Good sounding and efficient sound library

[parke02]

Does this exist? I've demo'd Sample Tank extensively a while back and was not impressed. I've tried Colossus, and although the presets sounded good for the most part, the loading time and memory requirements turned me away from it.

I was at GC the other day and spent a solid 45 minutes on the Oasis, just playing the presets. They sounded GREAT and it was awesome b/c i could scroll the presets instanly and noodle with the presets for a minute or two without having to bother with any load times. Inspiring.

Are there any sample libraries that are anywhere near as efficient and good sounding as the Oasis or Fantom series workstations?

I'm being told sample tank and hypersonic are the closest. Any other options?

[dmichaelsmusic]

most of these VI all in one plugins are using much more memory and cpu than using hardware for your sound source via midi. So really nothing on the VI side is going to be as efficient. however, these larger sample sizes can make for much more realism in your playing and if you have a fast computer with enough memory to keep up then I would suggest going that direction. You have a couple other options than the ones you've mentioned Sonivox has muse and Vir2 has VI One. I don't have either but they both they both have an impressive list of instruments included and some nice sounding demos as well. On the cheeper end you have plugsound pro

[pschelfh]

I have both Colossus and Nexus.

Colossus didn't sound that good to me when I first played it, but it really shines when you use it in a midi composition. Everything seems to to find its own place in the mix. Also, the sounds are rather dry which has the advantage that you can process (eq, compression, reverb,...) them just as if you would mix down real instruments.

PS : There's an update from NI that activates disk streaming, which allows you to load bigger samples.

Nexus, on the other hand, has a more processed sound and is closer in sound to hardware romplers. It replaced my Korg Triton.

They both have their use, Colossus sounds more natural but requires a bit more work afterwards. Nexus is quicker for working out ideas.

Interesting : I just upgraded to Cubase 4 and the included HalionOne sounds fantastic. It seems to have the same soundset as the Yamaha Motif, only about 300 Mb, but it sounds great!

Peter.

[Mr. Tunes]

what kind of music do you write? i always found that from the beginning sonic synth and its sequel sonik synth 2 had more soul than its counterpart sampletank. there's lots of patches that are economical with memory but really high quality at the same time. you can always go in later and replace the individual instruments with more particular synths and sound libraries(like RA and Philharmonik) but i've found it to be the best starting point on almost any style of music.

[pschelfh]

You could also look into a sampler.

Kontakt3 comes with a 30 Gb library now, that should get you somewhere + you have the advantage that you can fully edit your sounds and add your own material.

Peter.