# Is there a timeline of the history of the releases of significant orchestral libraries since the beginning?



## Lord Daknight

I'm new and quite interested in the history of sample library usage, feel free to be as in depth as you like please


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## chillbot

I bet as a community we could come up with a fairly accurate timeline ourselves, if it's not already posted somewhere else. I'd be interested in this because my memory is terrible, I like to look at lists of stuff. Maybe people will post what they remember and then someone else can go through and compile it into a new chronological post.

From my super-fuzzy memory, there were others before these but "back in the day" (1998-2002-ish) I remember the big three as:

Miroslav
Garritan
Peter Siedleczek's Advanced Orchestra

Then came:

Sonic Implants, I want to say it was 2002, I remember paying some ungodly number like $1,800 for not even the complete version. I sure got a lot of use out of it though.

And the two biggest actual game-changers for me when they arrived:

EWQLSO, I think the full version was around $2,400? I got the version that was $1,200 and am still using it today, in Kontakt.
LASS, around $1,200.

I find the prices fascinating as well as the dates because of how much people complain about paying for stuff now, you have no idea!

EDIT: I just looked and I have VSL in giga too so that's been around for a bit. And the Dan Dean stuff... I don't remember if he ever did full orch, all I have are the solo brass, solo winds, and solo strings libraries in giga. And Kirk Hunter Emerald is from that same period as well.

The later/recent stuff, Symphobia, Albion, Metropolis Ark, etc, I'm sure is much easier to fill in the dates for.


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## d.healey

chillbot said:


> I think the full version was around $2,400?


The good old days, where extra mic positions cost another $1000 and you had to install from a million DVDs or pay extra to have it delivered on a 7200RPM HDD  I still have all my EW boxes with their wonderful artwork.


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## chillbot

d.healey said:


> The good old days, where extra mic positions cost another $1000 and you had to install from a million DVDs or pay extra to have it delivered on a 7200RPM HDD  I still have all my EW boxes with their wonderful artwork.


I have a full wall full of boxes myself. If I ever needed the space I would toss them without hesitation but for now they are a nice decoration...


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## jbuhler

I’ve found it surprisingly difficult to track this stuff down, especially if the libraries are still being sold, likely because firms do not find it advantageous to advertise the age of a product. Googling for reviews can be helpful for pinning some of this down as can manuals when you can find them. These have been my main methods for establishing library release dates when I’ve needed them for articles I’m writing.


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## DoubleTap

jbuhler said:


> I’ve found it surprisingly difficult to track this stuff down, especially if the libraries are still being sold, likely because firms do not find it advantageous to advertise the age of a product. Googling for reviews can be helpful for pinning some of this down as can manuals when you can find them. These have been my main methods for establishing library release dates when I’ve needed them for articles I’m writing.


Have you tried the internet archive?


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## jbuhler

Yes, I’ll often check internet archive as well, but reviews are generally more reliable, especially for the bigger libraries. Walkthrough videos on youtube are sometimes helpful too once they started becoming a thing, though they are better for confirming dates than finding them because the originals have often been taken down.


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## JoelS

Chillbot hit most of the historic high points. A couple more mentions...

Dan Dean also had ensemble brass. The tone of the french horns was a favorite of mine. I always felt he should have reworked them for Kontakt and took advantage of scripting, especially SIPS. I eventually did assemble some Kontakt versions and they worked pretty well, but more modern additions to the toolbox superseded them.

Westgate Studios produced a very nice woodwind set in the Gigasampler days. It came on one CD, as opposed to the thick zipper-packed Dan Dean CDs, and the goofily luxurious hardcover album folio that Garritan Orchestral Strings avalanche of CDs was shipped in. I got a ton of use out of that old woodwind set. Later, Westgate released individual winds sampled in more depth (and French Horn and Timpani), which are still available now through Big Fish. I like the sound of them quite a bit.

Talking about the history and development of sampled instruments requires a mention of the Northern Sounds forum. It really was a hotbed of discussion among many who would later be luminaries in the field. A lot of them offered their early experiments up as freebies back then. Maarten from Project SAM had a great free trumpet, Thomas Bergersen made a pan flute, bamboo flute and some bongos, and there was a large library of percussion and ethnic winds called G-Town, sampled in a church. For a while, there was a very lively and robust discussion of how to build instruments and improve sampling techniques by the eventual biggest players in the industry.

The Northern Sounds forum is gone, so the records of that time are lost and the contributions of early innovators live on mostly in the memory of those who witnessed it all happen. Despite its many faults, that place was an incubator for the talent that produced so many of the defining advancements in virtual instruments.

In thinking about Northern Sounds and that time, I remembered the immense and constant contributions of Ashif Hakik, aka King Idiot, who was also a member here. I just googled him to see what there was to see, and learned to my great surprise and sadness that he passed away earlier this year in 2021. KI was a mad scientist and source of so many ideas in the early days of orchestral sampling and scripting.

Digital history is a fathomless panoptical collage with no solid substance. Pieces evaporate, fragment, and relocate constantly. It is worthwhile to remember the contributions of those who built the foundation and tools that made so much subsequent art possible.


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## DoubleTap

jbuhler said:


> Yes, I’ll often check internet archive as well, but reviews are generally more reliable, especially for the bigger libraries. Walkthrough videos on youtube are sometimes helpful too once they started becoming a thing, though they are better for confirming dates than finding them because the originals have often been taken down.


Yeah, finding historical stuff on the internet is very patchy. 

Just occurred to me to wonder if there will ever be a time when people think “ooh, a vintage library”.


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## Trash Panda

This might be helpful. 






Research Project into the orchestral sample library industry


Hi Everyone, My name is Lee and I'm currently doing a research project looking into the phenomenon of the orchestral sample library industry becoming more commercialised. When I use the term commercialised I mean that there is a staggering amount of choice available to composers and there are...




vi-control.net


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## BenG

d.healey said:


> The good old days, where extra mic positions cost another $1000 and you had to install from a million DVDs or pay extra to have it delivered on a 7200RPM HDD  I still have all my EW boxes with their wonderful artwork.


I actually miss the DVDs in the sense I got a physical product in my hand which was pretty cool at the time. ah, the good ‘ol days


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## nolotrippen

chillbot said:


> EWQLSO, I think the full version was around $2,400? I got the version that was $1,200 and am still using it today, in Kontakt.
> LASS, around $1,200.
> 
> I find the prices fascinating as well as the dates because of how much people complain about paying for stuff now, you have no idea!
> 
> EDIT: I just looked and I have VSL in giga too so that's been around for a bit. And the Dan Dean stuff... I don't remember if he ever did full orch, all I have are the solo brass, solo winds, and solo strings libraries in giga. And Kirk Hunter Emerald is from that same period as well.
> 
> The later/recent stuff, Symphobia, Albion, Metropolis Ark, etc, I'm sure is much easier to fill in the dates for.


EWQLSO still rocks. I almost bought Spitfire Core today, but playing through EWQLSO again, I didn't see the need.


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## re-peat

Another great orchestral library from the early days, more than deserving a mention in any historical overview, is the *Denny Jaeger Violins* set. I’m fairly sure that if someone were to take the time to reprogram these samples in a format that makes use of more recent sample playback innovations, you’d have a violins library several patches of which could still impress many of today’s orchestral library users.

Also worth some attention: the *EMU Proteus 2* and the orchestral library for the *Kurzweil K2000(R)* (which came on I-can’t-recall-how-many floppy disks). And whenever the words ‘floppy disks’ are mentioned, I’m always instantly reminded of two things: (1) CorelDRAW 3 which shipped on 36 floppies, the 35th often being a faulty one, but this has nothing to do with this thread of course, and (2) the *Roland S-50* that also had an orchestral library on an endless set of floppies.

Other hardware that had, for that time, very decent orchestral samples were the *SRX expansion cards* compatible with various Roland modules. One of those cards, the SRX-04, offered orchestral strings. Quite lovely things, as I remember. (I still must have a Roland XV-5080 somewhere, in some box or other, with that card in it.)

Pretty exciting modeled brass (and loads of other instruments) was delivered by the *Yamaha VL-1(m)*. Did the best guitar emulations of everything that was available at the time as well.

_


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## erica-grace

chillbot said:


> EWQLSO, I think the full version was around $2,400?



$6,500 for the platinum pro version. Not sure how much gold was - there was a silver which was a lot less.

VSL was $11k, I think, right?


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## chillbot

re-peat said:


> Another great orchestral library from the early days, more than deserving a mention in any historical overview, is the *Denny Jaeger Violins* set. I’m fairly sure that if someone were to take the time to reprogram these samples in a format that makes use of more recent sample playback innovations, you’d have a violins library several patches of which could still impress many of today’s orchestral library users.


I have a library in giga just called "Denny Jaegar" though it has no violins and I have no recollection of ever using it. I wonder what it is but maybe I'll go back and see if much is useable.








re-peat said:


> Other hardware that had, for that time, very decent orchestral samples were the *SRX expansion cards* compatible with various Roland modules. One of those cards, the SRX-04, offered orchestral strings. Quite lovely things, as I remember. (I still must have a Roland XV-5080 somewhere, in some box or other, with that card in it.)


I also have a 5080 with a bunch of cards, which I still use quite often. Just FYI the Roland Integra-7.... if you're ever looking for a new hardware synth... contains every SRX board they made, though you can only choose four of them to load at once.


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## doctoremmet

Threads that mention E-mu samplers, Proteus and the best physical modelling (hardware and otherwise) synth that was ever made… Lovely memories. I have such clear memories of loading CD upon CD of Hans Zimmer Guitars (Spectrasonics) into my 5000 Ultra and playing those first notes… Incredible realism that I had never before experienced “under the fingers”. A while later I got the Miroslav Vitous orchestral samples and was even more blown away…


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## chillbot

Sitting here looking at Peter Siedlaczek's Advanced Orchestra CD-ROM set for Akai released by Best Service, but alas no where on it is a release date of any sort. I'm sure this info is on the internet somewhere, haven't looked.

Meanwhile a quick browsing using the search function of this forum can provide a lot of dates quickly. This is in 5 minutes or so, maybe I'll dig up more when I have more time:

2008 Symphobia
2009 LASS
2011 Albion 1
2012 Albion 2 Loegria
2012 Albion 3 Iceni
2014 Albion 4 Uist
2014 Mural
2015 Albion ONE
2016 Albion 5 Tundra


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## doctoremmet

How did Orchestral Sampling start out?


Hey Everyone, For my Bachelor thesis I am currently taking a close look at orchestral sampling. In one chapter I want to give a brief overview of how orchestral sampling for software samplers started out and what specific milestones marked the development of the craft. As valid literature on...




vi-control.net


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## re-peat

chillbot said:


> alas no where on it is a release date of any sort



I have a cd-rom called Advanced Orchestra Upgrade '97, so I guess the original was probably released somewhere around the mid nineties.








And maybe also worth mentioning: *Wizoo*, the company that sampled the first Halion Strings for Steinberg somewhere around the early 2000's. They also released a few percussion and drum libraries after that, if I remember correctly.

_


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## KEM

Let’s not forget that Hans was basically the first person to ever do it, although we STILL don’t have access to those samples lol


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## re-peat

You’d be surprised how many people have (or had) those old HZ samples. There was a time when cd-rom copies circulated heavily in studios and among musicians. A friend of of mine had a set, maybe he still does, and he did lend them to me — this is I-don’t-know-how-many years ago — but there wasn’t anything on it I found useful for the type of music I was making at the time (or since), so I just gave them back.

_


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## chillbot

re-peat said:


> There was a time when cd-rom copies circulated heavily in studios and among musicians.


Still have em, I mean my friend does, hypothetically I mean. I think there was only one fff horn patch that I really liked and would have had use for. Not that I would dream of using illicit samples!


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## Gerbil

I just found my old list from 2001/2:

Prosonos orchestra
Kirk Hunter Virtuoso Violins
EMU and Synclavier conversions
Denny Jaegar Violins
Eastwest Ultimate String collection
Dan Dean Solo Brass and woodwinds
Voices of the Apocalypse
PMI piano/organ libraries
Project Sam Horns

I still use the PMI Fortepiano every blue moon. I must still have them all stored somewhere because I don't recall ever throwing the discs away.


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## KEM

re-peat said:


> You’d be surprised how many people have (or had) those old HZ samples. There was a time when cd-rom copies circulated heavily in studios and among musicians. A friend of of mine had a set, maybe he still does, and he did lend them to me — this is I-don’t-know-how-many years ago — but there wasn’t anything on it I found useful for the type of music I was making at the time (or since), so I just gave them back.
> 
> _





chillbot said:


> Still have em, I mean my friend does, hypothetically I mean. I think there was only one fff horn patch that I really liked and would have had use for. Not that I would dream of using illicit samples!



So you guys mean to tell me you have Hans Zimmer’s samples and you’re NOT sending them to me?!


Wow, I see how it is, I’ll remember this…


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## KEM

I’ve been searching for hours and there’s practically nothing on the internet, all I’ve found are a few old VI threads about Hans’ custom samples and some of the guys here saying they leaked on a cd as you guys have told me, and that thread was from 2008…

Man I just want them so bad!!


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## Inventio

JoelS said:


> Chillbot hit most of the historic high points. A couple more mentions...
> 
> Dan Dean also had ensemble brass. The tone of the french horns was a favorite of mine. I always felt he should have reworked them for Kontakt and took advantage of scripting, especially SIPS. I eventually did assemble some Kontakt versions and they worked pretty well, but more modern additions to the toolbox superseded them.
> 
> Westgate Studios produced a very nice woodwind set in the Gigasampler days. It came on one CD, as opposed to the thick zipper-packed Dan Dean CDs, and the goofily luxurious hardcover album folio that Garritan Orchestral Strings avalanche of CDs was shipped in. I got a ton of use out of that old woodwind set. Later, Westgate released individual winds sampled in more depth (and French Horn and Timpani), which are still available now through Big Fish. I like the sound of them quite a bit.
> 
> Talking about the history and development of sampled instruments requires a mention of the Northern Sounds forum. It really was a hotbed of discussion among many who would later be luminaries in the field. A lot of them offered their early experiments up as freebies back then. Maarten from Project SAM had a great free trumpet, Thomas Bergersen made a pan flute, bamboo flute and some bongos, and there was a large library of percussion and ethnic winds called G-Town, sampled in a church. For a while, there was a very lively and robust discussion of how to build instruments and improve sampling techniques by the eventual biggest players in the industry.
> 
> The Northern Sounds forum is gone, so the records of that time are lost and the contributions of early innovators live on mostly in the memory of those who witnessed it all happen. Despite its many faults, that place was an incubator for the talent that produced so many of the defining advancements in virtual instruments.
> 
> In thinking about Northern Sounds and that time, I remembered the immense and constant contributions of Ashif Hakik, aka King Idiot, who was also a member here. I just googled him to see what there was to see, and learned to my great surprise and sadness that he passed away earlier this year in 2021. KI was a mad scientist and source of so many ideas in the early days of orchestral sampling and scripting.
> 
> Digital history is a fathomless panoptical collage with no solid substance. Pieces evaporate, fragment, and relocate constantly. It is worthwhile to remember the contributions of those who built the foundation and tools that made so much subsequent art possible.


I remember studying Rimsky-Korsakov on the Northern Sounds forum. That was my first real encounter with orchestration. With the examples and audio embedded (Garritan right?). It was a very clear and direct way of studying his book.


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## KEM

liquidlino said:


> It'd be interesting if original prices for spitfire libraries if anyone still has the receipt in their email?



When Spitfire started weren’t their libraries only available privately for established composers?


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## Saxer

In the beginning of sample libraries there were no software samplers and the hardware samplers like Akai S1000 or Roland S50 had an 8MB RAM limit. And they were really expensive. When the first software sampler came out there was still a 3,5 GB limit for computer RAM at all caused by the 32 bit architecture. GigaStudio was the first sampler for PC that could stream from disc and needed an extra PC incl. MIDI- and Audio-Interface connected to a mixing desk to work like an external sampler. It was groundbreaking at that time. 

Nobody born later than 1990 can imagine the effort of music production back then. All those today legato discussions seem so silly from that perspective.

Having a template witch routing and samples and synth patches saved in one single document was unbelievable at that time.


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## KEM

Saxer said:


> In the beginning of sample libraries there were no software samplers and the hardware samplers like Akai S1000 or Roland S50 had an 8MB RAM limit. And they were really expensive. When the first software sampler came out there was still a 3,5 GB limit for computer RAM at all caused by the 32 bit architecture. GigaStudio was the first sampler for PC that could stream from disc and needed an extra PC incl. MIDI- and Audio-Interface connected to a mixing desk to work like an external sampler. It was groundbreaking at that time.
> 
> Nobody born later than 1990 can imagine the effort of music production back then. All those today legato discussions seem so silly from that perspective.
> 
> Having a template witch routing and samples and synth patches saved in one single document was unbelievable at that time.



Glad I came up in this world when I did…


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## StillLife

JoelS said:


> The Northern Sounds forum is gone, so the records of that time are lost and the contributions of early innovators live on mostly in the memory of those who witnessed it all happen.


I want to see that movie!


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## mybadmemory

I have such fond memories of the old Miroslav AKAI CDs and the legacy Spectrasonics stuff like the HZ Guitars range. And the orchestral expansion for the Roland JV of course. I remember looking at pictures of the VSL cube in Sound on Sound, thinking… one day. :D


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## Sirocco

I can remember, with some difficulties...xd, Sample Cell from Digidesign, it was a whole system of card, CD-Rom disk and floppy to install program, in colour if you have the luck of a colour monitor, in my case in a Vx Mac II with an Audiomedia 2 (not 3) and 5 ram with Cubase. Yes, the exact amout of ram for open first Sample cell and then cubase, in that order, the appears a key (drawn) to connect midi track to Sample Cell library sounds; (Cubase audio still doesn´t exisst but a 2 years later i started a multitrack record system with Deck, wich have the hability to enble 4 separate channels, two stereo, from the Audiomedia 2 card.

There was two versions in 8 or 16 Ram; it seems that in U.S. they sold the emty ram version, not in Europe at least for me, with 23 or 24 years i spent an insane amount by credit and a scolarship, and almost 2 years trying to persuade physics university....anyway. The interface was incredible for that era.

*Sample Cell it was an all in one, not a pure orchestra at all*, but it was sooo versatile and good....today the demo record sounds impressive without "----", really. Here´s a link:









Digidesign Samplecell (Sound On Sound, Mar 1991)


Samplecell is a top-quality RAM sample playback card for the Macintosh II, and the latest addition to Digidesign's impressive range of digital audio hardware and software. Paul D. Lehrman enthuses.




www.muzines.co.uk


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## chillbot

Saxer said:


> When the first software sampler came out there was still a 3,5 GB limit for computer RAM at all caused by the 32 bit architecture. GigaStudio was the first sampler for PC that could stream from disc and needed an extra PC incl. MIDI- and Audio-Interface connected to a mixing desk to work like an external sampler.


Looking through this stuff I thought it was interesting that even LASS, which was only 13 years ago now, suggested under "system requirements" that it be spread out over two sample computers.


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## Studio E

re-peat said:


> Another great orchestral library from the early days, more than deserving a mention in any historical overview, is the *Denny Jaeger Violins* set. I’m fairly sure that if someone were to take the time to reprogram these samples in a format that makes use of more recent sample playback innovations, you’d have a violins library several patches of which could still impress many of today’s orchestral library users.
> 
> Also worth some attention: the *EMU Proteus 2* and the orchestral library for the *Kurzweil K2000(R)* (which came on I-can’t-recall-how-many floppy disks). And whenever the words ‘floppy disks’ are mentioned, I’m always instantly reminded of two things: (1) CorelDRAW 3 which shipped on 36 floppies, the 35th often being a faulty one, but this has nothing to do with this thread of course, and (2) the *Roland S-50* that also had an orchestral library on an endless set of floppies.
> 
> Other hardware that had, for that time, very decent orchestral samples were the *SRX expansion cards* compatible with various Roland modules. One of those cards, the SRX-04, offered orchestral strings. Quite lovely things, as I remember. (I still must have a Roland XV-5080 somewhere, in some box or other, with that card in it.)
> 
> Pretty exciting modeled brass (and loads of other instruments) was delivered by the *Yamaha VL-1(m)*. Did the best guitar emulations of everything that was available at the time as well.
> 
> _


Also the SR-JV80-02 and 16 expansion cards. I had an XP-30, which came with the 02 orchestral expansion. That and the E-mu Virtuoso were my first virtual rig for scoring, along with another synth or two, and eventually an Akai Sampler. Good times, and I still remember "Warm Violins" on the XP-30 as a patch I liked a lot.


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## KEM

This article has some really interesting info about how Hans was doing it over the years

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/scoring-pirates-caribbean-iii?amp


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## KEM

Another good read for those interested in the old Hans samples






Bart Hendrickson and Train Score A Hit with GigaStudio for the Spiderman 2 soundtrack | News Details | TASCAM - United States


Bart Hendrickson and Train Score A Hit with GigaStudio for the Spiderman 2 soundtrack




tascam.com


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## KEM

And an old thread as well






Hans Zimmer "Secret" Brass Library?


One of my friends, whom I consider to be an expert MIDI orchestrator, informed me of the existence of this library. He uses it quite a bit in his productions but he was quite "mum" when I asked him how he got it. Anyone?




vi-control.net


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## mybadmemory

KEM said:


> And an old thread as well
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Hans Zimmer "Secret" Brass Library?
> 
> 
> One of my friends, whom I consider to be an expert MIDI orchestrator, informed me of the existence of this library. He uses it quite a bit in his productions but he was quite "mum" when I asked him how he got it. Anyone?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> vi-control.net


I love how that thread contains 15 year old comments from both Alex Wallbank and Andrew Aversa where you clearly see the birth of two future sampling forces to be reckoned with. This line by Alex in particular almost feels like a piece of recorded history. :D

_“If nothing else, hearing his library and lusting after it (and other custom libraries) has inspired me to have a go at recording my own custom sample library at some point.” _


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## KEM

mybadmemory said:


> I love how that thread contains 15 year old comments from both Alex Wallbank and Andrew Aversa where you clearly see the birth of two future sampling forces to be reckoned with. This line by Alex in particular almost feels like a piece of recorded history. :D
> 
> _“If nothing else, hearing his library and lusting after it (and other custom libraries) has inspired me to have a go at recording my own custom sample library at some point.” _



And it also proves just how old @José Herring is


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## José Herring

KEM said:


> And it also proves just how old @José Herring is


In VIControl years I'm only 18


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## KEM

José Herring said:


> In VIControl years I'm only 18



You were really on here yelling about samples at the same time my mom was dropping me off at school for my first day of Kindergarten


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## chillbot

KEM said:


> You were really on here yelling about samples at the same time my mom was dropping me off at school for my first day of Kindergarten


Easy, kid. Remember in life: old is the goal.


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## KEM

chillbot said:


> Easy, kid. Remember in life: old is the goal.



Oh I’ll definitely be old one day, and I’ll know exactly when cause it’ll be the day I finally have access to some of Hans’ private samples lol


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## chillbot

KEM said:


> Oh I’ll definitely be old one day


I sincerely hope so. No guarantees.


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## PaulieDC

In October 1992 I did buy the EMU Proteus MPS+ which stored the rack samples internally, 4MB, and included the Orchestral expansion, another 4MB. 8MB total and then there was the cartridge slot for expansions. I did one project in MasterTracks Pro 5 on my Mac IIsi with that luxurious 13" color monitor that was only $525 on sale (just the monitor). Then life changed and all that lived in cases until I got re-bit by the MIDI orchestration bug 5 years ago. Sold the Proteus and plunged into today's Venus Fly Trap we call composing. Anyway, there's a time marker for samples vs year of release, if that helps.

I'm fairly sure I have WAV files of the two demo pieces that EMU did, if anyone younger is interested in hearing what 1992 samples sound like. The trumpet sounds like a drunk synth with a bad motivator, similar to the red droid. 

========================
UPDATE: Demo files attached. Some of the instruments sound OK, but you had one articulation for preset and they probably sampled every few notes, not every note. The demos were done well for the time. TBH we thought it sounded amazing back then. 

Main Demo:
View attachment Proteus Demo 1.mp3



Orchestral Demo:
View attachment Proteus Demo 2.mp3



And just to keep it in perspective, then vs now, have a 40-second sample of today's capability:


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## Quantum Leap

Incoherent rambling to follow: might not be 100% accurate: From my perspective, it all really got started with the Roland 770 and the Roland SP-700 sample player in 1991 and 1992. Akai had already established itself as the general sampler of choice, but Roland became the leader with serious orchestral composers because they had a dedicated cutting edge orchestral library on CD ROM. These sounds came from some of the same sources as Hans Zimmer’s personal library. Eric Persing was involved as well. Miroslav’s library came soon thereafter for Akai and Roland samplers. Emu was also in the mix. Their orchestral synth module was very popular, but didnt compare to Roland’s sounds for the SP-700. I sold a ton of Roland SP-700s when I was working at West LA Music to people like Chris Beck and Danny Elfman. So many in fact that I won 3 of them in a contest. That’s what got me started Scoring trailers and commercials and UFO tv shows. I also was Miroslav’s personal rep for his library, which sold for $3K a pop. Miroslav sounded good but want as playable as Roland. He had expressive samples, but you couldn’t really play lines with them. I was obsessed with sounds and set up a section of the store dedicated to Roland and Akai samplers and cd roms. There was also samplecell, but it was a junker IMO. and there were so few orchestral sounds in general. There were however, tons of cds that you could sample from from East West. East West started the whole sample cd thing with Bob Clearmountain in the late 80s. Hans Zimmer came out with Hans Zimmer Guitars sample CD rom around 93 maybe. I was so excited, but was disappointed when I heard them. They were cool but I was expecting something completely different. So that’s when I started sampling. My first release with East West was Quantum Leap Guitars. Then Quantum Leap Brass which was big band/orchestral in probably 95 maybe? Libraries from east west and Best service like Ultimate Strings and Siedlacek predated Garritan and Sam. And Gigasampler was brewing, about to change everything. I did Voices of the Apocalypse in LA because I needed an epic choir for my trailers In the late 90s. Choir samples were very tame and pretty at that point. Eric Persing had a really pretty library. Symphony of Voices. That’s when I met Hans Zimmer for the first time. He was intrigued by the name Voices Of The Apocalypse. But he was expecting scary vocal fx which was not what I did.

I was with Doug when Gary Garritan came by to do a deal with East West to sell his upcoming string library recorded at Lincoln Center. Gary backed out at the last minute and decided to sell it himself. Doug had already run ads so he wasn’t happy. Were sitting there and Doug said “F that guy”. A few months later we were in Seattle recording EWQLSO with Keith Johnson. While we were editing, we heard the scary news that the Vienna library was coming and it was going to change the world. Our booths were setup next to each other at NAMM and it was the battle of the century. A huge government backed endeavor with a million precise samples and true legato. And people behind it that really cared about what they were doing. It was crazy. Herb was a good guy. But we had that big EWQLSO sound and the epic perspective. we both contributed in our own way. I also did the first epic drum library Stormdrum around that time. Meanwhile Eric Persing left Roland and started Spectrasonics and went more towards the pop realm. A few good developers like SAM popped up. Most of the big developers like Spitfire and Berlin came later. Troels from 8DIO did some hang drum samples for me and wrote 2 tunes for Two Steps From Hell’s first industry album before he started his company.


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## Inventio

Quantum Leap said:


> Incoherent rambling to follow: might not be 100% accurate: From my perspective, it all really got started with the Roland 770 and the Roland SP-700 sample player in 1991 and 1992. Akai had already established itself as the general sampler of choice, but Roland became the leader with serious orchestral composers because they had a dedicated cutting edge orchestral library on CD ROM. These sounds came from some of the same sources as Hans Zimmer’s personal library. Eric Persing was involved as well. Miroslav’s library came soon thereafter for Akai and Roland samplers. Emu was also in the mix. Their orchestral synth module was very popular, but didnt compare to Roland’s sounds for the SP-700. I sold a ton of Roland SP-700s when I was working at West LA Music to people like Chris Beck and Danny Elfman. So many in fact that I won 3 of them in a contest. That’s what got me started Scoring trailers and commercials and UFO tv shows. I also was Miroslav’s personal rep for his library, which sold for $3K a pop. Miroslav sounded good but want as playable as Roland. He had expressive samples, but you couldn’t really play lines with them. I was obsessed with sounds and set up a section of the store dedicated to Roland and Akai samplers and cd roms. There was also samplecell, but it was a junker IMO. and there were so few orchestral sounds in general. There were however, tons of cds that you could sample from from East West. East West started the whole sample cd thing with Bob Clearmountain in the late 80s. Hans Zimmer came out with Hans Zimmer Guitars sample CD rom around 93 maybe. I was so excited, but was disappointed when I heard them. They were cool but I was expecting something completely different. So that’s when I started sampling. My first release with East West was Quantum Leap Guitars. Then Quantum Leap Brass which was big band/orchestral in probably 95 maybe? Libraries from east west and Best service like Ultimate Strings and Siedlacek predated Garritan and Sam. And Gigasampler was brewing, about to change everything. I did Voices of the Apocalypse in LA because I needed an epic choir for my trailers In the late 90s. Choir samples were very tame and pretty at that point. Eric Persing had a really pretty library. Symphony of Voices. That’s when I met Hans Zimmer for the first time. He was intrigued by the name Voices Of The Apocalypse. But he was expecting scary vocal fx which was not what I did.
> 
> I was with Doug when Gary Garritan came by to do a deal with East West to sell his upcoming string library recorded at Lincoln Center. Gary backed out at the last minute and decided to sell it himself. Doug had already run ads so he wasn’t happy. Were sitting there and Doug said “F that guy”. A few months later we were in Seattle recording EWQLSO with Keith Johnson. While we were editing, we heard the scary news that the Vienna library was coming and it was going to change the world. Our booths were setup next to each other at NAMM and it was the battle of the century. A huge government backed endeavor with a million precise samples and true legato. And people behind it that really cared about what they were doing. It was crazy. Herb was a good guy. But we had that big EWQLSO sound and the epic perspective. we both contributed in our own way. I also did the first epic drum library Stormdrum around that time. Meanwhile Eric Persing left Roland and started Spectrasonics and went more towards the pop realm. A few good developers like SAM popped up. Most of the big developers like Spitfire and Berlin came later. Troels from 8DIO did some hang drum samples for me and wrote 2 tunes for Two Steps From Hell’s first industry album before he started his company.


When I had to decide which first library to buy, with the money of my first composing gig, I sat down and listened to three libraries: VSL, Sonic Implants and EWQL. I didn't know what legato was in sampling but I was struck by the beauty of sound: EWQL Symphonic Orchestra and Symphonic Choir won my personal shootout. 

As many, I had great time composing with those EWQL libraries (and some instruments are still in my template). 
Great to read about these epic battles in sampling.


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## Montisquirrel

Inventio said:


> I remember studying Rimsky-Korsakov on the Northern Sounds forum. That was my first real encounter with orchestration. With the examples and audio embedded (Garritan right?). It was a very clear and direct way of studying his book.


Is this still available somewhere? The Northern Sounds Forum was still online one or two years ago and I found these sound examples for Rimsky-Korsakov using Google and a little later everything was gone. This should saved somewhere else I hope. Please tell me!


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## Inventio

Montisquirrel said:


> Is this still available somewhere? The Northern Sounds Forum was still online one or two years ago and I found these sound examples for Rimsky-Korsakov using Google and a little later everything was gone. This should saved somewhere else I hope. Please tell me!


Last time I looked for it (some time ago) I couldn't find it neither, unfortunately. I think it is gone. Maybe someone knows if it has been archived somewhere?


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## re-peat

Quantum Leap said:


> Then Quantum Leap Brass which was big band/orchestral in probably 95 maybe?



You ought to re-release that one, Nick. (It's formulated as a command, but it is in fact a very polite yet pleading request.)
The way I remember it: best studio (non-orchestral) John Barry brass sound I ever heard in sampled form. Hasn't been bettered since, I believe. I have that library — looking at the jewelcase multipak as I write this, in fact — but I can’t use it anymore since non of the Akai-conversion software I know of works on my Mac …

And thanks for the reminiscences. Very fascinating.

_


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## ed buller

Quantum Leap said:


> Incoherent rambling to follow: might not be 100% accurate: From my perspective, it all really got started with the Roland 770 and the Roland SP-700 sample player in 1991 and 1992. Akai had already established itself as the general sampler of choice, but Roland became the leader with serious orchestral composers because they had a dedicated cutting edge orchestral library on CD ROM. These sounds came from some of the same sources as Hans Zimmer’s personal library. Eric Persing was involved as well. Miroslav’s library came soon thereafter for Akai and Roland samplers. Emu was also in the mix. Their orchestral synth module was very popular, but didnt compare to Roland’s sounds for the SP-700. I sold a ton of Roland SP-700s when I was working at West LA Music to people like Chris Beck and Danny Elfman. So many in fact that I won 3 of them in a contest. That’s what got me started Scoring trailers and commercials and UFO tv shows. I also was Miroslav’s personal rep for his library, which sold for $3K a pop. Miroslav sounded good but want as playable as Roland. He had expressive samples, but you couldn’t really play lines with them. I was obsessed with sounds and set up a section of the store dedicated to Roland and Akai samplers and cd roms. There was also samplecell, but it was a junker IMO. and there were so few orchestral sounds in general. There were however, tons of cds that you could sample from from East West. East West started the whole sample cd thing with Bob Clearmountain in the late 80s. Hans Zimmer came out with Hans Zimmer Guitars sample CD rom around 93 maybe. I was so excited, but was disappointed when I heard them. They were cool but I was expecting something completely different. So that’s when I started sampling. My first release with East West was Quantum Leap Guitars. Then Quantum Leap Brass which was big band/orchestral in probably 95 maybe? Libraries from east west and Best service like Ultimate Strings and Siedlacek predated Garritan and Sam. And Gigasampler was brewing, about to change everything. I did Voices of the Apocalypse in LA because I needed an epic choir for my trailers In the late 90s. Choir samples were very tame and pretty at that point. Eric Persing had a really pretty library. Symphony of Voices. That’s when I met Hans Zimmer for the first time. He was intrigued by the name Voices Of The Apocalypse. But he was expecting scary vocal fx which was not what I did.
> 
> I was with Doug when Gary Garritan came by to do a deal with East West to sell his upcoming string library recorded at Lincoln Center. Gary backed out at the last minute and decided to sell it himself. Doug had already run ads so he wasn’t happy. Were sitting there and Doug said “F that guy”. A few months later we were in Seattle recording EWQLSO with Keith Johnson. While we were editing, we heard the scary news that the Vienna library was coming and it was going to change the world. Our booths were setup next to each other at NAMM and it was the battle of the century. A huge government backed endeavor with a million precise samples and true legato. And people behind it that really cared about what they were doing. It was crazy. Herb was a good guy. But we had that big EWQLSO sound and the epic perspective. we both contributed in our own way. I also did the first epic drum library Stormdrum around that time. Meanwhile Eric Persing left Roland and started Spectrasonics and went more towards the pop realm. A few good developers like SAM popped up. Most of the big developers like Spitfire and Berlin came later. Troels from 8DIO did some hang drum samples for me and wrote 2 tunes for Two Steps From Hell’s first industry album before he started his company.


QLSO is still a tremendous library !

best

ed


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## ed buller

re-peat said:


> You ought to re-release that one, Nick. (It's formulated as a command, but it is in fact a very polite yet pleading request.)
> The way I remember it: best studio (non-orchestral) John Barry brass sound I ever heard in sampled form. Hasn't been bettered since, I believe. I have that library — looking at the jewelcase multipak as I write this, in fact — but I can’t use it anymore since non of the Akai-conversion software I know of works on my Mac …
> 
> And thanks for the reminiscences. Very fascinating.
> 
> _








Total JB ! used it last week ...wonderful sound

e


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## José Herring

re-peat said:


> You ought to re-release that one, Nick. (It's formulated as a command, but it is in fact a very polite yet pleading request.)
> 
> 
> _





Quantum Leap said:


> Then Quantum Leap Brass which was big band/orchestral in probably 95 maybe?...


Couldn't agree more. That one had so many articulations, was recorded in a great room and had such a good tone quality. I got hired to do a bunch of big band arrangements once and Quantum Leap Brass did a lot of the heavy lifting for doits, rips, aggressive staccs, ect....


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## Dietz

No one who didn't start with 64 kB of "STRINGS" on an 8-bit Ensoniq Mirage from 1984 (with a 2-digit hexadecimal display for all parameter entries) knows how far we've actually come today. 8-)


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## dzilizzi

Montisquirrel said:


> Is this still available somewhere? The Northern Sounds Forum was still online one or two years ago and I found these sound examples for Rimsky-Korsakov using Google and a little later everything was gone. This should saved somewhere else I hope. Please tell me!


Still there but the samples are unplayable because they need Adobe Flash Player that is no longer available. You can access it on archive.org website.


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## jononotbono

ed buller said:


> Total JB ! used it last week ...wonderful sound
> 
> e


I've heard of that touch screen controller. A thing of legend! You're at RCP? 
And speaking of legend... why is no one still rocking Edirol Orchestral? 😂


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## ed buller

jononotbono said:


> I've heard of that touch screen controller. A thing of legend! You're at RCP?


not now...a few years ago

e


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## chillbot

re-peat said:


> I can’t use it anymore since non of the Akai-conversion software I know of works on my Mac


I have it native in giga and still reach for it all the time. All the slides and falls and that Minnie Da Mooch trumpet! So good. Do you use g-player at all? I don't use Macs so can't say but it looks like they have a Mac version.


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## Marsen

chillbot said:


> also have a 5080 with a bunch of cards,


Holy f...k. Already forgot, I had a life before VI, owning a 5080, or a 750, 330.. i could go on.


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## David Kudell

Yep, good times back in the Roland days...saved up for a Roland XP-50 in high school, wrote my first film score in college around 1998 entirely with the built-in Roland sequencer and the Orchestral I and II expansion cards (the latter featuring sounds by a little company called Spectrasonics). Some of the buttons on the Roland would barely work and I'd have to push super hard to copy and paste a measure. A lot of those Orchestral II card sounds are still in Omnisphere - choirs, strings. They sounded amazing back in the day.

In between that and now, I had a Soundblaster PCI card, soundfonts, a Roland 5080 with SRX expansion cards, then Gigastudio. My DAWs were Cakewalk which became Sonar. Buggy as heck. 

We have it so good these days. I kind of laugh when I read some of the complaints on VIc. Oh no, your mic merge doesn't work....try writing a score on a 16 character screen.


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## José Herring

KEM said:


> You were really on here yelling about samples at the same time my mom was dropping me off at school for my first day of Kindergarten


Yelling at people about samples was the extent of my knowledge at that time.


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## José Herring

David Kudell said:


> Yep, good times back in the Roland days...saved up for a Roland XP-50 in high school, wrote my first film score in college around 1998 entirely with the built-in Roland sequencer and the Orchestral I and II expansion cards (the latter featuring sounds by a little company called Spectrasonics). Some of the buttons on the Roland would barely work and I'd have to push super hard to copy and paste a measure. A lot of those Orchestral II card sounds are still in Omnisphere - choirs, strings. They sounded amazing back in the day.
> 
> In between that and now, I had a Soundblaster PCI card, soundfonts, a Roland 5080 with SRX expansion cards, then Gigastudio. My DAWs were Cakewalk which became Sonar. Buggy as heck.
> 
> We have it so good these days. I kind of laugh when I read some of the complaints on VIc. Oh no, your mic merge doesn't work....try writing a score on a 16 character screen.


I felt super "successful" in those days doing my first Hollywood film scores on 3 S760's one for Roland Brass, One for strings and 1 for strings and percussion, a JV880, and my Korg O1WFd to handle my woodwinds. I was the envy of up and coming film composers, then I saved up enough to get an Akai s5000 with a whopping 256megs of ram, and thought, who would ever need all that RAM just for samples?!!! Hahahaha!!!!!! A year later I was selling it to build my first gigasampler machine  All pre-internet really so I was about as clueless as one could get trying to figure it out for myself. It wasn't until 3 years later that I even realized that the internet had forums of people like me trying to figure this stuff out.


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## rpaillot

ed buller said:


> QLSO is still a tremendous library !
> 
> best
> 
> ed


yeah especially when they added the XPansion (or whatever the name was) that added a lot of round robins to all the staccatos and that was a game changer for mockups at that time.


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## KEM

I’d have killed myself trying to make music back then…


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## Saxer

I still have a Roland JV2080 with the 8MB orchestral cards. I don't switch in on anymore but I can't remove it without having wholes in the wall mounted rack.


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## mybadmemory

I would absolutely love to hear everyone’s old orchestral tracks from the early days of Roland / Miroslav / Spectrasonics and the likes. Anyone up for a spin-off thread like that? :D


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## KEM

mybadmemory said:


> I would absolutely love to hear everyone’s old orchestral tracks from the early days of Roland / Miroslav / Spectrasonics and the likes. Anyone up for a spin-off thread like that? :D



I’m definitely interested in hearing some old tracks from this time period as well


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## Jeremy Spencer

Saxer said:


> I still have a Roland JV2080 with the 8MB orchestral cards. I don't switch in on anymore but I can't remove it without having wholes in the wall mounted rack.


I have the same unit! I went to sell it last year but had this weird fear of letting it go Lol.


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## Saxer

Jeremy Spencer said:


> I have the same unit! I went to sell it last year but had this weird fear of letting it go Lol.


It was really a workhorse back then!


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## José Herring

mybadmemory said:


> I would absolutely love to hear everyone’s old orchestral tracks from the early days of Roland / Miroslav / Spectrasonics and the likes. Anyone up for a spin-off thread like that? :D


It might take me a while but I could dig some of the old stuff up.


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## mybadmemory

José Herring said:


> It might take me a while but I could dig some of the old stuff up.


I actually started a thread like that a year ago, that never picked up. Might as well resurrect that one then!  






Libraries of the 90's and 2000's – Post your old tracks.


Having somewhat of a nostalgic episode in regards to the VI's and orchestral libraries of the 90's and early 2000's, I'd love to hear what you guys did with the romplers, expansion cards, and early CD libraries at the time. Bring me some of those Roland JV's, Orchestral Cards, and AKAI discs...




vi-control.net


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## Saxer

KEM said:


> I’m definitely interested in hearing some old tracks from this time period as well


This is from 1999
View attachment Dance-Orchestra 1999.mp3


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## KEM

Saxer said:


> This is from 1999



That 4 on the floor beat is about as late 90s/early 00s as you can get lol, the orchestral stuff honestly isn’t as bad as I’d have expected it to be, I’d say the melodic lines are the strongest or most convincing part, the shorts sound like one shots at times, especially those stabs at the end


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## Saxer

KEM said:


> That 4 on the floor beat is about as late 90s/early 00s as you can get lol, the orchestral stuff honestly isn’t as bad as I’d have expected it to be, I’d say the melodic lines are the strongest or most convincing part, the shorts sound like one shots at times, especially those stabs at the end


I hope my taste developed over time too...


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## cug

Lord Daknight said:


> I'm new and quite interested in the history of sample library usage, feel free to be as in depth as you like please


You asked for history. Here are my two cents: Analog sampling may have started as early as 1927 with Robb Wave Organ. There was a “sampling method used for carving Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM) equivalent waveforms into spinning tone wheels.“ Not sure if one of these was actually built in the 1920’s but there is an AES white paper: 






AES Engineering Briefs Forum » Reimagining Robb: The Sound of the World's First Sample-based Electronic Musical Instrument circa 1927


The AES Forum is where our members get to interact with each other in between conferences and section meetings.




secure.aes.org





I believe the first commercial sample player was created by Henry Chamberlin in the 1940's. Chamberlin’s product evolved into the Mellotron in the early 1960’s. 

The digital age of sampling seems to begin with the Synclavier (1977) and then the Fairlight (1979). 

I think of the digital age of sampling in three periods: hardware samplers, early PC/Mac libraries and the modern era beginning in the early 2000’s. The periods overlap a bit. 

The modern period could be broken down further based on technology advances, including software sample players, hybrid sampling/modeling and spatialization. I think developments in keyboard controllers, breath/wind and motion controllers are also driving innovation in sample libraries and virtual instruments in general. 

Here is an interesting perspective on usage: 



Page not found – MHS 123: Music and Technology in the Twentieth Century



This is a great time to make music.


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## Tralen

Montisquirrel said:


> Is this still available somewhere? The Northern Sounds Forum was still online one or two years ago and I found these sound examples for Rimsky-Korsakov using Google and a little later everything was gone. This should saved somewhere else I hope. Please tell me!





Inventio said:


> Last time I looked for it (some time ago) I couldn't find it neither, unfortunately. I think it is gone. Maybe someone knows if it has been archived somewhere?


I was lucky to have saved the website with all content (in 2006?). I still have it, but you need Flash to play the examples.

If you are interested I could set up a download link somewhere (I don't know if that is legal though).


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## EgM

KEM said:


> I’m definitely interested in hearing some old tracks from this time period as well


I did this one on Dec 2, 1999. I think it was mostly a mix of E-MU and Roland, some recordings I did myself, like that flute/recorder. I used Voyetra (DOP) Sequencer with an SBLive. Man what a load of reverb 

View attachment EgM-Lost_in_my_thoughts.mp3


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## KEM

EgM said:


> I did this one on Dec 2, 1999. I think it was mostly a mix of E-MU and Roland, some recordings I did myself, like that flute/recorder. I used Voyetra (DOP) Sequencer with an SBLive. Man what a load of reverb
> 
> View attachment EgM-Lost_in_my_thoughts.mp3



Nobody ever complained about too much reverb!! Nice track!! I can definitely hear the parallels between yours and Saxer’s


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## re-peat

Here are two from the mid nineties, both from music I did for a school production of “Oliver Twist”. 

The *first example* gives, I think, a fairly good idea of what the original Miroslav Vitous String Ensembles sounded like when loaded into the EMU E-6400. (This piece was written for a dramatic scene of loss and mourning.)

Sounds almost unbearably awful and primitive to my ears of today — as do all these examples — but I do remember being irrationally/insanely/wildly enthusiastic about the possibilities of samples at the time. More then than now, as a matter of fact.

The *second example* — a boisterous dance of Fagin’s street urchins — uses everything I had at the time: Advanced Orchestra, Proteus 2, Miroslav, the Roland S-50 and the Kurzweil K2000r.

And here’s a *third example* from that same period that was done entirely and exclusively with the Kurzweil. Also written for a theatre production, but this was the opening music for a murder mystery play.

_


----------



## Montisquirrel

re-peat said:


> Here are two from the mid nineties, both from music I did for a school production of “Oliver Twist”.
> 
> The *first example* gives, I think, a fairly good idea of what the original Miroslav Vitous String Ensembles sounded like when loaded into the EMU E-6400. (This piece was written for a dramatic scene of loss and mourning.)
> 
> Sounds almost unbearably awful and primitive to my ears of today — as do all these examples — but I do remember being irrationally/insanely/wildly enthusiastic about the possibilities of samples at the time. More then than now, as a matter of fact.
> 
> The *second example* — a boisterous dance of Fagin’s street urchins — uses everything I had at the time: Advanced Orchestra, Proteus 2, Miroslav, the Roland S-50 and the Kurzweil K2000r.
> 
> And here’s a *third example* from that same period that was done entirely and exclusively with the Kurzweil. Also written for a theatre production, but this was the opening music for a murder mystery play.
> 
> _


Thank you for these examples. For my ears that sounds very very good. 
Your post should be shown to all those who think that they always have to buy new libraries to make better music.


----------



## Jetzer

HZ released some of his ('93/'94) Lion King demos. I think he mentioned somewhere on the forum that this was before he did his own library, so this must be some old Roland stuff?


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## MichaelGraybill

Found an archive of northernounds here for those looking:





northernsounds.com - Powered by vBulletin


Audio Software/Virtual Instruments User site by Northern Sound Source. (VST, VSTi, DirectX, DXi, AudioUnits, AU,). Forum,



web.archive.org


----------



## Tralen

MichaelGraybill said:


> Found an archive of northernounds here for those looking:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> northernsounds.com - Powered by vBulletin
> 
> 
> Audio Software/Virtual Instruments User site by Northern Sound Source. (VST, VSTi, DirectX, DXi, AudioUnits, AU,). Forum,
> 
> 
> 
> web.archive.org


Really nice going back into Northern Sounds, but unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have archived the posts themselves.


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## Getsumen

Tralen said:


> Really nice going back into Northern Sounds, but unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have archived the posts themselves.


Posts saved, it'll prompt a redirect error at first but if you wait long enough it'll redirect you to the post after 2 redirects.





Or just press that button until you're onto the post. Bit tedious but oh well

Edit: Nevermind it's only the recent stuff


----------

