What are the BEST/WORST sample library & plugin purchases you’ve made & why?

[Peter Woods]

What are the BEST and WORST sample library and instrument plugin purchases that you’ve made and why do you find that to be so?
(We’ll do another thread to cover effects and DAWs.)

LinkedMusicians Founder. Your friend who keeps the beat.

Check out my music. 

1

[fretman]

What an interesting topic! I made a spreadsheet of all the sample libraries I have so I can quickly search for the type of instrument I’m looking for and then see what my options are. Right now I’m up to 1120 VI’s but I’m sure there’s more since I sometimes don’t split bundles up into their components. It also allows me to color-code them as I discover their worthiness. For context, I write realistic acoustic/Americana music. So, the sounds have to be pretty much spot on. These are what I marked good or bad:

Best (in no order)

• Amplesound (so far everything I’ve used sounds great. Perhaps a little cleaner and “hi-fi” compared to OrangeTree).
• Orangetree (very responsive designer. CC control is very deep allowing for realistic playability. I still wish they’d unlock their mandolin tremolo from DAW tempo since it’s often too slow).
• Skybox Audio (very responsive keyboards – 16 velocity layers and round-robins. Sounds very nice and is an unbelievable value.)
• Loops de la Crème (for specialty instruments. I love their creative MW use. My favorites are Guiro, Jews Harp and Cymbal Swells)
• Ilya Efimov (responsive designer, these just work well. I’m looking forward to their new updates)
• Chris Hein Chromatic Harmonica (this will do everything I’ve needed from a blues harmonica)
• Sonuscore (haven’t tried everything but what I’ve used sounds great)
• Eduardo Tarilonte Accordian collection (sounds great. Love the French Musette)
• Indiginus (sounds great but I often need to CC the key signature to make it do things it wasn’t otherwise designed to do)
• Redroom Audio (now part of Impact Soundworks – the best bodhran I’ve found since it models both hands)
• Cinematique (only tried a small subset of their instruments but what I’ve used so far sound very good)

Bad (in no order):

• Boulder sounds (unusual instruments but sounds are amateurish with too much rough phasey weirdness)
• Rigid Audio (sounds artificial)
• 8DIO Misfits (rougher than I thought they would be, maybe suitable comedic music)
• Spitfire Audio (I hate to put this in the “bad” category but it has more red marks than green in my database, although all of it is in their accessory instruments. I haven’t used their orchestral stuff yet. This is due to things like restricted range or being useful only for sound design.)

Studio One, Windows, RME UFX, Yamaha MSP7

43

[MagicRuss]

I actually like a lot of the Rigid Audio stuff, and artificial is not a problem because I typically don’t use their stuff for when I want natural sounds.  Their multis tend to spark ideas for me, and that sometimes that alone is worth the price of entry.

I like a lot of Sonic Couture stuff, but The Attic has a lot of clunkers in it.

 

 

1

[jude77]

That was excellent!  Thanks.

[jude77]

Best (in no particular order) :

1. Ample Sounds J and P basses.  These things just sound real to me.  Maybe one day I’ll actually figure out how to use the riffer.
2. OTS Rickenbacker bass.  Sounds great and comes with a ton of presets.
3. Scarbee Rickenbacker bass
4. Modartt.  I think it sounds very detailed and very 3D.  Additional pianos are usually $49 though they go on sale occasionally.
5. Indiginus Sounds.  I have several of these and they sound very good.  Plus the prices are unbeatable.

Worst

Bolder Sounds.  Not particularly inspiring, though I did like his mandolin.

Past to Future.  They have a ton of instruments, mostly drums styled after famous drummer’s kits as well as IR’s of various famous pieces of equipment kind compressors and such.  Overall, sound-wise, I find them to be a bit of a crapshoot.  Some are nice, others just kinda meh.  All are quite inexpensive.  I don’t think they have a webpage but you can find them on Gumroad.

 

 

 

1

[MagicRuss]

I missed that we were talking about plugins as well as libraries, so here’s a few random thoughts…

 

THE GOOD STUFF:

Rapture has to be up there.  I have made so many great sounds with it over the years.

For pure value, Synthmaster.  I got it for $10 from a Guitar Center deal years ago.  I don’t use it nearly as much as I could but it is quite capable.

Melda MTurboDelay is also up there.  It does so many things that other delays just don’t.  I’m pretty sure I got it surprisingly cheap on one of their flash sales.

Objeq delay was a good purchase.  It would have been better if I got it on one of the deals they often have.

I remember getting EZKeys for $29 a few years ago.  Enough said.

MODO bass was a great purchase as well.  If I’m not going to play bass on a track and it’s not going to be a synth bass, it will be MODO.

Arturia Analog Collection is best and worst in a way.  Best, because there are so many cool things there.  Worst because I don’t use half of it.

rgc:Audio Pentagon also qualifies as best/worst.  Best because I got it half price and it was a great synth for its time and even with its quirks and flaws it is still pretty good.  Worst because not long after it was included in Sonar.

Every Komplete 5 and every update through 12 or so.  Komplete is still an awesome package but the updates have not been impressive for a while.

 

THE BAD STUFF:

After buying the Arturia Collection, VirtualCZ seems like a waste in retrospect.  CZ-V is much better.

There are a lot of amp sim purchases I regret, in particular Bias and Revalver.  Then there’s all the times I bought from IK just before a killer sale.

The Morley collection from Amplitube was a bit disappointing.

I got Carbon Electra included with something else.  I could only use one instance at a time without it freaking out, so not recommended.

That TAL Juno clone.

Cherry Audio Voltage Modular.  I got it because I wanted to try modular.  Just not into it.

Waldorf PPG Wave.  I got it on sale.  It sounds good but none of the presets have names more useful than PRESET 25 and the interface is clunky.

 

2

[Peter Woods]

My favorite sample libraries, my go-tos:

PIANO
– NI Noire
– Orange Tree Samples Evolution Rosewood
– 8Dio The 1928 Piano (yes, 8Dio gives this away free, but I love it)
– Emertone Walker 1955 Concert D Lite (I feel guilty because I love this library I bought for $10 and never upgraded, because I’m really happy with the lite version)
– EZKEYS Standard and Vintage Upright Pianos – I don’t see a lot of people mentioning Toontrack’s piano libraries when they list their favorite piano sample libraries, but these are my go tos for uprights, and I grew up with a baby grand piano, then an upright piano, and I love both for rock music.

ELECTRIC PIANO
Skybox Audio Hammer + Waves Wurly 145B – I am in love with the Wurly, as anyone who knows me is well aware. This developer did a fantastic job with this library. I love the Wurly 145B — although I never played the real thing (my mother owned a Wurly 200), this sounds beautiful to my ears.
Orange Tree Samples Famous E – If you love the sound of the Rhodes, this is a must. It’s like having the real thing with your controller.

GUITAR and BASS
– Everything from Orange Tree Samples Evolution lines [okay, I’ve consulted on the line, and a lot of my recommendations went into the Evolution guitar line, so it’s pretty much my dream guitar sample library.]

ACOUSTIC DRUMS
– Superior Drummer 3 – it’s fantastic, for me, pretty much the perfect drum plugin. The only thing I don’t love is the pricing.
– XLN Addictive Drums 2 – SD3 is my go to, but since version 2.5, I’ve been using this a lot, and it takes up a lot less resources than SD3, the pricing is much lower, and the company is far more customer-centric than Toontrack, which I haven’t found to be customer-centric at all. They did a short-time upgrade pricing for SD3 for SD2 owners and then pulled it away and forced us to buy at the same prices as new customers.

STRINGS
– Spitfire Abbey Road Iconic Strings 2 – Let me clear, I really don’t like the Spitfire player at all. It is far, far inferior to Kontakt. So that part of this library is really disappointing. But the samples themselves sound great. It is basically George Martin strings in a sample library. I waited for a library like this for decades, and the only disappointment is the player, not the samples or patches.

SYNTHS
– M-TRON PRO – My go-to for Tron samples, and I am, admittedly, obsessed with the Tron and the Chamberlin.
– Dave Kerzner put out a Kontakt library version of what became SampleTron more than a decade ago that I continue to use.
– Synthmaster 3 – Love it!

ORGAN
– IK B3X – I grew up taking piano, organ, and drum lessons. My mother was a music teacher and working musician. We didn’t own a B3 — I wish we did — but we owned a Leslie, and man, IK just nailed the B3 and Leslie with this. I love it!

TUNED PERCUSSION
– Sound Dust Dulcitone – Okay, Sound Dust has two Dulcitones and they both sound great. I own the 1900, but I know that I’d be very happy with either version.

ORCHESTRAL / BUNDLE
Musio 1 Perpetual License – I love this package so much. The sound of the samples is really just lovely and for my needs — as I don’t attempt to perform classical, orchestral, or anything too complex (between my tendinitis and 20+ years without practice due to tendinitis making that impossible, I don’t have the physical ability to play anything complex — it would literally be painful). Consequently, my use is limited to using these instruments for rock arrangements, and they’re perfect for my use. Considering the bang for the buck, the only thing that comes close is SoundPaint.

SoundPaint – Now, I’ve consulted to 8Dio (as well as more than 3 dozen other sample and plugin developers and MOST aren’t on this list, because I don’t shill for anyone, I am not an influencer, I’m a hobbyist musician). SoundPaint’s player has allowed me to learn to program sounds for the first time — that was before I started consulting to them. It’s pretty similar to how I feel about Musio 1 when it comes to great-sounding sample libraries that are affordably priced.   But SoundPaint’s sampler / plugin is leaps and bounds more sophisticated than Musio’s. It’s not even close. So that’s the big differentiator for me.

There are a ton of other developers’ libraries I love that I don’t have on this list. They include SonicCoture, SoundIron, Majetone… I’ll update this when I think of more, because I know there are at least two dozen sample developers I’ve long patronized who make libraries and sample-based plugins I love.

WORST
Fluffy Audio – Someone recently started a thread at KVR about issues with Fluffy Audio libraries and customer support never responding to their requests. That was what happened to me a few years ago and when I posted about it at VI-Control the developer lied and personally attacked me. It was off-the-rails craziness. One of his contractors private messaged me and told me that Paolo, the owner, has a reputation for bad behavior that people who know him are very familiar with. Avoid this developer at all costs. His libraries generally sound pretty good, but when they have issues — and they do — they don’t get fixed and the developer is not an ethical person. Cory Pellizari had told me that he had issues with two developers who released libraries with issues and didn’t resolve them — Impact Soundworks and Fluffy Audio.

Muze – Artificially bloated libraries. A complete waste of money no matter how cheap.

ARIA – Now, I actually didn’t purchase any ARIA libraries, but I have two friends, both industry professionals. They both told me that ARIA’s main string library was an unsuable mess in terms of the way the samples were recorded, the velocity layering, and programming. When I asked one if it was redeemable through Kontakt scripting improvements, he told me that the problems were far deeper than that. So, I’m sharing this as a PSA for our community, as these libraries often are sold very cheap and I’ve never seen a single post from a happy customer, only very unhappy ones.

LinkedMusicians Founder. Your friend who keeps the beat.

Check out my music. 

5

[MagicRuss]

On Peter Woods said

My favorite sample libraries, my go-tos:

PIANO
– NI Noire

 

– EZKEYS Standard and Vintage Upright Pianos – I don’t see a lot of people mentioning Toontrack’s piano libraries when they list their favorite piano sample libraries, but these are my go tos for uprights, and I grew up with a baby grand piano, then an upright piano, and I love both for rock music.

 

I have the vintage upright and use it from time to time.  I think I got it for $29 so that was a win on price and quality.

The thing about EZKeys is it’s easy to forget about the libraries because it is so useful as a tool for generating parts.

[LinkedMusicians]

On MagicRuss said

On Peter Woods said

My favorite sample libraries, my go-tos:

PIANO
– NI Noire

 

– EZKEYS Standard and Vintage Upright Pianos – I don’t see a lot of people mentioning Toontrack’s piano libraries when they list their favorite piano sample libraries, but these are my go tos for uprights, and I grew up with a baby grand piano, then an upright piano, and I love both for rock music.

 

I have the vintage upright and use it from time to time.  I think I got it for $29 so that was a win on price and quality.

The thing about EZKeys is it’s easy to forget about the libraries because it is so useful as a tool for generating parts.

I’ve never even tried any of the pre-made MIDI for the EZKeys libraries. In fact, I never upgraded to the new version (I’m on version 1). I really just use sample libraries to play like I would the physical instruments — well, as far as keyboards and drums. I was never very good on guitar and never played strings, brass, or woodwinds.

CURATED BEST FREE LISTS: Kontakt Libraries, Sample Libraries, Virtual Synths, Effects
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[MagicRuss]

I forgot to say that I also get a lot of use out of the NI Session Guitar Acoustic packages.  I do play guitar but I haven’t been able to get a decent direct sound from my acoustic guitar.  These libraries solve that problem for me.

[LinkedMusicians]

BTW, the reason I pinned this thread at this time was that I thought it would be very useful during this pre-Black Friday and Black Friday season, where we’re all seeing massive deals each day. I want to ensure that our community can access honest, unfiltered insights on plugins, DAWs, sample libraries, and music product-related software — the good and the bad. So, to those who are lurking I hope that you’ll consider adding your experience to this thread. It may help someone else.

CURATED BEST FREE LISTS: Kontakt Libraries, Sample Libraries, Virtual Synths, Effects
POWERSEARCH TOOLS: Synth Presets, Loops & Sound FX, Gear Reviews 
FREE TOOLS: Mixing Problem Solver, Songwriter's Toolbox, QuickGuides, Scale, Mode & Chord Finder
READ/WATCH: Mag Articles / Podcasts, Audio Production & Songwriter's Dictionaries

4

[Nitrate Audio]

I don’t look at a worst list. Yes, I have purchases and plugins that I aquired that I don’t use much, but I leave them there and i will delve into them to get inspired and get new ideas.

 

My goto are:

• kontakt and the drums in there. abbey road, butch vig e.t.c.
• usually IK amplitube and ToneX are in my projest always.

the list keeps changing depending on the music i work on. lately it’s been more rock and roll type stuff.

Gear & Setup:
Instruments: guitars, lapsteels, mandolins, bass, e.t.c.
Hardware: Mac Mini M2 Pro 32gb, Windows 10 Pro 32gb
DAWs & other stuff: FL Studio, Cubase, Maschine
Amp Sims: Amplitube, AmpRoom, S-Gear, Stark

1

[Peter Woods]

On Nitrate Audio said

I don’t look at a worst list. Yes, I have purchases and plugins that I aquired that I don’t use much, but I leave them there and i will delve into them to get inspired and get new ideas.

 

My goto are:

• kontakt and the drums in there. abbey road, butch vig e.t.c.
• usually IK amplitube and ToneX are in my projest always.

the list keeps changing depending on the music i work on. lately it’s been more rock and roll type stuff.

Gear & Setup:
Instruments: guitars, lapsteels, mandolins, bass, e.t.c.
Hardware: Mac Mini M2 Pro 32gb, Windows 10 Pro 32gb
DAWs & other stuff: FL Studio, Cubase, Maschine
Amp Sims: Amplitube, AmpRoom, S-Gear, Stark

I have Amplutibe Max and it’s easily my favorite of all of the amp and effects sims that I own. I’m not really sure if Tonex makes sense for me when I’m really only playing virtual guitar (I have a few guitars I’ve still never sold, but my tendinitis rules out me ever playing them again). Someday I’m going to pick up Archetype: Tim Henson X though. That sounds great to my ears. I think along with Amplitube, that would give me all the tones I could ever want — until another guitarist like Tim Henson comes out and shows me otherwise! Or perhaps it would be Tim himself.

LinkedMusicians Founder. Your friend who keeps the beat.

Check out my music. 

[fretman]

This is a slight update on Skybox Audio. I recently used J Celeste from their Chimes product in a sparse baby lullaby instrumental. During the solo there’s nothing else going on, so it’s quite exposed. I kept hearing a whirring/motorized noise in the background that was bothersome enough to cause me to dig into it. I loaded the waveform into RX11 and found the culprit. I circled it in red for you to see.

I used RX11’s Spectral Editor the delete all the occurrences and that fixed the problem! I have sent this to Skybox in the hopes they’ll re-examine all their products for this issue.

I posted it here so y’all will know the issues in using this. I don’t know if their other products have this issue but at least you know about this one. I still love the sound of Skybox products, but now know to look a little under the hood to make sure it’s clean. I also know it IS possible to clean it up, but hope they’ll do it for me. I should take this off my “best of” list above until they fix this. I’ll post their response here.

Studio One, Windows, RME UFX, Yamaha MSP7

2

[Peter Woods]

@fretman I’ve had developers and pro musicians tell me about various issues with sample libraries on the market. I can’t say which ones told me about various libraries, but problems are not that rare. Although I will share one because of the developer’s ethically problematic practices of using his contractors to attack his competitors and make shill posts over at VI-Control. Impact Soundworks Shreddage. I was told from a well-respected expert that there is a Shreddage library where you can hear a television on in the background in the samples. The other library that I’ve been told from multiple pros — including a pro musician and a developer — that it is an unredeemable mess on multiple levels — sampling, velocity layers, and scripting is Aria’s string library. Consequently, you won’t see me post deals from that developer. I don’t know the developer. I’ve never interacted with them. It’s nothing personal, I just have enough input from experts who don’t know one another that I don’t want to lead people into buying sample libraries that I know are not very good.

If I know a developer doesn’t make very good sample libraries or, like Fluffy Audio, Impact Soundworks, and Realitone, engages in practices that I — and pretty much anyone who cares about ethics — find problematic, I won’t even post their sales. I have severely limited what I post from Karanyi and — beyond being spammed — I haven’t had a single issue with their products or customer support. I just witnessed how poorly they treated one of our members, @jorge.

This place is about basic values of decency, respect for others, kindness, and ethics. That encompasses how people treat each other, integrity, and transparency. Those values are really pretty simple. Treat others with respect and try to help one another. When I know a developer’s products or support isn’t up to expectations, I won’t simply give them a pass. I don’t even care if it’s a developer I had a pre-existing relationship with. When a person starts a business, they have an obligation to deliver on promises, expectations, and hold to basic ethical standards. The reality in this space is that the forums, the blogs, and the subreddits are little more than a money grab. I realize that I’m using affiliate links to pay the bills, but they’ll never result in censoring people from sharing honest experiences — and smart, ethical developers respect that. Of course, as I’ve shared, there is a small group of developers that don’t respect that — and their fellow developers know it.

I hope that Skybox will work on resolving this issue. Please follow up on it! I own one of their libraries (Wurly 145B) and really like it.

LinkedMusicians Founder. Your friend who keeps the beat.

Check out my music. 

1

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