The Beskhu Collection

The fun thing about cruising FreeSound.org is that you often find things completely unexpectedly. I was looking for a lute, which so far has been futile, when I came across the samples of Beskhu. As you've noticed I like pianos and Beskhu has sampled a nice parlor type piano that sound something like the one in my house when I was a kid. Plus he sampled the piano plucked by fingers and all kinds of other fun things. I've started with Kontakting the piano samples and will add others as I figure out what to do with them.

Beskhu Upright Piano

Beskhu Plucked Piano

Beskhu Toy Piano
Beskhu Toy Xylophone

Upright Soundcloud       Plucked Soundcloud

The Upright Piano has every note sampled across the 88 key range with one velocity layer. The Plucked Piano has the bass and midrange but is missing the highest octaves, though I did stretch the top note a bit. For the Schroeder in you, the toy piano is a cute little thing and the black keys aren't just painted on. Linus would love the toy xylophone. Largely because it would drive Lucy bonkers.

Beskhu Fagott

What a name! Anyone have any knowledge of this instrument? I've read variously that it is simply another name for the Bassoon or that it is the predecessor to the Bassoon or that is is related to the Dulcian. Or all of the above.

Beskhu Sanzanais

I think this is an African finger piano? The sound is sort of a small hammer tapping tuned wires. It is a fun little instrument at all of 2 megs. I tried to make percussive and sweet articulations along with the normal one.

Beskhu Windchimes

Pleasant Wind Chimes spread across two octaves.

Beskhu Jew's Harp

Soundcloud Demo

Sampling a Jew's Harp is moderately insane. Turning Jew's Harp samples into a Kontakt instrument drops the moderately.

Beskhu Creaking Cupboard

Sound effects of a creaking cupboard. They are not in a melodic type order on the keyboard.

Beskhu 's samples fall under the Creative Commons License. you can do anything you like with them, but please give him credit.

Predecessor Instruments

A thread over on KVR about baroque instruments got me thinking about all the instruments that have gone before our modern orchestral and band instruments. So being me I thought I would try to make a post with some little instruments and links to a simpler day when more people ate mud and played harpsichords. Here are a few Kontakt instruments. If I can find any other samples I'll try to make more.

The Ghent Belfry Carillon 

This Carillon was sampled many years ago. The original site is now defunct, but Soni Musicae saved the original samples, along with making an instrument. So thanks to them we have this nice Carillon.

Soundcloud Demo.

I found some neat samples on FreeSound.org. These are very lightly sampled as these were generally folks just providing a couple samples for fun.

Fantom57 Oud

This Oud has 17 samples, one for almost every note. It is apparently the ancestor of the English Lute. Fantom57 seems to have done a lot of work to get these sounding really good. Please credit him if you use this.

Juskiddink Crumhorn

Just a little fun instrument with all of four samples, but a cool tone. Please credit Juskiddink if you use it on your million selling album. Check Sasje's Crumbhorn for a more fully sampled instrument.

Wuola Medieval Bells

Be a medieval bell ringer with these cool samples from Wuola. Please credit him.

For the admittedly too busy background, I used an illuminated manuscript from The British Library.

The brilliant gentlewoman Sasje has several instruments in this vein. The Viola Da Gamba seems incredibly hard to find even from commercial sources.

Sasje Simple Viola Da Gamba

Sasje Crumbhorn

Also old bigcat has a few pipe organs which are kind of the predecessor to lots of modern keyboard instruments. Bureu Organ, Saint Augustine's Organ and Burea Funeral Organ.

Soni Musicae is a great site. They have two free harpsichords and other cool stuff, including a brilliant piano in Giga that you can convert to Kontakt.

Apparitions

This instrument is from Brandon Clark. Let's let him describe it.
"Apparitions is my first excursion into the world of instrument development in Kontakt 5 using Joe Steven's generously made "B Pad." The sounds are dark and slightly cinematic in nature. Made from scratch, and free to use."

Apparitions for Kontakt 5

This instrument is Public Domain and free for any use.

B Pad

A long time ago I made a little Kontakt instrument called A Pad.  Its been improved a bit and called "B Pad". So clever I know. A number of my friends have helped me create it and then Matt McKay updated and overhauled everything. Thanks guys.

It still works the same way. Name any wave file "A Pad.wav" and drop it into the B Pad Samples directory replacing the public domain demo sound from OLPC. Kick up the B Pad Kontakt instrument and there is your new pad with fiddley EQ, Reverb and Envelope Knobs on. Any sound becomes an instrument (of sorts).
You can also change the picture with another one roughly 640 * 250 in png format. Just click the wrench on the upper left, go to "Instrument Options", "Instrument" and then "Browse" for your Instrument Wallpaper. Feel free to free name it anything you like. It's totally public domain and you don't need to credit anyone.

B Pad for Kontakt 5

If you want to mess about with the magnificent WIPs scripts from Robert D. Villwock, aka Big Bob. I've made a second B Pad that includes the WIPs scripts and resources and such. Big Bob is the creator of these excellent scripts and they are in no way modified, just included in the instrument.

B Pad + WIPs for Kontakt 5

Open Source Drumkit

Over at KVR, they have a thread.  It is about this Open Source Drumkit.

The readme says
"THE OPEN SOURCE DRUM KIT by Real Music Media - www.realmusicmedia.net
Mapped by BaardW (Tjuvdalen, Norway) v 1.0 feb 2010 - www.trelyd.org
Partially based on the mappings by SWTrex and herodotus
The samples and the mappings are completely in the public domain."

So I tried making a Kontakt 5 instrument out of it. Its pretty lightweight at about 120 megs. See what you think. OK cranked up the crash and ride. Take 2.

Open Source Drumkit - Kontakt 5

By downloading and using anything on this site you agree to this Limited Warranty & Liability.

Sin Night Analog Synth

Sin Night Analog Synth - Kontakt 5

Sin Night posted samples from his analog monosynth on KVR.  He kindly gave me permission to create Kontakt instruments using his samples. Here is the first one.  Script and Shell by Mickaël Ménager.

There are lots of squares and saws in the 12 presets. They are arranged with 3 squares first, then 3 saws, square + saw, saw + square, double squares and finally double saws. The are over 500 samples with every note sampled in one velocity layer.

You are allowed to use them in your music without restriction, but don't share the individual samples or make instruments out of them without permission from Sin Night.
Here is the original readme file text .

"These samples are free.
You can use them royalty-free for music production (including commercial music).
You’re not allowed to share these samples without prior written consent (so no derivative product, like sample libraries, without prior consent).
Sinusoidal Nightmare (aka sin night)"

272 Merry Orks

The endlessly amazing DSmolken has been very busy creating some cool and distinctive instruments. Check out his site. Recently he posted fun stuff on KVR.

Being me, I had to try Kontakting some of the samples of the nice lady. This is very experimental and a first attempt.

272 Merry Orks - Kontakt 5

Here are the keyswitches. Each sound is mapped across 4 octaves.

 

B - C1, C - C#1, Ch - D1, D - D#1, F - E1, G - F1, H - F#1, J - G1, L - G#1, M - A1, N - A#1, Ng - B1, P - C2, R - C#2, S - D2, Sh - D#2, T - E2, Th - F2, V - F#2, W - G2, Y - G#2, Z - A2

A - C3, a - C#3, ah - D3, ea - D#3, E - E3, ee - F3, e - F#3, i - G3, O - G#3, o - A3, oo - A#3, ou - B3, ow - C4, oy - C#4, OO - D4, u - D#4, y - E4

This library is a free download, open source and royalty-free for all commercial and non-commercial use. Creative Commons. Please credit DSmolkin.