomera is a way of getting a broader audience for them and earn money from files that you have recorded. This is a Win-Win deal for you and for Mixomera. You 40%, We 40% and the last 20% goes to bank/transfer fees.

We do not intend to add that many sound files ourselves, but eventually the database will grow, as our Contributors will add their sound files. And when we think that we have enough sound files, we will also start marketing the site. We just wanted to start here, and let you add sound effects, since we know that we find some of the worlds best sound designers at this forum.

There is always a risk of fraud on the Internet. Our way of dealing with this is to only let people we approve and trust (hey this is you people) to upload sound files. When you do this you have to agree to our Contributors policy. If someone uploads fake or stolen sound effects, that is a violation of our Contributors policy and a crime, and WE will sue their asses.

We hope that this has sorted out some of the issues above. Feel free to contact us again if you have more questions.

And now, let's go ahead and make a heavy bulk upload to our database, we want your sound files :-) If you are not pleased with our services you are free to remove your files, we do not intend to lock you in.

[tilman]

Why not. I think this is a cool idea...

But...
What I dislike is that the Soundfiles in each Categorie have the same price.
Who determins in which kind off Packeges you offer the Sounds.
Certain recordings sholuld be more expensive.
The Side does not look Pro to me.

So at the moment I can not imagine loading up my recordings to a page like this.

But you have my attention.

cheers tilman

[Mixomera]

Hi Tilman
I'm glad that you like the idea of a site like this, and that we have your attention.

As I hopefully have made clear in earlier posts, at this point Mixomera is not a ready or mature product. We just launched the site and started posting on this forum to get your attention. I want people like you to give me your opinions, so that we can build a site that you people eventually will like and use. As contibutors or customers.

Please give me your info what you would see in a "pro" site. I am all ears.
Regarding design, well I have tried to make it simple and uncluttered, to make it easy for the users.

Pricing. Well this is an interesting topic. We started with a fixed price, just to make it easy, but that might just as well change. But what is the standard that defines if a sound file is going to cost more? Length? Higher sample rate? Exotic recording location? I really don't know. There is always the option to let our contributors set their own prices, as long as it does not go below our recommended level. If people are willing to pay more for certain effects, that is not going to make me sad :-)

Cheers,
Mikael

[jkamata]

Originally Posted by hollowsea

Who cares? There is an attractive lady on the front page, and she is holding a large microphone.

dont you get it?

real sfx = real titties..

[smsjr]

Originally Posted by Mixomera

Hi, and most welcome to Mixomera. After months of work our site is finally online and fully functional. Now we start the real work, to add professional sound effects. We hereby invite all sound designers with their own high quality sound effects to participate as contributors.

Just curious, how come you haven't added your entire library? It would seem like the best way to get things going is to add your own sound design library. 1st, it gives people an idea who they are dealing with here. Second, it builds the library quickly, which will help it become marketable faster.

Originally Posted by Mixomera

Why Mixomera, you might ask? Well, we think there is a need for a professional sound effects site. With high quality sound files, carefully recorded by experienced sound designers. That are easily accessible in a database with all the necessary meta data like time, location, file type etc. And why not make the site good looking and easy to navigate, aswell?

I agree, there is a need for more sites. However, let's not discount the work done by companies like Sound Dogs who have had a site operational and successful for a number of years. I have no problem seing more sites jump into the mix and create a lot more accessible sound effects, just want to give credit where do.

Originally Posted by Mixomera

We sound designers have a lot to learn from the graphics world, there are a lot of really good images banks. But no sound effects libraries that meet professional requirements. Not until now. Mixomera will focus on the professional market. Made by professionals, for professionals.

I do like the concept of being able to upload our sounds to a site and making some money, as long as it is run properly and fair. This will take some time and some people willing to take the risk, but if you market it well and develope a trust with the community, you might have something here.

Originally Posted by Mixomera

We hope you will like and use our site, Mixomera

Not bad for an initial attempt. Just keep in mind (and I'm sure you already have) that audio is easy to steal from the internet. So when previewing sounds, the only way to really secure them is to make the quality of the preview low. It's a tough battle because when potential customers search your site they want to hear what something really sounds like before purchasing it. But from the providers side of things, a digital audio recorder app can easily record the file being previewed. So for example, if someone were to need a nice door slam, it wouldn't be hard to grab that right from the preview if the quality was decent enough. I hate to be the devil's advocate here, but that is a reality.

Otherwise, best of luck with this and I will keep my eye on it.

Steve
_________________
Mixomera Admin[/QUOTE]

[starcrash13]

Originally Posted by smsjr

Not bad for an initial attempt. Just keep in mind (and I'm sure you already have) that audio is easy to steal from the internet. So when previewing sounds, the only way to really secure them is to make the quality of the preview low.

Personally, I would prefer the previews to be of higher quality but have some other type of protection like an electronic beep or something. Maybe simliar to the one used in the Altiverb demo which is full functional, yet has a beep in the verb.

[smsjr]

Originally Posted by starcrash13

Personally, I would prefer the previews to be of higher quality but have some other type of protection like an electronic beep or something. Maybe simliar to the one used in the Altiverb demo which is full functional, yet has a beep in the verb.

I'm right there with ya. I like high quality too. But from the providers point of view, it's very difficult to protect themselves from people stealing. Of course, longer, sustained kind of effects like ambiences, you only need to provide a 10-15 second preview, but a door slam, car crash, gun shot, etc the preview is enough to provide someone with the effect without having to pay for it.

I'm sure there is a better way to do all of this. Perhaps making someone sign up for an account, so the only way you can log into the search is if you are a member. Won't stop people from stealing, but might limit it.

I wish these guys the best of luck for sure, but I'm wondering if there are better ways to exchange sound design/effects. In an ideal world, where everyone was honest and had the best of intentions you could set up an internet community of sound designers who could use the old bartering system. So Joe, a specialist in recording gun sounds could exchange sounds with Pete, a nature recordist. A win, win. Unfortunately, this is probably a difficult thing to do because we don't live in an ideal world, and sure enough people would probably abuse the system. Maybe I'm wrong on that. I'd prefer to be wrong on that. I also don't think there's anything wrong with making money off your sounds either, so I support what places like Sound Dogs are doing. Either system is fine by me as long as people are being honest and everone gets a fair shake.

Steve

[starcrash13]

Originally Posted by moracspace

Just another internet company looking to get rich off of someone elses work.In reality anyone could set up a site for nearly peanuts and sell other peoples products.For that matter i think i might start loading our sound effects on gearslutz for our friends here at no cost.What do you think fellas?

What do I think? Honestly, I think your comment is not only cynical but kind of dumb. Of course, anyone could have started a site that allows sound designers to upload and sell their work, but no one has until now. As far as someone getting rich selling other peoples stuff, how this any different from selling your gear at a consignment store? In the case of Mixomera, I think that the money split is a bit unfair (artist: 40%/ company: 60%), but the concept is great. What if the site takes off and becomes huge? Would you be opposed to having checks for hundreds of dollars roll in every few months for sounds that you created or recorded? Sounds pretty good to me.

So far, the Mixomera guy seems pretty earnest and is looking for feedback and ideas from working sound designers in addition to having them upload their work. I hope they do well and work out some of the details like running spellcheck their site. ;-)

[noCore]

the concept makes sense, albeit it is yes just another internet money-making scheme - but when i think of purchasing sounds from the internet... i mean... music in general typically goes for what about a buck a song - and that's talking fully composed, produced etc SONGS by artists through labels and whatnot...

Mixomera | Audio Details

i don't understand . who would pay $3 for a one second sample of a door opening???

i'm assuming there's some level of quality in this (ie, nice sounding .wav samples over poorly encoded .mp3's etc... but still.

on the other hand, it could be easy money for sound designers if there is indeed people willing to pay for it.

now i'm curious - is this indeed 'economically viable' ???

[John Suitcase]

There's probably a big little market in people doing home movie stuff. But $3 a piece is too much for them.

On the other hand, someone doing TV or Film might pay more for high quality.

Obviously, there are lots of parallels in the graphic world, for images, fonts, etc.

To make it go, you need to license a couple of big, high quality libraries from established players. Do that, and you may have something that can float.

[starcrash13]

Last week I paid $9 USD for a recording of a propane lantern on Sounddogs. I ended up using about 10 seconds of it. I needed it right away and it ended up being cheaper than buying one and recording it myself.

Three bucks is a bit steep for a door slam, but how about maybe fifteen variations of the same door opening and closing in different ways and from various perspectives including both interior and exterior. Maybe some slow creaks, some door knob twists, knob handling and a few knocks for good measure. Now we've got a good deal.

[Mixomera]

Hi there
Glad to read all your opinions about Mixomera. They will all contribute to make decisions easier for us, since we now can pinpont your main concerns. As I understand these are the issues:

1. Us making money from your work. Pleaseee. Let's make 180 degree turn on this one. We provide a platform that lets you market your sound fx in a convenient way, and make some money. You get one share for making the recordings and we get one share for running the e-commerce site. Everyone are of course free to set up their own online sound libraries, but considering the absence of such sites we must assume that this is not something everyone would do overnight.

2. Stealing. This is a problem, for all distributors of digital assets. We will do our best to prohibit that, for instance our preview quality is not something a professional would record and use. We also demand login before you can buy, and all contributors are dealt with on a personal level.

3. Price. Yes, this is an interesting issue. I asked the question before, but have not got any answers. How do you measure the commercial value of a sound effect? Lenght? Sample quality? Exotic recording location? Please give me the facts and I will use that as a standard pricing model on the site. Until then, a fixed price for all assets will be the case. Alternatively we could let the individual sound designer set their own prices within a defined price range.

Price is also interesting from two perspectives.
1. What would you as a sound designer want to get paid?
2. What would you as a buyer want to pay?

We have to find a level that both parties are willing to accept. Pascal, thanks for the tip, you are definately onto something here. I forward this tip to people who want to contribute. Make those simpler/ordinary recordings more attractive by giving several versions of the sound.

When setting up a new internet company you could do it either by offering a complete and mature solution. This is like the big boys do business. No negotiating, no asking, this is our solution and this is what you get. Or, you could do it our way. By investigating, and talking to the people you actually want to attract. Personally, I find the latter more attractive, especially since we are seeking a long term collaberation.

We have launched a technical platform that is rock solid, this 100% quality and will work for a long time. BUT, on the content side we are on beta 0.2. We are right now investigating what you people want, how you want it, and if you could consider to participate. We do not have the answers to all questions yet, but we are pretty confident that we are onto something good. And we will continue to work hard to make the right decisions.

If you would like to participate, you are most welcome. If you are hesitant, please bookmark the site and check us out now and then. The site will improve, that is a promise.

From now on I think it is better to move this conversation to a forum on our site, or via private e-mails. I will not challenge the patience of the Gearslutz moderators/administrators anymore on this thread. (Thanks Geert for allowing a private company like ours to take up space on this forum, it has been invaluable).

And yes Pascal, when we are ready to go live and start marketing the site towards a larger audience, we will first run that spalltjeck :-)

Cheers,
Mikael

[Dode]

Is it just me, or Mixomera.com has disappeared?

Bye.

[danijel]

Originally Posted by Dode

Is it just me, or Mixomera.com has disappeared?

Bye.

Same here.

It must be hard to maintain a site with full-res multimedia content for download? Everytime the GS goes down, I wonder how the hell did it held up so far

BTW, great job on SDO server transition! If Danny Elfman destroys the SFX business, I'm sure you'll be fine over at the IT industry

[Rick Sanchez]

i don't understand . who would pay $3 for a one second sample of a door opening???

i'm assuming there's some level of quality in this (ie, nice sounding .wav samples over poorly encoded .mp3's etc... but still.

on the other hand, it could be easy money for sound designers if there is indeed people willing to pay for it.

I'm waiting for a subscription based web site. For those of us who often need sounds we don't have quickly, I wouldn't mind paying $100 a year for a set number of downloads if the quality was high and the site was easy to navigate. For those who only occasionally need sounds, charging a fee based on the length of the file. Maybe $2.00 for 1-5 seconds,
$4.00 5-10 seconds
$5.00 10-30 seconds
$6.00 over 30 seconds

[RecRoom]

Yeah, I'd love this. I've done a bit of surfing around on soundsnap, but I'm looking for something a little more complete. Subscription based would be the best. You never know if an effect will work until you put it in the mix.

[subbasshead]

Wow I never realised how many cynics there are on this forum! I mean hes basically talking about the same model as sounddogs.com which is a site I for one have used a few times... and i dont remember anyone complaining so much about their service?

FWIW I dont think sounds should be sold by duration, thats like saying it takes the same amount of effort to record a door slam as a gunshot....

In a vaguely related theme, I once pitched an original idea to a certain Sound FX company, who would only offer me an outright buy out per sound.... & it wasnt much.. when i said no thanks they proceeded to commission the same idea from someone else who WAS prepared to sell their sounds for a one off fee... accordingly I believe the 'share the revenue per FX sold' is a very fair method, but to each their own....

[Dode]

It seems the right "business model" is not easy to find for an online library, isn't it?

Sounddogs is great, but it looks more like an online editor to my eyes, say like "Sound Ideas online" or "Hollywood Edge online", plus some original stuff. That's all. Don't get me wrong, i love this service, and it "saved my ass" more than one time, but it's different than what Mixomera (or more recently Soundsnap) was willing to offer, ie. pro user participation and retribution.

Concerning the price, i just can't understand why people wouldn't pay 3$ for a slam door, or 6$ for an ambience... Damned, people did record this sound, with expensive hardware and expensive time... Maybe that's because of the internet age, where everything should be free? No thanks...

I'm curious about what would be for you the best "business model". Would it be something where you pay X dols for a sound, or a year subsciption thing, or anything else?

What do you think of the Sonomic choice by Soundminer inc. (where you purchase X credits on Sonomic.com, and then can search/buy directly in there library, "transparently")?
Just wondering...

Bye.

[Rick Sanchez]

I like the idea of more online sites for sounds. There are many times when I've been stuck without something I need and have no time to go record something myself. I've used Sounddogs quite a bit as well as some of the free sites or simply posting a request for something unusual that someone else may have.

There are a number of sites like this for Graphic artists, motion graphic artists, photographers, web developers who make a few extra bucks on the side. The time it takes to build and maintain a good site like this is considerable, so unless you really want to spend your time as a database manager, the shared royalty model is quite good. Some of the sites offer "coupons" so that if you post a sound, you can download another sound. Others have subscriptions and others have "bulk" purchases at a discount.

If you're unhappy with the equity split...don't post your sounds or find another site that works for you. If they are too expensive to buy...look elsewhere.

The world changes rapidly today so if you can find an honest way to make money in audio, go for it.

[mintmix]

QUOTE=Rick Sanchez;3260915]
I'm waiting for a subscription based web site. For those of us who often need sounds we don't have quickly, I wouldn't mind paying $100 a year for a set number of downloads if the quality was high and the site was easy to navigate. For those who only occasionally need sounds, charging a fee based on the length of the file. Maybe $2.00 for 1-5 seconds,
$4.00 5-10 seconds
$5.00 10-30 seconds
$6.00 over 30 seconds[/QUOTE]

In addition to this idea there should definitely be a pricing structure that differentiates between sample rate, bit depth and number of channels. (rarity/difficulty of the recording should also count for something!)

I record SFX almost exclusively @ 96k 24bit surround. If I was to contribute to a SFX site and they wanted my highest quality files, I would want (and expect to pay) twice the amount for a 96/24 stereo file as a 48/16 stereo file and 3 times that amount for a 5.1 file...

[danijel]

I just read a very in-depth (and enjoyable) post about sound-effects business on Tim's blog which was inspired by this thread, so I thought it would only be fair to link it back from here:

the music of sound » Buying (& Selling) Sound Effects