[gregjazz]

On fretman said

Anyone figure out how to  get the free bundle if you already own all the instruments?

Studio One, Windows, RME UFX, Yamaha MSP7

Just sent you a PM right now. 🙂

Greg Schlaepfer
[url url=https://www.orangetreesamples.com]Orange Tree Samples[/url]

11

[gregjazz]

On LinkedMusicians said

Right now, as I’ve been posting deals, I’m in my living room with my entire family with my cat on my lap and my laptop on a weird angle as we binge watch the latest episodes of “Stranger Things” and I try to balance watching the show, following the plot, while typing out deal posts and posts like this one — all while making jokes back and forth with kids about really off the wall silly stuff, which is my habit and a tradition my kids have continued.

Replace posting deals with replying to customer support emails, and that was totally me yesterday evening, too–cat and all. My multitasking is pretty poor, though, so I kept having to pause to catch up with what was happening in Stranger Things.

Happy holidays everyone, and Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it! I hope the new year is full of creative musical exploration for you all, and I’m excited for the ways that this community will provide opportunities to collaborate on new music and encourage and learn from each other.

Greg Schlaepfer
[url url=https://www.orangetreesamples.com]Orange Tree Samples[/url]

31

[gregjazz]

I’m excited to announce that our Rosewood Grand piano sample library was awarded Sample Library Review’s Best Piano / Keyboard Virtual Instrument of 2025!

With piano being my primary instrument, one of my goals for Rosewood Grand was to create a more lifelike and immersive playing experience by modeling the way the piano works and sounds.

For example, beyond sympathetic resonance, one of the really noticeable elements we included is the damper ambience that happens when pressing the sustain pedal. When the sustain pedal is down, the dampers lift off all the strings, allowing them to freely resonate as you play. This gives the piano an audibly fuller, wider, almost “washy” sound. Just like on a real piano, you can introduce this ambience while notes are already held–or lift the sustain pedal later and hear those additional resonances get muted, returning to a more focused, dry sound.

Other more subtle details include having separate hammer release samples (with logic to emulate the way double escapement works) from the usual release samples.

With all the extra samples and logic happening, we went to extra lengths to make sure everything was programmed in a way that prioritizes stability and CPU efficiency.

Rosewood Grand has multiple mic positions, multiple sample sets to choose between (tuned, slightly detuned, felt, and the classic samples from the original library), and plenty of factory presets that use the built-in effects to give you ready-to-use piano sounds.

As a reminder, you can get Rosewood Grand (or any of our other instruments and bundles) at a 30% OFF discount by using the code Holiday2025

You can also watch Sample Library Review’s full Best of 2025 awards video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yZKuUl4GUs

Greg Schlaepfer
[url url=https://www.orangetreesamples.com]Orange Tree Samples[/url]

3

[gregjazz]

On fretman said

Hi Greg,  I’m still hoping for a mandolin update that unlocks tremolo speed from DAW tempo. MusicSampling’s Hoard Mandolin does it well (but the player held his pick incorrectly, making the sound way too scratchy). They use CC1 to  control volume (which is quite a convenient way to do that). I would also like another CC to control tremolo speed (with an added option to lock tempo to DAW bpm like you have now). That would make your mandolin unbeatable.

Please add this to your to-do list.

I have that on my to do list, though it isn’t a simple checkbox to tick. There are a few approaches to investigate, and it will involve larger changes to the UI in order to add an articulation speed control. And the optional ability to assign it to a MIDI CC instead of just a static speed adjustment will be important, too.

Because the tremolos weren’t sampled at specific tempos, the speed adjustment would just be a general percentage that lets you slow them down or speed them up from their as-recorded speed.

Ultimately a MIDI-based tremolo that works like the playable rolls in our Paradise Marimba library would be better, assuming that the scripted tremolo would also incorporate certain details and humanistic timing/velocity variances so that they sound natural.

Greg Schlaepfer
[url url=https://www.orangetreesamples.com]Orange Tree Samples[/url]

21

[gregjazz]

I always love the opportunity to have a conversation about our sample libraries and what we have planned for the future. That’s actually one of my favorite parts about our Summer group buy sales–they always spark a lot of cool discussions about the updates and new products we’re currently working on, and also gives people a chance to share ideas and suggestions. A lot of the instruments we sample and features that get added are directly due to the feedback we receive.

One of the next releases we have in store for the Evolution series is a vintage telecaster. I was surprised by how different it sounds from our existing Evolution Texas Twang tele–a much warmer sound, and there isn’t as much of that “in your face” twang going on from the bridge pickup. Consequently, the factory presets cover a lot more ground, from classic rock tones to funk and R&B. It should be a pretty versatile electric guitar library! If there are any sounds that you’d like to hear in particular, or additional strumming pattern styles included, I’d love to hear your thoughts!

There’s an update for The Famous E Electric Piano on the horizon, which most notably adds a new cabinet model effect. One of the cool things we included are cabinet options recorded using binaural mics to give you the feeling of sitting right at the original electric piano. Beyond that, there are new tempo-syncing modes for the tremolo (and chorus, even).

Even with Rosewood Grand still being a fairly recent release, I’m already collecting ideas for its next update. One of the things I’m the most proud of with that virtual instrument is how it models a lot of the inner workings of a real piano to give you a more immersive and inspirational playing experience. The next thing we’re planning to add is different release speeds. That way–provided that your keyboard outputs MIDI release velocity–you can release a key slowly and get the sound of it gradually getting muted. That should make a noticeable advancement in realism, especially in the piano’s low register. I want to add some more options for effects, too, like delay, chorus, and a limiter. Finally, for people who really like to get into the nuts and bolts, being able to tweak the voicing of each key individually would be really cool, too. I did a little experimentation with that, and it was surprising how much that changes the character of the piano.

Anyway, there’s a lot more going on in terms of instruments and updates in various stages of development, but those are a few things that stand out that I wanted to mention.

Greg Schlaepfer
[url url=https://www.orangetreesamples.com]Orange Tree Samples[/url]

7

[gregjazz]

We just reached the highest discount tier, giving you 60% OFF all our virtual instruments and bundles!

That means you can complete your group buy order early now–we just sent out an email notification, but the link to complete your order (and a discount code in case you need to manually add the discount to your cart) is also on the group buy page in your account, too.

Of course, the group buy sale is still accepting new signups, so until July 12th at 23:59 UTC you can still join and get the 60% OFF discount right now.

Greg Schlaepfer
[url url=https://www.orangetreesamples.com]Orange Tree Samples[/url]

6

[gregjazz]

Yup–figured it would be better to release the Evolution update before people start getting those instruments in the group buy sale.

Greg Schlaepfer
[url url=https://www.orangetreesamples.com]Orange Tree Samples[/url]

21

[gregjazz]

I haven’t looked too deeply into what’s out there right now for jazz brushes, so maybe there have already been some innovations I’m unaware of.

On the snare, there’s just so many ways you can articulate the hits and sweeps–it’s so expressive. Speed, pressure, and where on the drum you play makes such a huge difference.

Often it seems like libraries just give you some taps, hits, and press stroke type accents, and then a menu of random sweeps. I often find myself layering together multiple taps and sweeps to try to approximate the sound I’m after.

Hope it’s okay to mention another developer’s product, but a plugin that takes a novel approach to brushed drums/percussion is Klevgrand’s Borsta. The way you can have dynamic curves separate from the initial attack of every notes ends up giving you a really realistic, expressive sound. It might be tough to get it to fit in when using another library for the rest of the drums/cymbals, though, but I think an approach like this in a sample library might be the key to getting more realistic sounding brushes.

Greg Schlaepfer
[url url=https://www.orangetreesamples.com]Orange Tree Samples[/url]

1

[gregjazz]

On peter said

Evolution Guitar Wishlist:

• A Dobro / Resonator Guitar – I’ve been wanting one of these forever. There was a developer that made one a decade ago, and I helped him name with naming or something, and I have his library, but it’s not a very user-friendly, intuitive library that can be played in real time without remembering a bunch of keyswitches. I want libraries that I can play in real time and get a realistic-sounding performance without editing MIDI. Consequently, I’d LOVE to see an Evolution resonator guitar.

Oh man, we have several already recorded and the samples chopped up… They’re in the category of instruments that will require the new Evolution engine to support the slide playing. They’ll expand on the tech originally used in our SLIDE Acoustic and SLIDE Lap Steel libraries. With how realistic and expressive the vibrato/slides came out in those two libraries, I’m really excited for how they’ll turn out!

• Ibanez TOD10N nylon string acoustic-electric guitar (yes, Tim Henson inspired)

That would be a cool one to sample, especially if it covered extended techniques like tapping, tapped artificial harmonics, and those sorts of things that Tim Henson uses all the time. I think the piezo pickup is a big part of this particular guitar sound, too. It works nicely with effects, and really helps bring out the sustain and clarity in those extended techniques that tend to be naturally quieter.

• A Wurly  – A Wurly library done with the same level of depth as the Famous E and with a lot of presets would be a dream come true for Wurly fans. Yes, there are a bunch of Wurly sample libraries on the market, so it might not be a giant seller. I think the best sounding ones are from SonicCouture and AcousticSamples. I love how the latter gets the clunk of the keys in the samples just right. What MOST Wurly sample libraries and plugins fail mightily at is what makes a Wurly have such incredible character — its dynamics. It’s sweet when you play gently and it has bite when you really slam it. I think the Orange Tree Samples treatment would absolutely make the best Wurly library on the planet.

I’ve been doing research on these. It seems like the 200A and 140B have pretty distinct sounds, so it seems like it would be ideal to sample both. A lot of the challenge is tracking down one that’s well-maintained, plus they can get pretty expensive, too…

• A Valente electric piano – To my ears, it’s somewhere in between a Wurly, a Rhodes and a Hohner Pianet. I don’t know of any existing sample library made from it.

I haven’t heard of those–I’ll check them out!

Greg Schlaepfer
[url url=https://www.orangetreesamples.com]Orange Tree Samples[/url]

31

[gregjazz]

I might need to take another look to see if it’s improved, but I’ve never been a huge fan of the real-time time stretching processes. Beyond the artifacts they introduce, time stretching uses more CPU and the complete samples have to be loaded into memory. That causes the instrument to potentially use a lot more RAM and take longer to load.

Maybe something like the roll mode our Paradise Marimba library has would work for emulated tremolos. That way you could hold down a note/notes and use a MIDI CC to control the overall dynamic (and maybe another CC for speed) of the tremolo, while the engine takes care of the natural slight variation in dynamic/timing. Additionally, if there were enough round-robins for variation, and possibly special transition samples between each note, I wonder if that would replace the need for sampled tremolo.

As of right now, whenever I need control over the speed/dynamic of the tremolo, I use the downstroke/upstroke repeat keys that are mapped right below the main playing range.

This video demonstrates the sampled tremolo options that our mandolin libraries include, and halfway in shows the manual approach to playing tremolo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6noh1RCIUY

Greg Schlaepfer
[url url=https://www.orangetreesamples.com]Orange Tree Samples[/url]

1

[gregjazz]

Thanks for sharing the group buy announcement, Peter!

Only four days into the signup period and we’re already nearly halfway to the highest discount tier–incredible! I’m blown away by everyone’s support!

One thing I’m curious about is what instruments you’d like to see us release in the future.

We have a ton more guitars, basses, and other instruments for our Evolution series already sampled and lined up for development, but it would be helpful to know what to prioritize.

Of course, we’ll still be working on the next major update for the Evolution engine itself. In fact, some of the instruments we’ve sampled will rely on the updated engine due to needing certain features like supporting more than two pickup positions, fretless and slide playing, etc.

It would be cool to release more tone presets and strumming presets for the existing libraries, too. Some of the older Evolution libraries only use the legacy guitar cabinet models, and would benefit from using the newer cabinet models, spring reverb tanks, etc. that were added in updates.

Greg Schlaepfer
[url url=https://www.orangetreesamples.com]Orange Tree Samples[/url]

4

[gregjazz]

Just to follow up… Looks like in the 2.5 update, it now tells you which Adpaks the preset uses (and a link to open the list in your browser in case you want to buy them).

Greg Schlaepfer
[url url=https://www.orangetreesamples.com]Orange Tree Samples[/url]

3

[gregjazz]

On Fleer said

On peter said

For anyone who wasn’t aware of it, @gregjazz — the developer behind Orange Tree Samples — has made his presets for AD2 available for free. I’ve been using these for a long time. It’s like getting new kits for free for me — as there’s no way I could create my own presets at that level.

https://www.presetgalaxy.com/banks/uvoQjRk7f-greg-s-addictive-drums-presets

 

I only have the Studio Rock pak. Do you think these presets might serve me?

I mix and match a lot of different Adpaks, so I don’t think there are any presets that only use the Studio Rock one. I wonder if tells you which Adpaks the preset uses when trying to load them… I’m pretty sure you can open the presets in a text editor and it lists the Adpaks used, or at least the product IDs.

Greg Schlaepfer
[url url=https://www.orangetreesamples.com]Orange Tree Samples[/url]

2

[gregjazz]

Wow, that’s awesome! It seemed like one of those deceptively difficult things to change, which is why I hesitated to bring it up. Thanks @lamia6!

Greg Schlaepfer
[url url=https://www.orangetreesamples.com]Orange Tree Samples[/url]

1

[gregjazz]

This is a small thing… If you use the heart reaction on a post, the emoticon that shows up assigned to the post is a smiley with hearts in its eyes. Would it be difficult to make it a heart instead, to match the selected reaction?

Greg Schlaepfer
[url url=https://www.orangetreesamples.com]Orange Tree Samples[/url]

1

[gregjazz]

Nice build! I’ve used some BeQuiet cases/fans before and really like their stuff.

Greg Schlaepfer
[url url=https://www.orangetreesamples.com]Orange Tree Samples[/url]

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