All Purpose Sample Pack without Proprietary Software? WAV Files Ideally

[Dirtgrain]

I have Ableton Live Suite, with a bunch of samples in it that I can't put in some VSTs because they protect it. I'm looking for samples to use in making new sounds, with samplers and granular VSTs, from orchestral to choral to world instruments to synth sounds to whatever. I do have the free Cymatics stuff, and the files that came with all the Glitchmachines plugins.

In my recollection, all of the orchestral libraries I've looked at have been for Kontakt or Falcon.

I've watched some Sampletank videos, but I only see the material being used in Sampltank. Can Sampletank samples be used in any VST (assuming the VST will accept the format)?

I suppose I can piecemeal some of what I'm looking for, from the free samples thread, although I'm not sure if how many of those are WAV files or are open to being used in other VSTs.

[Ben H]

Sampletank sounds are proprietary, for Sampletank only.

[yellowmix]

Some Kontakt libaries that require "Full" Kontakt have either loose WAVs or NCW monoliths you can resave as patch + samples. ProjectSAM's TFO series have loose samples in WAV. Many 8Dio libraries have unprotected monoliths. Many devs on KontaktHub allow you to use the samples in other tools. unEarthed Sampling has a Shakuhachi with loose samples.

SFZ by its nature have loose samples. Look up Unreal Instruments, they have guitars, koto, more.

If you can mention what exact kind of samples you are looking for then people can suggest what to look at.

[enroe]

You are right in your thoughts about proprietary software. In the long run
there'll be huge problems.

"Yellowmix" already gave the best recommendation: Look at sfz
and its documentation site here.

There you'll find everything you need: sfz-sampler, sfz-documentations,
good advices and examples, and links to sample packages. Good luck!

[Dirtgrain]

The Project Sam stuff is great. I couldn't get the Unreal Instruments files to work in my sampler (they were FLAC file type, IIRC). I'm getting some WAV files from a link on that SFZ site, too. Many thanks for the ideas.

[yellowmix]

I couldn't get the Unreal Instruments files to work in my sampler (they were FLAC file type, IIRC).

FLAC are lossless-compressed audio files and a fairly common format especially for streamed/downloaded music. This is the first example of FLAC in SFZ I've found. Sforzando supports it, and I've been constructing my personal instruments with FLAC.

You can convert this back to WAV with a variety of tools, you may already have VLC. Personally I use foobar2000. Since it's lossless the conversion is always perfect, it comes down to what app workflow works best for you. Note the SFZ file will be looking for files with a .flac extension and won't find the .wavs. If you only want one copy of samples, you can do a mass search-and-replace in the SFZ files to change .flac to .wav and it should work (I actually do the opposite when developing SFZs).

Also check YouTubers. Andrew Huang recently released odd woodwind articulations that are quite interesting.

[Calenberger]

Some Kontakt libaries that require "Full" Kontakt have either loose WAVs or NCW monoliths you can resave as patch + samples. ProjectSAM's TFO series have loose samples in WAV. Many 8Dio libraries have unprotected monoliths. Many devs on KontaktHub allow you to use the samples in other tools. unEarthed Sampling has a Shakuhachi with loose samples.

SFZ by its nature have loose samples. Look up Unreal Instruments, they have guitars, koto, more.

If you can mention what exact kind of samples you are looking for then people can suggest what to look at.

Sometimes the WAV samples are better and more usable than the Kontakt instruments. Look Ambient Guitars of 8dio. Broken A / B mix in the instrument, but the WAVs are quite cool...

[StellarSamples]

BigCat's blog is a good ressource for open samples, although some of it is enclosed in Kontakt, he always link to the source.

[thecontrolcentre]

All of my Live Instruments, Drum Racks & Sample packs are in open WAV format, mostly 24bit. Links are in my sig.

[SampleScience]

It's interesting your asking for something like this because it's a project I have in mind for a long time. I've started buying acoustic instruments and other gear for it and if everything goes well I'll release a "General Purpose Sample Library".

This is something other companies should have already done, but I guess that's hard to sell considering the sea of niche-oriented sample packs available on the market today.

In any case, I'm working on it.

[Dirtgrain]

. . . if everything goes well I'll release a "General Purpose Sample Library".

I look forward to it.