KVR Audio

Stollmeister · Post by **Stollmeister** » Sun Jul 10, 2016 10:48 am

There is a Soniccouture sale at NI right now. I already have their Box of Tricks, and I am very impressed with it. What are some of your favorite libraries from them? My budget is limited, so I can probably only buy one or two libraries. They have so many cool libraries so it is hard to choose. What are your favorite libraries from them? Which, if any, libraries are you guys buying?

Their Ep73 Deconstructed and their Broken Wurli are tempting, but I already have the Scarbee stuff. Would you say that the Soniccouture libraries are substantially better than the Scarbee?

I make rock music, some acoustic stuff and some electronica. Something like the Geosonics is super cool, but I predict that I may end up just listening to the samples and admiring them, rather than actually using them in my music.

I get why we, for technical reasons, cannot demo sample libraries, but it is a shame that we cannot. I would love to spend a day comparing Alicia's keys to the Hammersmith piano to see if it is worth having both. I wish someone could come up with a way to demo sample libraries. Perhaps one way would be for us to send companies really short midi files for them to run through the sample library and then send back as an mp3.

Michael L · Post by **Michael L** » Sun Jul 10, 2016 10:51 am

Why are you impressed with BoT?

Stollmeister · Post by **Stollmeister** » Sun Jul 10, 2016 11:42 am

Michael L wrote:Why are you impressed with BoT?

The sound quality is excellent, but the thing that impresses me the most is how playable the instruments feel. They really invite me to play and write music. Given how many instruments are included, I feel that the library gives me a lot of well sampled instruments for the money. Something like the Mbira could easily have been sold as a library on its own.

That said, there two things that I like less. First, it would have been nice to have the cello played conventionally, in addition to the expressions already included. Secondly, some of the samples in the vocal pad instrument are recorded so hot that they are clipped. From talking to support, this is because they are the only samples that Imogen recorded on her own and that was how she recorded them. But I feel strongly that even if the cello and the vocal pad hadn't been included at all, the cost of the library is worth it in terms of the rest of the instruments.

lumcas · Post by **lumcas** » Sun Jul 10, 2016 12:11 pm

Stollmeister wrote:Their Ep73 Deconstructed and their Broken Wurli are tempting, but I already have the Scarbee stuff. Would you say that the Soniccouture libraries are substantially better than the Scarbee?

Of course it always depends on what you already have. I generally like Scarbee stuff but both Soniccouture libraries you mention are much more "alive, playable, barking, real", just no competition to ME. Oh, and don't forget that apart from these two wonderful and very customizable instruments, you're also getting plenty of sound designy patches, which are truly beyond awesome. Sound like fanboy, right? Well, I admit I am

And regarding sales in general, I'm always as tempted as anybody here, but the truth is there always will be another sale. In case of Soniccouture I'd bet there will be one more this year...

Hope this helps.

martinjuenke · Post by **martinjuenke** » Sun Jul 10, 2016 5:17 pm

xtended piano is inspiring. it cuts nicely through the frequencies. i love especially the muted tone used as rhythm alternative resp. add-on.

dune_rave · Post by **dune_rave** » Sun Jul 10, 2016 5:19 pm

Konkrete rocks too

martinjuenke · Post by **martinjuenke** » Sun Jul 10, 2016 5:44 pm

dune_rave wrote:Konkrete rocks too

Oh yes! I simply forgot it. It's really cool. The new update includes euclidian beat maker - pretty advanced!

jsp1979 · Post by **jsp1979** » Sun Jul 10, 2016 5:45 pm

martinjuenke wrote:xtended piano is inspiring. it cuts nicely through the frequencies. i love especially the muted tone used as rhythm alternative resp. add-on.

The plucked piano in Xtended Piano is one of my favorite sampled sounds that I own. Love it.

I own Xtended Piano, Array Mbira, Pan Drums, and I recently bought Konkrete. All are good, but Xtended Piano is my favorite.

dune_rave · Post by **dune_rave** » Sun Jul 10, 2016 5:52 pm

And what's the best free premium?
Imho Evilfish is quite good

Mr Arkadin · Post by **Mr Arkadin** » Sun Jul 10, 2016 7:40 pm

I am having this trouble too. All their stuff is top notch.

I already have Broken Wurli (which is great as a non-broken Wurli too), Xtended Piano (as a fan of Stephen Scott this was a no-brainer - love bowed pianos), Glass Works (again a fan of glass harmonicas and Partch's cloud chambers), Ondes and Novachord for more ambient pad stuff. I bought all these on sale.

I really want to buy Balinese Gamelan II as I love this music and used to use these types of sound from the old Roland R-8 Ethnic card, so I can only imagine this library is amazing compared to the few megs of sampling that had.

However in reality I would probably use it once unless I get some soundtrack commission, so I went with Konkrete 3 as I thought it was probably more useful and I like things with built-in beat making. Still considering the Ondioline although with Ondes and Novachord not sure about the overlap (if any).

So that didn't really help, did it?

Stollmeister · Post by **Stollmeister** » Sun Jul 10, 2016 8:36 pm

So, basically you are saying that it is all great. No help at all!!

Also, now I discovered their sampled marimba and fell in live with the demo tracks.

I realize that I had ignored the Xtended piano as a novelty that wasn't very useful. Now I have to reconsider.

martinjuenke · Post by **martinjuenke** » Mon Jul 11, 2016 1:03 pm

To make things more complicated:
I bought Novachord and The Attic a couple of days ago. Both are superbly sounding and a true delight (if you like the oldfashioned stuff...)
There are so many sample crap sellers out there, but the guys of Soniccouture have never disappointed. Even the support is quick and problemsolving (there was one minor issue with Ondes)
So all in all: hear the demos and pick your favorite...

woggle · Post by **woggle** » Tue Jul 12, 2016 1:48 am

jsp1979 wrote:
martinjuenke wrote:xtended piano is inspiring. it cuts nicely through the frequencies. i love especially the muted tone used as rhythm alternative resp. add-on.
The plucked piano in Xtended Piano is one of my favorite sampled sounds that I own. Love it.

I own Xtended Piano, Array Mbira, Pan Drums, and I recently bought Konkrete. All are good, but Xtended Piano is my favorite.

I'd not noticed Konkrete, but but looks a lot of fun - can you output to midi or build your own kits for it or are you limited to the sound within it? Alternatively does anyone make sequencer like the one in Konkrete - looks simple to use but quite powerful.

martinjuenke · Post by **martinjuenke** » Tue Jul 12, 2016 4:46 pm

woggle wrote:
jsp1979 wrote:
martinjuenke wrote:xtended piano is inspiring. it cuts nicely through the frequencies. i love especially the muted tone used as rhythm alternative resp. add-on.
The plucked piano in Xtended Piano is one of my favorite sampled sounds that I own. Love it.

I own Xtended Piano, Array Mbira, Pan Drums, and I recently bought Konkrete. All are good, but Xtended Piano is my favorite.
I'd not noticed Konkrete, but but looks a lot of fun - can you output to midi or build your own kits for it or are you limited to the sound within it? Alternatively does anyone make sequencer like the one in Konkrete - looks simple to use but quite powerful.

In Logic it's a bit complicated but nevertheless working:
Take Kontakt as standalone application, do your Konkrete playing and rout it via virtual midi into Logic. As soon as you manage this connection it works really fine. You can tweak to midi notes as you like and take another drum machine for playing them. Cool thing!

jsp1979 · Post by **jsp1979** » Tue Jul 12, 2016 5:06 pm

I'm not at my DAW so I can't access the manual for Konkrete.

There's a little button with two eighth notes on the Euclidean Beats with an arrow on it. What does that do? I figured it was some way to get the MIDI but I may be wrong.

EDIT: According to the Box of Tricks manual I found online, the button I refer to above allows you to drag and drop MIDI from Euclidean Beats.

Soniccouture favourites?