Saint Augustine's Organ

Demo by Theo Vosse

 

Saint Augustine's Organ - Kontakt 5

Here is the organ with separate patches for Swells, Grands and Pedals so you can easily play them on separate keyboards for that real organ feel. Note these don't have the samples included, you still need to download them from the link above.

Separate Swells, Greats and Pedals

Note that when you start the organ there will be NO sound you must choose an organ stop. The left side controls the light blue keys, the right side the dark blue keys and the two bottom buttons are the green keys.  The upper buttons are the Swells, the lower button the Greats and two lowest buttons the Pedals. You can combine as many or as few 'stops' as you like.

Nick Appleton sampled the organ of St. Augustine's Anglican Church, Neutral Bay. I've turned it into an instrument for Kontakt 5. On Nick's website he gives a lot of information about then organ including its specifications.

GREAT	SWELL	PEDAL
Open Diapason 8'	Violin Diapason 8'	Bourdon 16'
Claribel Flute 8'	Lieblich Gedeckt 8'	Violon-Cello 8'
Dulciana 8'	Echo Gamba 8'
Principal 4'	Octave 4'
Fifteenth 2'	Piccolo 2'
	Closed Horn 8'
	Orchestral Oboe 8'

The liscense is
St. Augustine's Neutral Bay, Hauptwerk Sample Set, (c) 2009 - Nicholas Appleton
http://www.appletonit.com.au/nickspage/ , pilo [at] tpg.com.au
You can download the full license (also included in the instrument) here but the important bits are the organ can be used to perform works commercially and I can create Derivative Works and redistribute them non commercially.

MSLP Project

I've converted most of the MSLP instruments to Kontakt 5. I think it was about 5 years ago that Erick Kvist released this instrument collection. It is an impressive feat to create something like 15,000 samples. I thank him and the musicians who helped him for making these samples available to us. There are a number of beautifully sampled instruments here, such as the flute, the trombone and the cello and even those more lightly sampled are still fun sounds than can make a nice addition to your instrument library. Also for the kid in you, ten sampled toys.

Erick is back with a new website. It has the samples along with NN-XT patches for you Reason folks.

MSLP Flute Grbavac Demo

MSLP Flute Grbavac - over 900 samples, 180 megs compressed. There are vibrato and non-vibrato modes with 3 velocity layers, round robin staccatos and more.

MSLP Trombone Knutsson - 650 samples, 84 megs, 3 velocity layers, staccato round robins, gliss, swells and more. Note that the sonic jump from the loudest layer to the middle layer is quite extreme.
MSLP Trombone Knutsson Ensemble -  500 samples, 56 megs, when 1 trombone isn't enough.

MSLP Cello Lofberg -  68 megs, 800+ samples, 3 velocity layers in sustain and staccato and more

MSLP Piano Grand Soft -  fully sampled, 1 soft velocity layer so it works nicely as an intimate piano.

Idiophone Collection
MSLP Marimba -  fully sampled with two velocity layers as well as a mute layer.
MSLP Xylo  - fully sampled in two velocity layers with non-mute and mute.
MSLP Vibro -  fully sampled, 1 velocity layer long, short, mute and bowed.


Note that the following are (hopefully) fun audio toys rather than serious instruments. They have one velocity layer and often the samples are too short.

MSLP Acoustic Guitar Chords and MSLP Electric Guitar Chords - Strum in either major or minor chords. 3 round robins. It really sounds like someone strumming a guitar and that can be hard to find.
MSLP Acoustic Lil Nylon -  A little guitar.
Eight MSLP Basses - Wide variety of Basses.
MSLP Double Bass Lofberg - Has sustain, staccato and pizzicato for solo and ensemble.
MSLP Mandolin Nillsson - 750 samples, 1 velocity layer, that's a lot of round robins.
MSLP Folk Violin Lofberg - A fiddle that has seen better days, samples are short.
MSLP Banjo - Team with the fiddle and the mandolin for a country jam. 6 round robins.
MSLP Kantele
MSLP Sad Clarinet - Lightly sampled, will give you the blues.
MSLP Saxophone - From earlier Sax collection. More a sax sound collection than a true instrument.
MSLP Orchestral Percussion - includes Bass Drum, Timpani and Tambourine
MSLP Timpani  Long Crescendo
MSLP Maracas
MSLP Jingle Bells


Speaking of Toys here is a collection of sampled toys

MSLP Toy Baby Piano -  Sampled in three velocity layers and has four round robins
MSLP Melodica - Is a Melodica a toy? At 60 megs, its a fairly well sampled toy.
MSLP Toy Zither - 48 megs of toy zithery goodness.
MSLP Toy Zylo
MSLP Toy Marimba
MSLP Broken Toy Marimba
MSLP Recorder - 4 lightly sampled recorders in one instrument.
MSLP Hippo Harmonica
MSLP Tropical Typhoon
MSLP Easter Eggs



Based on samples from the MSLP project created by ERICK KVIST. These samples are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution non-commercial 3.0. From the read me.txt, "THE SAMPLES ARE FREE TO USE FOR ANY CREATIVE MUSICAL PURPOSES. YOU CAN SELL YOUR MUSIC MADE FROM THE SAMPLES. I ONLY ASK YOU TO (IF POSSIBLE AND CONVENIENT!!) GIVE THE PROJECT CREDIT, e.g. END TITLES OR CD SLEEVE.
OTHERWISE, DROP ME A LINE, I'D LOVE TO KNOW WHERE THE SAMPLES ARE BEING USED." So you can use these commercially if you were so inclined just credit Erick Kvist.

DIY Philharmonic Project

Be warned these Kontakt 5 instruments involve some work on your part. You see the Philharmonia Orchestra has some nice samples but they forbid their distribution 'as samples or as a sampler instrument'. In order to comply with the wishes of the folks who have given us these fine samples, I created only shells distributing neither samples nor a functioning instrument. You can download a shell and then drop wave files with the appropriate names into the samples folder.

For example take the Pluck It Section of the Orchestra. you can download all three instruments together or the Banjo, Mandolin and Guitar separately. Then get the samples from the Philharmonia Orchestra, mp3 to wave them and drop the appropriate waves in the samples folder for each instrument.

DIY Violin - 1000 sample instrument with five to six velocity layers in 1/4 second, 1/2 second, 1 second and 1 1/2 second notes as well as pizzicato. Also glissando, legato, martelle, spiccato, staccato, tremolo, trill, detache, punta, talon, and tenuto phrases.


DIY Viola - 800 samples with five velocity layers in 1/4 second, 1/2 second, 1 second and 1 1/2 second notes as well as pizzicato. Also phrases but fewer and more lightly sampled.

DIY Cello Test - A small start.

DIY Philharmonic  Pluck It Section - containing Banjo, Mandolin and Guitar
  DIY Philharmonic Banjo
  DIY Philharmonic Mandolin
  DIY Philharmonic  Guitar

DIY Brass Section
  DIY Trumpet
  DIY French Horn 

So far the brass instruments contain the 2 Second Instrument (the longest brass samples from Philharmonia last about 2 seconds), Instrument Old (these seem to be older, slightly low quality samples) and Instrument Phrases (trills, crescendos and such). Eventually I'll add in the shorter samples as separate instruments and all in one instrument control by the mod wheel.

The Philharmonia Orchestra have licensed their samples under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You can use these samples for a Commercial Work. Just give attribution to the Philharmonia Orchestra.

Public Domain Picture from Wikimedia.

D. Smolken's Double Bass for Kontakt

D. Smolken was kind enough to allow me to create a Kontakt 5 instrument using his excellent double bass samples. You can find the samples along with SFZ mappings and lots of info and demos here .

Revamped D Smolken Double Bass - Kontakt

The up and down Arco layers are now round robin rather than keyswitched which makes the instrument easier to use and generally sound better.

D Smolken Double Bass - Kontakt

It has 5 keyswitches:
F4 is Arco (Bowed) Up, G4 is Arco (Bowed) down, F#4 Arco Effects such as creaks, groans and harmonics (he really sampled this bass)
A4 is Pizzicato (Plucked) with four round robins. G#4 is the Pizzicato Effects.

This instrument has Arco samples up and down in 5 velocity layers and sampled roughly every third note. Also there are Pizzicato samples in 3 velocity layers and again roughly every third note but with 4 round robins and instrument sound effects for both arco and pizzicato.

The original samples are © 2013 D. Smolken. This multisampled double bass by D. Smolken is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Consider this Kontakt version to be the same.  This instrument can be used commercially as long as credit is given to D. Smolken.

bigcat Saxophone Collection

I've always enjoyed the sound of the saxophone, so I've started creating some sax instruments from public domain and creative commons samples. There is a recently sampled Alto Sax here.

The showpiece of this collection are the Iowa Saxophones sampled by University of Iowa Electronic Music Studios. These Saxophones are fully sampled in 3 velocity layers with 375 samples all told.

When We All Get to Heaven - Iowa Sax Demo

When the Saints Go Marching In - Iowa Sax Demo 

All the Kontakt 5 Iowa Saxophones in one zip file.
Kontakt 5 - Iowa Alto Sax, Iowa Soprano Sax, Iowa Sax Duet, Iowa Solo Sax
K5 No Interface - Iowa Alto Sax, Iowa Soprano Sax, Iowa Sax Duet, Iowa Solo Sax
K5 Non-Monolith - Iowa Alto Sax, Iowa Soprano Sax, Iowa Sax Duet, Iowa Solo Sax
C1 is Non-vibrato mode, C#1 is Vibrato, except the Soprano Sax which is C2 and C#2
Thanks to SWTrex and Evil Dragon for helping me figure out that the monolith versions create problems loading into some configurations of Kontakt 5. So I've added non-monolith versions for anyone who is having trouble getting the monoliths to load.

Maize VSTis
Iowa Alto Sax                 Win 64   Win 32     Mac VST   Mac AU
Iowa Soprano Sax           Win 64  Win 32      Mac VST   Mac AU
SampleTank 2.5
Iowa Alto Sax - Non-vibrato, Iowa Alto Sax - Vibrato
Iowa Soprano Sax - Non-vibrato, Iowa Soprano Sax - Vibrato

The Duet is basically the Alto and Soprano playing together. The Solo is the two spliced together for a wider range.
Thanks to Lawrence Fritts, Director of the Electronic Music Studios, and the University of Iowa these are public domain samples. These instruments are public domain. Do anything you like with them.


Clruwe at Freesound.org has made a significant number of saxophone samples available. These are more free form and jazzy and better suited to expressive playing than harmony.
Kontakt 5
Club Alto Sax - Every third note is sampled in 5 velocity layers.
Club Jazz Alto Sax - Every third note is sampled in 5 velocity layers.
Club Tenor Sax - Very Lightly Sampled, but with many variations.
Club Baritone Sax - Very Lightly Sampled with some variations.
K5 No Interface - Club Alto Sax, Club Jazz Alto Sax, Club Tenor Sax, Club Baritone Sax
K5 Non-Monolith - Club Alto Sax, Club Jazz Alto Sax, Club Tenor Sax, Club Baritone Sax

These samples are covered by Creative Commons 3.0. You can use them commercially. Please credit Clruwe.


An ecelctic group of samples.
Kontakt 5 -  MSLP Sax - Fully Sampled with 1 velocity layers and many variations.
K5 No Interface - MSLP Sax
K5 Non-Monolith - MSLP Sax

Based on samples from the MSLP project created by Erick Kvist, please credit him. These samples are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution non-commercial 3.0. However you can use it for commercial releases. From the readme, "THE SAMPLES ARE FREE TO USE FOR ANY CREATIVE MUSICAL PURPOSES. YOU CAN SELL YOUR MUSIC MADE FROM THE SAMPLES."
Performed by Johan Eklund and recorded by Jonas Nilsson.

There are some other nice free Saxophone Instruments floating on the web.
DSK SaxophoneZ
DVS Saxophone

If you have the urge to support public domain instruments. You can donate to the University of Iowa Electronic Music Studio. They are the main source of public domain samples, including the Steinway from my piano collection.

The Gamelan

I have a confession to make. I have absolutely no idea how a Gamelan works or how it should sound. Since I liked the interesting sounds in the Akito Van Troyer Gamelan samples from OLPC, I went ahead and created a number of instruments that seemed to be more or less correct. Then I messed around some more. Here are the results.
Many of the samples are quite short so these likely should be considered toys rather than production ready instruments. Oddly there are several professional Gamelan instruments that sound excellent, including one from Native Instruments themselves (go there for great info on the Gamelan), if you really get serious about digital Gamelan playing. There is also The Virtual Javanese Gamelan and a handheld Gamelan. Who knew the world would become Gamelan obsessed.

Kontakt 5
Complete Gamelan-Zip

Gamelan NKM

Individual Gamelan Instruments
Jegogan - Calung
Premade Gangsa
Hi Gangsa
Reyong
Gongs
Kempli Drum

                                                 The Metallophones - Kontakt 5
                     This contains these instruments remapped to fit in one instrument.
                     Jegogan: C3-A3 has been mapped to C1-A1 (down 2 octaves)
                     Calung: C4-A4 has been mapped to C2-A2 (down 2 octaves)
                     Premade Gangsa: D3-C5 mapped to D2-C4 (down one octave)
                     Hi Gangsa has not been remapped D5 and above (no change)

                                             
                                                     The Metallotoy - Kontakt 5

Somewhat like a Xylophone every key on the keyboard (well C2-F7) has a (correctly pitched) note as I've stretched the Metallophones. This is not realistic, but it is fun.

And more Gamelan fun!

Delft Bonang Barung Pelog for Kontakt 5

Soundcloud Demo

This is a weird but fun sound. From a Gamelan with the samples dropped in the closest notes (most are pretty close) and then stretched to include every note in a two octave range. It comes from The Museum Nusantara in Delft, the Netherlands, 100 years old Javanese gamelan, Kyahi Paridjata.

These samples are made available under the GPL, i.e., you can use them for whatever you want, but if you redistribute them in another form you should provide the original samples, and allow the recipient to redistribute these as well. The full text can be found here, see the GNU site for all the details.