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I wanted to make a special thread with great freebies to encourage those without cash, but who love making music, that there's lots of good stuff out there for them to enjoy. I was inspired by the Pianobook Advent Calendar thread and thought it would be great to have a thread where we just shared links to freebies we love and can recommend, as there's a lot of free libraries out there, but it's a lot of work to figure out which are worth downloading and which are not worth downloading. I'll start with some of my favorite Pianobook libraries, most of which happen are in KONTAKT, but a number of them are also available for the FREE DECENT SAMPLER sampler and some are in other formats like sforzando and SoundPaint that are free. I'm starting with pianos, but I'm going to update this in the future with other free libraries I find worth recommending and I urge others to post their favorite free libraries. PIANOS First of all, pick up anything by Christian Henson, one of the founders of Spitfire. He's shared a lot of nice character pianos, especially felt pianos -- and I really love felt pianos. There are a lot of free pianos on Pianobook with issues -- especially noise in the samples. There was one piano I loved the character of, then I held a whole note and heard a bird singing. In a sense, it's lovely, but in another sense, you don't always want a bird singing when you hold a note. Here are some of my favs: Pianobook The Summer Piano Autumn Piano Spring Piano Quarantine Piano Isolation Piano Schimmel Piano UNIK Midnight Upright (layered piano and synth) Living Room Upright Piano Kawai UST7 Upright Piano Nordiska Piano Deluxe (upright) and too many others to think of off hand. https://www.pianobook.co.uk/ Sonic Atoms This is one of my favorite free pianos. There are a few patches and the dev did some wonderful things with those patches. It uses the free version of HALion SE and this was so good, I bought some of the developer's paid libraries just out of gratitude. https://sonicatoms.com/novel-piano/ Sound Paint Totally free piano and player. A must download in my opinion. An old Steinway grand piano with a lot of nice patches. https://soundpaint.com/ Production Voices This developer makes superb sample piano libraries and his free piano libraries are also superb. I particularly love his Death Piano. To quote Elton John, it's weird and wonderful. Some of his freebies -- now donationware -- are for KONTAKT and others for the free Sforzando player. https://www.productionvoices.com/death-piano-le/ Spitfire Labs They have a lot more than free felt pianos and it's all free and really nice. Also be sure to download their free orchestral library, BBC Discovery, https://labs.spitfireaudio.com/#type=&search=&new=true Westwood Upright Felt This felt piano requires KONTAKT, but it's a nice little freebie. https://westwoodinstruments.com/instruments/upright-felt-piano/ Sonixema Their free Piano Textures (KONTAKT) is beautiful, a must have, IMO. https://www.sonixinema.com/collections/free Again, I encourage my fellow forum members to add to this and post their favorite free libraries. I started with pianos, and you can add your favorite pianos, but I think it'd be great to just share links to any free sample libraries that we love and want to tell others about. Peace, Peter

100% agree

Larry what about you take some well deserved holidayz lol

I get THOUSANDS....THOUSANDS...

Beware of the free Spitfire BBCSO Discovery library! That pulled me into the Core upgrade! 😂

https://www.pianobook.co.uk/profile/jon-meyer/ highly recommended

Black Friday was INSANE for the number of sales...but quality of the sales was not the usual...I suspect we're in for one heck of a Xmas/New Year Sale bash as these vendors fight for your holiday duckets...

The annoying part is deleting the 100 plus emails.

This key operative you used is matched...the vast majority of the sales were THE SAME as every other sale... There were a few exceptions...but Black Friday is supposed to be the time for "THE SALE"...so it was pretty lack-luster in that regards...

The more "sales" I see, the more I lose interest. Not just here, but in all areas of life. I find the relentless pursuit by whatever business for whatever money I may or may not have really quite tiresome.

good product... my fav bass library.

Can I stack my $50 and $25 survey voucher for this? ‘Cos I need another EQ to go with my 43 reverbs.

I'm not sure if all of these are worth recommending, but there is another thread about free instruments that might have something of interest: Edit: Here are the Soundethers freebies TracingArcs mentioned: https://www.lootaudio.com/category/kontakt-instruments/soundethers/caleidoscope-kontakt https://www.lootaudio.com/category/kontakt-instruments/soundethers/Space-Evolutions

I got the Kontakt 6 crossgrade at 50% off this year during an NI sale, for about $124. That opens the door to a lot of free or very cheap libraries!!!

BooJAM

Thanks, Joe. There's a reason I love this forum and spend the majority of my time on forums here, the people. This has always been the friendliest, most helpful DAW/music making forum I know of. I just thought, there are some people here who may not have money to take advantage of the deals, some who spent all of their money on deals, and just people who love freebies. There is a ton of very good to great freebie sample libraries out there, but sifting through the poor ones and mediocre ones can take a lot of work. I put together the above list pretty quickly, looking over my sample library files and I'm sure I'll think of more later that I missed, but I wanted to get it started and thought there's a lot of people here who could make my list better.

Here’s some certainties in life: - Death - Taxes - Bapu buying and installing any Toontrack new products as soon as it’s released - The annual Band-in-a-box sale and new version in December https://www.pgmusic.com

That was my feeling as well. The only no-brainer deals that I came across are still online at audiodeluxe - the Tokyo Dawn comp/eq and the Exponential Audio reverbs.

Get it here - Requires Full Kontakt https://www.hiddenpathaudio.com/free

Spitfire LABS should be near the top of the freebie libraries list, IMO!

I come for the humor 🤣 You mean to tell me there is a DAW we should be talking about😉

Well, one is $40 and one is $80....so there's some data to help you process the decision...LOL

You can stack but you can never leave.

Anyone posts a picture of their full "moon"....I kill you! So, now that the dust is settling...tell us about the wonderful goodies you bought, and the duds also, should you be so inclined! BBC Core...which I have been after since BBC Discover (don't let the size of Discover fool you...it's a lovely freebie!) I honestly didn't think I'd ever be able to get it...and that's only thanx to the annual "Coffee Clatch"! Melodyne Editor also "appeared"...and Softube Amp Room! So again, my deepest, and humblest, gratitude to you all for making this old geezer's Black Friday a little brighter!!! Oh yeah...and ACTUAL COFFEE! I LOVE COFFEE!!!

Maybe they require Kontact Full ?

https://www.pianobook.co.uk/packs/hunters-percussion-orchestral/

Some of My Favorite FREE String and Orchestral Libraries BBC Symphony Orchestra Discover Comes with a free sample player plugin. https://www.spitfireaudio.com/shop/a-z/bbc-symphony-orchestra-discover Project Sam: The Free Orchestra Works with the free KONTAKT Player. https://projectsam.com/libraries/the-free-orchestra/ Orchestra Tools Layers Comes with a free sample player plugin. https://www.orchestraltools.com/store/collections/45 Free Pianobook String and Orchestral Libraries CP Strings and Winds String Textures (it's hard to believe this is free) by Angus Roberts-Carey -- download everything by this talented man!!! https://www.pianobook.co.uk/packs/string-textures/ NFO Orchestra Swells, NFT by Dan Keen - download everything by him!!! Once more, it's hard to believe he makes his libraries free. Gorgeous string libraries. https://www.pianobook.co.uk/profile/dan-keen/ The Ghanbari Sessions PocketBlakus Cello A great little free cello library, but it requires the full version of KONTAKT. This is a must if you have KONTAKT. https://vstbuzz.com/freebies/pocketblakus-cello/

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Soundiron FREE Libraries https://soundiron.com/collections/free Impact Soundworks Free Libraries https://impactsoundworks.com/products/category/free-instruments/ BOTH require Kontakt...see products for Full or Player

Free drum kits: https://www.reddit.com/search/?q=author%3Alunch77 AND title%3Adrumkit

Just when I think I have spent all my money... BIAB drags me back in!

I have Collision FX...and it's da bomb diggity!

Honest Lar it isn't me spamming you 😆

Some of these have been mentioned but here goes! Spitfire LABS series Project Sam Free Orchestra - awesome when layered up Sampletank 4 CS - once you get past the installation & authorisation! Syntronik 2 CS - ditto! Orchestral Tools Sine Free Instruments - ever expanding. Quirky front end but very nice sounds Soundpaint Angels - just got this one - some interesting sounds - not sure how useable yet! Evolution Series Clara Duduk - a cross between a clarinet and my favourite instrument the duduk (Kontakt Player) Keepforest Ferrum Trailer Percussion Free Edition (Kontakt Player) Evolution Devastator Warzone (Kontakt Player)

I don't know about that either way - but Reverberate has a great feature where you point it to folder full of IR and it builds a set of presets for you. It's a really great way to add your own IRs (did I mention that I really like Reverberate ?)

Not following your logic. If you upgrade BIAB 2010 (skipped 11 upgrades), the cost is $199. 20$ more than upgrading BIAB 2021.

Verb Suite is more like Seventh Heaven.

Yep i checked it , 165 is till too much

Check my post on the Softube Year End Sale ZO....

I've never had stage fright, perhaps because I started young, before I knew any better. My advice, prepare and practice until the piece(s) you are going to play are totally under your fingers. Then tell yourself that you know it, you know it well, and the people will like what you do. They will like you, because you are doing something they can't do and can't even imagine how. I've been a pro all my life. I've had big screw-ups on stage. Not often, but they are sure to happen sooner or later. I'll say something to the audience like, "This worked perfectly in practice" or "Did you ever have one of THOSE days" or "Damn it, I got my finger stuck under the G-String again" and laugh with the audience. Everybody makes mistakes and as long as you joke about it, they will be forgiving. Insights and incites by Notes ♫

I don't have the Slate plug but Reverberate is fantastic - plus lots of free IRs to download from Liquidsonics as well. https://www.liquidsonics.com/fusion-ir/reverberate-3/ The developer is really responsive too....I don't think you'll regret it.

Love Soundethers stuff (Ambient, evolving,etc) all for Kontakt. 2 freebies at Loot Audio https://www.lootaudio.com/search-results Plus other freebie at his site (needs an email) https://soundethers.wixsite.com/soundethers/freebie-free-world I'm sure I have more freebies from him.

I don't think it's a fair comparison. Waves plugins are actually very sophisticated, clever, generally have good usability and are well coded. 8Dio string libraries are commonly giant collections of articulations with little concern for good scripting and usability. I have Intimate Strings and Deep Solo Cello and Viola and, except for the size and depth of samples, when it comes to playability, they remind me of string sample libraries from twenty years ago that were just these huge collections of articulations that required you to do more editing than playing. I want highly playable libraries with clever scripting and that's definitely not in 8Dio's wheelhouse. I know it's just not me because the more I have talked about it, the more I have heard from others who have the same thoughts. a friend who composes for games, another friend who is a KONTAKT scripting expert who tells me that's why he doesn't bother buying 8Dio, because the scripting is less than an afterthought. Troel's is great at promotion -- a very good hype man -- but the string libraries never deliver on expectations and aren't at the level of what even the smallest string KONTAKT sample developers are putting out. I picked up a Fluffy Audio Viola library for $29USD last week and it makes me never want to bother with using my 8Dio libraries again. While I do like the tone of some of the 8Dio libraries, they're just not libraries you can play without a ton of editing like Fluffy's are. In the end, that's a deal breaker for me. At least my Waves libraries are very usable -- they deliver on promises. 8Dio just seems more focused on cranking out huge deep sampled libraries with minimal effort put into scripting, which in this day and age is simply below a lot of user expectations, including mine.

Ronroco is great - instrument (5 mic positions with mixer, and 4000 samples with round robin) and loops, and although a bit old (2014), it's usually on lists of best free Kontakt libraries. Was originally through Samplephonics, but now on the Noiiz site as free download: https://www.noiiz.com/sounds/free_packs/703 What is sounds like:

https://synthmagic.com/free-stuff/ He used to have several free synths and they were just as good or better than many paid synths. I guess right now there's just that Cassette Deck Hammond Extravoice which I haven't tried yet, but this is probably the one developer where I would buy Kontakt if I didn't have it just to use his synths, so I'm sure it's awesome. He's about that 70's/80's movie theater thriller analog synth soundtrack vibe and he's a fantastic preset creator, which is great for me as I'm not into sound design so I like to get my sounds, tweak a bit and go. But his paid synths aren't too much either, I'm sure they'll be a Christmas sale. You might be able to find the other free Synth Magic synths on Kontakt Hub. Yeah you need Kontakt to use his stuff.

Yeah, it's a pretty darn smart strategy when you look at it. And it's a strategy I really like because it also benefits those who can't afford to purchase the full library and realistically won't be able to in the near future.

https://www.ghosthack.de/adventcalendar2021/

That's right, there's a guy on this forum who runs a subreddit with music deals that probably could add a lot to this list. Of course, Larry also probably knows every great freebie that exists!

Yep. He's a very talented and generous musician and sample developer.

I went way overboard this year with: Spitfire BBCSO Pro upgrade (still downloading on day 3) Spitfire Harpsichord and Orchestral Grand Piano ... and now I can get Spitfire Aperture 3 Scaler 2 + reMIDI + instruction videos w/free Orb and AAS soundbank Several GOG games SmartScore PDF -> MusicXML converter (never on sale, but got the Finale User $200 discount) Best Service accordion bundle w/free Oud Strings 8DIO Misfit Bundle <- been disappointed with 8DIO but couldn't resist this strange mix. Embertone Intimate Solo String bundle, Mountain Dulcimer, and Whistler Ensemble Indiginus Resonator, Lap Steel, Mountain Dulcimer, Delta Blues Acoustic Slide Guitar (never on sale) AAS soundbanks <- completed my collection. I know there is probably a free one coming but it only cost me $4. Xperimenta Harpsichord, Kantele, Xvibe, and Psaltery Renewed subscription to Taxi.com Pianotekk C-series piano Orchestration Recipes 1 & 2 IK Total Studio 3.5 Max