PavlovsCat

I think most of us regulars are prone to tangents. Hopefully we can all agree that friendly tangents showing gratitude are cool with all of us even though they're clearly not in sync with the forum rules.

I was a KVR regular in the early days. I actually made some real life friends I visited on three continents that I met at KVR. But I got sick of the regular trolling and mean-spirited folks that were becoming more frequent there and these days I'm mainly here and stop at VI Control (which has some regulars that can be clickish, arrogant and toxic at times) once in a while. Social media has already become so toxic from people who hold extremist positions but have no understanding of political ideology or policy, this forum is my break from that (I'm stuck dealing with mainstream social media as dot com, business owner; hence why I'm vocal when folks start injecting politics into this forum -- that can only diminish what makes this forum so pleasant).

Nice to see. I was starting to think that I was the only one left in this sub-forum still using Cakewalk! I mean, I remember when everyone was getting Studio One. I bought the premium version but never used it -- and now Presounus is the company being bought.

If we used what we've got we wouldn't spend so much time here!

It's why this is my primary music forum. Also, is it any surprise that the Larry posts that would be most relevant to me at this moment are the ones for hard drives??? If anyone spends enough time in this part of the forum it will happen to them eventually.

Thanks @pseudopop, that answers my question! This seems like a great deal for those who use loops, but it's not a fit for me. I appreciate your insights.

That was my guess, but as Larry and Bapu own it, I thought they could provide the clarity the descriptive/promotional copy lacks.

Thanks, Larry. I read through all of the descriptive/promotional copy prior to my post, but it doesn't provide any details on the level of single hits included, and I was hoping because a few people here posted that they own it, they might respond with some insights. I'm really only interested in the single hits, not loops, as I don't use loops.

Does this have much in the way of single hits or is it primarily just samples with a very small selection of single hits (what I expect)?

I see her posts but I only chatted with Francis online after getting to know each other from VI Control; I didn't know his wife except him sharing their love of horses. I just hope he's doing well.

I haven't heard from Francis in a long time. We used to chat every so often.

Thanks @TracingArcs, I love Vital, even more than a good deal of my paid synths and I download the latest patches whenever I see one of your threads to remind me! Really good stuff that anyone can afford (because you can get it free).

I've bought several of his libraries and thought they were okay, But I'm not crazy about the guy creating ridiculously inflated regular prices you can be certain he never sells any libraries at only to regularly discount his libraries to around 90%. It's just not honest promotion. Granted, I'm sure everyone here who knows him by now is well aware of his practices, but to those who come here and actually believe those prices are real and they're getting the deal of the century, the practice is a bit less than honest. Sorry for being a Debbie Downer -- really I am. I just want to make sure that those who peruse the forums and see this thread realize that no one is really paying the $1,900 USD the developer claims on his website. It's pretty deceptive and I just hope that those unfamiliar with the dev realize that while this is a good deal, it's not as good of a deal as saving $1,843 as the developer claims. That's just not honest, even though I realize probably everyone who posted above knows all of these things, some people lurking and not posting are not going to know that and I wanted to do my best to make sure they knew the truth -- it's a good deal, but the reality is, you'll be saving tens of dollars, not nearly two thousand dollars as is claimed.

I love those little libraries. Each one is just a one trick pony, but even the ones for sale, for around $6 USD, are cheap and some of them sound wonderful to my ears. I have every KLANG freebie and some of the paid ones too. I really like Cinematique Instruments. And they do have other formats besides KONTAKT. I believe some libraries are available as .wav files and for Ableton Live. For those unfamiliar with Klang, it's Cinematique's line of small sound design libraries. They give away a free library each my month. Check it out.

There seems to be some question over the asterisk comments that were inadvertently blocked out. Here's the full unedited message -- exactly as Fleer probably imagined it: "Great helpful post. Great helpful points! As always, you're one heck of a smart helpful guy. Also, as we approach the holidays, let me be the first to wish you a merry blessed Christmas. " Forget it, this is now my new style going forward. Thanks for the helpful idea!"

Wow, Fleer, I think you crossed a ******* line with that one. We were just having a little fun. You didn't need to take it there. (See, we can read whatever we like into posts with asterisks. )

I think we should have a day where we just randomly insert asterisks for our posts. Imagine someone visiting for the first time seeing a post like this. "Great ****** post. Great ****** points! As always, you're one heck of a smart ******* guy. Also, as we approach the holidays, let me be the first to wish you a merry ******* Christmas. " Forget it, this is now my new style going forward. Thanks for the ******* idea!

I haven't mentioned any soft synths, but for free soft synths, Vital is at the top of my list. I own a bunch of paid soft synths and I find Vital to be better than a lot of those and some of the free presets users share every month on there forum are really good. Put me down as a Vital fan.

I'm pretty much at my spending limit (okay, I passed it), but I've never seen a negative post about Phase Plant, just people writing super positive things about it. Consequently, I may eventually pick this up -- maybe next Black Friday!

I can't believe I (or anyone else) haven't listed this one yet! For anyone just getting started with sample libraries and plugins or anyone who is short of cash but has a decent enough computer running Windows or macOS, KOMPLETE START is an absolute must have. I am a huge fan of Native Instruments plugins and libraries. When they were struggling recently, prior to being sold, I was pretty concerned. KOMPLETE START has a lot of gems in it and it's amazing that it's free. Anyhow who doesn't have anything from NI, stop everything and download this gem. I use KONTAKT and libraries and plugins from KOMPLETE in nearly every musical project I do these days. https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/bundles/komplete-start/

Yeah, I've actually been coming here since the early days and owned one of the earliest versions of Cakewalk. I just changed my username from eDrummist to PavlovsCat because I like PavlovsCat better. Although this forum app is no fan of privacy, every so often it shares our real names (assuming we've registered with Bandlab with our real names). I wish the Bandlab folks would fix that, it doesn't reflect a company that cares about privacy to wake up one day and see your real full name used when you didn't want that.

It's a cool library, but listen carefully to the samples -- hold a note for a little while, turn up the volume and you'll notice that they're extremely noisy. I downloaded this years ago and redownloaded it again because I forgot why I ended up deleting the library. Now I remember, the noise level. This is one of the downsides of some of the really nice Pianobook sample libraries too, a lot of times you'll get a piano or another instrument that has a great vibe to it, but the noise levels are ridiculously high. I've only recently been using Izotope's RX8 (I have yet to upgrade to RX9) and think with a tool like that, these samples could have been cleaned up nicely and enormously improved the quality of the library. I am surprised that a pro sample developer would release a library in that state -- even for free, the reality is, if a sample developer lets a library like that go out the door with their name on it, many users (including me) are not going to be confident that their paid libraries are going to NOT have the same problem. Again, hold a single note for a few seconds, then play a triad, then try a 7th then a 9th chord and it's unbelievably bad. That's why I deleted the library. But I suppose they're living up to the name Noiz. They certainly deliver on that.

I've had Modo for about a year, mainly using it for the Hofner bass. Modo does a very good job at capturing the Hofner's distinctive tone. It comes pretty close to sample libraries in terms of realism, but still isn't at the same level as a better sampled bass library. However, in the end, I almost always find myself replacing Modo with a sample library (Orange Tree Samples' Evolution, I forget which Bass library, has a James Jameson patch that sounds pretty close to a Hofner bass, so that's the one I end up using). But it takes up very little resources and it's definitely nice. If IK keeps improving the technology, I could imagine that the next generation or so of Modo could be really close to the realism of high quality, meticulously sampled KONTAKT library, but they're not quite there yet.

It's all subjective, of course. and our workflows are a major piece of this --- how important playability is to us. To those who love midi editing string and orchestral parts, they may love having the motherload of articulations the way 8Dio does them with libraries like Deep Solo Strings. Personally, playability is everything to me. I'm not going to go through and edit things as pros do, I'm creating music for my own enjoyment, but want it to sound good, so if it requires a ton of midi editing -- like 8Dio does (and that's relative to other libraries that have more intuitive scripting that make them very playable -- like Fluffy Audio's libraries that I recently picked up_, I'm out. In my case, for a number of reasons, including pretty bad tendinitis. But yeah, as I just wrote in my previous post, midi editing is unavoidable if you're looking for a very realistic performance. But I think it's pretty important to feel inspired when playing and when I recently picked up another library that was incredibly more playable that a friend who composes music for games recommended, the difference was incredible. I really don't want to go back to my 8Dio libraries. On another level, I clicked on the link in your sig file after reading your post and listened while writing my response and really liked what I heard. You're very talented! Kudos!

It takes work to get a very realistic performance from string libraries. It's not as simple as just playing them like a piano if you're looking for a truly realistic performance. Pros who use these libraries for TV, games, trailers, movie scores, etc., do a good deal of editing after playing the parts on the keys, and of course, a composer's workflow is ultra important. The playability in this sense refers to how easily a library performs -- for example, does the library use a lot of scripting and do you find it intuitive for your needs or do you need to use a lot of keyswitching, all sorts of articulations and delve into intensive editing to get a realistic performance? In your case, where you're not playing them, there's still the reality that some libraries sound more realistic than others with your software. But sure, because you don't play them on a keyboard you may have VERY DIFFERENT standards than those who do. But playability is a major factor for the majority of users of KONTAKT sample library buyers, it's a major factor for MOST pros, aspiring pros and amateurs care and they care a great deal about it -- and I'm among that group. Getting a ultra realistic sounding performance from a string library requires a lot of work -- and if you're very serious, that means midi editing is a necessity --I have literally not seen any serious users of string libraries -- advanced amateur or pro assert that usability isn't important -- I've consulted to many developers of sample libraries, including string and orchestral libraries. But most start with playing the parts on a midi keyboard and desire a very playable library -- and that can be inspiring or having a library that isn't very playable can be the opposite. Even if you're using notation software, I'm sure that you'll find certain libraries are vastly easier to attain realistic sounding results than others and scripting and other factors are why. Pros that use string libraries in finished productions do a lot of editing no matter which libraries they use (and most use a combination of them), but ask any pro if s/he'd prefer a library that's easy and intuitive to play to get the initial parts down and you'll get a resounding yes. Anyhow. Of course, if someone feels that they can do everything by ear and you're only doing music for your own enjoyment it's all subject to your standards. But for those looking for realism, it takes work and playability is a major factor. So sure, Canopus, if you're a casual amateur user and you don't think there's any difference in how various string libraries play and that makes you happy that's fine. You don't need to argue with more advanced users though that care about usability. If you're satisfied with what you're doing, that's all that matters, but more advanced users do care a great deal about usability and playability, that is a very fundamental fact in the music biz and sample development market.