It seems that samples integrated within a proprietary sample player such as Stylus are gaining popularity with manufacturers. I have to wonder if this is an attempt by manufactures to get some control over sample piracy. While it may be a noble cause for those who produce samples what does it do to the customer in the long run? What happens with a new version of Windows breaks the program? What happens if the company goes out of business and you can no longer register the software when you upgrade your computer? I can pull samples from my old E-mu and Akai disks into Kontakt or Battery and give them new life. In ten years will I be able to use Stylus or the newly announced “Culture” by Yellow Tools? Samples are forever. Programs are not.

Robert

yeah i hear you.. i own stylus and i love it.. i mean it is so easy to use and the quality of loops at my disposal are great... but what if i wanna use the loop in reason or..? i have to export it in my VSTi host then import it.. its kinda a pain.. i wish there was a way to get to the loops themselves.

I've been thinking about this a lot, lately, myself. The conclusions I have reached differ depending on the product. I mean, we've ALWAYS had closed-format sample playback synths in the hardware world, but this was generally down to the high cost of RAM versus ROM. I think that there are some benefits to the way Stylus and Sonic Synth, for instance, approach this. First, in the case of Stylus, it allows the manufacturer to insure that all the loops are made for the purpose of being sliced up, and are geared towards taking advantage of the playback system. And don't forget, it exports MIDI files, so you can always replace any sound with one you prefer in your sequence. You are not spefically locked into the sounds. Of course, you will still have to render the loop to use it in Reason, but that's not it's purpose. It's a limitation of Reason, not Stylus. And, of course, Reason imports MIDI files, so you CAN use the sequence itself. For things like Sonic Synth, the playback engine allows the developer to wrangle the samples into the most usable patches. Sure, this could be done in a sampler, as well, and both those developers make disks for samplers. The idea behind these plug-ins is to provide a collection of sounds and optimize them for their specific playback engines. A lot of users don't want to spend the time on that sort of thing (when you want a good string sound, who needs to mess with it?), nor does everyone want to buy a seperate sampler to playback a sample collection on. I think these devices have their uses, regardless of whether or not they are proprietary. The developer can really focus on their specific playback engine to get the most out of it, instead of having to support a billion samplers, though there are developers who do just that. The quality of the sounds produced by Stylus, Sonic Synth, et al, can attest to this. And there is so much quality stuff there, that I think that the intention of limiting the user is the furthest thing from either Spetrum or Squid's minds. Don't know about the Yellow Tools, yet, haven't tried them out.

You've got it right Scott....it's all about freedom to use the product in as many hosts as possible. Reason is a totally closed system for Plug-Ins...so that's more the issue there.

We fully plan to support every necessary platform so that as many people as possible can use the instruments in the future. We want to do everything we can so that Stylus is totally usable in 20 years! (We are currently supporting up to TEN plug-in platforms in order to achieve this....so we are quite serious about this! It's worth noting that we make every platform and plug-in standard free to every user, no upgrades or additional packages to buy. We do this so that you can use our instruments wherever you want.)

Rendering to Audio is a piece of cake to do, and then you can use the samples you render where ever you like.

Remember that we are also designing our own customized engines and interfaces not simply as piracy protection, but most importantly to make a better and more interesting and flexible product. There's a lot of stuff that Stylus can do that even Kontakt doesn't support. This will become even more and more apparent as it continues to evolve on the software side. When you see Atmosphere, you will TOTALLY understand that what we are doing is impossible to reproduce on ANY other sampler. The sounds, the engine, the features and the interface all combine together to make a much more powerful combined instrument. To support samplers, we would have to use the "lowest common denominator" which is the ancient Akai S-1000 platform....which is WAY to limiting for the ideas that we are doing now. We simply "outgrew" the whole sampler/library thing and this direction of integrating everything allows us a giant leap forward in what is possible with the current samplers. Since we control the technology side too, we can continue to improve and innovate with it too.

Here's more on this subject on Craig Anderton's site:

http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=0076 80

I'm not so crazy to be lumped into the "ROMpler" camp though....our instruments are totally user programmable which Sampletank/Sonic Synth is not, and have some really good synthesis capabilities like separate synthesis for each key zone (which EXS24 doesn't have) and multiple multi-mode filters for each layer (when the Yellow Tools instruments have NO filters.) So there are some major differences in the concept of each of these instruments...they aren't all in the same camp simply because they use samples.

Hope that explains our philosophy a little better!

best,

spectrum

Spectrum,
I didn't mean to imply that Stylus and Sonic Synth/Sampletank were the same sort of product at all. In fact, I chose those two as examples because they show two completely different, and viable, approaches to using a sample-based synthesis engine. I wasn't meaning that they should be viewed the same way. The only real similarities between them is that they come from two brilliant sound designers who have chosen to employ a plug-in synthesis engine, and they are both examples of how this approach can be done well.

Mmmm, more tantalizing Atmosphere talk! I have the picture of it that came in the Stylus box thumbtacked to my wall over one of my studio PCs!

what i love about stylus is its ease of use inside my VST host... i mean.. wow.. what i hope about teh yellow tools DVDs is that i don't have to copy the 9GB to my hard drive and it'll be smart enuf to read off the DVD and load into ram that way.. 9GB is too much.

Nope...they work off of your HD with Streaming like GIGA. No Filters either. The percussion one is new stuff, but the Bass one is based on the already existing Yellow Tools Pure e-Bass CD-ROM library...(also the same stuff that comes free with Kontakt). The reason Majestic is nine gig is because the basses are NOT looped, so there are actually many more sounds on our Trilogy module, it takes much less space.....and of course it's all brand new material. Trilogy covers Acoustic and Synth Basses too has all the interchangable layers with great filters and Glide/Legato and True Staccato. Majestic is not new material, it's more of a library repackage. Culture might be nice though.

From a highly biased source...

spectrum

That is something that really bugs me. I bought Yellow Tools Real Giga Drums....

Edit - I now find out that Yellow Tools did not make Real Giga Drums so you can skip this post and move on. Sorry for the confustion.

End of edit.

...and was about to buy their bass and guitar collection. Then they release what seems to be some of the same samples with my Kontakt sampler, then they release the expansion CD for Battery. How many times can they market the same samples?

Robert

Hi everybody,
i think it is time to post some real facts and stop any speculations...
First of all: Our sound library for Kontakt contains over 70% of brand new sound samples, e.g. acoustic piano, rhodes, electric piano, pads, synth basses, analog drums,.... the other 30% are just small overviews of our existing and critically acclaimed sampling libraries.
Studio drums contains 100% brand new and exclusive sound material, not availbable on any other sampling library. So we care extremely about giving a combination of best and exclusive sounds to the user.

Coming to our MVIs:
Yes, majestic contains 9GB sample sounds.
- where is the problem? The time of 16MB programs is over I think, and if there is the possibility to give best possible authenticity and playability, combined with a huge variety of different instruments to the user, I can't see any problem...

Yes, there are also sounds of our pure e-basses included.
- Pure e-basses 1 & 2 contain about 4.5GB of sounds. Well, to get 9GB there are still a lot of gigs left for other instruments...
The sound samples of pure e-basses enable purest realism for e-bass performances and were recorded and optimized for the use within our software. The audio engine of majestic is no development of a few days, so you can imagine that the recording and editing of the pure e-basses sounds was already optimized for our upcoming Modular Virtual Instrument.

Who says, Majestic's sounds are not looped...?
- This information is totally wrong! Sure the sounds are looped, so with its 9GB majestic will offer many more sounds than a 3.5GB VI and is thereby the biggest and most detailed e-bass MVI.

Who says, you have to copy the full 9GB to your hard disk...?
- Nobody! We didn’t use a single chunk for the sound samples. All samples exist as single audio files with a clear file structure, so just copy what you want to your HD...

about the filters:
Yes, the first two releases of the yellow tools MVIs don't offer filters.
BUT: these two products are specialized for highest-end acoustic instruments, for which filters are not that useful like for synth sounds. In addition every host application already contains very powerful filters...

The yellow tools MVIs are not just a romplayer or were developed because of the "anti piracy" discussion. We saw lacks in playability and authenticity of sample based instruments and exactly that is what Culture and Majestic offer:
Purest flexibility, intelligent MIDI processing - keyswitch functionality included for mixing and x-fading, a powerful polyphony management to give the instruments the natural touch and lots of other unique features that are not available within any other software, be it VI or sampler.

Please keep in touch with our website at www.yellowtools.com to get real news and information.
Best

Christian Hellinger
C.E.O.

Ooooh! Nice, haven't seen a good flame war for a while. Could someone please stand up and talk about how awful Fruity is?

Spectrum, I know you're biased but I'm glad everything got cleared up by Yellow Tools when they came in. On first glance I thought you were being dead negative about them, although I could understand how you might feel since they seem to have ideas very close to you and they're going through the same distributors in the UK which must be awkward (to say the least).

OK, I'm OT, I'm a musician who hates having to take his time over things which other people are better at. I don't know how an oscillator or a filter works but I know what I like, so I don't mind having a dedicated ROMpler if it's a good sound. I've got ST and I've got HALion, and I know which one I open up first every time. But I also have Yellow Tools/NI studio drums for Battery which have transformed my sound. Any more kits coming as good as the stereo ones?

So you can see I appreciate both sides.

I reckon within 6 months to a year I'll have Stylus, Atmosphere and Culture. And bailiffs knocking on the door.

Out of the usual curiousity I went to yellow tools site.

Not much there on Majestic & Co, but I did download mp3 samples of existing sample libraries.

The nylon guitar demo mp3 is the best I have ever heard, bar none, ever.

I studied classical nylon guitar for years once, and this demo could pass exams

One thing that really bothers me is when anyone thinks that just because computers and certain software programs are capable of streaming that all of a sudden the only way to go is to have a super gig-sized instrument. That's not true. Having no loops can be nice but it can also be a waste of space. Personally, I don't mind too much taking up the extra space because I have 300 gigs of HD inside my G4 but not everyone does (and forget it if you are even thinking of streaming a 1 gig sound from a laptop!).

Here is what I think is off when people think that "the days of the 16 meg instrument are over". Something is missing between the hardware instrument world and the computer streaming dream world. We've had (and still have) sample-based hardware keyboards and modules that have a max of about 85 or so megs for their entire ROM set of samples with probably not one multi-sample in it even being as LARGE as 16 megs. These keyboards cost thousands of dollars STILL. But, then you look at software instruments coming out and there is this misconception that "all of a sudden" to the majority of people that have probably never owned a sampler that it is imperative to have all your sounds be at 24 bit 96K with no loops and take up as much space as possible. But what happened to your variety of material? Let's see... to have each sound in Sonic Synth be .5 gigs in size that would take up over 250 GIGS of HD space! Guess what? Many of you probably wouldn't even hear the difference! Why? Because a lot of what takes up space is the tail of the sound which most of the time you never get to. If the looping is done well then when something like a piano decays toward the end you'd barely be able to tell if it was looped or left natural. But, unless you are playing "A Day in the Life" when are you even going to be holding a chord for 20 seconds anyway?

So, what is missing (not really because some developers like me are still doing this) is the step up from the hardware world in terms of integrating samples, fx and special synth programming to a less compromised quality level but still offering a wide variety of instruments like things such as Tritons, JVs, expansion boards etc do. If 16 meg sounds were over then there would be this gap of evolution between the 85 meg sound set of 1,000 sounds vs. the 9 gig sound set of 100 sounds... fortunately this gap is filled and it's called 2-3 gigs of about 500-700 sounds! (aka Sonic Synth).

There are no rules: looping is better or no looping is bettter. It all depends on the depth of the sound and the amount of sounds you want to put in the package for the variety the user gets. As a developer I like to do what is necessary to achieve a balance in all areas (including the concerns that Rabid had in the first place about proprietary samples- but I will get to that in a sec). If I want a product such as Sonic Synth to have over 500 sounds then I look at my data and say "Okay, this can afford to be about 60 megs but this should only be 8 megs and it's decided by listening to the sound and experimenting with loop points, note selection etc.". This comes from the days of deciding what was going to be on an expansion card or a synth rom only in those situations you had to compromise in other areas such as data compression or worse... sample and bit rates! (if you ONLY knew!!!!). So, to me, not having to do stuff that you KNOW degrades the quality of the instrument but still keeping a majority of the sounds small enough so you can pack in as much variety as possible is not only a challenge as a developer to do (and a lot more work I might add.... it would be a lot faster for me to do 1/5 the instruments in 3 times the size) but the users benefit in the VFM. Of course this is my opinion and don't think that I am against large non looped sounds. We're producing some libraries like that too. But, you won't catch me saying anything as silly as "the days of 16 meg sounds are over". You also won't catch me saying that "the days of samplers and sample libraries" are over either.

Getting back to the main topic... Rabid is right. No matter how dedicated a company is to being there for you 20 years down the road etc. anything can happen to any of us that can change the course of things. We as consumers take that risk. If that risk is balanced with a great product that you can use NOW and probably for a while then why deprive yourself of it? To me, if something is going to be proprietary such as Sampletank or these UVI and MVI modules then there better be something MORE than just samples involved to make it worth the sacrifice of it being in that proprietary format. My way of balancing that with Sonic Synth was to give you MORE variety and MORE quantity for your money in terms of the sound side of things compared to most Akai libraries. But, the other big factor is the synthesis done with those samples and the integration of ST's built-in effects which NO other software sampler or UVI/MVI module have. So, in order to have this many sounds with integrated DSP effects it had to be in Sampletank format. This means that for this particular product you are bound to Sampletank format. If IK was to decide to drop Sampletank (not going to happen don't worry) then you would be sitting there with your existing Sampletank hoping that all future companies will still support the current VSTi, MAS or RTAS spec. We already know that Emagic has dropped VSTi support so right there we have the question about who is going to support Audio Units. If you are a Logic user, you'd probably want to know (and I believe IK will be BTW).

You do have more flexibility to do what you want with the samples on your own if they are AIFF, Wave, SF2 or Akai. (In fact, any of the sample formats that can be interexchanged with the likes of Translator and CD Extract technically... as long as those programs are working accurately). I try to balance both and that is why we still do Akai libraries AND proprietary format libraries such as Sonic Synth in Sampletank. (Actually, we even have something else that should make Sonic Synth users not so worried about being stuck only in one proprietary... but that has not been announced yet. )

I am aware of this dilemma and there is a middle ground. If it isn't just the fact that you can export loops out of Stylus to an audio track and use it in whatever you want or buy the Akai libraries that are out there to use it in whatever you want.. there are also some other possible solutions coming from various developers. If total flexibility is a concern then you still have many products to buy. On the otherhand, if you like the sounds and features of a particular product and the only way you can get those specific sounds and features is to sacrifice a little bit of "potential" inflexibility that it "might" have down the road... then you have to ask yourself "Is a measly $200-400 worth taking the risk to have this product to use right now?" Chances are it is so... my advice is to get what is going to make your music better as your first priority.

to be fair squids, yellow tools did explain why his majestic sample player was so massive: because it caters for people who want a bass sound which sounds exactly like the real thing. Like you said, there might not be much difference at all between a 9gb file and one much smaller, but for the people who this product seems to be aimed at, wouldnt that small difference matter?

Im just glad I like my sounds synthetic where the vsti`s come in mbs instead of gbs

mr kipling wrote:

to be fair squids, yellow tools did explain why his majestic sample player was so massive: because it caters for people who want a bass sound which sounds exactly like the real thing. Like you said, there might not be much difference at all between a 9gb file and one much smaller, but for the people who this product seems to be aimed at, wouldnt that small difference matter? Im just glad I like my sounds synthetic where the vsti`s come in mbs instead of gbs

I never said that I don't like unlooped natural sounds. I even clarified that we are making libraries like that too for the exact same reason (preserving all of the original natural recording and sacrificing variety for the size it takes). But, what isn't right is saying that "the days of 16 meg instruments are over". It's just not true but that was my opinion. So, to be *clear*, I am NOT against large sized libraries with no loops. But, I am against anyone try to give you the notion that smaller sounds with loops are somehow "over" or "obselete". Everything has it's place and purpose- THAT is what I am saying.

Squids,
we've never said, that majestic delivers unlooped sound samples. It was spectrum who supposed that...
To make it clear: The files of majestic are looped!
And I think more than 25,000 sound samples of majestic offer a more authentic e-bass performance than a 16MB patch does.
You are right, there are of course very useful and excellent small sound patches available, but my statement only refered to the virtual instruments, and that is what I thought we discuss in here. And therefore I'm still sure that 16MB libraries are not up-to-date.

Christian Hellinger
C.E.O.

Good points Squids....I really agree with you. This is rapidly becoming a silly gigabyte war that whoever's got the most gigabytes has the best product and sounds. There's so much more to great sound than only memory size!

Some of my favorite sounds in Atmosphere take less than ONE megabyte! Others cool ones use up to 100 megabytes. The ideas of efficiency and doing what's needed to for each sound are essential. In truth, it is harder and more of an art to find the right balance in making sounds that are musical AND efficient. Long live 16 megabyte sounds...Long live one megabyte sounds....Long live one Gigabyte sounds.....it's all good!

Christian, thanks for jumping in and clarifying those points....they were based on some assumptions I was making from your site. Your product does stream from hd though, not DVD, and that was my point. I'll be sure to be more accurate in the future in pointing out to people in the future that your Majestic product is only 50%old with the rest being new material added to it. This is of course quite different than our product Trilogy, which is completely new and much broader in scope, with it covering Acoustic and Synth Bass too. It would probably be a good idea to let people know about Majestic's relationship to the sample library you've already released in your product info, especially for the customers that have already purchased half of this product as the Pure e-Bass sample library that's been out for a while. Since you are coming out with a Bass virtual instrument at the same time as Trilogy, we obviously will be contrasting the two products and approaches with people, so it's good to have your info straight from the source.

Welcome to KvR.

spectrum

!! P R I C E W A R !!

First I would like to thank all the manufacturers of sample libraries for replying to my concerns. As Scot mentioned, I do use SonicSynth with a couple of expansion ROMs so I have already committed to using a proprietary sample VSTi. Back in the early summer I also addressed this concern on the SonicSynth forum and asked questions about the Universal Akai format so that my sample purchases would load into my Roland, Emu, GigaStudio and other samplers. Of course that would cause me a lot of time spent fixing the translations and programming effects. I have to look for a balance.

I hope Christian Hellinger of Yellow Tools does not take my second post as an insult, but as a true concern that customers will have as we are given more and more sample formats. Maybe what I should have said it that it bugs me that I bought Real Giga Drums, then get free drum samples from the same source with Kontakt, then see a sample library for Battery made with Yellow Tools samples that I wish I had bought instead of Real Giga Drums. Honestly, I would get a lot more use out of the $80 Battery drum pack than the $150 Giga Sampler format. I just really, really hate to buy them again. If I had purchased a standard format such as Akai then it would not be such an issue.

Squids also makes a good point. More hit records are made from the small sound set of a Korg Triton than from GigaStudio. Everything does not have to be huge. I choose carefully when I buy a large sample library and it is mostly a matter of preference and goals.

Anyway, I guess I can be happy that I am not an Emagic PC/Windows user. That does show that you never know what is going to happen.

Robert

yellow tools wrote:

You are right, there are of course very useful and excellent small sound patches available, but my statement only refered to the virtual instruments, and that is what I thought we discuss in here. And therefore I'm still sure that 16MB libraries are not up-to-date. Christian Hellinger C.E.O.

You are simply wrong in my humble opinion. A sound cannot possibly be considered "out of date" just because it is 16 megabytes. The bottom line is how useful and good that sound is. That sound can be 2 megs or 2 gigs it may just be fine how it is whatever the spec may be. There is no "uniform spec" that makes it obselete because each sound is unique from the next. Some sounds are actually IMPROVED by having less notes represented from the original instrument. It all depends on the SOUND. Blanket statements like "I'm still sure that 16MB libraries are not up-to-date" are rediculous.

Sorry to attack your comment but it bothers me to hear anyone (especially a developer) make claims such as this. I think Spectrum made this point very clear in his post.

Here, here Squids! My favourite bass is Canton's (Ontology) Upright Bass for EXS. Total weight: 1.2 megs. I've used on countless tracks.

It's now how big it is that counts, but what you do with it.

PS: I lalso love BIG patches, like the ones in Atmosphere, and will likely buy Culture...

its good that you can install the patches as needed to save disk space.. i have 160GB of HD on my DAW.. every bit of it precious..
maybe there is a market for a hardware/software combo, using firewire drives with a software interface???

Hi Rabid,
first of all I'm very sad about your experiences with real gigadrums, but I have to say that we are completely innocent: We have/had nothing to do with real gigadrums. Our drum library is pure drums and Studio drums contains 100% different samples.
Good sounds are always wanted and never become old, thats why NI asked us for developing the content for KONTAKT. If sounds are good now, they will be also good in the future. So not old or new, just good or bad; sure there will always be the big question: What is good an who has to decide it... (i think we could discuss about that for the next two years, but finally it's the user's decision).

Majestic is the biggest and most detailed e-bass instrument and contains next to the basses of PEB lot's of new stuff. In addition it is also the software what is giving much more authenticity and control to the e-basses.
Best

Christian Hellinger

yellow tools wrote:

...We have/had nothing to do with real gigadrums. Our drum library is pure drums and Studio drums contains 100% different samples...

That clears up some confusion on my part. I came home and dug out my printouts from the time I purchased Real Giga Drums in November 2001. The page printed at that time from Sounds Online lists Yellow Tools as the manufacturer. The CD case lists Best Service, which at the time I thought was just the distributor for Yellow Tools. I go back online today at Sounds Online and there is no mention of any manufacturer or producer for Real Giga Drums but Yellow Tools is mentioned with Pure Drums. Sorry for getting things crossed. My information was based on an error on the web page I printed out when I bought the set.

I guess I will take a second look at your Battery set now.

Robert

How much are these yellow tools anyway?

I can't find the price.

dw

On the other hand, things like key switching and crossfading are very cool and it bums me out that every software sampler doesn't have this feature. Just to clarify that I don't knock these two products. I am very curious to hear them especially the ethnic one. I love ethnic instruments and there's nothing wrong with a good variety of sounds to play.

The bigger question is what sample playback engine are these two MVI's based on? How is it modular? Can you add new sounds to it or is each a closed module?

The MVI engine is a totally independent development od our software engineers; no licensing or cooperation project. The supported interfaces will be VST (Mac & PC), MAS, RTAS and stand alone.
The modular thing is the possibility to combine, merge and create completely new and customized instruments with the existing multi and layer patches. In addition you can copy, delete, move and scale complete layers but also single keygroups to adjust all the instruments for individual use. So you can use every multi, layer and keygroup as a kind of single module, which can be manipulated in all details.
The first opportunity to experience the yellow tools MVIs live will be at the Five Days workshop in Munich.
Detailed information about pricing and availability will be posted at our website within the next days.
best

Christian Hellinger