Sleepless nights looking for Sound library? Maybe I can help Thread

I did this post thread with veeeery good intention in mind, so bear it in mind before any comment
I might by hated? revealing some of the fellow composer's secret weapon, but i would wish to find such post 2 years ago ;D

There is a moment from time to time, when you decide to spend some of your hard earned bucks, and upgrade your musical arsenal.
Perhaps most of us (musicians, composers) know that feeling of frustration when you spend countless hours digging the internet and searching for the only, the best, the most brilliant, and yet the cheapest sound library, the more painful if you find nothing while you could spend it on composing. I felt that very often, especially within the last couple of months.

But before i start, a bit about myself; Raresound.co.uk I think that link to my bio page if fair enough, you don't need to read it but do so if you want to know if "the guy know what he is talking about"

Getting to the point I decided to save some of you the time and frustration and share some of my findings (most of them i use at in my works).
Even though there is not a single go-to stuff, especially with limited budget, it'll be a good new (i hope) if I tell you that you can buy good library below $99 (good mean commerciall, epic, hollywood sounding, if these are the words you were waiting for).
Ok so let's clarify. I will not give you a generic list of libraries by ProjectSam or EWQL. I came up with something more practical. Also i have heard a lot of sound libraries and i can do a reliable comparison.

1- Vocal, ethnic libraries.

I do a lot of stuff using ethnic vocal libraries asd well as recording such voices myself. These are some of the best-for-the-money sound libraries
Sonokinetic - These libraries offer variety of voices. All nicely grouped, around1gb each. If u r looking for "Gladiator" like vocal phrases here they are.
Voices of Israel,
Desert Voice,
Masaai,

They might have more now
Sonokinetic.net

Tonehammer -
Forgotten Voices series. I own Forgotten Voices:Francesca and it sounds great
Tonehammer.com

2. Orchestral.

Cinesamples - Is also young company that offers greast choice of cheap/good libraries -
Drums of War (around 10 kits of orchestral bass drums, small but great)
CineOrch - great pack of orchestral ensembles however require full version of Kontakt 4, but if u own one, go for it.
CineWoodwinds - Great sounding woodwinds instruments and ensembles, althoug a bit more expensive.

I haven't try other but they have more new libraries (toms, snares, ....) You may wish to try all of them
Cinesamples.com

Native Instruments
Personally NI do not make good orchestral stuff, but if you want to have taste of ProjectSam True Strike 2 they offer a sample/loop pack for free kontakt with a selection of instruments from True Strike 2 for a fraction of the price ($80 or something)

3.Synths

Native Instruments again, but inb the field of synthetic sound they got some great stuff in offer. For around $69 you can get few excellent synths like Razor or Prism excellent for beds and atmospheres, not mentioning of countles kontakt sample/loop/kit packs, where some of them sounds great (for the money)
What's important. They do massive givaways! Download all their free stuff which is around 4GB of free quality samples, light version of Prism called MicroPrism.
Roland If you own any roland instrument capable of SRX expansion board, don't hesitate and get some of these boards.
I owned SRX 06 Complete Orchestra and SRX-09 World instruments for over two years, and i can say that you'll be trully amazed how a (60mb of rom) card can sound like, i say that again; trully amazed! And you can get second hand for $150 on ebay.

That's maybe not much, I tried to recommend all those i used myself, but i'm sure if you keep an eye of these companies you'll find much more as they expand their offer constantly with more and more awesome libraries.

Bear in mind that majority of these libraries uses Kontakt engine, and make sure you check first wheter it use free or full version of kontakt.

PS; if u know any more, better stuff, post it

I gave you a word but ..... If u have more money to spend, u can obviously go for ProjectSam, EastWest and live players :p

Thanks, hope it helps a little
Good luck to u guys

Mariusz Jasionowicz
Composer/Sound Designer
RareSound Production
www.raresound.co.uk

Good post. I don't know why any composer would consider sample libraries a 'secret weapon'. Everyone has the facility to buy the same stuff. The weapons are only secret if no-one researches them

The real secret weapon is knowing how to use the sample libraries, and also knowing good live musicians.

Cheers,

GC

I always go here for my music

Ocremix.org

Possibly he is speaking of libraries 10 years ago. Most of which do not circulate and are out of print. Certainly, an owner of these gems could upload them now into some torrent but at the time, uploading a single 40,000 sound disk set of live one shots to the net didn't exactly happen and most likely won't. Yes, everyone can buy the same current libraries today. However, not everyone can utilize the same libraries currently, if ever. That's a secret.

If you buy it with your hard earned money you feel forced to go deeply into the universe of the Software.
Possibilities with Absynth are close to infinity.

Vienna Instruments (orchestral) is like an expensive bitchy supermodel. The result looks better than everyone else but when you try to work with her - she becomes a bitch. Nothing for sundaycomposers...

Someone wrote: Possibly he is speaking of libraries 10 years ago. Most of which do not circulate and are out of print.

Nope. I still find composers who do not like to share their favourite stuff with others. And I am definitely not talking about stuff 10+ years old.

Someone wrote: everyone can buy the same current libraries today. However, not everyone can utilize the same libraries

. With all respect, you miss the point mate, i didn't post this thread to get spamed by some wisdom quotes.

Knowing that the product won't do the job for you if u have no skills, using live musicians instead of libraries .... it's all obvious. This thread is to people who use libraries because hiring musicians requires time and money. And people doesn't always have one or both. it's to people who use libraries because it's how they work.
It isn't a mistery if a library is released but it takes time to distinguish useful piece of software from a bunch of generic samples. it requires some knowledge from people who use the stuff.
That's why I shared the list of tools that works best for me, to save some time to fellow composers who has just started their journey.

If you want to show how experienced you are, share your favourite tools, people will definitely be more happy with such answer.

I'm sure some people find this thread useful

Regards

Edited by: mariuseus

erm ok? I too, didn't understand why a composer, engineer would think of a sample library as a "secret weapon". You suggested one look at your web page. I did. You use Loopmasters. Loopmasters sampled Sonic Mayhem 7 years ago. (Sonic Mayhem composing a number of games.) My reply was simply a guess. While you may have found composers keeping secrets (which are in every trade), the cd quality Loopmasters pumped out 7 years ago, happens to be the same cd quality they pump out today. So, yea...you and another could buy the same loopmasters volume today, while it's unlikely you both utilize the same from 7 years ago.

spammed wisdom quotes. that's comedy.

A lot of top commercial libraries from companies like Project Sam or EWQL use remastered recordings made 5+ years ago so in some point we r both right, but that's not the point at all.

Someone wrote: spammed wisdom quotes. that's comedy.

Well, what I've noticed reading hundreds of forums around the net is that often people negatively replying to posts along with throwing in some well known "industry wisdom quotes" or whatever you name it. This thing is usually common to young (or fresh) lads trying to show how experienced they are.
Obviously I am not telling that it is you and didn't intend to say anything wrong but this reply simply sounded like this.
I'm not sure if u actually read the post correctly. The libraries I posted are not the best sounding, up to date stuff. It's just a collection of libraries that works for me. I didn't share wrong information about any product, I posted what works best for me with very good intention ... got the point?

Perhaps u r more experienced than me, so maybe add link to your work or website ? Maybe I and other people learn some more handy things from your experience

All the best

aye aye aye..full circle. I said "gems" in thought you may understand
why I see them that way. Gems typically being a positive note, man. As
for experience, certainly I can dive memory back into times of reel to
reel recording, but that isn't exactly relevant today. In fact, outside
of ones hardware or instruments, not much is on a digital side of
things. Experience plays little roll and whether or not something
considered good is created, it is pumped out regardless. Those "young" lads create music using the same mechanic we all do. A daw. And even cats
on youtube can "somehow" afford $500 software. Harsh reality, but
reality.

I understood what your point was. What you don't understand, is
that I commented on this "secret weapon" you spoke of which someone before me also commented on. ( you still haven't answered ) It had nothing to do with your work or what works best for you. As for my
music, I have no desire to distribute myself on a MOD site. I pop into
this place once in a while to see if anyone needs sound, not songs. And linking even glock sounds to a MOD site would be unwise. Though, if I
were to give advice one could possibly learn from, it would be to
distribute themselves musically in many ways. Not only within gaming. because Technology said so.

But if you truly desire a list of experience, I can start with how to tune a timpani.

peace

first, thank to "distributing" myself on game related sites which in fact are not the best place for pure musicians I have established some useful contacts as well as several projects. So i wouldn't consider it as being unwise, especially that for some time game industry is my chosen path

Secondly, You commented, but didn't ask a question, so i didn't answered. But anyway what i was talking about was not an extremely rare sound library that sounds amazing but only few can afford, what i mean was the endless ocean of new software. Apart of few well known products from the top shelf, there are hundreds of vocal libraries, percussions, etc. And you can really spend countless hours finding a good one (as i did). So i though i'll post it which may be a good starting point for people looking for something new ("new" here means different, tried etc... not a date of release, so no need to catch me on my word) That's what the post is about.

and last, i think this out of topic conversation (considering the intention of the thread) you shouldn't actually address to me. I have mentioned about the "secret weapon" because I still see people that seem to think of their musical arsenal as secret weapon, and this first sentence was taken out of the overall context.

from the other hand, true a really good stuff doesn't actually need to rely on technology which sometimes can only add a final polish to already good work but definitely without technology it would be much harder to product even the best piece of music.

PS:
I truly believe in your experience even though tuning timpani does have nothing to digital technology.
But always have respect to classical musicians if u are one

anyway i don't see a point continuing this conversation the way it goes
all the best mate