Happy New Year Colby! These aren't sales, but I'm a composer who notoriously has a very low budget setup and I've been able to get a ton of mileage out of 2 plugins, pretty much having them in every single project since 2020. For strings I'm using Cinematic studio strings. The price isn't necessarily that cheap, but I've used this library for literally everything that needs strings. I can confidently say it's one of the best libraries for a general string sound. For synths, Serum by Xfer is evergreen. With its free upgrade in Serum 2, the synth has continued to stayed relevant in ways that no other software synth has.

Trying to take a break, but I realized I took it too easy earlier this month and now I'm paying the price.... I still have 2 trailer tracks to write, and a couple ads to finish before January. Happy holidays to all though!

Hi Steve! I also feel similar that I'm more comfortable with instrumental cues and their structure, but I've also recently been asked to do collaborations with rappers that the publishers have put me in touch with so I can share what I've done on that front. In my experience, the publishers haven't asked me to do anything different. The 3 act structure we have for the trailer tracks is evergreen with or without vocals. https://open.spotify.com/track/7LgD40cqgGxUmBlbEeMYEI?si=2644ffd2754f4336 I made this track a bit ago and it's gotten used in a smaller Resident Evil trailer. I think the hammering of the hooks in the backend is what sold the trailer. I'd be curious to hear what others have to say about this because it could be different especially for less trailer oriented tracks, more TV.

I use it in a ton of stuff but 450 is pretty steep... Now that there are other options, I'm curious to know if anyone has Cinematic Studio Brass, because I have the Cinematic Studio Strings, and I prefer the quality of the CSS libraries over the Cine-libraries...

Star Wars is a classic Kevin! JW's music will be eternally studied... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqFds4L73Uo I'm a huge fan of how synth and electronic music can be used in ways similar to classical/orchestral music, creating interesting motives, and developing melodically just like an orchestral motif. I think Annihilation has an insane score and this final sequence was inspiring for me not just musically, but also that non-composers/musicians going to the theatre were so enthralled by the score, they often walked out singing that haunting synth motif