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Remember when Cinesamples ruled?

I hear people talking about Cinebrass constantly, especially in trailer land. Cineperc is highly lauded everywhere it's mentioned. Cinewinds often gets poo pooed for BS and SFWW. But all in all I wouldn't say the company isn't relevant.

Exactly. Their libraries have aged MUCH less poorly than contemporaries. Cinebrass, Hollywoodwinds, Tina Guo Cello, Drums of War and more still get used by composers I know. Now everyone think about how many PLAY libraries you have that never get used anymore....
 
Now everyone think about how many PLAY libraries you have that never get used anymore....

I never use any PLAY libraries these days. I'm even considering deleting all PLAY libraries to make room on my SSDs for other libraries.
 
I still use Hollywood Brass pretty constantly, and Hollywood Strings is kind of a fallback library for me if I can't get something exactly right with my own strings setup. There are still useful sounds in the various Stormdrums and in Hollywood Percussion, and I guess RA is still the best one-stop-shop option for a lot of world instruments although each individual instrument is pretty limited. Beyond that, I don't use any PLAY sounds anymore. It's getting to the point where if I open a template or project and see PLAY loading, 90%+ chance it's Hollywood Brass.
 
Yes, I think Hollywood Brass is their best library, possibly the only one I will keep.

Recently found a big liking to storm drum 3. Some nice clean stuff in it. Sounds really really good. Agree, Hollywood Brass is pretty awesome and probably their best.
 
Exactly. Their libraries have aged MUCH less poorly than contemporaries. Cinebrass, Hollywoodwinds, Tina Guo Cello, Drums of War and more still get used by composers I know. Now everyone think about how many PLAY libraries you have that never get used anymore....

Hehehe I only recently got into sample libraries so I avoided that whole scene.
 
what the heck, I'll pile on...

CineWinds Core and CineBrass Core make up the core (sorry) of my orchestral template. I thought about adding the Pro libraries, but decided a different approach would give me more flexibility, so I went with Chris Hein Orchestral winds and brass. I may yet add CineWinds Pro and CineBrass pro, but I'm in no hurry. I did add the Descant Horn because, well, because I am a recovering horn player, and always wanted a descant horn!

I also love their percussion. I started with Drums of War an dlater added the legacy percussion (before it was legacy<G>), CineBells, Handbells, and Kalimba. They are all extremely useful.

Piano in Blue is awesome, but it is somewhat limited to "that sound". Now "that sound" can fit into lots of genres, but I find I use it mostly for softer piano parts.

Tina Guo Acoustic Cello is wonderful, so wonderful that I expect I will add the full Tina Guo librariy one day soon.

And then there is CineOrch. Before I broke down and tried Albion and OE there was CineOrch. I'd find ways to work that into every project because it just added a certain glue that held the tracks together. I still use it.

All this to suggest that it might be early to call it for Cinesamples!
 
I have pretty much everything from all the usual suspects. As much as I want to use certain ones, or as much as the hype is about certain ones, on a daily basis I end up using more and more Cinesamples libraries. I wish they can update their GUI (fonts are not easy to read, a bit of an outdated look , etc., etc.). Having said that, it is a solid collection that can easily serve the everyday needs of a film / tv / media composer.
 
I still use Cineperc as my standard orchestral percussion. Their solo strings are also very good. And CineBrass also... still heavily represented in my template.

CineStrings, not quite so much, but I have used it in quite a few projects because it was considered the one to use for those by the audio director. Still using it in a current one btw.
 
Still waiting for CineStrings Pro to be released.
This is actually an interesting point. Cinesamples have gone for what seems like forever without even teasing at a major new library. Sure, they've released CinePiano and CineHarpsichord recently, and those shouldn't be downplayed, but Cinesamples used to always have new updates or videos posted on YouTube to drool over.

Now, they seemed to have slowed down considerably. I think Mike Patti mentioned a CineStrings "Pro" on Twitter (or maybe his since-removed VI Control response vid?) saying they'd love to do it but they can't yet. I think Cinesamples' stuff is amazing and I would love to see them release more exciting, major libraries.

With regard to their current libraries and longevity: Jason Graves still uses CinePerc as his go-to orchestral percussion library, and CineStrings also has a place in his template (at least the short articulations, waiting for him to release his video about his legatos/longs). Daniel James released a violin shorts shootout video a few months ago and CineStrings stood out as one of my favorite sounding libraries there. While competitors have certainly been much more aggressive with releases and marketing, I don't think Cinsamples libraries are losing relevance at all.

Also - their https://cinesamples.com/product/cinesamples-academic-discount (academic discount) is, from what I've seen, second to none!

-Mitch

PS: Unrelated - is Jason Graves on this forum? I feel like he would be an amazing source of knowledge and friendliness here.
 
Not sure that they ever "ruled", that is hyperbole, but they did become a major player in the field. Mike Patti has young children (don't know about the other Mike) so maybe that is a factor.
 
Cinesamples is still a major player. They have just not embraced the “one product every two weeks” rule that some other developers did. If you think about Project SAM or Cinematic Studio Series, there are some successful developers that simply enjoy a slower production line (maybe for a limited number of employees or maybe to try to focus on quality).
I quite enjoy to work on medium-big things than dozens of mini-instruments.
 
the biggest point to the perception that they ruled dont do so anymore is not that they have been important parts of the sample library world and arent anymore. They still are, but they have done their orchestra quite some time before others. And still their orchestra is good useful and actually quite frequently considered to be among the most usable. The most important part of what they are not is being really active on this forum. That takes them a bit outside the focus of the discussions here. They kind of left the forum after the release of cinewinds which came out roughly at the same time as berlin woodwinds. Back then there have been quite rude arguments about their products, pricing and so on. Everyone should keep their story in mind when developers are writing posts about how hard it is to read comments on an announcement after putting hours and hours into your new project...
 
Cinesamples is still a major player. They have just not embraced the “one product every two weeks” rule that some other developers did. If you think about Project SAM or Cinematic Studio Series, there are some successful developers that simply enjoy a slower production line (maybe for a limited number of employees or maybe to try to focus on quality).
I quite enjoy to work on medium-big things than dozens of mini-instruments.

Amen to this... Marketing has gotten out of control. I'm thankful for libraries that focus on the long game.
 
Their Cinebrass and CinePerc libraries are among my most used sample libaries. Easy to use straight out of the box. Blend well with almost everything. And yes, 50% educational discount is just amazing for a poor student like me ;)
 
Not sure I've ever been more excited about the release of a sample library than I was during the build up to the CineBrass release. The hype around that library was so much fun, and it really delivered! I must have watched Patti's walkthrough video about 50 times :rofl: The thought of having samples using world class players, in a world class room, with a world class engineer... spine tingling! I still use a bit of CineBrass and Hollywoodwinds (yes, the super old one) regularly.

Personally, I'd love to see them release more orchestral libraries again. They're the ones that get us excited, and I'm sure they've learned a lot in the years since the release of CineBrass.
 
Yeah CineBrass is my go-to brass library. It still sounds very good indeed! Let's see if cinematic studio brass will make me switch..
 
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