So, I'm aware of the controversies that sorround cymatics upon "stealing content" and all that... which it was never a clear thing to me as to it were true or not. But having that in mind I was kept skeptic of their marketing methodologies.

Now, that being said, one of their biggest crowdsourcing techniques they implement is giveaways, which to be honest, are pretty amazing giveaways... involving pro studio monitors like Yamaha H8, and Krk rokit 8s, and midi keyboards and so on... and they make this giveaways as if they had packs and packs of these to spare, almost at a montly basis, giving 3 sets per month.

In the last giveaway something went odd for me and is that I believed to have recognized the winner's name (as you may know, the way they announce it is with a link to a temporary page in wich they give the name on the winner and a timer counting down to their latest sale offer and discount..... again, this in itself is great strategy, and it is not sketchy by its own means)... of course, I could have misremembering the name, or it was just a coincidence given that the name James is a pretty popular one.

So that lead me to the post to see if the winner have said anything in the post where he was announced... for my surprise, no he didn't, so I look up at him in the FB searchbar... a lot of James Kennedy came up (that's how I remember he was James Kennedy, because that stayed in my searchbar)... so I look up at him in the cymatics group and there he was... alright, he is real.... I thought to myself "either this James Kennedy is a fucking lucky bastard, or I'm misremembering the other James... surely the second"

Time passes, a couple of giveaways carry on, and then there's the halloween one, anounced winner yesterday... James Kennedy... go to the searchbar on facebook and press J, and James Kennedy is the first suggestion that appears (given that as a person that I have already searched for)... look up in the post of the announcement, and again, I don't see him there.

I guess what I try to say is.... am I getting crazy and having the worst case of Deja-Vu with a little bit of Mandela Effect.... or are their giveaways sketchy too? what are your thoughts on this?


P.s: I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this on, if it is not, please inform me and this will be move as soon as I discover how

 

Also, if you deem this as innecesarily inflamatory, or just outright conspiranoic, let me know and I will be more than happy to take it down

 

I find it a hilarious that Cymatics, a simple sample pack company can cause so much controversy amongst the Audio community, lol.

This is like the third or fourth time I've heard about them doing something shady in the last couple of months.

 

I agree, I believe it is most likely because of how fast they have grown right to "the top"... We could say also "the price they sell their things for" but I don't find that something to catch attention to

 

I don't think their relentless marketing helps...

I've seen them have drama with big artists like Getter (stealing/copying project files) and Virtual Riot (re-sellings his samples).

They also sell samples that they've ripped from released tracks. There are loads of samples in their Terror Drums pack that are just ripped from Skrillex and Must Die tunes. Of course, Vengeance have done this previously so nothing new here...

I've also seen a YouTube video of a sound designer they employed exposing Cymatics for not paying properly for his work. When Cymatics decided to no longer work with him, they then packaged sounds he'd sent them previously and put it in a pack they then went on to sell.

These giveaways generate a huge amount of publicity and attention on social media like Facebook so it's in Cymatics interest to continue doing them. The amount of shares these giveaway posts recieve is pretty insane for a relatively 'new' sample pack company. From their previous record, it wouldn't surprise me if they don't actually give anything away at all, but as you say, chose the same winner everytime. I'd imagine that 99% of people who enter the giveaway won't remember who won the last one. However, Cymatics wll still reap the benefit of the post being shared all over social media...

You're probably right!

 

Cymatics always leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Yeah I know, useful comment, but its true.

 

u right TwinBorther i sign for the KRK Rokit 8s giveaway and just received this in my gmail

 

All hail james kennedy - the luckiest sob in the world.

 

Sounds like a previous employee of Chesterfield FC football club used his reasons for dismissal on his CV when applying for a job at Cymatics to me:

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/jul/20/chesterfield-fake-raffle-winner-farce

 

Fake raffles I wouldn't put it past them, at least they really give out the crappy bumper stickers though I think. Now their new thing is last person to comment on this fb post when I randomly decide to choose a winner. So now you have thousands of kids spamming the shit out of their post Non-Stop until cymatics says it's over and randomly chooses a supposed winner

 

I watch what they do because I am a Sound Designer myself and what they do seems a bit sketchy to me (besides the fact that I don't feel their presets). But that's how marketing seems to work nowadays, which is a shame.

Because here's how it goes: create mediocre presets for synth xyz, get a decent graphic designer to created a cover with a 3d-ish shiny pseudo box art, setup a decent website, horde free preset links and share them through your website with a fangate to agrregate email addresses so that provokes the feeling of you being really genorous. Then create a buzz on Facebook by preparing several bogus raffles to let people work for you with free promo and make them feel like "hey, you could win this expensive item if share this post PLUS up your chances to win if you do even more promo and give me your email adress for more promo" then just wait to check in and then oh look, this guy won this shit. Hooray.

Disgusting.

 

Hire a sound designer, pay him peanuts. Fire him and sell his work.

 

Hi, I'm James Kennedy. The luckiest sob in the audio WWW.

...

 

I'd be really interested to see this video. That's terrible =/

 

They use the same kind of marketing technique as in the TV show where they sell shitty stuff, telling "there is just 3 left, call now and get a discount". I don't know about the giveaway, that look suspicious, but they seems to be smart guys so why using always the same name for a winners if it's a fake one. It's like those illuminati conspirations theory with rich people putting sign everywhere so we can discover the secret they don't want us to discover.

But another thing that I'm suspicious is their last pack "Infinity" and all the buzz they buy around it, with those (I guess) fake beta tester (they ask for beta tester to try the pack, being paid 200$), and then the "limitation to 950 copies", with the crash of their website that I suspect fake too.
It crash after 250 sell in one day which is not something new cause they claim to have that same amount of sells with previous pack. It just look like a way to sell more than 950 without looking suspicious by saying "it tooks 4 days to sell everything". Like the crash is an excuse to make the sell last longer and sell more than the 950 annonced. Don't know if I'm clear (english is not my 1st language)

That was just a little theory to add to that Cymatics conspiracy thing

But yes, they are good, because they make people talk about them very often. But I like their pack, not the best, but not the worst too.

 

I think this is the video if anyone is curious.

 

Fvck Cymatics