Making Music With Sample Libraries

[DanLuedke]

Can anyone at the Road Rally tell me what sample libraries they recommended in the "Making Music With Sample Libraries" class?

Personal recommendations are also appreciated - just let me know what you primarily use the library for.

Thanks in advance!

Dan

[MartyH]

Hey Dan,

I wasn't at the rally, but I can share with you some of my favorites. I have Komplete 8 Ultimate. It has a lot of great tools. I love the Alicia Keys piano and Studio Drummer. I still have yet to explore everything that came with this bundle. It's powerfull! It includes guitar rig 5 and I believe many effects that can be used on audio tracks, too. Hope that helps... For examples , check out my taxi page. A lot was done using komplete 8 Ultimate. And I feel like I'm just scratching the surface.

[DanLuedke]

Hey Dan,

I wasn't at the rally, but I can share with you some of my favorites. I have Komplete 8 Ultimate. It has a lot of great tools. I love the Alicia Keys piano and Studio Drummer. I still have yet to explore everything that came with this bundle. It's powerfull! It includes guitar rig 5 and I believe many effects that can be used on audio tracks, too. Hope that helps... For examples , check out my taxi page. A lot was done using komplete 8 Ultimate. And I feel like I'm just scratching the surface.

Thanks, Marty. Your music sounds great and high-quality - I have actually had my eye on Komplete 9, but thought I would ask the forum for second opinions. Thanks for yours!

-Dan

[thesongriders]

Hi Marty,

I went to both those Sample Library classes. Trillion Bass was the hands-down recommendation for bass. I think they all liked Superior Drummer too. Personally for drums I have Steven Slate and I have no problem fully recommending that to you.

I don't recall there being a ton of consensus on anything else. They did say that a lot of sample libraries run on the Kontact player and recommended buying the whole Komplete package because that had some good sounds and many other things.

One other thing I'll mention is that my Girlfriend went to Dave Trotter's TV & Film class and he recommended the 8dio stuff and said that they were great.

Cheers,

[mazz]

What kind of music do you make? Knowing that would help in making recommendations. It's a big world out there in sample libraries. No need investing heavily in something like 8DIO if you're not doing large orchestral productions.

[DanLuedke]

What kind of music do you make? Knowing that would help in making recommendations. It's a big world out there in sample libraries. No need investing heavily in something like 8DIO if you're not doing large orchestral productions.

Hi John,

I saw you on the 5-Year plan panel - great stuff, very informative. Thanks!

I don't see myself arranging full orchestral pieces in the near future although I would like a library with orchestral instruments that sound real without a ton of mixing. Most of my compositions are in the folk, pop, funk, rock. etc. genres but I would like to be able to expand down the road. Orchestral percussion, strings, string woodwinds and bass, are what I need primarily.

Thanks!
Dan

[kclements]

What kind of music do you make? Knowing that would help in making recommendations. It's a big world out there in sample libraries. No need investing heavily in something like 8DIO if you're not doing large orchestral productions.

Hi John,

I saw you on the 5-Year plan panel - great stuff, very informative. Thanks!

I don't see myself arranging full orchestral pieces in the near future although I would like a library with orchestral instruments that sound real without a ton of mixing. Most of my compositions are in the folk, pop, funk, rock. etc. genres but I would like to be able to expand down the road. Orchestral percussion, strings, string woodwinds and bass, are what I need primarily.

Thanks!
Dan

The thing about orchestral samples - they take a lot of finessing to get it to sound authentic. There are a lot of CC tweaking and programming to do. But it is worth it once you do the work. That being said:

You don't say if you have the full version of Kontakt. If you do, there are a lot of great samples included that you can use with a little learning effort. It includes orchestral, percussion, synth.... If you don't have the full version of Kontakt - that would be my first recommendation. It opens up a lot of possibilities with other 3rd party libraries.

Also, NI have some great packages like Session Strings, Action Strings and others that may fit your needs perfectly.

For bass, I highly recommend Trillian by Spectrasoncs. Great library. For a good orchestral "sampler" I would look at Spitfire Audio's Albion range. Though that may be too much for what you are looking for. Their percussion is top notch too, but again, perhaps too much.

hth

cheers -
kc

[DanLuedke]

The thing about orchestral samples - they take a lot of finessing to get it to sound authentic. There are a lot of CC tweaking and programming to do. But it is worth it once you do the work. That being said:

You don't say if you have the full version of Kontakt. If you do, there are a lot of great samples included that you can use with a little learning effort. It includes orchestral, percussion, synth.... If you don't have the full version of Kontakt - that would be my first recommendation. It opens up a lot of possibilities with other 3rd party libraries.

Also, NI have some great packages like Session Strings, Action Strings and others that may fit your needs perfectly.

For bass, I highly recommend Trillian by Spectrasoncs. Great library. For a good orchestral "sampler" I would look at Spitfire Audio's Albion range. Though that may be too much for what you are looking for. Their percussion is top notch too, but again, perhaps too much.

hth

cheers -
kc

Thanks, KC! Kontakt looks like the perfect starting point!

[andygabrys]

The thing about orchestral samples - they take a lot of finessing to get it to sound authentic. There are a lot of CC tweaking and programming to do. But it is worth it once you do the work. That being said:

You don't say if you have the full version of Kontakt. If you do, there are a lot of great samples included that you can use with a little learning effort. It includes orchestral, percussion, synth.... If you don't have the full version of Kontakt - that would be my first recommendation. It opens up a lot of possibilities with other 3rd party libraries.

Also, NI have some great packages like Session Strings, Action Strings and others that may fit your needs perfectly.

For bass, I highly recommend Trillian by Spectrasoncs. Great library. For a good orchestral "sampler" I would look at Spitfire Audio's Albion range. Though that may be too much for what you are looking for. Their percussion is top notch too, but again, perhaps too much.

hth

cheers -
kc

Thanks, KC! Kontakt looks like the perfect starting point!

hey Dan,

be aware that Native Instruments stuff often goes on special. Go to the website and sign up for their newsletter.

also, if you do end up dropping money on one of the third party libraries like LASS (or the cheaper LASS Lite etc) that run in the free Kontakt player, this qualifies you to get a "cross-grade" - the details are on the NI site, so you can get the full version of Kontakt for less. many ways to spend all your money but save a little at the same time.

Good luck!