Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Project16 Bass Version 2



Some time ago, Project16 sampled his Rickenbacker 4001 Bass.  Available as Kontakt and SFZ instruments, you should definitely pick them up if you haven't already. They are among the best free Basses available anywhere and I think they stack up well against commercial libraries.

Project16 redid many Fingered and Picked samples in even higher quality before a rope broke. While this session was never finished, Project16 gave me permission to use the over 1400 samples he had recorded and edited. Using the script and shell by Mickaël Ménager, I've created a new Kontakt instrument called Version 2 to differentiate it from the great Kontakt instruments created by AKJ using the original samples. The two are quite different and both are worth trying.

This instrument has over 1400 samples, every note sampled across three octaves (the top and bottom notes are stretched a bit for extended range) and 5 velocity layers.

The Keyswitches are:
C:   Fingered Bridge Pickup
C#: Fingered Bridge Pickup Muted
D:   Fingered Both Pickups
D#: Fingered Both Pickups Muted
E:   Fingered Neck Pickup
F:   Picked Bridge Pickup
G:  Picked Both Pickups
A:  Picked Neck Pickup

Let's call this a standard Creative Commons License with a request for credit to Project16.



Tuesday, September 2, 2014

bigcat Maize VSTis

On Thanksgiving Day I'm 'officially' launching a blog devoted entirely to VST instruments, but you can take a sneak peak if you like. By Thanksgiving day there should be 75 free instruments and 2 orchestral Romplers.


New GM Order list of 75 Instruments


These are free VSTis that will work without needing Kontakt or anything else that costs money (well you'll kinda need a DAW).

For Windows you should just be able to unzip them in your VST directory. You'll have a small dll file in the VST directory and a sub-folder with an mse file.
On a Mac, go to: Macintosh/Library/Audio/Components for the AU file...
For the VST, follow the same path but put the VST file in the VST folder (instead of the Components folder)... Thanks to Andy Kotz.

Greg and I had a conversation about key switching in which I realized I need to explain it. Usually an octave or two below the last note on an instrument are key switches to change articulations. They always start on the C note for the first articulation. however they do not change what it says on the GUI. This is clearly a glitch, but sadly one I can't fix. The keys should switch articulations in the same order that is listed on the drop down menu. So if pizzicato is the third thing on the list then the third keyswitch (D) will give you pizzicato.



No Budget Orchestra
NBO Kake Violin     Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU

This Violin is kind of experimental as it has looping samples. I've never tried that before in Maize.
Creative Commons Attribution : Jeff Glatt & Kake 85

City Piano                Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
City Piano Lite         Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
The full version is a 500 meg download while the lite version is 200 megs.
The City Piano is a Baldwin. It is fairly heavily sampled (almost every note, 4 velocity layers) and quite a big file. It is decades old and sounds fairly warm to me. I've digitally tuned it so it should mix well.

The Whisper             Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
Derived from the City Piano, the Whisper is an intimate experience. Think moonlit nights in Paris Cafes. Or not.

Iowa Piano                Win 64   Win 32      Mac VST   Mac AU
Iowa Piano Take 2    Win 64   Win 32      Mac VST   Mac AU 
The Iowa Piano is based on the free samples from the University of Iowa. Its a Steinway with almost every note sampled and 3 velocity layers.
To address consistency issues, the samples in Take 2 have been normalized. This does somewhat alter the sound however.

Skerratt London Piano    Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
KungKrill sampled his parent's Skerratt London Upright Piano. It is slightly sharp (usually) and sounds like an upright that was in my house when I was growing up.

Karoryfer Cute Emily Guitar   Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
Karoryfer Cute Emily Dirty     Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
Kaororyfer and Ivy Audio are the best makers of free digital instruments in the world today.

MF Natural Concert Guitar      Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
A pleasant sounding acoustic guitar. 
License: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported
Recordings of the sound library may be used for commercial music productions.
Sampler / Original Author:  Markus Fiedler

Flame Studios has been a go to source for free guitar and bass instruments for years.
FS Blues Steel Guitar         Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
Released under GNU GPL license which means you can do anything you want with this instrument.

Project16 Fingered Bass    Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
Project16 Picked Bass        Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
Project16 on the KVR forums did an awesome job of sampling his Rickenbacker 4001 bass. Thanks to him for sharing it with us.

Open Source Drums         Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
A light drumkit with five velocity layers.
Real Music Media placed these samples in the Public domain. 

Musyng Kite Merlittzer    Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
Musyng Kite Drums         Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
Sarcyan created the great Musyng Kite Soundfont. It includes about every instrument known to mankind. The magical electric piano is named after legendary mage Merlin and great medical missionary / organist Albert Schweitzer. Who did you think it was named after?

LDK1609 Violin            Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
Creative Commons: Credit LDK1609

Sonatina Orchestra is a public domain orchestra assembled by Mattias Westlund, http://sso.mattiaswestlund.net/. While lightly sampled, the samples were well chosen and its likely the best free orchestra around.

Sonatina Violins        Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
Sonatina Violas         Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
Sonatina Cellos         Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
Sonatina Basses        Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU

Sonatina Trumpets    Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
Sonatina Trombone   Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
Sonatina Horn           Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU 
Sonatina Tuba           Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU

Sonatina Flute          Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
Sonatina Clarinet     Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
Sonatina Oboe         Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
Sonatina Bassoon    Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU

Sonatina Percussion      Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
Sonatina Timpani          Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
Sonatina Xylophone      Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST  Mac AU
Sonatina Glockenspiel   Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
Sonatina Chimes           Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
Sonatina Harp               Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU

Sonatina Choir              Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU

Iowa Orchestra - From samples by the University of Iowa Electronic Music Studios.
This will be an ongoing and fairly slow project to edit samples and create these instruments. They are multi-sampled generally with three velocity layers and almost every note sampled.


Iowa Trumpet                 Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
Trumpet Soundcloud Demo
Iowa French Horn          Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
Iowa Tenor Trombone    Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
Iowa Bass Trombone     Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
Iowa Tuba                      Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU

Iowa Alto Flute               Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
Iowa Flute                       Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
Iowa Bass Flute              Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU

Iowa Alto Sax                 Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
Iowa Soprano Sax           Win 64  Win 32      Mac VST   Mac AU

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