8Dio are crooks, but their customers aren't much better ... if they need looped pianos and synths why they're even into music making at all ?

can't play piano ? can't make a simple synth lead by yourself ? can't tune an 808 drum kit ? can't EQ or mix anything ?
good, then stop playing music and start learning, or give up !

because nothing will improve using sample packs, apart enriching the pockets of the next crook in line.

take a look at Vengeance's sample packs, there's not a single sound on it i couldn't make with Omnisphere or even with Sylenth, the drums are the usual filtered/pre-mixed TR 909 kits you could make yourself in 10 minutes.

8Dio ? some nice Choir packs, and that's all.

 

lmao mixdowner you sign up at this site like 30 seconds ago and already taking a hardline stance on absolutely everything

Haha whatever, I'm just laughin about it, I'm not mad at ya

I don't know what's in 8Dio sample packs and I'm not gonna download one to find out, but surely there's room for someone to be a skilled musician and use a pre-made sample or loop somewhere. As I said in the other thread, I like to try to do my own sound design, but it's definitely not uncommon that I just get lazy or need to add a part that's not important enough to spend 15-30 minutes designing a sound and just grab a preset or a sample.

 

Oh God don't get me on 8stealio. I was a customer in the middle of the tonehammer split and got told to fuck off basically. Now soundiron I have no problem with.

 

8Dio... isn't going anywhere soon. They are supported by the elite and yes, Troels will do and say what he has to to protect his business... but they're anything but fraudulent. All they are is expensive as $hit. THAT"S what makes you mad!!!!!!! No one should have to refund anything that's downloaded. Your purchase is YOUR mistake. Do your research first. Don't buy it because a demo track sounds good. Any idiot knows that those demo are all dressed up and made to sound amazing with all sorts of tricks. You need to download the trial/demo versions (if available) and take them for a test drive... then decide. Don't be an a$$hole and ask for a refund because your $hit doesn't sound as good as a professional's demo!!!!!!!!!

 

hahahaha ! i'm on a personal crusade against loops since the 80s, i know it's a lost battle, but ...

 

I just took a big poop.

 

Lol I hear you. I used to kind of feel the same way but eh... live and let live. There's varying degrees of loop-use and making hard and fast rules about what's acceptable in music can only hurt you

One worthwhile use of them that I discovered is slapping a hi hat loop or percussion loop over your drum pattern. I've only done it very rarely but there's clearly an advantage to it. For the most part I either finger-drum stuff in on the Push or use its sequencer and then nudge the notes around till I'm satisfied with the swing. But no matter what I do or how good my ear is, I'm not a drummer and I can only fake it so much.

Lemme ask you something... you said you use a drum module like SD or something right? Do you use the midi grooves from them? I don't see how that's really any different. And again... I think that's perfectly acceptable. But you know... glass houses

 

To be honest, I kind of agree with that. I'm not sure any other company such as Spitfire, Spectrasonics, Orchestral Tools or Sample logic, to name just four, will refund a product downloaded.

On the whole, I am not sure that a company can refund a customer who buy a digital good because of its nature : it's not a real return since the digital goods stay with the customer.

And it is always possible for the customer to pretend he is not satisfied in order to apply for a refund... and still continue owning and using the product.

I'm not saying this is exactly what happened with 8dio, I am only saying that it's a possibility and for that reason (digital goods), they are not ready to refund someone who buy from them.

 

BFD, Superior Drummer, Addictive Drums, or even EZ-Drummer, they are all good depending on your tastes.
you can use their bundled midi loops or make your own, the possibilities are endless.

the focal point is, if you're serious about drums you must listen carefully how a drum groove is made, look at drummers and percussionists, study some books, watch tutorials, once you understand the logic there's nothing you can do by yourself with any drum machine !

same for piano, bass, whatever ... of course it takes years of dedication but if you only use loops you just skip all this and ultimately you understand nothing.
there's no shortcut to become a musician or a mix engineer and they're two different things, very different.

 

these are TOP NOTCH libraries worth all their money and more.
anyone asking a refund for Omnisphere or Spitfire should give up making music.

with Spitfire+Omnisphere you can already compose an entire movie soundtrack, as long as you've the composing and mixing skills.
Orchestral Tools is even better, Sample Logic, SoundiRon, great for FX and soundscapes and choirs.

these are products so good you can't go wrong you could buy them without even trying their demos.

8Dio on the other side, promising the moon as in their old ToneHammer days, and you get what ?
8Dio should be priced on par with Best Service packs ... 30-50$.

 

Allow me to disagree. Some (most?) of their libraries are certainly not on par with Spitfire and Co but you have a few gems that obviously implied a lot of effort /R&D to develop and without being at the level of the aforementioned companies, it wouldn't make sense to sell these libraries that cheap.

 

Okay so let's suppose I do just that....

I've probably used a perc/hat loop in three songs or less, but I'm gonna play devil's advocate for a second. I mean, I grew up with music and I have good rhythm but for the sake of argument we'll say I can barely stick to the grid, much less play a groove with a convincing shuffle and I've elected to prioritize learning drumming/finger drumming over the myriad other skills needed for making music in a DAW. What should I do between now and mastering this skill? Just make music with inferior percussion patterns? Plus, until you have the kind of timing it takes to be a skilled drummer, it's practically impossible to fake. It's not the kind of thing you can just imitate with a lot of effort. If anything, putting more effort into it is antithetical to achieving that loose, pleasing timing of a good swung groove.

It just seems like kind of a silly, inflexible stance to take. But that's just me. I try to keep a pragmatic view that's based on recognizing that after making music that pleases me, which is priority number one, my goal is to make music that pleases average people, not impress other producers.

 

That's a tricky scenario. It's not a real return, but it's not a real purchase either. It's the often repeated mantra of "you are buying a license, not the software itself". Alright, well then void my license and give me my money back? But of course almost no developer sticks to the 'license' rule when it's financially inconvenient.

Not that I think it necessarily should work that way. But there's definitely a double standard there and I think it's important to point it out.

 

I guess this topic is morphing into the use-of-loops concept more than the shit in the fan of a company, so please allow me to elaborate on the former. Loops and presets in plugins get a bad rap, and I don't think it should be that way. You could start a track with nada on your mind and a loop or sound-design preset might sparkle your inspiration. You may be a decent programmer but still use the convinience of a loop. For instance, it's very esay to fake drum hit performances, but getting the sonic nuances of a hi-hat cymbal is not that easy. I'm not talking about your perfectly quantized average 808 sample that even a child can put together. I'm talking about rock drums, for example, where the groove in the cymbals is very hard to mock. The same thing happens with other samples. Sometimes it is the sonic signature you can't quite replicate, and sometimes it is the performance you can't nail because you are not an instrumentalist, or you could be a producer that has an idea on your mind but lack the enginerering to put it down with a compressor and a sound modulation plugin. Of course, it's not the sample/loop/preset: It's the mind that uses them creatively what makes the difference. My two cents.

 

Right. Pretty much the same point I was making. Agreed with you 100%.

I still feel a little funny about using loops of any kind, so mainly I just don't. But I don't think the negativity towards them is warranted

 

That is, if you're going to assume that all of the listed libraries are bug/error free.
Also they didn't nail down all principles behind orchestral music, not by a long shot. Every library has its limits.

You can compose an entire movie soundtrack with Garritan Personal Orchestra too, and in fact I know of one game soundtrack which used Garritan and it's awesome.

I'm not aware of any Kontakt library dev that'd willingly refund any purchase.

 

Last edited: Dec 6, 2016

bu there's a catch :

Garritan = harsh and uninviting sounds that will need a lot of work to sit well in the mix.
Spitfire, Orch Tools, EWQL = epic, powerful, inviting sounds that sound great from start to finish.

 

it all depends on where you want to go with your music.
if you aspire to become a decent musician, loops are out of question.

if you just wanna impress your fan-base you can even make a dozen songs 100% made of loops and beats, take a look at many EDM charts for instance.

you ask, what to do if you can't do this or that, simple either you don't do that specific groove or you learn the logic behind it and you spend some time making something similar ... let me tell you in most of the cases that loop is probably sounding so good because of how it was mixed, not because it's using amazing sounds ... and the starting sound here is always the key factor .. if your midi grooves sound like shit is probably because your drum kits sound like shit anyway, no matter how you mix them.

so first find very good drum sounds, and anything else will come naturally, same goes for piano and much more, so much people hate piano because they only have access to horrible sounding pianos.

try the new Keyscape and see what i mean, BIG difference from start to finish, try the Rhodes especially.

as for mastering your skills, it's no rocket science, especially for drums, but it takes time and dedication, there are no shortcuts. as in math either you know or you don't.

loops will save your ass if you're doing EDM or hip hop but it means you'll be stuck forever in a small perimeter, if that's what you like, many hiphop producers love it and they know all about loops, they've many hard drives filled with loops, tehy can't live without loops so to each his own, in my case i equate loops to stealing and cheating as that's what it is plain and simple.

 

Things aren't that black and white.

Garritan, VSL, SampleModeling, Pianoteq, Westgate, Wallander = perfectly and economically recorded, offers straight approach with maximum mastering flexibility and unprecedented timbral shaping (dry/PM libraries). Convolution engine is required. Usually small (<5GB)

Spitfire, Orch Tools, EWQL = straight, out of the box mixed sound for quick sketches where mixing is not required. Doesn't offer that much flexibility, but they're easy to use and provide with fast results with acceptable margin for "quality". Usually very large (50+GB)

 

Someone should probably just follow him around and reply to all his posts with this lol

The last thing I thought I'd be spending my time doing is defending loops. I just can't coalesce with the refusal to accept any kind of middle ground.

Nothing against you mixdowner. Just seems to me you're not acknowledging like 80% of the spectrum of possibilities, whether willful or not.