PavlovsCat

David is a talented sample developer who's done work for a lot of popular KONTAKT developers over the years. I'm a customer of his Xtant Audio line of KONTAKT sample libraries. It has some very nice libraries that are priced pretty low. I've had a number of emails with him and found him to be a really helpful, kind and friendly person.

I actually tried to listen on my phone but their web page doesn't show audio or video so I can't check it out. I've done some savage reviews. I think all that matters is that we're being honest. Just curious are you a jazz musician that's using this for final productions or for demos or arranging? If I was still able to play professionally, I think I'd mostly use sample libraries for sketching out ideas/arrangements/demos and have real musicians record the final production. I mostly played rock professionally, but did a couple of jazz gigs and absolutely love jazz.

That is the most savage jazz tuba sample library review I've ever seen. * * That's also the first jazz tuba library I've ever seen.

#TeamRadiohead by I'm not a hater.

I would play this stuff, but tendinitis stops me. Even so, I send over emails to my son to play, so thanks Lamia6!

Yan, this is Larry. If anyone deserves to never be told when he repeats a sales thread, it's Larry!!!! Larry posted the same SampleTekk thread I posted the prior day, but it would be profoundly offensive if I pointed that out!!! I did the right thing. I liked his post and shut up! Because Larry is the GOAT.

Earlier this month, a friend named Cory Pelizzari took his life. We became friends around a year ago, after I came across his YouTube channel and shot him an email to let him know how much I respected him. I referred to Cory as "my favorite YouTuber" or "the only influencer I respect" in numerous posts at this forum. I'm a marketing professional and the reality is, I don't have much respect for most influencers. It's a shilling business. They're just the latest version of infomercial pitchmen that are promoting products and their grift is persuading you they're unbiased while the brands they promote give them free products, buy sponsorships, pay them affiliate marketing money and/or good old fashioned cash. Their common MO is to find some minor criticism to create the appearance of objectivity -- but nothing that's a dealbreaker, because if they did have a major criticism of the product they're fake reviewing, it would ruin their relationship with the brand, or in this case, developer whose products they're "reviewing." But Cory was the exception to the rule. He would tell you if a library had a huge, show-stopping problem. He would tell you that he thought a developer didn't care enough to fix issues with their libraries after he told them about an issue. Consequently, Cory caught my attention and earned my respect. We developed a very deep friendship over the time we came to know one another. Though I'm much older, he referred to us as "brothers." Cory was much more than a YouTube influencer. He was a wonderful person, most of all. He was a courageous man who publicly shared that he had a mental illness in the hopes he could help reduce the stigma around mental illness. He was also a very talented musician and composer. Since I learned of his passing, I've been listening to his music, I'm sorry to say, I'm listening to it a lot more than I ever did when Cory was still with us and I'm hearing songs of his that I haven't heard before. And I just wanted to share some of his music with others. I wish I did this when Cory was still with us. But I'm asking if maybe you might consider taking a few minutes and listen to one of this man's songs. He wrote and performed this song in 2015 and I'm one of the only two people who gave it a like on SoundCloud and I just think that's a shame for how beautiful it is. I suppose my intent in posting this is that I want others to know more of Cory, of his talent and the man I got to know that the world just lost, because I think he was someone very special.

Yep, that's a complete no-brainer for anyone who doesn't already have this synth.

Piano in Blue is magic to my ears. I hear the demos and think, how the F did they get it so close to that Kind of Blue vibe. No doubt, there's a ton of nostalgia to that sound for a lot of us. Keyboard in Blue didn't really have any of that kind of vibe to my ears. I thought it might have the same tape, preamp and effects sound to it. It really doesn't come across in the demos. It sounds very nice, but not fitting of the "In Blue" branding.

Great dev.

Well, as I mentioned, they can do a lot of surgerical work to fix bad notes, wavering notes, etc. And I own and use Melodyne's flagship product. But, for example, it can't take an uninspired vocal and make it sound inspired. It can't make a soulful run out of a tonal mess. AI can. At least, it potentially can do that.

That's another vocalist singing your parts. It simply takes the notes you've sung and substitutes them with notes the AI voice sang. Which is very cool, but I'm interested in having the AI optimize your voice, not replace it. That would be much more work.

True dat.

Update, it sounds very nice, not amazing or even treated in any way that gives me that Piano in Blue vibe, which is what I was expecting. It's tone/sound reminds me of Fracture Sounds Blueprint Electric Keys -- which is free and incredible, IMO, everyone should pick it up (and no, I don't know the developer and never actually purchased anything from them yet, but they're definitely on my watch list after picking up two excellent free KONTAKT libraries) -- but Electric Keys sounds far better to my ears.

I'm on my phone and I couldn't get the audio files to play. But the description for Keyboard in Blue sounds irresistible to me. I must hear it ASAP! Piano in Blue is an amazing sounding piano library to my ears. The fact that they referenced that in the name --- my expectations are through the roof. This could be a let down. What do those of you who've heard the demos think? Im getting a coffee and will check it out in several minutes.

Dead serious, I would love an AI tool that processes a solo vocals, kind of like an AI Melodyne on steroids, to give you the best possible version of your voice. That transforms someone with a mediocre or below average voice into the best version while still maintaining the identifiable tonal characteristics of the user's voice. If a developer could do that well, I'd be an investor. Imagine, for those of us that don't have great voices, if you could take characteristics of singers you love and apply them to your original vocal performance. I suspect it would be a great seller.

@satya are you a drummer? Piano is my first instrument, but professionally, I was a drummer.

The whole resentment on sales pricing is exactly why I always recommend that developers have price guarantees so if a price goes lower after you buy (within 30 or 60 days), they'll refund the difference or credit it to your account. That way customers won't hesitate to buy when they're concerned you may have an even better discount in the near future and if you do, customers who purchased at the higher price will be very happy when they see they got the difference back. All of you developers reading, take note.

I own it and like it, and I like the developer a lot and have been a customer since their early days, at least 20 years ago.

Seriously, I didn't even think of that. I own Intimate Studio Strings and some of the Century Strings and figured the bundles wouldn't be discounted further to reflect that. Did you get the discount automatically in the cart or did you have to contact customer support?

At this price point, I can imagine seeing a lot of people rethinking their opinion about subscriptions for sample libraries. Of course, EastWest has a big enough product portfolio to make subscriptions appealing.

That's completely understandable. The urgency of a sale, with an absolute hard stop deadline, is always going to trump something with the same price year round.

Agree.

Wait, you gave me an idea. I was just really just playing around with free sample libraries when I thought, why not just record myself playing a super simple chord progression so that people can hear these free sample libraries in action together. I actually was probably one of the first people doing song contests at KVR going back around 15 years with Orange Tree Samples and later Kirk Hunter. The guy who won one of OTS's contest later became a friend and we still keep in touch to this day (his daughter just had a birthday today). So yeah, you've given me an idea and I'd love to hear people's thoughts. We could do regular demo song contests using free instruments and I can get developer friends to give the winners free libraries or certificates. Also, that way I won't have to suffer the constant indignity of losing every month, because I can say that I am disqualified! We've got to do this. If people want to chime in with their thoughts I'd love to hear back from folks. I suppose we should make it 100% free libraries that play in free players and that way there's no barriers to entry and maybe people who might be short on cash but long on talent can have a serious chance at winning. I can make this happen. Thanks so much, @audioschmaudio.

What if I challenged you to put together a quick demo using all free sample libraries that play in free players and no more than one paid/commercial sample library? I've worked with developers and put together demo contests, but no one makes demos for free sample libraries from multiple developers, so why not us? I started with me tonight. I put together a quick approx. 1 minute demo based on a very simple piano progression. Everything was an improvised first take with mistakes included. If anyone wants to join me, I can create a thread in the song section and we can post links to there with each song we share. Any takers? Just like me, you can spend 15-20 minutes to come up with something really simple that lets people hear these libraries in action. Quick Honest FREE Library Demo Challenge Create a demo from these sample libraries that play in free players. using free sample libraries that play in free players with a maximum of one commercial/paid sample library. OBJECTIVE: Create a short demo to highlight free instruments that play in free players. RULES: - Improvise what you play. Try to use first takes. Play whatever comes to mind. - Any length demo. - Use as many always free instruments that play in free players as you like, with no more than more than one paid instrument. - Any external effects used must be freely available. - List all instruments snf effects used. DEMO NAME: Motive DESCRIPTION: - 10 tracks. Every track was completely improvised on the fly on the first take. No MIDI editing, a little quantitzing, but otherwise, warts and all [I didn't even write down the chords I played, for the various parts). FREE INSTRUMENTS IN FREE PLAYERS USED: SoundPaint 1928 Scoring Piano (2 instances) SoundPaint Free Angels IK MODO DRUM IK MODO BASS Cinematic Strings Tongue Drum KONTAKT Play Twenty Five Heavyocity Foundationds Nylon Guitar Sine Player Layers HALion Cinematique Sonic Guitar Essentials Spitfire Labs Micah's Choir PAID INSTRUMENT USED: Orange Tree Samples: Evolution Strawberry FREE EFFECTS USED: Sonible - Focustire Balanace (EQ) Rob Papen: Pan