What are Your “Go To” Sample Libraries & Plugin Instruments?

[Peter DeLegge]

My Go to Sample Libraries and Instruments 

These are the sample libraries and instruments in my project templates that I use on the majority of my songs.

Acoustic Piano: NI Noire Piano, Orange Tree Samples Evolution Rosewood, IK Pianoverse, NI Maverick, Grande, Gentleman, Embertone Walker Concert D.

Electric Piano: While I own lots of Rhodes libraries, and would count the Famous E as my favorite, the fact is, I am, and will always be, foremost, a Wurly guy.  SkyBox Audio’s 145B is gorgeous and e-instruments W offers a lot of control of things like key noise — which I find super important to getting a great Wurly sound. For Rhodes, Orange Tree Samples Famous E is my go-to.

Electric and Acoustic Guitars: Various Evolution Electric and Acoustic Guitars – too many to list.

Electric Bass Guitar: Evolution Basses – Evolution bass guitars. Just about all of them. If it’s Beatle-esque, the Evolution Violin Bass or Rick Bass. For most other stuff, my most commonly chosen electric basses are the Evolution Roundwound and Flatwound basses.

Acoustic Drums: Superior Drummer 3.0 is to me, pretty close to the equivalent of what Evolution guitars and bass are for me. SD 3 lets me create Frankenstein kits — including with snares, cymbals and drums I actually own or have owned and love — it allows me to mix and match snares, bass drums, cymbals, and toms from various SDx and ezX libraries and do all the effects I want inside the plugin — which enables me to then save that as a preset to use on other projects. It also works great with electronic drum kits (MIDI controllers). All of that makes SD3 my go to choice for acoustic drum samples. The other choices I tend to use are NI’s Studio Drummer (they have a kit that sounds just like how I tuned my drums back in the day) and Abbey Road Drummer Series. I think those two lines are seriously underrated. I’ve used to use AD2 a lot in the past, but I never loved the sound of the snares or toms due to the tone/tunning and decay just not being long enough for my tastes. I feel both ToonTrack and NI nail this area and are far superior choices sound-wise. Consequently, I rarely use AD2 anymore and wish they’d bring out the next version and give Toontrack some serious competition.

Synths: Vital, Arturia Analog Labs, and Massive X.

Strings: Musio 1, and Spitfire Abbey Road Two Iconic Strings.

While I have other sample libraries that regularly appear in my templates for brass, percussion, etc. I really wouldn’t count them as go tos the way the above instruments are. I tend to play sample libraries of instruments I play — or used to play prior to getting tendinitis — in real life.

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4

[bapu]

If I wasn’t doing Citizen Regen songs, mine would be

Drums = Toontrack, Slate SSD, Drumforge or Addictive (in that order from Hi to Lo preference)
Keys = EZkeys, Softube, Komplete stuff or Plugin Alliance
Orch = too many to name and I’m not well versed in enough of them to say, yet! I really do have too many of these.
Guitars = Probably UJAM followed by Orange Tree followed by Real Guitar

 

My name is Ed. I Am still bapu though. My Studio

Virtual Bands: Citizen Regen, The Forum Monkeys,  Fizzy Pickle, The Coffee House Band

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[superabbit]

Synthesizers: Applied Acoustics Systems’ Chromaphone 3 and Ultra Analog VA-3. They really have something great going with that engine of theirs. I was first exposed to their sounds when Mixcraft bundled their Journeys and Entangled Species soundpacks. I was pretty new to virtual synths and they sounded so….”classy” is the term I’d use.

I count them as variations on the same instrument because I’m 99% sure that all of their synthesizers share the same sound generation engine.

They pulled me in similar to how MeldaProduction did. Their soundpacks were part of the Plugin Boutique monthly BOGO a couple of times, they did a Humble Bundle, and they started doing Swatches, which is a playback-only instrument that contains about a dozen sounds from each of their “soundpacks.” Soundpacks are what other companies might call patch sets, they’re each over 100 patches for one of A|A|S’ synths, but they can be purchased without the user having the synth that they’re from.

Genius marketing, Swatches grants users 10% of what comes in a soundpack, giving a good idea of what’s in there. Each soundpack is a playback-only synth unto itself also acting as a way to taste the full synth, and then if you decide to buy the full synth product, the sounds in the soundpack may all be used (and modified) by the synth. So no matter how you do it, you never feel like you’re paying twice for the same thing.

They’re one of the few companies whose synths I’ve bought patches for. Each soundpack is designed by a different musician under commission, and they are introduced with the designer performing compositions that use the sounds. Each soundpack has its own theme and “cover art,” so buying a soundpack is like buying a record album. If you like one artists’ soundpack, chances are you’ll want to check out others by them. I hope they have Venus Theory do one for Chromaphone 3 or Ultra Analog VA-3, I would get it in a second.

The sounds are top notch and the synths are versatile. Much to offer both the preset jockey (like me) and the synthesist. Also a company whose marketing and licensing practices never generate any whinging on user forums.

Honorable mention: AIR Hybrid 3, Vacuum Pro and Xpand!2. The embodiment of “oldies but goodies” that are easy on both the wallet and the computing resources. Underrated due to origins as a package bundled with Pro Tools at a time when few Pro Tools users were interested in virtual instruments.

Sample libraries: IK Multimedia SampleTank 4 MAX. A beast of a collection of sampled instruments, acoustic and electronic, orchestral and pop. Miroslav Philharmonik 2 isn’t the greatest thing for professional scoring, but it does just fine for laying orchestral sounds into pop songs. The SampleTron 2 instrument is an encyclopedia of vintage sampled instrument sounds, and Syntronik 2 is an extensive collection of sampled classic synthesizers, with a good number of lesser-known models. Price for the package regularly dips to the $50 region, which is nuts considering how much it has to offer. Also includes an extensive and underrated array of sequencing, layering, and effects processing tools.

Some dislike the UI, I prefer it to its main competitor, Kontakt. IK are another company that hooked me with generous freebies.

Honorable mention: Soundpaint. Yet another with a generous offering of free instruments to whet the appetite, Soundpaint is pretty much ambient drone-in-a-box. Atmospheric evocative samples that go on forever. I like the cut of their jib.

Drum instrument: Addictive Drums 2. XLN recently generated a big wave of goodwill among longtime licensees by thoroughly revamping the UI and adding cool features and then not charging anything for the update. Of the drum machines I’ve tried, theirs has the best samples and array of articulations I’ve seen so far, and I really like the new UI. I’m assuming that the revamp signals that they have larger plans for the platform, and they have my attention.

Honorable Mention: Break Tweaker. I usually prefer to create my own beats rather than using ones that come with the instrument, but Break Tweaker is an exception. Beats that I can build an entire song around. I’m not sure if iZotope still sell it.

-Erik
___________
superabbit.bandcamp.com

4

[MagicRuss]

Drums:  Addictive Drums, mostly Fairfax.  Kontakt’s Abbey Road 60s sees a lot of use too.  Sometimes NI Drumbox for hybrid sounds.

Bass:  MODO Bass for sound, EZBass for ideas in generating bass lines.

Piano: EZ Keys.

Electric Piano: Lounge Lizard.

Guitar:  For electric sounds, my Nighthawk.  For acoustic sounds, one of the NI Session series.

Synths:  Currently I have too many to say I have one.

2

[patrickwichrowski]

Arturia Minimoog V original is everywhere 😀

https://linktr.ee/patrickwichrowski/

https://patrickwichrowski.bandcamp.com/

1

[fretman]

Context: most of my work is acoustic instrumentals, so don’t expect any synths from me.

Drum kits: I end up using Addictive Drums 2 because they’re so simple to use, but I’m not a very good drummer. Maybe I should send my sketches to Peter.

Frame Drums: Redroom Audio – the only VSTi I’ve found that let’s you independently control both the right beater hand and the left mute hand. Nice selection of drums, too. No need to try anything else.

Castanets: EW Gypsy bundle. I’ve tried many others but these seem to sound less mechanical/stiff.

Djembe: Loops de la Creme

Guiro: Loops de la Creme. They implemented this GUI right.

Chimes: Loops de la Creme. This GUI is also done well, but sometimes it generates too much noise. Izotope’s de-click removes these.

Cymbal Rolls: Loops de la Creme. Fun instrument to play. Takes way less time than manually generating your own MIDI roll. Another GUI done well.

Vibraslap: Freesound (collection of *.wav files). Supposedly OT has one but I can’t find it.

Stomps, claps, snaps: BOZ, no need to try anything else.

Fiddle solo/background: Indiginus The Fiddle (with appropriate fiddling with the controls – see this), but will start experimenting with Virharmonics AI-driven bohemian instruments.

Strings: EW Opus stuff.

Flute: I haven’t tried many but OT’s Passion Flute has worked out well as a solo instrument. Sometimes after a long note I have to automate the take-a-breath volume down a bit.

Bass: Electric – AmpleSound P bass or Jaco Fretless, depending on the sound I need. Acoustic – AmpleSound Upright.

Banjo: AmpleSound for bluegrass. OT for Celtic.

Dobro: Indiginus The Resonator (fantastic sound – takes some work to get the articulations I want). I haven’t tried any others – don’t need to.

Lap Steel: Indiginus Lap steel (same comments as above) but will try AmpleSound next time.

Lap Dulcimer: Embertone is the only VSTi that let’s me get the melody/background/string selection/strums I want. But beware of some random thumpy strum transients – run 2 identical MIDI tracks, bounce to 2 audio tracks, replace thumpy strums from one track with non-thumpy strums from the other (they have been notified of the problem). All dulcimer VSTis are tuned DAD. None implement DGD tuning.

Accordian: Ilya Efimov (for Baltic/Gypsy/Russian folk) or Eduardo Tarilonte’s Accordions (love the Musette for Parisian music). No need to go beyond these two.

Ukulele: AmpleSound (fantastic sound). No need to try anything else.

Mandolin: OT (by far the best, but tremolo is tempo-locked making it way too slow for slow songs), Musical Sampling’s The Hoard Mandolin for better tremolo (but its sound is very scratchy and only goes up to the high G – I probably just need to record my own tremolo). Cinematique sounds good enough, as long as you turn off the body resonances that can sound weird on some notes.

Piano: I don’t yet have a goto but I’ve liked/used these:  XLN’s upright and grand, SonicCouture’s Hammersmith, AcousticSamples’ Old Black Grand, NI’s Noire & Maverick.

Rhodes: Waves’ Electric 88, Skybox Hammers+Waves Chimes (sounds great but may need to use Izotope Spectral Edit to remove background mechanize motor noise – they have been notified), OT’s Famous E (but sometimes I want to soften the attack on some notes).

Harp: Big Fish Audio from their Celtic bundle. Nice soft sound. Everything else I’ve tried (I have 14 different harp VSTis) are too harsh or too noisy.

Harmonica: Chris Hein Chromatic Harmonica – great blues harmonica. No need to try anything else.

Jews Harp: Loops da la Creme – far better than the 5 others I’ve found (which don’t seem to treat this instrument, um, seriously).

12-string: AmpleSound for a polite sound. OT for an aggressive sound. Both are very good. No need to try anything else.

Nylon classical guitar (I do a lot of transcriptions for my ensemble class so I often use several at a time for different parts): AmpleSound, Ilya Efimov, OT Evolution Honey, Indiginus Renaxxance II. I still need to audition MuseSample’s Evocacion and Musical Sampling’s Nylon Rustique.

Steel String Acoustic: AmpleSound’s Taylor, Martin, and Gibson Super-Jumbo (they all need to be de-hyped – use a very wide -6dB cut at 1.5k).  I also use OT’s Dry Relic and Rubber Bridge for something softer.

 

Studio One, Windows, RME UFX, Yamaha MSP7

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