Which Sample company do you think supplies the best sample packs?

 

It's a good question. It depends on what style of sample and for what music.

There are so many. My favorite is Cinesamples

 

Last edited by a moderator: Sep 2, 2016

I like the Sample Magic and vengeance

 

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If I recall correctly listening to some of your tracks it's housey stuff..? My 2c would be-- loopmasters for loops, wave alchemy - one shots, sample magic for diverse stuff. Releases from toolrom (tech) or even hed kandi (disco). samplephonics very hq but sometimes like they don't know what they want.. was checking cr2 records stuff too.
Lately seems to me that sadly quantity goes over quality...

 

I would say Spitfire Audio, Vir2 and Orchestral Tools but I must be omitting at least a dozen more.

 

Do you mean sample packs or libraries?
Zero-G and obviously Vengeance, although Vengeance is also filled with a lot of crap and 75% of the samples are ripped off lol
There was a pack called Ultimate something, it had A LOT of elements for drums, even glitches and bips/bops analog stuff. I think it was this one

Honestly having too much stuff can be detrimental to your work

 

Yeah, Zero G is a good one. They were one of the first sample companies, if not THE first.

 

Agree about Zero-G. I have the 3 CDs (i think) with that "iconic" samples and chops. A bit of J. Brown "hit me!", the famous "ayeieeh", the "train" from s-express, most famous stabs.. but those were other times and ppl weren't so bitchy about "royalty-free" and sht. So even Zero can't sell those, cause they don't have the clearance (and I think even they don't know where from 50% of the material came.. XD)

They are still a very hq company.. but putting out huge ambient, drone, "strange worlds".. packs. I think the days when FatboySlim and others didn't give a sht about what they sampled (I'm exaggerating) are gone..

 

I think Samplephonics is the best overall. They keep to a universal quality and way of organizing all their packs. You hear a drum sound you like in one of the demos.. you get the individual kit with it. You hear a melodic instrument you like.. you get the single notes with it so you can map them in your sampler of choice and play your own rhythms and melodies instead of theirs. And if you don't want to map them yourself they give you the instrument maps for several popular samplers you may already have. If you like the loops they come acid, pcm, and apple formats.

 

Last edited: Sep 2, 2016

LoopMasters
SingoMakers
BigFishAudio
FreakyLoops
And Capsun

 

I'd go with Black Octopus for packs, and Sample Magic and Spitfire for libraries. But there are MANY good companies. As there are many bad ones (Cymatics to me hella invasive)

 

Personnally I don't like BigFish and Best Service.I think the Vengeance are too compressed,maximised but their soundss are well chosen.. The ones I like the most in electronic/modern music are Loopmasters,BHK Samples,Industrial Strength Records,Prime Loops,and Samplephonics who make very good samples sometimes.
I don't have a lot of orchestral/cinematic samples,I can't talk about.
For the drums one shot,I have a nice sample collection called NTS Audio Labs Tuned Drums,it's amazing in quality.

 

+1

 

Heavyocity Always Delivers.

UVI is always great and have a very high standard.

8Dio and Soundiron are solid going all the way back to the Tonehammer days.

Output is fantastic and always solid quality and value. Many useable patches for the money.

Cinesamples is solid and a great value.

Orange Tree is great at what they do. They don't go out of their comfort zone but improve with each release.

Embertone is trustworthy and know what good sounds like. Interesting ideas for instruments.

Fluffy Audio is another great brand. Very interesting improvements on staples.

SoundDUST is doing some of the most interesting work in Kontakt right now. Very cool sounds and interesting scripting.

Cryptociper is always bringing interesting and good sounding new instruments.

Audio Imperia is another great company that gives you a lot of value with each package.

SAM is mostly great. High number of patches but only upper mid quality. Easy to deal with though.

Spectrasonics isn't really a sample company anymore but they have the highest quality sounds and execution going back the the Distorted Reality/Heart of Africa days.

Spitfire has burned me a few times but have also had some great stuff, but giant file size for just a few patches and loops that are not the tempo the say they are (waste of time). Sample Logic has great ideas but their sound quality is often glassy, fizzy and generic.

As soft synths are getting better and better the sample libraries are having a harder time competing in a sound quality metric.

 

Last edited: Sep 3, 2016

Spectrasonics, Zero-G, Big Fish Audio, EastWest and E-Lab.
Although the libraries from the last years sounds the same for me. I find more unique and amazing samples from the 90's and 00's releases.

 

No love for Xfer Records, Mutteki or SOR?

 

All PlugInGuru stuff and I love this guy: John "Skippy" Lehmkuhl

 

Thanks for the info guys. I've never really delved into Samplephonics. I really like "smokers delight" pack (elab i think?). I use a lot of drums from the 2 packs. There's another one I love for drums. It's a drum pack of all the old classic breaks uncompressed and raw. I like samples like that because you can be much more creative with them. I very much like my drums in rex if they are loops since I can just use pieces of the sample and make a drum line to my liking. I guess the only Vengeance I use right now is 'Club Sounds'....actually. lately I've been using drum machines for my percussion with maybe a few drum hits from a pack. I have a few loopmasters but I don't think I've ever used them! I guess it's just not my cup of tea.

I'm a little disappointed with myself, because I've got like gigs and gigs of samples, but I probably use .0001% of them when it comes to production! Well, at least I didn't pay for them! Actually.....I bought this old Reason pack a long time ago for 300$ and I totally got my money's worth, because that pack has always come in handy as a last resort for drum sounds or even a little vocal cut! I used it for this breaks track I made for that kind of tropical break sound:

 

I think the 3 cds you're referring to are the "Data files". Those ones are awesome! I still have to do cuts on those because there's dozens of samples but as one audio file, which is annoying. I've been meaning to do that....maybe I will do that tonight.

 

I go for deep sampled libraries, so I would say SonicCouture & Embertone!