Audiojungle or Musicjungle?

I’ve been submitting sound effects to Audiojungle about a month and a half now. It takes some time to get in to and I’ve only just realised that Audiojungle is more focused on music than sound effects. I knew there was something in the corner of my eye and finally I see it clearly.

I read this great thread (focused on music) by scottwillis and started to think about the bargain basement, when it came to me. It clearly says “Great music at discounted, bargain prices”. Aha, no sound effects at discounted prices? Yes, I’ve seen sound effects there but if you don’t promote that then buyers will only expect music.

Then there’s the menu items. We have 8 categories. 2 are general, 5 are about music and only one are focused on sound effects. Even if you wanted to submit a source file focused on sound design there is no obvious sub-category to choose. What would it be, ambient?

The other day I found the music player. Great tool which I use on my website, but shouldn’t it be an audio player? I don’t play music with it at all.

What about sub-categories? 22 choices for music, 14 for sound effects. Even the sub-categories in music has sub-categories. None for sound effects. That is maybe one of the strangest choices since the diversity of sound effects are that much bigger. The least you could expect is an equal amount.

I haven’t been around long enough to know if Audiojungle promotes sound effects as well but take a look at the front page now.

“Weekly features”, 4 music tracks.
“Free File!”, 1 music track.
“Featured Author”, pure musician.

Naturally I don’t use this example to say that the authors don’t deserve to be there, they are all talented. I’m just saying that half of that space belongs to sound effects.

Maybe the most controversial of my arguments is the comparison with other stock sites. Look at most of them and you’ll see an equal amount of focus on both sound effects and music. The result is more sound effects than music tracks. Sometimes twice as much. As it should be. I can make a quality mouth pop sound effect in under an hour. About 15 minutes to get the right pop, 15 minutes of editing to make it as perfect as possible. Then add the watermark and submit. If that was creating music, if I’m lucky, I might have come up with a nice base line. As a result, music is more expensive, which of course is more than fair.

So, one of the reasons why Audiojungle, while comparing with other stock sites, has more music tracks than sound effects is not because of the lack of talented authors. It’s probably because of the fact that the site itself focuses more on music than sound effects. Would it be an equal focus, we would probably see a vast increase in people submitting quality sfx and everyone would benefit.

Before you rage away, consider that I love it here. There is a reason why I tried Audiojungle together with other stock sites and then decided to focus only on this awesome place. The Envato Marketplace prides itself with quality items, a great design, professional reviewers and much much more. I only hope for a change of focus on audio as a whole, not primarily music.

Sincerely

//Reachground

good observations! perhaps because there is a higher price tag on the music items then the majority of income comes through music sales so they promote it more. To be honest I don’t think there are half as many sound designers here as there are composers so maybe that’s another reason why.

In my honest opinion there isn’t a lot of emphasis on sfx because the sfx library is quite lacking compared to most. So there is a lot of room for growth as well as the possibility for great success if you become the top sfx composer.

Good observations indeed! I’ve also noticed it, but never formed the thought in my head so clearly to write such post as yours But now that I’ve read it, I totally agree with you – SFX needs more attention.

I’ve been here a bit longer than you, but I still can’t recall any SFX author being featured. And only one featured SFX file in many months…

Thanks for your reply guys!

It was far from obvious. I don’t think I’m the only one who thought about this, but sometimes things are hard to grasp. You just wonder why the sfx category aren’t selling that well and think it’s because of your lack of self-promotion.

liambradbury
Thanks! Right now there are 34.706 items under Music and 7.402 Sound Effects. Then I’m not even counting Music Packs but it does include Sound Packs. The question is why there are more composers here than sound designers? Perhaps the answer is just “because”, but I think some of it lies in the fact that Audiojungle chooses to focus more on music. Because of that the sales are good, which in turn attracts more composers.

thesecession
I agree that we have fewer sound effects here on AJ than other stock sites, but there are definitely no problem with the quality nor talent. Let’s assume that Envato choose not to create more sub-categories because there are not enough sound effects. Then take a look at Source Files. Lot’s of empty space. You even have the opportunity now to be the first to submit a Pro Tools Source File.

Another reason why there are fewer sound effects here than other stock sites are because of the limitations Audiojungle has on submitting. Take a look at Files We Do and Don’t Need: We are currently accepting music across all genres.

Let’s take a look at Clocks: Ticking as an example. One of the most accessible sound for anyone to record. I happened to overlook that and submitted a wall clock ticking. Rejected. Searching for “clock ticking” generates 44 results with the most succesful sound at 79 sales. Hardly fits in neither “oversaturation” nor “lack of demand”. Search for “wall clock ticking” and it generates 2 results. Too many?

Another mistake I made in the beginning was to submit a water running sound. It was accepted, but at the same time I was asked not to submit any more water flowing sounds. That was a lucky shot since it sold almost instantly. Searching for “water flowing” generates 39 results. Is that a lot?

urbazon
You are one of the talented sound designers that I’m talking about. Hopefully we will see some changes in the future. Envato staff claim to read the forums and take all opinions into consideration. I believe that to be true. Again, Envato prides itself with great staff.

Here’s a simple breakdown of my wishlist

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I wish you all a merry merry christmas!

Reachground said
urbazon
You are one of the talented sound designers that I’m talking about. Hopefully we will see some changes in the future. Envato staff claim to read the forums and take all opinions into consideration. I believe that to be true. Again, Envato prides itself with great staff.

(blush)

On a more serious note, you’ve summed it all up in your last post. I hope that staff will really take those points into consideration. Keeping my fingers crossed

Great post!

Yes I agree with everything!

SFX could be amazing on Audio Jungle and compete with anyone if they wanted to…..

I guess Envato would need to build up a HUGE library to provide Audio Post Production companies with choice. Water running, maybe have a load of choices. This is how the biggest libraries do it, they provide their clients with a huge choice, as these people need EVERYTHING !

Great post!

I would almost think sound effects should be branched off to it’s own site. I think that people shopping for SFX and people shopping for music are two different sort of customers, and the nature of the files would benefit from different treatment on a website. SFX seem akin stock photos whereas music is like website templates or some of the stuff on GraphicRiver. Notice how Photodune has some differences from the other Envato sites since photos are small, cheap, quick to make, and more numerous, like SFX .

And I think Envato could go further in their differentiation of the websites. Consistency and familiarity are nice but different products deserve different treatment in terms of page layout, widgets, item sorting and recommending, etc. Especially when it comes to big items versus small items.

Sorry about the late reply. I survived the holidays (barely, as I was driving an old car on icy roads) and now I’m back to work. It really is a difference coming back to work when you do something you love

Catch22Music
Thanks a lot! I’m happy I’m not alone. Since I’m mainly into sound design I keep a close look at the new sfx on AJ. There are a lot of good stuff coming through. But yes, if Audiojungle is going to be a serious competitor to the big sfx libraries they have to grow, a lot. I don’t see that happening though as long as the sound effect side of AJ is being this limited.

MD9
Interesting idea. I don’t agree completely though. Here’s my reason:

I’m a provider of stock audio, and at the same time I’m a sound designer and musician. That being said, I sometimes take on the responsibility as audio director for a product. I’m being given a budget and asked to create a strategy on how to get the most bang for the buck. Since I’ve been working with this for a couple of years now I can almost always create quality sound effects within budget. Ok, to be honest I have put some sfx straight from the box due to time limits, but at the minimum I try to pitch the sounds ^^

It’s a different story when it comes to music. Most of my commercial games are for iOS and to get it right this is the absolute minimum: Menu music, in-game music and one random (win, lose, credits, intro etc). I’m not the fastest music producer in the world and that would sometimes take me over the budget. That’s when I dive into the libraries. First I check my own library, second I go on the Internetz. And then I end up here for instance.

To summarize, I think that they are the same costumers. Not all of the time but most of the time. That’s why I think that keeping Audiojungle intact while expanding the possibilty to expose your sfx is the way to go. If Envato decides to split it up it would at least be better than it is now, where sfx are drowning in music.

I’d like to add something that I hadn’t thought of before. To submit the audio in stereo. I don’t see the reason. Probably to push the quality on music, and then it gets enforced on sound effects automatically. I’m not saying it’s entirely wrong but at least for games it’s totally unnecessary. Small games like iOS and other handheld devices has very limited memory and stereo is unthinkable. I still remember one game that I scored fully, mixed and mastered to perfection, only to end up with a low quality ADPCM -compressed file. I almost cried.

Even AAA productions use a lot of mono files. Not for ambiances and such, but the audio in 3D space can only emit from one source. Hence mono again.

Allow me to end this seemingly endless post with a look at the front page again.

- Weekly Features, 4 music tracks
- Featured Author, a musician

I was very happy to see the “Christmas & Holiday Audio”. Not music, audio. When I looked through the files though there were only music .

I know this is kind of a suggestion section but I’d love to hear from someone at Envato. If the focus of Audiojungle is and will continue to be music, that would be great to know. Then again, if there is a slight chance that we at least will be getting more sub-sections to Sound Effects and at least one section under Source Files. then we (yes I am the representative of all sound effects producers ) will cheer at a volume that will be heard all the way to Australia.