Chinese Percussion [SINGLE-SHOTS]

[taijiguy]

They have some really nice ethnic vocal samples and you can buy them as single shots. Pity they don't seem to have something like a prepaid account so you do have to buy the samples one by one, and they don't do Paypal (I suppose the fees would be too high for single shots samples anyway).

Seems strange that they claim to accept Paypal (see Payment Methods): http://www.discoverysound.com/en/guide/, but when you go to check out, the option isn't there.

[grey g]

That Legend of China also seems interesting, although as a 2 CD set with so many instruments, and half of them loops, I'm wondering about the actual quality...

[taijiguy]

That Legend of China also seems interesting, although as a 2 CD set with so many instruments, and half of them loops, I'm wondering about the actual quality...

The quality isn't as good as the Kong Audio VSTi, but for the age and price, they're pretty good. One CD is 14.7 MB of loops, and 111 MB of one-shot phrases and multi-samples. The samples and loops need to be stretched. The other CD is an audio CD containing 62 CDA files of instrumental, operatic and minority vocal phrases, and environmental sounds (ie: city sounds or restaurants with people talking).

[Bob Nova]

To the Original Poster:

You are not the only one who feels that way, believe me.There's lots of people that are fed up with sample libraries and their overstated claims and sometimes underwhelming quality.

The best thing is to ask questions about the libraries before you buy them here on KVR or on a forum like V.I.Control.You have to get info from actual users, not ads, websites full of hype or magazine reviews.

It's Buyer Beware. I should just leave it at that.

And anyone who disagrees can keep buying 4 GB collections of thousands of loops just like the thousands of loops you already have while forgetting the fact that in the time it takes you to sift through all that garbage, you could easily have made your own.

[grey g]

Thanks man for understanding my situation, right now I put my eyes on that Guzheng and Legend of China... but if I can test the equivalent Kong Audio VSTis (especially percussion after all, as it seems sosayweall replied) then I may reconsider it.

Anyway if you know of other good stuff please share the info & what you heard or experienced it yourself about it.

And yeah I definitely learned my lesson that I should discuss with users here first before jumping into excitement which may turn into disappointment heh.

[P.T.]

Opinions aren't worth that much either.

I have a library that I think is terrible to the point of useless, yet other people have been saying that it is one of the best things they have heard.

It's hard to know what to do.

Demo tunes seem the best way to decide, if enough of them are available and they are fairly varied.

[SARcazm]

I have Kong percussion and it's very good.

It includes all forms of Chinese percussion in one-shots and is really the only synthedit VST that I'm satisfied with.

[grey g]

Demo tunes seem the best way to decide, if enough of them are available and they are fairly varied.

Yeah but that's one of my problems: they usually either put the best loops in a demo(s), or use 90% of the library in the demo(s).
For example, when I hear some demo from some sample library and say "wow that's cool" and then find out that in FACT, that "music" in the demo is recorded in the library with loops (in other words, I can't make NEW or OTHER music but just a "remix" of THAT), then WTF.

It's like hearing a demo music, and then buying some library that has that music as an .mp3 file somewhere and finding out the rest of the library is crap (compared to the hype).

And bad thing is that the "unpopular" ones don't have many demos either, or have amateur demos (no offense really to composers, I'm amateur myself so I perfectly understand that, but I want to hear the capabilities of what I buy to sound pro -- i.e if I KNOW the library CAN make pro sound, even if I am not able to make it sound that way, then it's good if I at least know that it CAN do that).

Of course "pro" is vaguely defined here, I'm not talking about 2000$+ sample libraries

[Chester Desmond]

Send an email with questions. From what I've seen most people who spend time on their work and have pride in it will often be more than glad to tell you whatever you need to know (that is whjat makes videos from tradeshows liek NAMM and musikmesse so great!). If they won't or can't tell you what you want to know, that's telling you more than half the story right there.
It's definitely easy to get caught up in excitement or cheap prices etc but I would never trust something based more on expectations than actual info.

Anyway you seem to know all this haha, so I will just recommend chineekong too..very quality from what I've heard and had the chance to play.
There is also a set called Silk Road that I:ve seen, but not sure how that fares in the samples:loops ratio...

[MWSOS]

Hi grey g!

If it's of any help, like others here I'm impressed with the Kong Audio range, but I was able to go into a reasonable amount of detail explaining why in my SOS October 2006 review. Here's the online version:

www.soundonsound.com/sos/oct06/articles/chineekong.htm

I'm also in agreement with folk here grumbling about vast sample libraries with loads of filler material - I had a good moan in print about it here just recently :

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb09/a ... f_0209.htm


Martin

[taijiguy]

Hi grey g!

If it's of any help, like others here I'm impressed with the Kong Audio range, but I was able to go into a reasonable amount of detail explaining why in my SOS October 2006 review. Here's the online version:

www.soundonsound.com/sos/oct06/articles/chineekong.htm

That's a very informative review.