A Composer's Friend: Impact Soundworks

Being a musician, a sort of mix 'n match artist who utilizes various synthetic noises and ambiances...the digital workspace is all I have to create music. From top to bottom, everything is done with a click of a mouse or a tap on the keys; truly, this is all one needs in order to hatch an idea. However, there are those that take it to a higher level, a place where the lines between what is live and what is sampled are blurred. What once was just various waveforms and a matter of frequency modulation crossed with diverse oscillation...has now become an entire orchestra or rock band at the edge of your fingertips.

This, is where Impact Soundworks shines.

Around since 2008, creators Andrew Aversa and Wilbert Roget, II have developed over 20+ sample libraries ranging from percussive sheets of metal, to vintage drums, and a whole range of ethnic and unusual melodic instruments such as a stone marimba or a koto. This stuff is plain and simple: magic. Having no idea how they created such a market or how they develop any of their instruments, I thought it best to ask a few questions. Both creators chimed in.

Hey there, thanks for taking a few moments to sit and chat about your business, Impact Soundworks!

Q: Before Impact Soundworks, how did you get involved with music?

Andrew Aversa: My parents encouraged me to try lots of different activities growing up, and when I started piano lessons at age 7, that quickly became one of my favorite things. I kept up with that all through middle school, playing the classics by Mozart, Beethoven, Gershwin, Liszt, etc. When high school came around, a friend introduced me to digital audio editing and I was instantly hooked. I loved the concept of manipulating audio on a computer, and I got even more excited when the same friend showed me a program where you could actually program your own notes and sounds.

From that point on, creating digital music became a passion and my whole life changed around it. I went to school for Music Industry, began writing original albums, and working with small-time game developers and students on soundtrack work. It's been great ever since!

Wilbert Roget, II: I’d been writing video game and film scores since early High School, actually. Later on after graduating college and getting my start in more professional projects, I had one film’s final cut delayed on me by about 2 weeks, so I was left with some unexpected spare time. 

I decided to do a professional re-recording of a personal sample library I had already made years ago and had been using ever since – a collection of metallic objects struck in various ways, played as though they were traditional percussion instruments. I posted some demos on a forum and the interest was so high that I decided to release it commercially. It became “Impact: Steel”, my very first commercial sample library. I formed Impact Soundworks as a means to distribute Impact: Steel and as groundwork for releasing new libraries in the future, and once I brought in my friend Andrew Aversa as a co-founder, it just sort of grew exponentially from there.

Q: Did your previous knowledge of music help with the development of this company or did creating this business take a considerable amount of time learning a new set of skills?

Andrew: Definitely "yes" to both. Without a background in music and specifically digital audio, not only would ISW not have grown, I most likely never would have been involved at all. Since we're creating and recording instruments for composers, that background is simply essential. On the flip side, I've had to learn tons of new stuff as well. There's the technical end - how to actually take audio, chop it up, organize it, and get it into a sampler - and then the much more extensive business end, which ranges from web development to marketing, social media, accounting, legal, and so on.

Though most of this I've learned through experience and my own research, my college degree really helped as well. I would have been a lot more lost without solid fundamentals in things like copyrights, business law, and accounting.

Will: I had used various incarnations of sample development tools since the late 1990s. One of my first game scores was for “Spacestation Evolution”, a title where I wrote the music and programmed all of the instruments for playback using Microsoft’s DLS file format (a sort of pre-cursor to Soundfonts). That experience of editing, looping and optimizing DLS soundbanks formed the foundation of what I know about sample development; I eventually moved on to Soundfonts, Gigasamples, and ultimately Kontakt libraries. By the time I released Impact: Steel, I was already pretty familiar with Kontakt 2’s capabilities.

Q: Seeing as how this was created back in 2008, how big was the market for sample libraries? How big is it today?

Will: It was a different world back then, though I should first point out that Impact: Steel was an early-2007 release. Back then, the concept of an “indie” sample developer was fairly unknown – all of my friends in various industries advised me to release through a major publisher like Native Instruments or Big Fish Audio. Both of them were very responsive and offered attractive deals, but ultimately I decided to self-publish.

Andrew: At that time, there were mostly a few big companies doing big sample libraries; developers like Spectrasonics, East West, Big Fish, and Sonic Implants (now Sonivox). I think plenty of people were buying samples and virtual instruments, but the diversity of developers was far smaller than it is today. Now, thanks to better tools, cheaper internet connections, and wonderful forums like VI-Control, lots of people have been inspired to create and sell their own libraries. There are tons of what I'd call "boutique" developers recording and distributing unusual instruments, and the market has only expanded.

Q: In order to promote your material, in what ways do you distribute your product?

Andrew: ISW takes a simplified approach to distribution. Most of our sales are direct through our own site, and we get the word out via forums, social media, our own mailing list, music gear blogs, and magazines. We do work with some distributors like Time & Space in Europe, and Crypton in Japan, plus Propellerhead and Nucleus Soundlab for our Reason products. However, most of the marketing comes from us, and sales are primarily through our own channel (http://impactsoundworks.com).

Q: When you allow other composers to test out your library, do you give them full versions? Is it effective?

Andrew: The nature of sample libraries makes it a little tricky to create demo versions, since you generally either have the files or you don't. So, we've focused more on creating a wealth of informational content like video walkthroughs and audio demos (both 'dressed', with other instruments, and 'naked', with just a single library) to give people a clear picture of what they're buying. That being said, I've personally spent a good bit of time creating things like Cinematic Synthetic Drums and the ISW Free Trial Pack, which are miniature patches and articulations culled from our full catalog.

Q: How do you begin the process of creating a library?

Will: Making sample libraries is ridiculously hard and frankly I wouldn't do it unless there was no other option!! Jokes aside, all of the libraries I have worked on only exist because I wanted a particular sound for my musical compositions, which I couldn't find anywhere else. For that reason there’s usually a very long gestation period, sometimes lasting months on end, where I’m doing research, experimenting, recording demo patches, and so on. The Slavic Choir for example took over a year of pre-production before we even went into the studio! But by the time we begin recording I pretty much know exactly how it will feel on the keyboard as an end-user, there aren’t any surprises.

Andrew: On a broad level, the process is basically: (A) define the concept & scope, (B) record or create the audio, (C) edit the audio, (D) program things in Kontakt, (E) release.

Q: What is the hardest part of the process?

Andrew: Years ago I would have said audio editing, but now we've connected with some brilliant sample editors that work far more efficiently than I ever could. Now, it's probably the programming of the instrument using Kontakt's scripting language (KSP). Scripting a complex interface is very time-consuming and meticulous.

Will: Hard to say, it’s a difficult process throughout the whole development and each library has its own unique challenges. Some of them have tons of content and each sample requires extensive editing, others have complicated boutique scripts powering them, it really just varies. But for me the most fun part is that first time you load some edited samples into Kontakt, and start to play around a bit. Even when it’s script-less and only half-way realized, you can just feel the samples coming to life right at your fingertips. Nothing is more satisfying than that!

Q: What is your biggest selling library?

Andrew: Shreddage II: Absolute Electric Guitar, without a doubt! Though, Juggernaut: Cinematic Synthetic Drums isn't too far behind.

Q: How can people find out about your company?

Andrew: Everything we've created is on http://impactsoundworks.com/ along with a bit of history, job openings, news, and a blog where we write about our development or general Kontakt stuff.

Q: After hearing Celestia, I'm curious to find out, what else have you got planned for the future?

Will: We have a few in the works and a few unannounced ones in pre-production. My pride and joy however is the upcoming choral library, “Vocalisa: Women’s Slavic Choir”. It’s been a huge labor of love spanning at least 3 years of development, in a musical genre that’s been very influential to me as a composer. I couldn’t be more proud of this collaboration between the performers and the ISW extended family, and I can’t wait to give more info on this release soon!

Exponentially increased, technology has. Producing something digitally that would fool even the most experienced musician, is a achievement in itself. Sure, there's something about seeing a live orchestra that can't be touched, but getting this close in areas of dynamics, subtle changes/flaws in a performer's technique, and overall quality of sound...it's amazing.

"I play live bass on most of my tracks. I say 'most' because my immune system's idea of high comedy is crippling my left hand with arthritis when I have a deadline in 48 hours. Thanks to Shreddage Bass' meticulous attention to detail, useful articulations, and smooth playability, nobody is the wiser. I even fooled one of my ultra-pretentious Bass Friends, who tried to pretend he knew all along it was a library. Good job, ISW!" - Jake Kaufman a.k.a. virt

I must insist, if you're at all interested in music production/composition and are looking for the sounds you never thought you could achieve in your music, check out Impact Soundworks. Great prices, great products, these guys are the real deal.

Thanks for reading!

Links:

Homepage: http://impactsoundworks.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/isoundworks
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ImpactSoundworks
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/isworks

Welcome to the new blog page!

At this point you're probably wondering, "Why on Earth does he need another blog?"

Well, as the amount of people who have viewed my first blog continues to grow (which is incredibly humbling), I figured it would be best if I started to separate what I talk about. Reviewing music is one thing, but being able to question creators of larger products is another. Sometimes (rarely), there's more to life than music. Businesses and projects happen everyday, so why should I limit myself to just talking about music?

Did you ever wonder what went through the mind of the creator of the Ouya? Did you ever question why Kickstarter became one of the leading sources of a new business tactic called crowd-funding?

The idea of this blog, is to go beyond audio and find out how people turn their creative minds to something everyone can utilize and enjoy. Of course, that is to say, while this blog won't specifically be about albums, singles, or EPs...there are other elements of audio I can incorporate. Don't worry, even if you don't understand what I mean now, you'll soon come to realize the statement of this blog. Products and businesses are what makes the world go round; without them, we'd all just be cavemen observing the fire, never really questioning...

...why.

Thanks for reading, new content is on the way!

-DjjD