Free General GM Set?

Sampler and Sampling discussion (techniques, tips and tricks, etc.)
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bigcat1969 wrote:DSmolken, yeah I did do that. So many things happening I almost forgot. Let try to convert yours to Kontakt if I'm clever enough. Thanks for the permission.
No prob, do whatever you want with them. I won't even get mad if you leave all the weird noises mapped to the high notes out, haha. It was my first real attempt at sampling and mapping.

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DSmolken wrote:
bigcat1969 wrote:DSmolken, yeah I did do that. So many things happening I almost forgot. Let try to convert yours to Kontakt if I'm clever enough. Thanks for the permission.
No prob, do whatever you want with them. I won't even get mad if you leave all the weird noises mapped to the high notes out, haha. It was my first real attempt at sampling and mapping.
Extrapolating from that response, one could go from dev to dev and ask them how they feel about having their freebies featured in a free kontakt GM bank project.
I could imagine a fair share of them rolling with it, esp. if there's an extensive manual doc giving their company/site a shoutout, and maybe their name featured on the gui.
Once one has free reign over the samples and programming for that particular use, the instruments could also be tweaked to match the GM paradigm and sound more alike.

It's a herculean task and basically won't happen, but i post it anyway 'cause of the potential awesomeness.

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Musical Gym wrote:bigcat: Do you plan to build it and announce in this thread?

I vote Kontakt. Is there another alternative?
What about SoundFonts have a look at vstSoundFont [http://www.synthfont.com/VSTSF_news.html] or a single channel solution like sforzando :: Free SFZ Player

Don't plan on owning Kontakt ... when I saw the title I thought we might be heading toward A Free GM set for Free Instruments?

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If the sampler were to be free as well, sfz is the right choice most def. you need some round robin to make a few sounds believable.

But as it is, this thread is 'just' about compiling a GM-like list of hiQ freebies, and kontakt is where most of those happen.

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DSmolken, I did a version of the Arco. F4 is Up, G4 is down, F#4 is the Arco Noises.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/zcaua ... e_Bass.nki
See what you think. Also what do the pizzicato names mean? Are a,b,c and d round robins or is there some other meaning?
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Ha, thanks! Gonna download try this in Kontakt Player's 15 minute demo mode after work... Yes, a/b/c/d are just plain ol' round robins. Mostly, though there are a few spots where it's only a/b/c and for one of the notes the forte velocity layer is missing.

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That Kontakt version of my bass gets a big thumbs up! Sounds and works just fine (once I downloaded Kontakt Player 5.3.1). In the SFZ version I had set the down and up bows as round robins with down set as 1 and up as 2, but the way it is with keyswitches is good too. And, I know this is nitpicking and I hope it doesn't come off as ungrateful, I'd even set the reverb to be on by default, since it sounds nice the recordings are close-miked and totally dry, and then probably shorten the release since you'll have a reverb tail after releasing a key anyway.

Thanks for your hard work, I really do appreciate it.

And now, back to hunting for helicopters.

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Thanks man. Glad you liked it I'll implement your suggestions and then work on the pizzicato.

I wimped out on the 3 GM synth sections for the most part. some of them I tried to match, but mostly I just found the best reviewed synths and shoved them in a slot with no rhyme or reason. If anyone wants to suggest close matches for the actual synth bank sounds please do. I was stunned at how many synths are out there!
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Btw, if you want to play around with GUI pics for that bass, here are some high-res originals: https://plus.google.com/photos/10465896 ... 3984383425

First one with all the broken bow hairs is neat, too.

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Is this closer to what you had in mind? I've added the first pizzicato layer, but haven't had time to add the rest and figure out the round robin. I'm hoping to work on that tomorrow. Oddly after adding a pizzicato layers, the instrument is smaller go figure!

http://www.mediafire.com/download/zcaua ... e_Bass.nki


Also any ideas on bagpipes and fiddles anyone? I just put some crummy soundfonts and a fun synth patch for the bagpipes and I guess I can repeat the free violin for the fiddle, but hardly good options on either. Also would love to find good free concertina and fretless bass.
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And taking time out from pizzicato round robining to present the Thrill of the Helicopter
bigcat Helicopter for Kontakt 5
Yup a real helicopter 'instrument'. :D

Instrument created using Attribution 3.0 sounds from http://soundbible.com/tags-helicopter.html
Helicopter Shot Down by Missle Sound by Chester Barrett
All other Helicopter sounds by Helicopter sampling machine Mike Koenig
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bigcat1969 wrote:Is this closer to what you had in mind? I've added the first pizzicato layer, but haven't had time to add the rest and figure out the round robin. I'm hoping to work on that tomorrow. Oddly after adding a pizzicato layers, the instrument is smaller go figure!

http://www.mediafire.com/download/zcaua ... e_Bass.nki


Also any ideas on bagpipes and fiddles anyone? I just put some crummy soundfonts and a fun synth patch for the bagpipes and I guess I can repeat the free violin for the fiddle, but hardly good options on either. Also would love to find good free concertina and fretless bass.
Thanks. I started downloading the bass over breakfast, will test the new version after work. Could be smaller because I did something silly in the SFZ version and after editing the wavs in Audition left them as 32-bit - if Kontakt converted to 24 they'd get smaller?

For fiddles, there's the "Lofberg folk violin" from the ERANS Sampling Project, if working download links to that still exist... Never tried it but I see somebody even posted a Kontakt version of it on KVR in 2011. Maybe it's still out there.

Also, is there really no free viola out there? If not using a solo viola from one of the general orchestral or string VSTis is probably better than a gamba, even if the gamba is really good it's a different string family.

Got two helicopters, though. That's awesome. I wonder what's out there for bagpipes. I do know a guy who has a set, but he lives in another town and has a small baby in the same house as the bagpipes, so...

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Just in time for lunch, another version with the 4 round robin pizzicato and the pizzicato noises.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/zcaua ... e_Bass.nki

Thanks for that note about the fiddle. I have that project lying around the hard drive and actually used some Sax sounds from it in my Sax project. I'll see what I can do with that fiddle.

Thanks for the Viola info. My Viola knowledge is frightfully weak. I suspect I know less about music than any 'digital instrument messer abouter' in history, hence my appreciation for all the comments and suggestions and such. I added the DSK Strings Vst as a sort of Viola instrument. I think after I get done with this GM set attempt, i'll go back and make a note of which free orchestras each instrument are a part of say put TCO, SSO, O1 and even KFL (Kontakt Factory Library) next to the instrument names. For instance if you own Kontakt you already have bagpipes that are passable versus the awful Soundfonts I found.

It was fun making that helicopter 'instrument', but the helicopter Vst is surprisingly good. It has all kinds of variable knobs you can tweek.

I was stunned that not only are there no decent free bagpipe instruments, but I couldn't find any bagpipe samples to try making my own. I do think that bagpipe plus baby would be a lovely duet. They should compliment each other perfectly if you could get your friend to record them.
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Bass tested, definitely works like it should, pizz and keyswitches too. Thanks again.

And you should really look up viola jokes. That's probably all the viola knowledge anyone will ever need.

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I'm thinking about making a SoundFont that can used to passively play midi files. Sounds like a fun project.

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