Favorite Sample Library of the week :)

[x_bruce]

I've been working with

John Cage Prepared Piano. It is the prepared piano designed by Cage through various scores. While not as weird and freaky as some other libraries it is incredibly musical and you can tell a method to Cage's madness.
I've also been trying the Prosonus - Prepared Piano which is much more aggressive, smaller in size and price. The Prosonus version is recorded "as-is" and has not been fixed which is great as you get a raw feel that is complimentary to their Orchestral Collection. Much of the Prosonus library is dark, brooding and gothic.

Between the two you've heard the sounds used in several films, television and commercial recordings. In all great fun for drama in music. If playing a score I'd go for the Cage library. It is a very beautiful recording, neither too in your face or petite. For dramatic touches and aggression Prosonic wins. If used in scores, I'd get out some drums as many of the prepared samples are quite percussive and remind us of the piano's origins.

Also, Sound Burst's, Ethnosphere and Refill for Ethnosphere. Initally, I wasn't thrilled by these rather simple samples, many not even multisampled and others sounding like loop libraries for ACID style sequencers.

However, they also sent a CD featuring the individual and combined libraries. I don't know if it's always sold with the synth but it should be, or at the least there should be mp3 files from it. They give a good idea of how to use the kit which is fairly raw in points and I'll be shocked if "Chinese Orchestra" samples are actually the real thing opposed to perhaps a Ronald style patch. The GUI doesn't do much; volume, fine tuning and balance, but the price is quite exotic, $70 for the library and $50 for the 250 mb refill library. For that kind of scratch it's nice to get 20 good sounds which you do get. The blown instruments are very good as are stringed instruments and percussion.

What libraries are worth looking into? Let's hear about it....

[x_bruce]

Aw, come on! Someone's got to be using some cool sample based stuff. Let's hear about it.

[M'Snah]

...

[zvon]

I may be biased but this week I've been playing a lot with our own Prepared Rhodes.

[ageis]

I have to say... the prepared rhodes is a real treat

[ugo]

hey bruce,
judging by the demo and sound list at big fish's site, it seems that the presonus one, though smaller, puts its focus on offering a wider variety of odd sounds. do you feel that this is the case?

also, do you have any plans to review big fish's tool shed percussion, gas tank orchestra and/or zero-g's altered states?

-ugo

[Bassballjg]

My favorite is, of course, Hollow Sun. I can't wait to get Steve's new discs. I think that his and my products will compliment each other well. I'm more focused on the native programming for my supported formats using the samples as resources and he is issuing libraries that are focused on a particular instrument, so you get the effect of transforming your sampler into whatever classic synth you want. Before it was something I did commercially, I always used those sounds. They are brilliant, and I would use them even if I had never gotten the development license.

End commercial.

This week I have been having a lot of fun making child presets in ST2 for the SR Piano collection. I love the Tank and I love SR sounds. I can get lost in programming for those sounds in that engine for hours at a time.

[Donnie]

Funny enough I actually did the programming on that one...

Donnie

[soulauctioneer]

does anyone know where I can get a hold of some free or cheap prepared piano samples? i've checked out the prosonus and big fish audio cds and they sound amazing, unfortunately the bank says no!

If i can't find anything affordable i'm going to have to create them myself, which is fine but if there's another way that'd be better. Anyone got any advice on good recording techniques for the prepared piano?

cheers guys