It was bound to happen: an 80s instrument

[Aryaroman]

Surprised no one thought of (as in released a product) this before. Granted, not that many have/access to a collection of 80s gear as complete as these guys seem to.

https://www.beatskillz.com/retro-kz/

Have you seen TV, Netflix, and closely listened to the scores of many contemporary movies today ?If Yes, then you can’t miss the fact the 80s/ 90s Sound is back BIG TIME!

We wanted to pay homage to the sounds of the great soundtracks from the 80s from composers and tv series /movies such as, John Carpenter, Harold Faltermeyer, Jan Hammer, Michael Jackson, Prince, Night Rider, The Terminator, Commando etc..

Certain iconic sounds showed up in many such projects, and we decided to embark on journey of bringing you the very sounds the you know, sounds you can identify immediately as soon as you hear them!

We sampled and tweaked these patched from original synths such as Fairlight, Synclavier, Yamaha DX7, Roland D-50, EMULATOR II, KORG M1, OBERHEIM OBX, PROPHET 5, SYNTHEX and many more…

Not affiliated with them, just posting a heads up, because this seems to have gone under the radar and I know how much love the 80s get around here. And speaking of that, they also released an 80s themed Drum Rompler some time ago: https://www.beatskillz.com/retro-hit/

If you didn't know, the free Beatfactory Drums-plugin was made by them. I haven't tried it but it made it to MusicTech's 50 best freeware plugins, so I'll link it too, if anyone's craving for some free drums... https://www.beatskillz.com/drums/

[Examigan]

Certain iconic sounds showed up in many such projects, and we decided to embark on journey of bringing you the very sounds the you know, sounds you can identify immediately as soon as you hear them!

We sampled and tweaked these patched from original synths such as Fairlight, Synclavier, Yamaha DX7, Roland D-50, EMULATOR II, KORG M1, OBERHEIM OBX, PROPHET 5, SYNTHEX and many more…

If they sampled the original patches of the D-50, isn't that illegal? I thought it was only ok to do that if you made your own presets from scratch and then sampled them. From what I have read, Roland is real picky about that type of thing.

[Aryaroman]

Certain iconic sounds showed up in many such projects, and we decided to embark on journey of bringing you the very sounds the you know, sounds you can identify immediately as soon as you hear them!

We sampled and tweaked these patched from original synths such as Fairlight, Synclavier, Yamaha DX7, Roland D-50, EMULATOR II, KORG M1, OBERHEIM OBX, PROPHET 5, SYNTHEX and many more…

If they sampled the original patches of the D-50, isn't that illegal? I thought it was only ok to do that if you made your own presets from scratch and then sampled them. From what I have read, Roland is real picky about that type of thing.

Good observation. Doesn't the same apply to Korg M1? To my knowledge only Fairlight (I-II?) and EMU can be freely sampled.

[KingofBeers]

Surprised no one thought of (as in released a product) this before.

Do you really think no one has ever sampled some 80's synths and sold it as a product before??

Something like this comes up every couple of years, "SINCE" the late 80's early 90's sample CD's etc...

[Examigan]

Here's a thread on GS about it

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/electro ... aries.html

[zvenx]

I am curious how come the fairlight and emu can be sampled?
As I understand it any sound recording is copyrighted, so any sampler instrument unless you create the samples yourself can't be sampled. However analogy synths which aren't audio recording can be sampled.
rsp

[Aryaroman]

Surprised no one thought of (as in released a product) this before.

Do you really think no one has ever sampled some 80's synths and sold it as a product before??

Something like this comes up every couple of years, "SINCE" the late 80's early 90's sample CD's etc...

Clearly, the point of the product is not as simple as "sampling some 80s synths and selling it as a product".

I don't know of another VSTi (not sample-CD) where the description pretty much reads:
"We sampled all your favorite sounds from your favorite 80s soundtracks and songs and put them into a single rompler and GUI and market it as a one-stop-shop when you need that sound from that soundtrack/that song."

That said I would be happy to see another one if you know of one. Closest that comes to my mind is Esper Synth, but that's a Kontakt instrument for Blade Runner-sounds.

I am curious how come the fairlight and emu can be sampled?
As I understand it any sound recording is copyrighted, so any sampler instrument unless you create the samples yourself can't be sampled. However analogy synths which aren't audio recording can be sampled.
rsp

I don't know the details, but there are collections of Fairlight CM-II and the EMU Emulators, free and commercial and they are distributed without any issues as far as I know. Have been for years. Same goes for some (many?) sampled drum machines. Rhythmic Robot released the Emulator, they probably know first-hand.

[Spitfire31]

AFAIK, Rhythmic Robot didn't release the EMU E-II factory patches but worked with the developer of the huge 'OMI Universe of Sounds', who apparently still retains the rights to the sounds.

/Joachim

[Aryaroman]

AFAIK, Rhythmic Robot didn't release the EMU E-II factory patches but worked with the developer of the huge 'OMI Universe of Sounds', who apparently still retains the rights to the sounds.

/Joachim

I think you're right, but there are free EMU samples all over, so I don't know, maybe they have limited resources to control the distribution unlike Roland?

[ghettosynth]

AFAIK, Rhythmic Robot didn't release the EMU E-II factory patches but worked with the developer of the huge 'OMI Universe of Sounds', who apparently still retains the rights to the sounds.

/Joachim

I think you're right, but there are free EMU samples all over, so I don't know, maybe they have limited resources to control the distribution unlike Roland?

Not everyone is as interested in pushing on this front. Moreover, AFAIK, there are few cases that support the idea that every case of sample reuse in every instance is infringement. Yes, I'm aware of the bright line rule regarding sampling, but, that case was decided with respect to music sampling.

Now, I'm not saying that it's legal, but we shouldn't immediately conclude that something that appears to be copyright infringement will automatically feel the force of law. There are many reasons why it won't, one of which may be that companies actually prefer the status quo of asserting that it's illegal while relying on existing cases that aren't actually a test of the specific conditions surrounding the usage.

Roland is really aggressive, but even they don't always win. The law was different in the 80s and without proper documentation you didn't automatically get copyright. The MT-32 case was about this. Nobody thought about this when using samples in the 909, for example. I don't actually know if those samples contain the proper documentation, they may not, they may, in fact, not be illegal to copy.

So, it may simply be that not all samples from that era are actually protected by copyright, even though vendors would like you to believe that today's laws apply, they do not. Or, it may be that some vendors don't find this as important in specific instances as others. Or, it may be that the cost to litigate isn't worth it given the specifics of the situation.

In this case, for example, it's not a specific sample of say the D-50, where you couldn't really argue that for any particular track you didn't sample the D-50. So it might be quite challenging for any vendor to prove that any particular samples are, in fact, their samples.

I think that, at some point, there will be more pushback on the bright line rule, especially when it comes to instruments and especially when the samples are short and a minor part of the finished product. Various fair use arguments should apply to audio samples as they do to other works, e.g., de minimis, especially in the case where there was no explicit license agreement, e.g., the 909.

But I digress. The bottom line is that just because someone claims that something is protected by copyright, and even may take formal or informal legal action based on that claim, doesn't mean that the claim is true. I suspect that more than a few samples from that era are actually in the public domain.

They could just be flying under the radar. For me, this just looks boring. YMMV.

[UltimateOutsider]

Surprised no one thought of (as in released a product) this before.

What about all the vintage UVI libraries, or the synth anthologies like you can find at Best Service?

[.jon]

Few things sadder in the music world than sampled synths.

[ghettosynth]

Few things sadder in the music world than sampled synths.

If you mean relatively static samples of really dynamic synths, then sure, for the most part, I agree. No sample library is going to take you too far from the source, especially if there isn't a lot of power in the sampling engine. But, samples of the M1? Yeah, they were pretty static to begin with, it's barely a synth. I know that pisses some people off, but, it's a rather objective statement. Romplers from that era were a very basic sampling playback engine. Kontakt can easily outdo an M1 with a copy of the M1's raw samples.

Anyway, I'm not that interested in this thing, but I needed a short break from my work, so there you go.

[.jon]

Yeah samples of samples is obviously different thing, not sure why that was relevant to mention.

[layzer]

Few things sadder in the music world than sampled synths.

sampled Analog and FM both winners