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Sample Developers Appreciation Thread

robgb said:
I want to second Kirk Hunter Studios. I think too many people dismiss Kirk's libraries here, but they are mostly solid libraries with terrific scripting.
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I totally agree! I picked up a lot of their products during their major sales periods. The diamond orchestra has so many instruments and a true quality to them! I sometimes wish there’s be some updates and quicker support for issues that come from kontakt updates, but still an underrated developer indeed!
 
Ok, peace offering to 8dio - its taken a long time, but I've recently figure out how to create some absolutely beautiful lines with the Claire piccolo and oboe

Also the Adagio violas. Especially on the C string, with swells from pp, and using once you get your head around how to use the dynamic arcs and find the right legato, there's sounds you can make here that are unparalleled in any other vi I know. Gorgeous. And reflecting a true artistic vision of sampling as an art.

I'd talk about how great Embertone and Fluffy are too, but hopefully that's so completely obvious that I don't need to repeat it here.

Lots of love to Vir Harmonic also.
 
chocobitz825 said:
8Dio gets a lot of shit here. But I appreciate their products and find myself gravitating toward their stuff often. I've recently come to appreciate Audiobro, Spitfire, Auddict, Puremagnetik, Orchestral Tools, Strezov and a bunch of other developers that offer similar conceptual products, but with such varied character and execution that cycling through them is like working with different musicians in the studio. So many options to inspire creativity.
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Their Lacrimosa (which I got for around 90 dollars) is really good, I think. The legato on those choirs is actually kind of amazing ...

Am I the only one to think this of Lacrimosa? I almost never hear it referenced...
 
Massive props to @aaronventure. Infinite Brass is great. Very very flexible. And it has some considerable advantages over bigger traditional names. Combine this with his customer service (and clearly his passion in improving the products he's already released) and I think we have an up-and-comer here.

Very impressed. Looking forward to the woodwinds!
 
For bigger devs Audiobro's LASS has been a godsend for me. It works everytime. 8Dio is another, especially Adagietto and the Adagio Violas that I picked up during flash sales have been awesome when you want something less rigid and very expressive. I've also been a big fan of Amplesound - constantly updating and improving without charging the customer and always giving loyal customers a better discount than the first timers to new instruments, which is appreciated. Toontrack and XLN for great drum tools, pretty much everything that NI works on or collaborates on and so many more.

But to highlight some of the smaller devs that have provided some really impressive libraries that I own I'll tip my hat to:

For DAW-
Reaper- Not sure if they could be considered small anymore but I'm handicapped without this DAW

For Plugin devs-
Acon digital
Ignite Amps
MeldaProductions - maybe not as small as the others but still awesome.
Vladg/Sound

For VSTi's-

Rigid Audio
Frozen Plain
Sampleso
Audiofier
Beautiful Void Audio
Dream Audio Tools
Loopsdelacreme
Organic Samples - I guess now OT
Waves Factory
Sonic Zest
Hideaway studios
Hollow Sun
Audio Reward- For that cool sounding Headphase library.

And maybe not as small as the other guys these devs are still awesome:
Impact Soundworks
Soundiron- Especially their choir libraries
Ujam
Embertone
Ilya Efimov
Performance Samples

Sorry, I had a hard time picking just a few, and I still could mention more that I own and like.














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So many great devs listed here. I would say Soniccouture for sure. A while back I bought a giant bundle of their stuff, and every instrument I've tried sounds absolutely gorgeous. Plus their Euclidean sequencer is just tremendous fun. I've never had to interact with their support, because everything just kinda works, but I'm sure it's good, too.

Versilian always gets a shout out from me just because the VSCO 2 package is one of the best deals going for an all-in-one orchestra (and with a ton of personality, to boot). And Sam is responsive to email.

I only have one library each from Orange Tree Samples and Tarilonte, but each library is absolutely fantastic, and I love the way those guys interact with the buying community.

And, finally, yeah, Spitfire. Not everything is perfect, but they still set a gold standard in a lot of ways, when they get it right they knock it out of the park (Ricotti Mallets and BHCT are my favorites), and their enthusiasm for sample libraries is consistent and infectious.

EDIT: Forgot Soundiron. Their choral libraries are very bread-and-butter for me: not the splashiest, but I usually get exactly what I need from them with a minimum of fuss. And they're ALWAYS on here interacting with people and solving problems with a lot of good cheer.
 
On the project I'm currently assisting as synthestrator, 90% of the orch template is Cinematic Strings 2, Cinematic Studio Strings and Cinematic Studio Brass. Simply put @Alex W is a big part of the reason I have a job. There's very few times I reach for anything else for strings and brass, and then it's usually @Jasper Blunk 's Caspian Brass and @Spitfire Team 's Albions.

When you've got a looming deadline and a bunch of music to work on it really boils down to two kinds of libraries.

There are libraries that will be the mainstay of your template and those have to work consistently, smoothly, quickly and predictably. The GUI is almost irrelevant to these libraries. If I'm looking at the GUI multiple times per day it'll be because I'm fixing a problem with the library and that's not good. With Alex's libraries I never have to rebalance the instruments, or even open Kontakt. The consistent keyswitching & reliable programming across the entire CS series is heaven sent.

The other kind of libraries are the ones won't be loaded in your template all the time - they're boutique sounds that you only reach for when you need something very specific. For those libraries what is most important is that they have instantly readable GUIs - here the GUI is very important because I won't be remembering the articulations and keyswitches. It's also important that the instrument is "playable" and doesn't need latency tweaking, that if there's a collection of sounds it's easy to sort through, and finally that they LOAD quickly and don't take up huge amounts of RAM. For these kinds of sounds I'm turning more and more to @Aaron Sapp 's Musical Sampling collection and @Heavyocity Media 's percussion.
 
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I am on the second page and no one mentioned Project SAM ;)
So Project SAM it is!

Taking an oportunity I'll now have my examination of conscience for all the developers I encountered :)
 
+1,000,000 for all the developers mentioned so far.

I would like to add Organic Samples to the list, although I know they are on the OT team now. I never tire of playing their Solo Opera, and Majestic Horn is such a great gift.

I probably play Bohemian Violin more than anything else I own... so thank you Virharmonic.

This may be too obvious, but three cheers for Spectrasonics. Omnisphere is the best virtual instrument purchase I ever made.

UVI, FrozenPlain, Ilya Efimov, Dream Audio Tools, In Session Audio, Audiofier, far too many to name...

Thank you all.
 
Too many devs to list here. They all make my life better. But I'll give a nod to Steinberg. Despite the flak they get when something doesn't work exactly right, their products allow me to make music the way I want to and that is very awesome.
 
There are so many great library developers ... Here are some that comes in my mind
Orchestral Tools ,Spitfire ,Impact Soundworks ,Audio Imperia ,Soundiron ,HeavyOcity, CineSamples, Strezov, Gothic Instruments, Fluffy Audio ,HybridTwo ,Sample Logic ,ProjectSam ,Sonokinetik ,Sonuscore ,AudioBro

I am sure that there are a lot more that I missed.
 
When someone comes to visit, who doesn't know about sample libraries, I show them the following, and they're consistently dumbfounded:
- Audiobro: Genesis
- Fluffy Audio: Dominus
- AudioModelling: Saxes/Flutes
- Orange Tree Samples: Stratosphere.
 
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