Just asking out of curiosity. Not actually planning anything.

If I legally buy and own a Synthesizer (Yamaha, Roland, whatever) and get some sounds sampled dry and put them out online for selling (either as a sample pack or as an instrument) without referring to the brand nor model, would that be illegal?

 

no, otherwise, nobody can sell music. Or samples without stating which instruments you used. Or which processors, compressors, mics, amps, whatever you used.

 

If the synth has PCM samples (= audio recordings, which are protected under copyright), then you don't own the recording copyright, and you can't create a derivative work (sample library) and sell it, and can be sued if you do. Basically, you are selling audio recordings you don't own. Some companies are quite litigious in this regard.

Buying a synth gives you the rights to use that synth to create *music* - even /commerciallyprofessionally, for hire, or to sell - but it doesn't give you the right to harvest the audio recordings from it and resell them as a sample library for profit.

If the synth does not use samples *at all*, and it's eg entirely analog, then there are no sound recordings involved, and you can create your own sounds, sample them, and sell them in a library. In this case, if you sample the presets out of it, it's possible you could be sued, but is unlikely in practice. If you create your own synth sounds to sample with an analog synth, then you know there are no problems and are clear from copyright damage claims.

 

I hate that this was asked only because I feel like this is the direction corporate interests are trying/going to try to take things going forward. Especially with all this AI stuff going on, I feel a company could argue in a similar vain to how artists could argue for some level of rights to the works using their "sound signature" (voice). And all that breaks down to is whether lawyers are able to properly explain music to jurors that hopefully have some creative/musical bones in them somewhere. Maybe I've done too many mock trials lol.

 

Yes, you're right. I did forget the sample, and presets part.