Looking for a sample library which wasn't "painstakingly" or "meticulously" sampled

[zircon]

Yeah, those are overused words. But if you've ever created a sample library of an acoustic instrument with more than a trivial level of detail, those are the most accurate words you can use. Even a simple single solo instrument means days in the studio, in total silence, while the perform plucks (or bows, or taps, or strikes) a single note at a time... waits for it to ring out... does it again... and again.. and again... times a few thousand.

[yellowmix]

Rattly and Raw

I love their Marxophone because of that.

[DSmolken]

Rattly and Raw

I love their Marxophone because of that.

The Marxophone was not a big commercial succcess, but the Leninophone was much more revolutionary.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

[martinjuenke]

Resistence is futile!

[donkey tugger]

Even a simple single solo instrument means days in the studio, in total silence, while the perform plucks (or bows, or taps, or strikes) a single note at a time... waits for it to ring out... does it again... and again.. and again... times a few thousand.

Until some f**ker outside in the car park starts riding around on the world's loudest shitty moped seemingly every time you decide to do a bit more sampling..

[funky lime]

Load a painstakingly sampled patch. Go to the edit mode of Kontakt or your sampler of choice. Delete most of the samples. Stretch the remaining samples to fill the gaps. Not so painstakingly sampled anymore...


Versilian Studios has a release of their Community Orchestra where they just picked maybe 50 WAVs from the whole collection, for sound design purposes I suppose.

[Samulis]

Versilian Studios has a release of their Community Orchestra where they just picked maybe 50 WAVs from the whole collection, for sound design purposes I suppose.

Even better- we had a contest where people had to write music using only up to 15 of those 50 samples. It's crazy to think the levels people will prostrate themselves for cash prizes.
https://www.newgrounds.com/playlists/vi ... bece818e1b

EDIT: I do want to note... some of those entries are really impressive, despite using literally 3-4 orders of magnitude fewer samples than you probably have in a single patch in your 80-channel template. Just a friendly reminder that you don't need 2,000 samples to make a more than decent sounding instrument. You do need a bit of creativity and some patience to find and harness the idiomatic sound of the instrument (and probably a generous helping of effects), but if those guys could make something that good with ~10 or fewer samples, I'm mildly ashamed to call myself a musician when I use 10,000 and complain if the cello shorts are cut a little messy.

There's also a meticulously hand picked (sorry, I couldn't help myself) 256-sample subset which is a bit more reasonable with 80's era 3-4 samples per instrument. The full freeware edition is 3,000 samples (and it's all CC0).
http://vis.versilstudios.net/vsco-community.html

OP, you could try picking up an old soundset. I believe these are legal conversions of the original EMU Emulator III Library (recorded 1991-1994, I believe), back when sample patches were 4, 8 megs max and libraries were just starting to get distributed on CD's instead of floppies-
https://www.digitalsoundfactory.com/emu_products

Bigcat over at Bigcat Audio is also well known for "dumpster-diving" through freesound.org to pick out sample sets of instruments from there- mostly the sorts of low-key stuff you're looking for. The No Budget Orchestra is also an attempt at the same.

On the extreme end, you can be crazy like me and go out and buy a bunch of early 90's rackmount samplers. At least the value goes up on those things unlike actual sample libraries- I'll see how y'all are doing with your Spitfire libs in 10 years when the resale value of these puppies has doubled!

[tristan-]

Yeah, those are overused words. But if you've ever created a sample library of an acoustic instrument with more than a trivial level of detail, those are the most accurate words you can use. Even a simple single solo instrument means days in the studio, in total silence, while the perform plucks (or bows, or taps, or strikes) a single note at a time... waits for it to ring out... does it again... and again.. and again... times a few thousand.

Some people would argue that its better than cleaning doorways or sitting in an office. It's just a "ranting" post about all the usual PR bullcrap..

[kbaccki]

For "not deeply sampled" a few vendors come to mind:

* Boulder Sounds -- lots of small to medium stuff

* PrecisionSound -- ditto. Eclectic collection of stuff. I still use their dirty rhodes all the time!

* Pettinhouse -- freebies are significantly reduced versions of meticulously sampled counterparts. Plus I think his two drumkit collections (vinyl and something else) are now free, and those kits are tiny but generally useful.

* DigitalSoundFactory -- has all proteus modules. Recomend ProteusVX (free) versions over SF2, Dimension, Kontakt formats -- ProteusVX is 32-bit only, but more or less accurately emulates the hardware. They also have some emu and ensoniq stuff that I've never used.

* Sonivox -- when it was Sonic Implants they had some really good SF2s for the time (guitars, drums, percussion, basic orchestral). Sonivox introduced their own proprietary player, so not sure if those products are still available as SF2. I still use a couple of their the old SF2s converted and tweaked in Kontakt.

There's also a bunch of free stuff out there, YMMV. E.g. I'm always pulling up a stripped down and tweaked version of the Salamander Piano that I think sounds fantastic for what it is. I think it's couple hundred MB total footprint, maybe less.

[Vortifex]

..

[bigcat1969]

The question is what will you really pay for non-deeply sampled instruments? Especially when you can get instruments that aren't 'meticulously' sampled for free. You have to give some reason to buy and 'it sounds really good' is subjective. Every orchestral instrument in this ten terabyte package has 128 velocity layers and 5 round robins and 20 articulations for a total of 12,800 samples per note is good copy. While trying to explain that when you play a tune using 'Gloria in excelsis Deo' in Fluffy's Dominus Choir your soul gets happy is harder to use as marketing copy.

And yup as mentioned I may be the king of painfully but not painstakingly sampled instruments!

[synthesite]

My stuff has quirks. Like my JX sounds which were sampled from tape. Sometimes deliberately loopy. You might say a bit of the Proteus 2000 vibe. With sample packs starting at $10 each. Plenty of demos to check out.

http://bitley.laconicsounds.net

[funky lime]

Spitfire make me laugh with their "expertly curated" bundles.

And every time I see someone describe an EQ as "musical" I roll my eyes. What does that actually mean in practical terms?

Spitfire do indeed have a pretty high opinion of themselves. But then, they've earned it to a degree, with the incredible quality of some of their orchestral libraries. They consider themselves curators because, while sample libraries are their business, they are also well-versed media composers who actually use their own products to make scores. They don't just record sounds they think will sell; they record the sounds they themselves want to use for their own productions. I do find the whole "curator" term to be rather pretentious and a bit overused now; anyone with a blog is a "curator" nowadays.

A "musical" EQ is a term that used to make me roll my eyes as well before I really understood what it probably meant. I assume it has to do with not only the ease of use (as in, "so easy even a musician can use it") but also the selection of frequencies being tuned toward the more commonly-used frequencies when mixing music (as opposed to mixing dialogue or foley). An alternative to a "musical" EQ could be a more "clinical" or "surgical" EQ that is designed more specifically to handle some corrective or surgical tasks, rather than shaping musical tones with broad strikes. Of course, it's a pretty nebulous term, like many other terms that get thrown around when talking about plugins and gear (e.g. "warm," "mojo," "vibe").

I'd look at something like a 1073 as a musical EQ, where you can sculpt the general tone you want in just a few seconds without getting bogged down with filter slopes, FIR/IIR, and all that technical stuff.

But if we're talking marketing terms, don't get me started on a certain Italian Kompany's "hyper-realistic tone." That one is kind of cringey. Just realism is fine for me; I don't need it hyper.

[Tj Shredder]

I made some nice pieces with a single sample, loaded into an Akai S-612. Some early granular synthesis by hammering Midi notes into it while moving the start/end sliders. Accompanied with the same sample in a blasting 2 MB memory of a Casio FZ-10m. Of course all the filter and envelope settings had been painstakingly tweeked... I still have the FZ disks, but no machine to play them...

http://soundcloud.com/ondes-memorielles ... e-of-music

I should propose a OSSC, the One Single Sample Challenge with the rule that you have to record that sample yourself...

Another one sample piece with the voice of Diamanda Galas:

http://soundcloud.com/ondes-memorielles ... -the-voice