? Disco Lives!! ? Soundpaint presents Disco Studio Strings UDS™: our deepest, most realistic and versatile library yet.

[Larry Shelby]

$99

https://soundpaint.com/products/disco-studio-strings-uds

[PavlovsCat]

Disco related (true) story.

I'm connected to one of my former drum teachers on Facebook.  I did a post about a Billboard single from their old band (70s and early 80s) and I had the band's bassist, guitarist and ome of my old drum teachers (I had 4 in total) all discussing the hit song and their parts (I noted the guitar parts were really cool, although the band leader played drums on that album, not my drum teacher); it was a band reunion. One of my childhood best friends, Dave, posts in the thread -- not paying attention that these guys are the actual musicians from the band -- and writes "Disco sucks! Always has and always will!" He rarely posts on Facebook,  but felt compelled to post on this topic.  I was both embarrassed, I felt bad for the guys, and cracked up by the sheer obnoxious nature of the post, but true to Dave's disco hating ways since our childhood, at once. 

I don't agree with my friend Dave on this matter. I think some disco was pretty fun. Dave killed the good vibes on the thread.  FTR, my drum teacher is an excellent  drummer who played in a really good  jazz rock fusion band back then too, but the disco band paid the bills.  It got him a gold record that he still keeps on his wall, but he ended up being an IT manager until he retired.  Peter Brown,  the band leader, had to stop performing due to hearing issues but ended up writing songs for other artists (his biggest hit was Maddona's Material Girl"; I wasn't a Maddona fan, but thought that was a well written tune). 

Edited May 30 by PavlovsCat

[kitekrazy]

1 hour ago, PavlovsCat said:

I think some disco was pretty fun.

It takes a lot of skill to perform and gave orchestral players some extra cash. Production had to be expensive.  I'd imagine record labels  nudged artists to add to that genre and maybe that's why some despise it.  

I'd like to have this library but space and price makes it a pass.  Too much stuff not being used.

Edited May 30 by kitekrazy

[PavlovsCat]

17 minutes ago, kitekrazy said:

It takes a lot of skill to perform and gave orchestral players some extra cash. Production had to be expensive.  I'd imagine record labels  nudged artists to add to that genre and maybe that's why some despise it.  

I'd like to have this library but space and price makes it a pass.  Too much stuff not being used.

The track I shared, from Peter's first album, was recorded at Peter Brown's home studio, unlike a lot of disco productons, which used a ton of studio players. But in Peter's case, his first album was low budget and he sang and played various instruments -- including drums and percussion, but did use some of the guys who were part of his later touring band (not including my first childhood drum teacher; who I got to know from  him being the drummer in my late brother's HS band).  As you're a former Chicagoan, Peter and most of his early band members were out of Chicago. Peter, I beleive, actually was from Blue Island. 

[Starship Krupa]

4 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

I think some disco was pretty fun.

Oh indeed. And from a technical standpoint, the playing and production are almost universally top notch.

2 hours ago, kitekrazy said:

I'd imagine record labels  nudged artists to add to that genre and maybe that's why some despise it.

(jibber-jabber are GO)

I was living in South Carolina and then Arkansas during disco's heyday. Although I did like a lot of disco, my dirtbag credentials are impeccable; my first concert was Foghat (on the Fool For The City tour), with Head East. So I get why my heartland American buddies despised it.

You did NOT want to admit to any male peer that you liked any disco song.

But the Bee Gees' dance hits from Main Course through Spirits Having Flown were (and remain) great, and I thought The Village People were hilarious (in a good way). KC and The Sunshine Band, excellent stuff.

One of the reasons disco was hated by so many of the youth of the time because it was an urban phenomenon that was foisted on the entire US market. It didn't speak at all to the lives of most of the kids in America and it didn't have the flights of escapism and anglophile exotica that prog had.

No doubt, the A&R departments (based in urban areas) encouraged their established artists (also by that time based in urban areas and wealthy due to the amounts of cash that were rolling in starting in the 60's) to "go disco." The music was meaningful to their coked-out rich person lifestyle.

It's no coincidence that the infamous "Disco Demolition" took place in a baseball stadium in the midwest. Of course, The Village People have the last laugh, as "YMCA" is now played at ballparks.

It was also a highly produced form of music that none of the kids could aspire to making themselves. By the time it made its way across the country, it was a highly manufactured product, and the artists who were making it weren't relatable to the kids.

Very telling that the next big thing after it was punk/new wave/post punk, which was rougher, simpler music that spoke better to adolescent angst and that kids could aspire to actually make themselves. So was the next wave of dance music, one of the biggest artists, Prince, literally did make it himself, and by that time, underground artists in Chicago and New York were taking their parents' old funk and soul records and turning them into something new.

All this is my pop culture geek theory, anyway.

It did suck, but not because it was somehow inherently inferior. It sucked because it was oversold and it didn't speak to a large swath of music consumers.

Here's one for 22nd century Jeopardy!:

"Disco, New Coke, VST3, software subscription licensing"

"Ummmm.....what are things that consumers resented having foisted upon them by arrogant corporate executives?"

[PavlovsCat]

@Starship Krupa My first rock album purchase was a Zeppelin album when I was a little kid and later bought Foghat albums (the inspiration for Spinal Tap). I grew up the son of a classically trained pianist/organist/musician/music teacher who also played rock and R&B. As a musician,  I did paid rock, jazz, R&B and other style gigs. So I've always appreciated a wide range of music. Disco could be pure fun. The Bee Gees, Donna Summer, Chic and others had some killer disco songs, IMO.  It didn't resonate with a lot of white males who grew up on rock only, but that never stopped me from enjoying it. 

Edited May 31 by PavlovsCat

[kitekrazy]

YMCA - any DJ who refuses to play that will go broke. I was a disco hater back in the day but now I love a lot of it.   I remember seeing Disco Demolition on TV.   Sox had to forfeit the game.  Like it really mattered.

Back to the library. I wish I could get it but then I would have to use it which is not what I do these days.  I'm just a collector.  Interest I did do a disco tune once with Diginoiz High Heel Vocals and Melodyne.   I went through all of the string libraries and the best one was GPO.  Too many of them had that orchestral brightness.  The Soundpaint does as well but not as bad.

 

Edited May 31 by kitekrazy

[PavlovsCat]

4 hours ago, kitekrazy said:

YMCA - any DJ who refuses to play that will go broke. I was a disco hater back in the day but now I love a lot of it.   I remember seeing Disco Demolition on TV.   Sox had to forfeit the game.  Like it really mattered.

Back to the library. I wish I could get it but then I would have to use it which is not what I do these days.  I'm just a collector.  Interest I did do a disco tune once with Diginoiz High Heel Vocals and Melodyne.   I went through all of the string libraries and the best one was GPO.  Too many of them had that orchestral brightness.  The Soundpaint does as well but not as bad.

 

I'm in the ER still commenting (hopefully not my last comment)! But old buddy Dave went to Steve Dahl's Disco Demolition and he's still a disco hater. Good for you, Paul, for finding the fun in the music. 

Edited May 31 by PavlovsCat

[Starship Krupa]

4 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

My first rock album purchase was a Zeppelin album when I was a little kid and later bought Foghat albums

?

I only ever bought one Foghat album, but the one that I did was on 8-track. My first Zep album was Physical Graffiti. I don't remember the first rock album I ever bought with my own money, but the first one I ever owned was the Yellow Submarine soundtrack album, which was so under-the-radar subversive that even The Beatles didn't realize what they were unleashing.

[kitekrazy]

14 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

I'm in the ER still commenting (hopefully not my last comment)! But old buddy Dave went to Steve Dahl's Disco Demolition and he's still a disco hater. Good for you, Paul, for finding the fun in the music. 

There is Nu Disco but not in the same vain.  Synths replaced skilled players.

Some mainstream artist did some great disco.   

[Soundwise]

Spinning Gold is an excellent movie about that era in the music industry.

[PhonoBrainer]

Meanwhile this library. Sounds good, in some articulation very good. I like the runs and falls.

In some spots in the demos I am hearing some irregular note attacks. Not a ton, but it wouldn't surprise if there is an update with a few samples being perfected. Anyone else?

Lastly, geeze 30gb is a huuuge amount of space if you just want runs and falls and short marcato. Or is it?

Will probably get this. Any opinions?

 

[PavlovsCat]

9 hours ago, PhonoBrainer said:

Meanwhile this library. Sounds good, in some articulation very good. I like the runs and falls.

In some spots in the demos I am hearing some irregular note attacks. Not a ton, but it wouldn't surprise if there is an update with a few samples being perfected. Anyone else?

Lastly, geeze 30gb is a huuuge amount of space if you just want runs and falls and short marcato. Or is it?

Will probably get this. Any opinions?

 

If you don't get an answer here,  check them out on Discord. I don't own this library,  but I am a fan of SoundPaint (I've also consulted to them, to be transparent, but that was long after I became a customer of 8Dio and SoundPaint and owned more than 2 dozen of their libraries at that point). 

As a sample user, I really appreciate that Troels is pretty involved on the Discord server. It's really easy to give your input there and I do find he listens in my experience there and one on one conversations and he's not just a musician, he has a PhD in AI, so he gets really deep on the software end and is very committed to making the product the best he can get it. I think you, @kitekrazy should join the community and give your input. 

Kitekrazy has brought up that he'd like to see smaller file size versions of more of their larger libraries. They do offer smaller versions of some libraries, but I think it would be useful to offer smaller files for any libraries that cross a certain size, say 10GB. I share this kind of advice as a consultant,  but it's far more valuable coming from a bunch of customers.  And my experience is. Troels and Tawnia (the co-founders) would welcome and appreciate customers input to make their products more useful to them. 

As someone whose spent most of his career working for and with tech companies I find it very exciting when an indie developer thinks outside of the box and is open to outside ideas. Considering how new SoundPaint is and 8Dio's investment in the platform, I think it's a pretty exciting time to provide input. I'm not aware of any indie developer so actively committed the development of a multisample platform (EDIT: that is open to third party developers, as opposed to closed/proprietary sampler plugins only for that developer's own libraries). I also don't know of one that's been as easy to learn and use at a deep level. I've been using Kontakt since the first version,  but I don't know how to go as deep with it. But I love Kontakt's scripting capabilities, so I'm definitely not planning on leaving it. But I can do things with SoundPaint that I can't do with Kontakt, plus the SP libraries are excellent quality for far less cost than Kontakt libraries, but for me,  the scripting in  certain Kontakt libraries (like Evolution guitars and some solo string libraries) remains very important to me for certain types of sampled instruments because I play everything in real time. 

Edited June 1 by PavlovsCat
To clarify a statement about sample library development.

[audioschmaudio]

I love Disco. But good disco strings as an instrument are hard to find. The demos sound great. Beyond my budget though, unfortunately.

[antler]

8 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

I'm not aware of any company outside of NI so actively committed the development of a multisample platform.

From what I understand, Cinesamples have now pretty much gone all-in on Musio.

[PavlovsCat]

On 6/1/2024 at 7:28 AM, antler said:

From what I understand, Cinesamples have now pretty much gone all-in on Musio.

Sorry, I really wasn't clear on that remark I edited my earlier post). I meant that out of indie software developers with a sampler player platform that is open to other developers (not just for the sample developers' own libraries) -- which includes plugins like Rhapsody, Elemtntal, and sforzando, -- I don't see any other company with the level of investment or staff that 8Dio is making with SoundPaint. They're just starting to bring other developers on board, as you can see. Musio. MNDALA, Spitfire's various lines, Orchestra Tools' Sine Player, VSL, and many others are currently actively working on their proprietary closed to third party sample developers, which if you looked at that universe, there's easily a few dozen players. I'm not aware of any of these developers having announced that they're going to open their platform to other sample developers. But, based on what some of our regulars are posting here, it does appear that Cinesamples is committed to their proprietary player for their own sample libraries, which is cool and hopefully, if they keep improving it, it can motivate other competitors to do the same with their proprietary players.  

I also wasn't looking at players like HALion, UVI or Melda, whose players are open to third party sample developers, but these companies are software companies as opposed to a sample development firm that's making a sample player  open to third party sample developers. 

Edited June 4 by PavlovsCat

[Brian Lawler]

On 5/31/2024 at 11:15 AM, Soundwise said:

Spinning Gold is an excellent movie about that era in the music industry.

I've not seen this yet, but looking forward to it. Disco: Soundtrack of a Revolution  Just released on PBS.

[kitekrazy]

On 6/1/2024 at 12:00 AM, audioschmaudio said:

I love Disco. But good disco strings as an instrument are hard to find. The demos sound great. Beyond my budget though, unfortunately.

That's why some use loops.

[kitekrazy]

On 5/31/2024 at 8:12 PM, PhonoBrainer said:

Meanwhile this library. Sounds good, in some articulation very good. I like the runs and falls.

In some spots in the demos I am hearing some irregular note attacks. Not a ton, but it wouldn't surprise if there is an update with a few samples being perfected. Anyone else?

Lastly, geeze 30gb is a huuuge amount of space if you just want runs and falls and short marcato. Or is it?

Will probably get this. Any opinions?

 

By Soundpaint standards most likely. In the age of bloated libraries that's almost like floppy disk.

[craigb]

I'm having flashbacks to when I was a DJ (1980-1983) which meant playing a lot of Disco, while simultaneously playing in a Rock band.  Needless to say, I was smart enough to not mention my job duties to the other band members who were mostly of the "Disco Sucks!" variety. ?

Personally, I love a LOT of genres so I enjoyed both!