Hi audiosexers!

What is you opinion about sample libraries?

I know that the best way is to record your own stuff, but if you couldn't because of your lack of time or equipement, would you spend money on sample libraries?


Thank you for your time guys

 

I like to buy the ones I use the most.
It would be quite hard to record your own Unless you are Hans Zimmer and can hire the London Symphony Orchestra for recording sessions, lol.

 

Mainly for vocals as I find it much easier to 'finalise' a track if I've got a decent vocal hook on the go.

 

As the title says "Do we need more sample libraries?", my personal answer would be:
It depends.

From time to time, really excellent libraries are released that are worth purchasing because they either offer something new, or they offer a significantly improved version of what I already own.
Usually, if the company really spends weeks and months of craftsmanship to "get it right", the product quality will speak for itself.
This is mainly valid for any kind of instruments in my experience.

On the other hand, when it comes to loops and construction kits, I can hardly imagine any halfway creative producer wanting to use them.
Like MIDI files, I consider them useful for people who either lack their own ideas, or for anyone still learning about music and arrangement theory.
At least, such libraries open the door for anyone interested in (simplistic) music production by easily arranging pre-made loops.
In fact, I know one young guy who started working purely with loops and by time, he advanced more and more by adding his own stuff, being a surprisingly successful producer today.

In the end, it's probably not as much the samples you use but much more what you do with them.
Some guys will happily tweak existing samples over and over again, while others feel the need for new stuff every now and then.
Especially in sample libraries, new is not always better, but it often feels like it was...

 

No – better sample libraries.

 

Need more no, but delete redudndant and worst yes.
Some good libs do not even exist, like good cuícas, sitar and cavaquinhos...
One thing I love with OS X is Spotlight where I can easy search, compare and delete kontakt libs.
Theres an overdo of strings and pianos that I dont get it...
The main problem is that most people do not even know how to use, A friend, that call himself as a producer and arranger, is always searching for new strings, but the fact is that he do know the basics of how to do. He listens my music and always aks for the lib I use, but he always do not like and so asks for a trick.... No trick, is hard learning and hard work.
Today we have wonderfull computers and software but the heads still wants more because heads do not know how to use the tools that we have

 

So true

 

Try to make a single Symphobia patch yourself
Compare, like i have done, an early dnb sample bank to a "last month" one.
Try an 80's sample CD, just for reminder.
...

Time move, and so production and needs.

On the other side, i don't need another useless to me 808-909 bank. Or another XILS virtual vintage synth : i'm not living in the 70's (even if i listen to prog rock)...

We have more than enough of everything to compose. Trouble is more time and money. I know how to layer kicks, bass...but when i want to go fast, i use freshly produced ones. With enough time, i do it myself to learn and find my way.

On the other side, i see many ppl spending a lot of time doing all from scratch...and they end making sound design, not music

 

Sure, we need all the sample libraries that we can get. Their are a lot of people out there who haven't got the talent to play an instrument and they need to "express" themselves. Hell with all the samples out there, who needs to even try to learn? Keep 'em coming.

 

Only if the promo has the words "next level".

 

it s not that we need more libraries,we need better libraries,and theyr improving,although some virtual instruments,more than others,r far from being comparable to their physical counterparts.IT s true anyway that if u have a stradivari violin and u record it in a shitty way,a virtual insturment will sound better.

 

No, we need to stop with sample libraries and start perfecting physical modeling, which doesn't require TBs of space (usually only few MBs) and is CPU friendly as well. *yes*

 

ask a kid if he needs more toys

 

I agree, though not saying that the current ones are bad, the quality of libraries increases with each new company and each new release, thats what I'm in it for.

For example, Drums, I probably have 40gb of drum hits that I've gone through, equating to probably 2-300 drum packs, and the ones I don't like go on an external hard drive for archiving. Therefore currently I only have like 10 packs of the cream of the crop on my internal drive.

I was a hoarder, then I realized why do I need 10 Tr-808 kits? just keep the best one.

In summary, don't be afraid to delete. (I can't delete because FL references files ie. doesn't make a copy to a project folder so I archive them).

 

I was thinking this about compressors earlier this week.

The difference between all the hardware compressors is their
-attack and release curves
-notation standards (ie 0.1 sec release means when the compressor has released 75%)
-the weighting of the frequencies that the compressor is triggered by
-and some would argue saturation, but I don't think it affects the character as much as the 3 above
-and probably a few more traits

So if someone made a compressor which allowed the 4 parameters mentioned above to be changed, it could emulate all hardware comps.

ONE COMPRESSOR TO RULE THEM ALL.

 

One day VSTi software synth plugins that uses physical modelling will make all sample libraries a thing of the past + making them obsolete.

 

No, we need bands with real musicians, and skills for playing real instruments...
For last year or two, I was in researching symphonic libraries... and all in all final thought will be, everything is a crap at the end. If I have some worth library, it's very large (HDD) and it's not very CPU friendly, so when I'm in composing stadium I spend lot of time for technical stuff, freezing tracks, rip to audio, loading etc... a tiny time to real composing.
Finally, I decide to use libraries such as

• garittan personal orchestra
• miroslav philharmonik
• VLS giga patches / or kontakt patches / or EXS24 patches (when I'm in Logic)

a low level of CPU and HDD, to have more time and enjoy in composing.

Think about this, if you use Cinesamples Violin or such... one patch for 1st violin is around 1.5Gb of RAM in kontakt and where the hell is other stuff for orchestra
Even if your machine is RAM friendly (64Gb ram) CPU power etc... you will stuck

 

I worry when I listen to sample library demos that sound like a finished album. The Ambient and electronic ones that have very produced soundscapes and sequences etc. I mean when something is already created, I'm thinking that I would only be building on someone else's work, so my work would not be so original. I think that the people getting the most out of sample libraries are people working in films, for whom they are a great time-saver and this ready-created work gets lost in the images and what comes before and after. There's always going to be good and bad reasons for using them and a million and one contexts where they are good and bad. My conclusion, yes we will always need to audition and use sample libraries, but think about how original your work is going to be if you're using other peoples' work.

 

We need less crappy "already made" loops.

Sure, once in a while, I find myself using a litte hihat/shaker/high percussion rythm loop but other than that I don't understand why anyone uses loops. You're literally just stacking loops together and calling it "music production". Newsflash, it's not.

For instrument libraries, we probably have everything we could possibly ever need.

We need more original sample libraries that let the user create their unique sound from existing samples. The best examples that come to mind in my opinion are "Project Alpha" and "Project Bravo" from Daniel James and "Evo String" from Spitfire Audio. I was blown away by these libraries