Blank Music

This chapter examines the marketing of virtual instruments, especially those designed to emulate traditional orchestral instruments using samples. The chapter considers marketing strategies for these instruments and analytically reconstructs how companies specializing in virtual instruments design and organize their advertising appeal through their websites. The chapter looks primarily at the advertising copy, the product images, and the musical demos to show that the so-called epic style in particular serves not just as a measure of how these instruments can produce properly “cinematic” music, but also how epic style itself reflects the basic aspirational fantasy of the media composer. The latter makes epic style an especially good advertising lure.