Project 16 Sherwood Guitar

Project 16 - Sherwood SH887 Guitar - Kontakt 5

Soundcloud Demo

Some time ago I was fortunate enough to work with Project 16's great bass samples on a Kontakt instrument. He mentioned to me that he had sampled his Sherwood guitar, but I was taking a break at the time with some shoulder problems so I never worked with these samples. I've also wanted to do more guitars with the script and shell that Mickaël Ménager has allowed me to use. His scripting of great effects works really well with electric band instruments like guitar, bass and electric piano.

So I decided to see what I remembered about making instruments and here is the result. The guitar is fully sampled (though I stretched the notes on the ends) and has 5 velocity layers. I made a few errors that I hope I've ironed out. It's been a while since I've worked with this many samples and this rather complex (for me) shell. If you find any problems please yell and I'll try to get them fixed.


Creative Commons Attribution License. You can use this instrument for any purpose but please give credit to Project 16.

Free Sound Instruments

Freesound.org has lots of fun Public Domain and Creative Commons sounds that have been uploaded by the community. As you can imagine this is right up my street. I've used some before to make instruments, but I thought I'd put them all in the same place.

There is something called the Pablo Project which I don't understand on Freesound. It seems to involve uploading both good and bad samples of various instruments. I assembled the better sounding Violin samples from Kake85 into this little Kontakt instrument. It uses the WIPs script to add legato and vibrato.

WIPs Kake Violin - Kontakt 5
Soundcloud Demo

This instrument is one velocity layer with about every other note sampled. It is Creative Commons Attribution, please give credit to Kake85.

TVerse put up a fun sample set called Bubblesound Octature Bass Multi Samples. I shortened it to Bubbles. He was kind enough to place the samples in the Public Domain and the instrument is the same, use it for anything you like.

Tverse Bubbles for Kontakt

Soundcloud Demo

Francesco Da Pyjama suggested this Kayageum from samples created by Spt3125.  The samples were placed in the Public Domain as is this instrument, so you can use it for anything you like. Be warned that I recently updated Kontakt because none of the Komplete instruments would work, so you will need the latest version too.

Spt3125 Kayageum for Kontakt 5

According to Wikipedia, This instrument is a Korean zither with 12 strings.


Another request was for the GMB Gamelan. Sampled by anamorphosi, the samples are Sampling+ which seems like an earlier CC license and requests attribution. So use for anything you like but please credit anamorphosi.

 GMB Gamelan for Kontakt 5

This Indonesian instrument features Gongs in Dark Blue on the bass end of the keyboard, Jegog in the middle in Green and Kantilan on the treble end in Light Blue. In general the Jegog and Kantilan have been put on the nearest white key. They don't conform to the western scale, so this is to give you a general idea of where the sounds are relative to each other and an approximation to the western scale. The lower two gongs are about correct, the upper two gongs are placed next to them for convenience.
Oddly I did another Gamelan about a year ago. You can find it here.

Uncle Dave's Piano - Kontakt 5

This piano has a crunchy feel. Every note or every other note sampled in one velocity layer. Samples by Goup_1. Creative Commons, please credit Goup_1.

Poissonmort Toy Piano

As with most toy pianos,  the tuning is a bit negotiable. Fun little instrument based on Creative Commons samples by Poissonmort. Please credit him.


Another nice FreeSounds instrument is the Ldk1609 Violin.   I just put out a new and improved version... aka I fixed some mistakes.

The Quartertone Guitar is yet another FreeSounds creation. Some have criticized it, but its also been downloaded a lot for the limited time its been up. As with most digital guitars, a good amp helps.
Guitars are hard to get right. I've spent actual money for some and never been entirely satisfied. You can check out this list of free Guitars to see if you find something you like.

String Section Patch

String Section for Kontakt

Soundcloud Demo

Messing about with a (hopefully) decent quality instrument for string section type parts in my little Christmas album and thought I'd share the results. The lead instruments are the Ldk1609 Violin used in SSO and the Cello and Bass from MSLP combined with the violin, viola, celli and bass sections from SSO.  It's intended to be for backup string tracks where you don't feel like putting in a lot of work but want something that sounds realer than a synth patch. At 100 megs its fairly small, though it will eat up some voices. Any feedback is appreciated.

Creative Commons Attribution. Please credit Mattias Westlund and Erick Kvist.

Quartertone Guitar

Quartertone Guitar for Kontakt 5 

Bill Bailey Soundcloud Demo
Arabesque Soundcloud Demo

With 5 velocity layers, the Quartertone Guitar is a nice mix of aggressive sounds at the higher velocity layers as you can hear in the Bill Bailey Demo and gentler tones in the middle velocity layers as you can hear in the Arabesque Demo. There are 144 samples with a mix of every note and every other note sampled, except for the last note which I stretched to give extended range.

I found these samples browsing through Freesound.org. They were created by Quartertone from a Yamaha Eterna classical acoustic guitar, recorded with a CAD E100 microphone and are finger-plucked note performances.

They are licensed Creative Commons Attribution and can be used for any purpose including commercial.  Please credit Quartertone.

Ldk1609 Violin

ldk1609 Violin

Give Them the Air Demo
Violin Got Lonely Demo

Creative Commons Attribution: ldk1609 @ www.freesound.org

This violin has a pleasant tone and a very natural sounding decay and with 250 samples and 6 articulations it is quite heavily sampled for a free instrument. Every note is sampled in a single velocity layer, though I extended the range a bit using the last high and low note.

There were some mistakes in the first version, that are now corrected.

Keystroke Articulations: 
E1 - Tremolo, F1 - Arco Non-Vibrato (Default), F#1 - Arco Vibrato,
G1 - Pizzicato Non-Vibrato, G#1 - Pizzicato Vibrato, A1 - Spiccato

Fiddling around - LDK1609 is the second half.

Project16 Bass Version 2

Project16 Bass - Version 2 : Kontakt 5

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.

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.

Sonatina Demo - The 5th
Sonatina Demo - Voluntary

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

Flutes Soundcloud Demo

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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