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“Celebrity” Composers Sample Libraries

GingerMaestro

Senior Member
As I check my inbox each morning, there seems to be a steady stream of companies building libraries with “Celebrity” composers or indeed instrumentalists. Spitfire obviously with Hans Zimmer range etc, the fantastic Joshua Bell violin from Embertone and now Orchestral tools with JXL, the brilliant Harry G-W and Jeff Russo etc...I guess the idea is borrowed from the celebrity chef world, buy the latest Mary Berry cook book and you can bake cakes as good as I do.

I understand many companies and composers develop their own libraries during their downtime in the summer, in preparation for the next seasons shows, so they try and find an individual sound so everyone is not using the same stuff... very smart !

Other than a Gordon Ramsay sample library (Lots of swearing I guess !) what composers would inspire you if the released a sample library. A quick shout out to my current favorite composer, Anne Dudley. She has been writing great TV and Film music for decades. Recently for the movie Hustle, Poldark and I just finished watching “Singapore Grip” which once again showed her versatility...
 
Eh. I'm interested in Joshua Bell's Violin because it's a miracle of programming and sound, not because he recorded it, although I do find that very interesting. I'll probably someday get Tina Guo's Cello as I like how she plays.

Other than that... I'm pretty sure HZ didn't play the instruments for Spitfire and Junkie XL didn't play the brass for Orchestral Tools so I honestly don't particularly see the point. If it's about specific processing, well, that's *their* sound so I don't think I want that.

I guess I could get hyped for a Wynton Marsalis Trumpet library though.
 
Ironically, JXL's name made me originally not interested in the library, and then I heard the walkthrough :inlove:

don't own HZ strings, don't own HGW's library, don't own Russo's library.
 
Eh. I'm interested in Joshua Bell's Violin because it's a miracle of programming and sound, not because he recorded it, although I do find that very interesting
I’d argue that the performances captures are very distinctive of Joshua himself (and his $12 000 000 strad). Add a lot of the beautiful and idiosyncratic articulatios (like the super flaudando) and the “Joshua Bell” part of the “Joshua Bell Violin” is as far from vacuous marketing happy talk as you can possibly get. The performances are utterly integral.


In exactly the same way, only more abstractly, Hans Zimmer strings capture a musicality unique to the artist. The musicality of Hans isn’t in how he performa each instrument. But HZS is created as a prt if the artistuc process that gave us the Dunkirk sound track. There‘s an artistry that breaks new sonic ground at a level of musicality here that is the very opposite of a vacuous celebrity endorsement. Same with the Olafur libraries.
 
I think the trend of "signature" sample libraries is questionable.

I always preferred more "virtual instrument" type libraries which give you a palette to work with, a tool. I'm less fond of libraries that are meant to give you a certain "sound" (sounds like Hollywood, out of the box! etc., yawn)

Since the sample library market is already so saturated, and all the bases have been covered so many times over, it's the next logical step to offer users "the sound of XY at your fingertips!". But I think that's collossaly lame.

I'm aware that the whole media composing thing is extremely dependent on staying on top of trends. But my God, is it lame, stupid and anemic sounding. Everyone's just trying to sound like everyone else, in a patethic attempt to signal "compatibility", or what some particularly dense minds would even confuse with "professionalism". Hey look at me, I'm in the scene, I'm part of the bunch. Please validate me.

But if you're getting a library with instruments, orchestration habits or effects à la Jeff Russo or whoever, you're not composing or sounding like that guy. You're using tools that give you a derivative, static variety of this person's gimmicks and devices. What you're getting is a derivate, and then you proceed to make derivative music with it. As more users adopt the same tools, more derivatives of derivatives of derivatives surface, and then all of a sudden we're all into the "scandi" style, yaaay.

I mean yeah, have at it. But: blargh. :rolleyes:
 
IDK -- I don't really see what the problem is with these. The few I bought actually have something about them that differentiates from what I already owned; judging from that perspective, I'd say for me it's been a success. Dark Zebra has extra filters and it sounds great; HZ strings sounds wonderful (and not just LOUD or something dumb like that -- it sounds thrilling even at very soft volumes).

So I guess I'm willing to be a fan provided that there's some substance.
 
all the bases have been covered so many times over,

I'd argue there's a certain "genre" of sample library sound - things that are relatively standard and relatively easy to sample that's well covered.

If you're trying to compose within a topos that intersects, say Arvo Part, then you're bases are very much not at all covered. VSL, CSS, SSO, HWS - none of them will get you there.

I guess my point is that these "Niche" libraries are only niche because traditional people composing with sample have only been able to compose with the genre of libraries available. Which is substantially decided by the market demand for certain genres, which themselves are formed by the commercial realities of what can be composed and recorded (with or without samples) quickly enough and on budget.


Time Marco, Tundra, Orchestral Swarm, OACE, and presumably this new OT one (which I'll admit is a little bit to ... Star Trek, or something ... for me) all extend the topoi in which is becomes feasible to work.


It's only repetative if you then use it compose in a derivative style - which is something that I understand media composers are frequently called upon to do.

Against this ... I've heard some amazingly innovative uses of, for instance, Tundra for orchestral metal and genres that have nothing to do with it's origional vision. And there's all kinds of stuff I've heard with HZS that sounds nothing like Dunkirk or the official demos.

So maybe the probable isn't that these niche libraries encourage derivative laments per se, but that the commercial genres that dictate both what we have to write, and what we can imagine writing are themselves restrictive. And maybe these artist inspired libraries is what helps break that.

(Not that I haven't make lots of derivative mush with such libraries myself, there really are good for derivative mush by the yard ... it's just that they also let me aspire to something beyond derivative mush).
 
This is not a new trend at all. The music manufacturing industry has been doing this for well over forty years if not much longer. And, if you think about the simple idea of having celebrities co-brand a product or be a spokesman for a brand they asked Robert E. Lee to sell insurance after the Civil War. This concept has been around for thousands of years.
 
I think the "toolkits" from spitfire are a better example of how to use a celebrity name. It's actually relevant to the final product. A lot of them sell with celebrity mic mixes, but I don't think that's all that valuable honestly. Mic mixes are such a matter of taste anyways and it's not like they're going to have some sort of magic to add to it.
 
I haven't yet bought the Hans Zimmer Perc library but the version with the JXL mics sounds great, I'd like more libraries with specific celebrity user mixes.
 
I think the "toolkits" from spitfire are a better example of how to use a celebrity name. It's actually relevant to the final product. A lot of them sell with celebrity mic mixes, but I don't think that's all that valuable honestly. Mic mixes are such a matter of taste anyways and it's not like they're going to have some sort of magic to add to it.

Why would you dismiss mixes? In the case of the percussion library, the sounds are so different that it's like multiplying the library three or four times.
 
Why would you dismiss mixes? In the case of the percussion library, the sounds are so different that it's like multiplying the library three or four times.
Nothing I can't do on my own is all. Plus I'm going to want to change things to fit into my own mix.
 
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