# Quality of sample libraries - what to expect



## nemori (Jan 28, 2018)

Hello everyone,

first time posting here. I've recently became interested again in creating music, got Kontakt and bunch of libraries during all these holiday sales and now going through them, trying to figure out how to best use them and so on.

But the thing is that I keep discovering smaller or bigger issues with many of them, so I'm wondering if maybe my expectations were set too high. Anyway, here are the two things that bug me the most.

1. Unused samples?

I was trying to save some space by converting WAVs to NCWs and what I found was that very often the number of samples before and after conversion don't match.

I could take Charles' Dulcimer (a freebie) as an example - 21 samples, only 12 get converted. Looking under the hood reveals that RR 5-7 are mapped to the previous ones.

I've seen this in many of my libraries (the sample mismatch), even in quite expensive ones O_O Though usually it's just one sample here and there. So I don't know if I should be worried about this or if its normal?

2. "Bad" samples

I bought the ARIA bundle (my bad, I know) and when I was evaluating their solo strings I noticed that there's lots of weird noise going on in the samples. More detailed look at the samples revealed some glitches that looked like somebody messed with the microfone O_O It was subtle but easily ruined the result for me.

This is not the only thing wrong with their strings, but it's something I found later in another library - this time VCO2 Solo Viola and that one had similar noisy glitches plus problems with sustain loops :-/

And most recently, I was watching Junkie XL's videos and at one point (S2E56 around 1:30 in) he plays this melody he made and I can hear this rolling noise in the background. I think he's using Cinematic Studio Strings, which is not a low-end library, so once again I don't really know what to expect.

Is recording noise normal? Will it disappear in the mix? Or do I just have to learn to live with it? Filter it out? Try to avoid triggering certain samples that I know are bad? Also I'm not a string player, so my knowledge about the instrument is pretty limited, might something that's always there?

I'm new to this sampling thing so any advice and kind word is appreciated.


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## pmcrockett (Jan 28, 2018)

Regarding question 2:

I checked out Aria's LSS Violins back when they first came out and there were some strange things going on with the programming/sampling/sample mapping. (They've updated the library since then and I haven't been back to it yet, so I'm not sure if the issues have been fixed.) I wouldn't be surprised if there were similar issues with the solo strings. Aria's general rep on VI-C seems to be that they've got some quality issues and usually don't fix problems.

Programming problems do pop up pretty routinely, unfortunately, even in high-end libraries. You can always try emailing support to see if they can recreate the glitch and/or fix it in an update.

For the Junkie XL video -- he says a little before the excerpt that he's using a solo violin from LA Scoring Strings. The rolling noise you hear is noise from the bow being drawn across the string. It's naturally there in the sound of a violin, but it's so obvious in these samples because LASS is a very dry library and it's a solo instrument rather than a section. It's possible to use EQ to tame the sound somewhat, and LASS in particular is a library that a lot of people say needs that sort of processing before they're happy with the sound.

All that being said, you might be surprised what you can get away with in the context of a full mix.


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## bigcat1969 (Jan 30, 2018)

You might ask on the Kontakt subforum about the waves not converting to NCWs. I bet Evil Dragon knows. 

Since I make little Kontakt instruments, I compress fairly often and they always seem to compress for me. I just did a 2000+ sample conversion and they all worked, so I'm at a loss. The only thing I can think of is if some samples aren't ever being used, Kontakt might not bother to convert them?


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## nemori (Feb 1, 2018)

Yeah, that's my theory - Kontakt goes through the NKIs, finds out which samples are used and then converts them and dumps them in the output directory along with the updated NKI.

Emailing support sounds like a good idea, at least I could get some info and help them improve the library if possible. Still, it's a bummer that this happens, especially with more expensive libraries. I was expecting some problems with the ARIA bundle, I was just starting to freak out that the other libraries have similar issues 

Regarding JXL, thanks for clearing that up, I find the bow noise still a bit weird, but I guess it's just because I'm not used to it. Maybe I could get a budget violin...rather not 

Thanks for the help.


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## Kony (Feb 15, 2018)

Macker said:


> On the matter of bow noise, I don't have many string libraries but in all of them I can hear bow noise on solo violins and violas, most especially in the softest-played legato samples. I don't like it and was never happy about the prospect of just having to get used to it. But since I'm not about to splurge on high-end string libraries until I find the one with least bow noise on solo instruments, I decided to look for a practical remedy using what I have at hand.
> 
> The best bow noise-suppression technique I've come up with so far is to apply 2 filters, both tracking the MIDI note number: (i) a steep high-pass immediately below the fundamental (partial 1), and (ii) a narrow-band shelf of around -12 dB or so in between partials 1 and 2. I'm using MeldaProduction's MAutoDynamicEQ for this (and no I'm not affiliated in any way with Melda). On the spectrum analyser, although in many solo string samples I can see plenty of bow noise around all the other partials, suppressing the noise below and just above the fundamental seems to clean up the sound surprisingly well.
> 
> ...


Hi Macker, although I like the bow sound, I like that you're offering helpful advice for those who don't 

Which string library are you using by the way?


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