PavlovsCat

That's a very useful list, Bad Penguin or should I say Good Penguin? I bought EZX Custom Shop yesterday through Thomann and shared a link in an earlier Toontrack sales thread where someone mentioned that if you use BestService you can use their rewards (which I'm sure I have and didn't think of before his post) to bring the price down. So, I'm 90% sure that I'm going to buy SDX Indiepdendent before the weekend is over and will be comparing the two stores. I'm guessing the difference will be pretty small, but I'm still going to opt for the best deal.

They put Indiependent on sale. That's what I was waiting for. I bought Custom Shop EZX yesterday. I think that gives me all the drums I need for the rest of 2023, except for some KONTAKT kits from Analogue Drums. Thanks again, Larry. While I get Toontrack emails, I rarely pay attention to marketing emails.

I realize when I make a post like that, the person I've called out will be sure to troll me or make a nasty post about me in the future. Still think it's worth it. The reality is, most people don't want to confront bad behavior in forums, I don't either, but if we want it to stop and discourage future bad behavior, someone has to take action. Keep that in mind when you see that guy trolling me / ripping on me in the future, because it almost certainly will happen.

Your above point nails it. It seems like just about every pro and hobbyist composer/musician and developer in this industry I know of uses that exact word to describe VI-Control: toxic. Even Christian Henson, a friend of the forum's owner (I was too, but had a major falling out over his ethics since he bought the forum and I don’t forsee either of our views changing) publicly referred to the forum as toxic and said he has to take breaks between posting there (which, of course, he needs to do to keep his business's name out there, but he's made clear that he finds the environment f'ed up) . Therein also lies the dilemma for amateur composers researching sample libraries. Forums like VI-C are driven by the desire for the forum owner to optimize revenue, not to optimize around the best and most fair environment for community members. Conversations are largely manipulated through financial motivations and the personality cults that have emerged around even semi pro composers and even around certain developers and you get to this point where honest conversations, especially ones very counter to the forum owner's opinion or the highly manufactured group think opinion are ununwelcome. While I'm a businessperson, I still think like a creative person and am a strong believer in the importance of intellectual curiosity and respect for other's viewpoints and the culture that has been carefully cultivated is one of conformity with a very government- controlled media style approach. What I love about this forum is that due to the owner's philosophy, the policies that came out of that and good enforcement, it's user / musician/composer/producer centered, not merchant centered. Bandlab clearly doesn't care about making revenue from developers for this forum and that's great news. Consequently, there isn't the personality cults or a culture where diverse thinking is discouraged. Independent thinkers who might have opinions counter to the norms will get their ideas considered on their merits in this environment, not pushed to conform. As creative people, we should celebrate that. We should also realize the reason all of that terrible culture exists, because its highly profitable. Because a bunch of consumers gathered with their wallets in hands ready to purchase is an extremely desirable audience to mine for profit. Twenty years ago or more, forums were about community for the sake of community, but forum owners began to realize that communities centered around purchase research are a potential goldmine and that has changed everything -- and that is, very much, not in the interest of those seeking to do research prior to a purchase.

That post with your referral code is pure spam and violates forum policy. If anyone is looking for that discount, please PM cclarry, the man responsible for the Deals subforum existing. If anyone has earned that referral, it's him, not some sly spammer trying to deceive people. Please report that post.

If you've caught Carl's posts here and in a couple of threads, he's been giving some great advice. He isn't a big fan of Spitfire stuff, as per his earlier post. He clearly loves the Audio Bros stuff and it sounds beautiful to my ears, has a good opinion of Cinesamples -- maybe Musio would be a good fit for you? -- and wrote that 8Dio has the best quality to price ratio in the market. I don't know much but the VSL and Orchestra Tools libraries I've heard sound excellent to me. But I know nothing about workflows that's obviously important to choosing these kinds of libraries. To quote Animal (Muppets): "I bang de drum."

You know what I don't think I have is a really good detailed acoustic drum kit with roto toms in a format set up for Roland V-Drums If anyone knows of one for SD3, AD2 or KONTAKT please let me know.

I really like their work. Really well done sound design libraries. I'd recommend checking them out. They've long been a KONTAKT developer, but more recently, they've been making their libraries available for the free HALion Player too.

@Bapu Oops, their drums are available for Trigger format, I just overlooked it! I only have paid attention to the KONTAKT versions, because that's what I use, but I just looked at their site after your post and realized that every library I clicked on is available in the Trigger format and Wave files as well as KONTAKT.

Analogue Drums BF sale is now live and I'm loading up my shopping cart. Deep sampled kits are going for $14.50 USD.

Best prices I've found for these sale items is at Thomann Music. Custom Shop EZX and other EZX and EZK on sale other places for $27 are selling for $24.70 USD there, less than anywhere else that I know of. EBXs are $48 compared to $53. https://www.thomannmusic.com/toontrack_ezx_custom_shop.htm?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiA6vaqBhCbARIsACF9M6kdx-uAnq6jLwg9Z7OhmpejkVakTcRcPKAeJx76arsglmj4X5-bnlUaAsTYEALw_wcB

Wow, those strings (and brass in the second video) sound gorgeous. I don't know about orchestration. I spent 12 years semi-professionally as a rock drummer but also played jazz, soul, fusion, funk and dance. But I was also trained on piano and organ. With severe tendinitis, I'm never going to embark on complex orchestrations, I just bang out simple rock songs. But I admit that I would love to have all of this stuff (and the reality is, I would use it very poorly). But your posts are a treasure trove of knowledge and passion for music that anyone exploring these sample libraries can learn from. I think that hobbyists and aspiring pros can be very misled by forums like VI-C where it's run by a developer and commerce motives, personality cults and peer pressure drive a good deal of the conversations and preferences. As BandLab has done a great job at keeping this community very user-centric, that's largely not a problem here. Your posts have always stood out to me as clearly reflecting a pro sharing insights as compared to the pervasive parroting of groupthink and steered conversations that come from the largest forum for cinematic sample library research. It's why I originally asked if you were a pro, because it was becoming increasingly clear based on the way you conveyed how you use orchestral libraries, the way your choices didn't reflect the amateur groupthink mentality at VI-C. And that's truly refreshing and that is why I value your posts in this forum so much. I seriously wish there was a section where advice from pros/experts like you could be archived, because I think your insights provide enormous value to most users, including me. Again, thanks for sharing.

Man. that's such high praise -- and knowing you're a pro composer and how critical you are -- even though I'm just a hobbyist on a limited budget and those aren't libraries in my budget nor libraries I would have much use for, after your praise, I feel I have to go check out the Genesis and Eternity choirs out, because, well, expectations are super high and I suspect I'll be blown away and I want to hear it for myself. I am, unquestionably, envious that you have a job where you get to enjoy this stuff as much as us hobbyists. On a Audio Bro note, they used to get mentioned A LOT by the VI-Control aspiring pro composer crowd a decade or so ago -- I suppose you can say that they had flavor of the month status for a time -- but the crowd moved on from them for some reason. Even here they don't get much attention. However, I take from your comments that they're still producing excellent libraries. UPDATE: Listening to the demos. As expected, they sound superb.

I really like the demos and that's a compelling sale price. But I'll be candid. While Soniokinetic makes very high-quality sample libraries -- and I own a number of them -- I sometimes find their user interfaces are unnecessarily complicated to the point that I've deleted a couple of their libraries only due to that fact. Perhaps I've been spoiled from straightforward user interfaces and working with user experience and usability experts in my professional life (cue a troll to mock me for sharing that). By comparison, if you look at e-instruments user interfaces, they allow the user to delve deep into controlling their libraries and make meaningful edits with ease. I wish Soniokinetic could make some progress in that area.

Once again, this is why I always want to wait a bit in case Larry posts an extra discount code. I know I say it a lot, but he is, indisputably the GOAT 🐐

Thanks for sharing that. I was interested in your perspective as a professional composer, and always am interested in it, and that explanation really was insightful. I totally get where you're coming from for feeling bad about criticism. Although, from consulting to developers, I'm well aware of why Spitfire focuses so many resources to free instruments. It's simply because that is a path to getting hobbyists and students hooked and becoming future paying customers. It's a smart strategy and it's consistent with how some orchestral library developers market heavily to the education industry. I think criticism, like you've shared, has enormous value to the community, particularly to less experienced musicians who can take what your insights and focus in on the aforementioned areas to assess these libraries more critically, and decide for themselves if these characteristics are to their liking or not.

There's an idea. I'll check out their spring reverb. I'm a sucker for those. I have, I think, 4 decent ones, but I'm still open to listening to more.

I recall that this developer has impressive credentials, having worked for many respected effects developers. What effects do you guys recommend checking out?

In addition to their libraries that come with KOMPLETE, I own their Electric W (Wurli) and Session Keys upright piano and can recommend both. I find both instruments are well sampled and the user interfaces and controlability of their instruments using their UIs is exceptional. I prefer the tone of the Skybox Audio Wurli 200A and the AcousticSamples Wurlie most of all, but the Electric W sounds excellent and $39USD for an instrument of that quality and controlability is a superb value. I'm contemplating whether to pick up their grand piano largely because their user interfaces make dialing in the sound you want so easy.

I'm intrigued. @Carl Ewing , why do you regret those purchases?

Custom Shop for $24.70 USD. Best price I've seen. Hmmm... But I can't help but wonder if Larry knows a discount code! https://www.thomannmusic.com/toontrack_ezx_custom_shop.htm?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiA6vaqBhCbARIsACF9M6kdx-uAnq6jLwg9Z7OhmpejkVakTcRcPKAeJx76arsglmj4X5-bnlUaAsTYEALw_wcB

I'm contemplating Custom Shop EZX, have you installed it? If so, I'd love to get your thoughts. The demos sound pretty good to me. I already have Melodyne 5 -- although I still haven't mastered it, I'm slowly getting better.

That's a pretty nice list and the stuff you're contemplating also looks superb. I have the 145B from Skybox Audios (the Hammers + Waves developer) and it is superb and really inexpensive right now for what it is, IMO. Everything I've heard from Slybox Audio sounds superb. I don't own the Joshua Bell Violin, but I've heard that it's a great library from a number of people that have it. FabFilter gets raves from every pro in the audio and composing world I know. Soundtoys is pretty respected. I never heard of Oeksound.

I was already planning on picking up SoundPaint's Dirty Clav, which I think is $25 USD, but for $7 USD with my Jam Points this is intriguing. But my honest opinion of SampleTank pianos and electric pianos is that I find them really disappointing. The Wurli's in SampleTank just don't have the dynamics a decent Wurli has, which I'm guessing is due to the sampling not being detailed enough to capture the velocity layers for that. But this library sounds like it's better at dynamics based on the videos and demos. I'll almost certainly pick it, and getting two Clav libraries for $33 isn't so bad. IK has a couple of mallet based libraries at the same price that sound interesting too. Malletension and Malletopia. https://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/stmalletension/?pkey=sampletank-sounds-cinekinetik-malletension

Do share your songs when you finish them! I like what I've heard from you in the past and I'm a huge prog rock fan from way back (I grew up on Yes, Genesis and King Crimson).