PavlovsCat

I was almost going to share the first song I fully played and recorded 21 years after I stopped playing professionally due to a tendinitis injury that causes pain after even a few minutes of playing because I used some free libraries on it. Earlier this year I got a new PC mainly for music and video editing and I had downloaded PocketBlakus and I'm pretty sure I used a free Pianobook piano library and started playing and singing John Lennon's "Isolation" and started adding tracks. It seemed appropriate, as we were in quarantine where I live due to the pandemic. But I own a ton of paid piano libraries and string libraries, but I was just playing around with these free libraries and I thought the vibe was cool and started playing Isolation -- it's as easy as it gets to play even if you stopped playing 21 years ago! But I was kind of blown away at how good the libraries some musicians make and give away at no cost -- how generous and kind it is. And it was when I was loading my sons gaming PC with music software and wondered if I could use my libraries on his machine that I decided to just load his up with freebies that I was blown away what you can do with all free libraries and Cakewalk.

Today's libraries are often pretty complex with lots of layers, scripting and hopefully a good user interface. Getting other's advice on libraries is invaluable, IMO. "Using your ears" tells you about how a library sounds, not how it is scripted or how it is to play, which is pretty important, especially for complex libraries like string libraries.

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/

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.

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.

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.

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.

But note, they were missing a box that protected them against your lawsuit for getting carpal tunnel syndrome from the repetitive stress injury you had from clicking all of those legal boxes!

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

Pianobook is a great community. It can be hit or miss to find a truly good library there, but wow, when you do. There's some really sweet little libraries and all of them are free (and some work with a free sample player). I think I'll check back later and post the names of some of my favorites for those who have yet to delve deeply into Pianobook.

I love The Beatles. I finished up the third part of the documentary on Sunday and caught the above video, I think, this morning, with breakfast. I'm a big Beatles fan and really enjoyed the documentary and seeing the Fab Four being friends and appreciating each other a lot more than we saw in "Let It Be." I think it went on way too long for non Beatles fans, but for us hardcore folks, I'd be happy to watch three more parts. What'd you think, @cclarry?

Dude, you're our official ring leader. No one even needs for you to confess you're a plug-aholic, all you have to say is "Hi, it's Larry." Everyone knows the rest!

I could never get the lite version installed properly with their update, so I really haven't got to enjoy the lite library. I don't know why they don't simply offer customers a single download for the entire library since they made the patch a long time ago. But what really has caught my attention is YouTuber Corey Pelizarri's review. BTW, Embertone gives you a discount equivalent to whatever price you paid for lite when you upgrade to the full version. But like anything, these instruments are incredibly subjective. But it is Corey's review and hearing the piano as he played and went through features that really made me love the sound of this piano -- and 50 bucks is a great deal for the quality. Simple Sam's Grand did sound nice, but preferred this one and it has una corda samples and different mics too. Note, Corey stands in stark contrast to your typical YouTube sample reviewers after freebies and kickbacks from developers and tending to shill and not be honestly critical. Corey can be brutally critical and constantly has insights that any quality dev can learn from. He isn't a affiliate marketer (really, an online salesperson for the libraries) like most YouTubers reviewing sample libraries and plugins which is great, because he's not selling the products he's reviewing. He is my absolute favorite YouTuber who reviews sample libraries and plugins. UPDATE: I was confusing the Simple Sam library with another dev's piano library. I never heard that Simple Sam piano library before and love it. Thanks alot, @Craig Fowler! I went from convincing myself to get the Embertone piano to being completely split. Wow, I love both of these pianos.

So it appears that our rampant consumerism has significantly slowed down this year. Either that or we've all reached the point where there's hardly anything left that we don't already own. Or, perhaps, a lot of us are more broke this year than in past years?

I was on a tight budget, so this Black Friday was more about self restraint for me. I bought: - 8Dio's Deep Cello and Viola - Fluffy Audio's Trio Broz Viola - Some Massive Synthwave Presets from ADSR mainly to get Baby Audio's Parallel Aggressor - Toontrack's Big Rock ezX for my non-upgraded to SD3 SD2 - Some Audiothing Library at Plugin Boutique to get a free plugin, I can't even recall which one at the moment! I'm contemplating upgrading my Embertone Walker 1955 Grand Piano from the lite version to the full version. If anyone has it and wants to give their thoughts Im all ears -- well metaphorically (literally eyes, but that doesn't sound as good).

I just tried it and agree with your analysis! It's only 5 atmosphere patches, but they sound pretty nice. But no, definitely not a "new frontier." It kind of reminds me of Shimmer, a library I picked up earlier this year for Steinberg's HALion SE that is similar and very nice.

Arke? That reminds me of either what Noah built or something your dog says if you accidentally step on his foot. Arke? But I'll bite. Have you tried this Larry? Any good? If you haven't, I suppose I can try it and report back. A new frontier? Yipes. They're laying it on a bit thick...

Exactly. I realize that not many people take it seriously, but it's really a sleazy pricing strategy. I mean, no one is buying their libraries at the regular prices, guaranteed. I've bought a few last year and they were, in my subjective opinion, very meh, worth no more than the 90% off or whatever outrageous fake discount they used was. But even that was questionable. FTR, they were the developer I referred to in my rant on sleazy promotional strategies. But I realize that the avg sample user might not see it as unethical. But it is because they are deceiving a customer into falsely grossly exaggerating the regular prices of their libraries only to regularly set up these 90+% discounts, which is obviously the only time they're selling those libraries. They are not even close to competitive with similar libraries at their ridiculous regular prices. It's just a sleazy tactic. In the US, the FTC has regulations against such practices -- and from my recollection (I've handled digital marketing around the globe) Germany's regulations are incredibly stricter, but the avg small developer is neither aware of business laws and most don't care. but come on, it's just not playing it honest.

I've long looked at it like the Waves plugins I've bought as cheap, time limited plugins and if I like them, I have to buy them all over again once they don't work anymore (which hasn't happened yet on my Windows 10 system). I don't even recall how much the WUP might be on a plugin I paid $29 or $39USD for. I think it's more than I paid for the plugin, right? So, if I use a plugin for a while and like it and it has problems, I'll just wait for the next $29USD sale -- but hold on, there's no need to wait for Waves sale because they're constantly on a freaking sale (a violation of FTC regulations, but hey, only marketing pros and marketing lawyers care). It's strange. But you can also say -- okay and this is economics theory for you nerds -- that like unions have an impact on various non-union job wages in surrounding regions, that Waves constantly doing $29 USD sales has resulted in other effects plugins doing similarly -- and the great thing is, they don't have the same kind of whack update plans. At least not yet.

Plugin Botique has all these great deep discount sales on everything but their product, Scaler. The result is, I never feel an urgency to pick it up and the learning curve is additionally causing me hesitation. I need to watch a video on it first. It's interesting how many people here are IT pros too, so I realize it's a very computer savvy group. I'm not an IT pro, but my expertise is in digital marketing, so I'm very tech savvy, but not at the level of people who code and program.

I somehow never really knew about this stuff and while I have traveled around the world -- literally -- with some small exceptions, I have lived in the Chicago area my entire life. But I missed this. Interesting. But I'm not much of a drinker. That's not a criticism against it. I have a neighbor that loves good whisky and invites me over for a drink, and I'll enjoy a glass or two with him, but I've probably had no more than a dozen drinks during the entire year. Back when I was a working musician, I had a habit of having two gin and tonics before I went on stage and stopped there. When I was 18 or so, the age I started playing out at night clubs, etc., I drank too much and my timing was terrible and I was really frustrated at myself because I just wasn't playing very good. Funny enough, my bandmates didn't even seem to care. But it really bothered me, so I started my two drinks rule. But since I had kids, I usually don't even drink two in a week or even a month -- unless it's summer time and I'm walking past my neighbor's house and he's having a drink!

I have seen so many people who bought Scaler posting good things. I don't even recall seeing a single negative post about it. I took about the equivalent of one year of music theory lessons and that was during a day when the only tablets anyone knew of were either Tylenol or the ones Moses used. Is Scaler easy to learn? I admit, I am not eager to spend a bunch of time learning a new system. But if it really helps people creatively, as I'm reading in reviews, maybe I should be picking it up.

OPTIONAL -- TANGENT ON MY PAST CONSULTING TO DEVELOPERS AND GIVING MY OPINIONS ON LIBRARIES AND MY THOUGHTS ON INFLUENCERS WHO DO REVIEWS The ability to express my opinion without a dev I've consulted to, like I did above, is a bit liberating. So I'm going to share a story to give some insights, because I think back in my eDrummist days, when I'd give the disclosure they I had done consulting to certain devs, a lot of times, someone would claim I was shilling or biased by monetary compensation. And while I think it's best for people to be skeptical in that regard, I want to tell the inside story. In the case of Troel's, many years ago, in his Tonehammer days, I spent maybe an hour on the phone giving Troel's marketing and branding advice. I've done the same for a bunch of devs -- easily a couple of dozen. Basically, small devs I really liked and I knew couldn't afford me to do serious ongoing consulting, so I just loved what they did and wanted to help. But I knew if I accepted free product a dev would be very ticked off at me if I criticized his libraries publicly -- it would burn a bridge. In a couple of cases, even though I didn't accept free product or payment, a couple of developers got upset with me when I shared my opinion on guitar libraries. I had given advice to four different guitar sample library developers, but I shared my opinion here that I thought one was making the most advanced and realistic guitar sample libraries that exist. Man, did I get flack for it. Publicly and privately. It actually was the end of me helping small devs for free. But in the end, I've always felt that ethically, I still want to disclose a relationship -- but I didn't want to spell out that I just helped devs for free and potentially have other small devs coming to me thinking I had more time to do free consulting (and frankly, this was largely before I had my second child, so I stopped doing it after my daughter was born; one small dev I refused money and product from gave me a free library as a gift for my daughter's birth, and I didn't want to be rude and reject that). But I realize that my disclosure makes it look like I'm making money off of libraries I'm giving my opinion on or getting them free and want to keep doing so -- a lot like the way faux reviewers, influencers who give review in exchange for free product and then they use affiliate marketing to sell the product, which by a more honest name is shilling, and I find it ethically problematic. Yes, someone who has led affiliate marketing for a major brand finds that kind of affiliate marketing dishonest/deceptive/unethical. Think about it. When you see a review by a YouTuber claiming to give unbiased reviews, they are very often registered sellers of the products they're reviewing. Yes, affiliate marketing is not really the true definition of marketing, it's really affiliate selling. Affiliate marketers are salespeople. Once more, these reviewers are literally SELLERS of the products they're giving you what they always say are "unbiased reviews." Big brands give influencers big money, but even in the world of samples and plugins, there's opportunities for influencers. Let the buyer beware. FTR, I'll share this publicly for the first time, but I would often tell developers to give free product to people on KVR I knew to be poor, from developing nations. I found one developer who was already doing this. I won't say who that developer is, but he's one of my favs. So yeah, when I disclose that I've helped a developer, I'm okay with people suspecting I'm a shill -- it's a reasonable thing to assume and I think you're better off being suspicious of anyone with a relationship with a developer or someone getting free product and doing affiliate links claiming to be doing reviews. I've led affiliate marketing at a major brand and have also used it, but another name, more accurate, is that it is affiliate salespeople. So next time you're looking at a review from an influencer, take a look and consider that if that influencer has affiliate links for that product s/he is reviewing, s/he is not just a reviewer of the product, but also a salesperson for that product. If you think that's unbiased, I would suggest you look up the definition of unbiased.

8Dio string libraries. The scripting is really disappointing, and I should have known that from owning Intimate Strings. Troel's is great at hyping his products and making demos, but very little effort goes into making them truly usable. With the exception of libraries that don't require much in the way of scripting, like pianos or percussion, I'm done with 8Dio libraries, specifically their string libraries, as someone in this group recently PMed me to say after I mentioned 8Dio. On the other side, I bought a viola library from Fluffy Audio (Trio Broz) that sounds really nice and is very well scripted and very playable. Oh well, lesson learned. Twenty years ago we didn't expect scripting, but today, there's a vast difference between a well scripted string or guitar library and one that is little more than a giant collection of individual articulations. I'm not looking to program performances, I enjoy playing. 8Dio string libraries are terrible in this respect. If they offered refunds, I would want a refund on every string library of theirs I own and replace them with libraries I've learned are really well scripted and enjoyable to play.