Do you have any libraries to your liking that are well-suited for chillout & lounge music or new age? I have Tundra, some flutes, a few felt pianos, harps, Ethera and Vocalise 2, but looking for more.
Chillbot here to answer chillout questions. Ueberschall has a couple great libraries called, conveniently, "Chillout & Lounge" and "Chillout & Lounge 2". I have them and they are very good but unfortunately they are in Elastik format which is the single worst sampler ever created, even worse than Engine and possibly even worse than Cakewalk Dimension Pro. The good news is there is a feature in Elastik where you can bounce all the audio out as WAV files so if you can work with WAV files you can go that route. DO NOT BELIEVE THEM when they say you can purchase the libraries in WAV format. You cannot. You can purchase the libraries in Elastik format and then export as WAVs. Couple super old libraries I have in audio CD format, not sure if you can still get them. "The Electro Jazz Retro Funk Thing" so good. And Ueberschall also has some older libraries called "Brazil Electro" and "Easy Listening". Big Fish Audio also has "101 Below" and "102 Below". As far as non-loop libraries, you already mentioned felt pianos. I would go first Omnisphere and close second Stylus. Pretty much nothing you couldn't do with those two.
Omni would be my first all around choice because it’s so loaded with endless options and yet you can always add tons of amazing libraries by third parties that fit your bill such as plug in guru ( mega magic pads are amazeballs as are many others ) Joseph Hollo and luftrum .(nevertheless create your own sounds) Speaking of luftrum. Lunaris ( a Kontakt library by him ) is perfect for what your doing though it can be a bit cpu heavy . Almost any library from the talented Eduardo Tarilonte ( forest kingdom , epic world etc ) . Ambient white by big fish audio ..zodiac by them could also be useful. Impact sound works Celestia. Check out the three by audiofier. They are great and so much bang for the buck ( often on sale ) Abstrung , Vesper and Aerkord. Ethereal by subsonic artz is also Inexpensive There’s alot more including most synths such as spire , serum , zebra 2 , avenger , falcon , and the list goes on ...
My personal favorite sources of sounds suitable for new age work are definitely libraries from FrozenPlain and Sound Aesthetic Sampling. Slow from FrozenPlain is more geared toward ambient but could also work well in chillout tracks. Also, two affordable libraries from Impact Soundworks, Sonic Forest and Sonic Ocean are reminiscent of new age sounds from yesteryear that could be found on legendary keyboards such as Korg M1 and Roland D50 but with a modern twist and plenty sound-shaping possibilities. Also worth mentioning is Iron Pack Bundle from Soundiron as well as the newly re-released Holy Ambiances from the same company. These are the first libraries that come to my mind, though many other things can work well in new age style, including quite a few sounds found in Kontakt Factory Library.
I'm doing triphop chillout right now and use a lot of Alchemy (nowadays only in Logic) and Omnisphere. Going for loops, I'm digging through Splice Sounds filtering on genres Downtempo, Ambient, Trip hop and Jazz.
Thanks so much for many exciting recommendations! @MaxOctane, I know these are different genres and there are sub-genres but I'll keep it general as I don't plan to be too narrow myself, so recommendations in all these genres are welcome. Looks like Omnisphere is the next step for me and I love what I'm hearing. @chillbot I actually have a few Ueberschall libraries from my old days as a pop guy. Can't believe they are still using that sampler.
Omnisphere 2 indeed, you will never run out of options and inspiration. It will be the main work horse for years to come.
