k, here's some little info about pricing and why I'll never sell a profile for less than 50 (well, except for all the free ones I shared, lol).
As some of you might know my day job is being a music producer.
Making records is not cheap, so bands (especially bands that don't have financial support from a label etc) are more and more looking to cut down on costs, which is totally understandable.
One way to save some money but still get close to the professionally recorded guitar sound for your album is REAMPING, that means you record the guitar DI tracks at home or in a cheaper project studio and then have the engineer whom's guitar tones you like and want on your album reamp those DIs.
Depending on how well known the engineer and how saught after his guitar tones are the price for such a reamping job ranges from about 200 to let's say about 500 (might be more) for just the rhythm guitars of one album.
Now that is indeed rather cheap if it saves you about 3-5 full days in a studio to track your guitars with the engineer. It's also a fair pice considering that it's almost a full day of work and requires a lot of gear, well tuned rooms and some experience and knowledge (look up what a full day in a well equipped studio WITH a good engineer/poducer would usually cost!).
So I think we have now established that let's say 300 is not too expensive for such an album reamping job (if you disagree with that, there's really no point in any further argument).
Now lets say the same client asks for a custom profile (I'm now talking about a true custom tailored one, using the DIs of the client etc), creating such a profile not only takes the same (or more!) amount of time, gear, rooms, knowledge, experience, that custom made profile also replaces not only that 300€ reamping job, but also potential future reamping jobs from the same client (if you want the same guitar sound on your next album). So considering all that it should be pretty obvious that such a true custom profile could never cost less than the reamping job it replaces.
Fair enough, this profile is not a true one-off custom tailored profile, but it still might cost me a couple of potential reamping jobs...and viewed from the other side: if this happens to be THE sound someone really wants on their album it might actually save them a lot of money. if 50 bucks is too pricey for you to have your favourite guitar sound on your album, you shouldn't record music in the first place.
I don't say this is the perfcet sound for everyone, that would be beyond arrogant, but if it's not worth 50 bucks to you, you just don't buy it and look elsewhere.
There's actually one (not so) fun fact you maybe didn't consider...
I'm being contacted about reampings on a rather regular basis (like I said, it's part of my job)...it's actually happening more and more now that I later hear from the client (or read on a forum) that some kid tries to undercut my price offering MY sounds... literally even saying that and mentioning my name in the process "Oh, Lasse charged you 300 for the album reamping? I'll do it for 150 instead, you'll still get Lasse's sound, cause I'm using his profiles to reamp your guitars" ... now THAT sounds like a bad joke, right?..sadly it isn't!
So here I am spending tens of thousands for gear and rooms, perfecting the process of both miking and profiling and some kids actively contact my clients offering them to do it cheaper while still using my sounds (from their mom's basement).
The guitar sound of an engineer is like his finger print, you'll always recognize an Andy Sneap, a Mark Lewis, a Colin Richardson etc.
None of those guys would EVER share their profiles with you or anyone else...for a very good reason (cause it's NOT just a 57 in front of a Mesa cab, it's not that simple, else we'd all sound the same).
I myself have been offered as much as 2000€ for a SINGLE profile from albums I produced (an offer that I of course refused, cause I am neither selling profiles of bands I'm working with, nor would I be re-using the same sound for another band)...but it maybe shows you that people are definitely willing to pay a lot of money to get THAT tone they're after...which is no surprise, really, you just have to have a look at how much people are paying for amps, cabs, guitars, pickups etc throughout their live, chasing THAT TONE.
With all that in mind it should be pretty clear why I will never sell my profiles for the amount of $ YOU think is fair. It should also be pretty clear that 50$ is indeed not expensive at all for what you potentially get.
Either way you should now understand why at least I think so and why I'm not willing to discuss my princing policy any further.
If this (or any other of my profiles) is not what you're looking for, I'd strongly advise you to not buy anyway, cause I want everyone who's using anything with my name on it to be happy.
But if this IS exactly the tone you want on your record or you wanna play with and you think 50$ is too expensive to achieve your tone, you should maybe consider another hobby.
Either way, the bottom line is: I have my reasons for the number I put on things, if you think it's not worth that much, just don't buy it...move on and stop wasting everyone's time.
But yeah..I don't think I really have to justify why I'm doing things the way I'm doing them...still, you now have your explaination, I seriously hope you'll be able to get some sleep now
Love
L
P.S. Additonal note:
Not that anyone cares, but I actually bought and own these amps and cabs with actual money...I'm not just ordering them from Thomann/MF, profile them and then send them back to make a quick buck (which IMO is the lowest of the low anyway....unfortunately it seems to be common practice among some profile vendors here..sad)
)
Again Peace and Love!
