Hi - I'd like to build a couple of multi-sampled sample packs with the hardware I have in my studio. Some of the synths I have are still in production and very recent and others haven't been made for a good few years. So for the units still in production what does the law say about me going in and sampling them and creating multi-sampled EXS24 and Kontakt instruments to sell? I'll custom program most of the sounds but there are a few favourite presets that I would like to include as well. Am I allowed to do this? Same with the older synths, am I allowed to include a mix of my own sounds plus original presets?

May I request that you only respond if you are 100% certain of your answer. I want to do this legally and fully above board - don't want to be pursued by angry synth manufacturers

Many thanks in advance

You can sample ANY true analogue synth, old or new (*), without restriction.

However...

- You can't sample any synths that have samples as the basis of their sounds (i.e. a ROMPler such, say, Roland Fantom, even if you make your own sounds up (even your own sounds use the manufacturer's copyrighted recording).

- Virtual analogue synths might also fall into that category if they use wavetables (i.e. sampled waveforms) as the basic sound sound source.

Unless, of course, you obtain permission from the manufacturer/copyright holder.

Another problem is the use of registered trade marks, brand names, etc.. You cannot use, say, the Roland marque to add credibility to your product, even if you sample (quite legitimately) one of their old true analogues. If they find out about it, they will almost certainly issue you with a 'Cease & Desist' (*) order. However, you could make the most comprehensive library of their Jupiter 8 and sell that quite legitimately providing you make no reference to Roland.

(*) There, you have to check your own moral compass. I would make a library of the original MiniMoog but I wouldn't touch the new Moog Voyager and certainly not release it as, say, "Definitive Voyager" - Moog depends on sales of that and a £25 DVD full of samples of it could be deemed 'unfair competition' and upheld in a court of law if Moog decided to pursue it (although see below)...

(**) It's worth noting that in the event of contravention, a C&D is probably as far as it will go - you'll just have to pull the product. It is doubtful it will end in some $multi-million law suit in court!

If in doubt, obtain permission.

--------------------
Website / Music Lab Machines / Blog

I presume then that Fairlight just never bothered hitting everyone who provided a 'breathy vox' patch which is so blatantly ripped off from the CMI library.... which is almost everyone!



--------------------
Veni, Vidi, Aesculi
(I came, I saw, I conkered)

Many thanks Hollowsun!!!! - you have just saved me a fortune in lawyer fees

The guy who buys the £25 sample pack is usually very different from the guy who purchases the real deal. Both have different levels of understanding, needs and or budgets. The sample pack will never deter a Moog or Cwejman purchaser from owning the genuine article. However, I am only challenging the law there. Not you as you clearly know your subject inside out and I'm grateful that you took the time to respond so comprehensively

Oh well, I'll need to find an alternative source of revenue or start buying up classic analogues

There was scant thought to copyright back then.

Samplers cost £thousands, storage cost £thousands, the internet wasn't really around to distribute them so the only currency for distributing library (kosher or otherwise) was Syquest cartridges or multiple floppies - even CD-ROM drives (at least CD burners in the home) were a bit thin on the ground.

I know that the likes of Roland and Korg, etc., couldn't have cared less at the time if someone sampled sounds from their D50/M1 on an S1000, EIII, whatever. In fact they found it laughable that someone would sample a £1,200 keyboard with all the compromises of the time on a sampling system costing, perhaps, £5,000 and saw no threat ... largely because there wasn't one back then really (one Japanese manufacturer actually saw no future for sampling and thought it would be a short-lived fad ... but then, the editor of a now defunct UK music magazine couldn't see why anyone would use the Fairlight "as a glorified Mellotron"!).

But then it changed with the advent of inexpensive s/w samplers and ever faster internet speeds and ever more capable 'puters. Then it DID become a threat and they sat up and took notice, hence the draconian measures today.

--------------------
Website / Music Lab Machines / Blog

Interesting stuff.... I remember a forumee being pulled up by Roland (many moons ago) when he did a 'drum machines' cd which included hits from V-drums - which Roland had banged on about how the sounds were modelled and eventually had to admit that all they meant was the environment, not the actual hits. And the samples were subject to copyright.

I also remember the old days of cd-roms for samplers - frankly I wasn't impressed by a lot of the 'textures' sounds as they seemed to be slightly modified Wavestation or SY77/99 sounds. Which was a pain as the samples were spread over several notes so the sounds never synced.

I'm surprised that non-current production synths are still jealously guarded, but thinking about it I suppose that a) a lot of the original samples are still being used in one form or another (I don't see the big boys sampling _everything_ again each synth they release) and b) in the modern age where content is everything, I guess that they don't want to rule out a 'classic synths' sample set of their own ...

--------------------
Veni, Vidi, Aesculi
(I came, I saw, I conkered)

Roland have a zero-tolerance policy following (I think) when someone sampled the entire waveform set from their first Sound Canvas. It went to court and Roland lost!

Other manufacturers are more pragmatic and sometimes it's bad money after good chasing down contraventions. For example, it would be a full time job for a small department to just shut down all those dodgy 'Producer Pack' CDs you see on eBay that offer 'All the sounds from the Korg XYZ'. And sometimes, if done well, a good sound lib can be a good advert for the manufacturer's products in a roundabout way so some are more relaxed about it.

But yes, the jealous guarding of old IP is because some of them are still used in new products but, more importantly, that they could form the basis of a new product - Korg's M1 plug-in, for example. But then, on the other hand, something like the M1 plug-in will almost certainly take the wind out of the sales of a sample library of the original so it kind of cuts both ways.

There's also the legacy of samples floating around from the loose, chaotic and early sampling days (the D50 'Digital Native Dance' as an example). They are almost so ubiquitous on the web as Sound Fonts, etc., as to be 'public domain' and certainly not worth chasing.

It's a very grey area with a fair bit of wiggle room and draconian stipulations in equal measure. A lot can be decided using common sense but as always...

If in doubt, seek permission.

--------------------
Website / Music Lab Machines / Blog

Quote hollowsun:

---

It's a very grey area with a fair bit of wiggle room

---

I love all this technical talk


Martin

--------------------
YewTreeMagic

When we talk the deep stuff, you mean?

--------------------
Website / Music Lab Machines / Blog

Quote hollowsun:

---

When we talk the deep stuff, you mean?

---

I look away fro 2 secs and suddenly we're talking about snow?

--------------------
Stand by for action - we are about to launch Stingray!
Cue irritating bongo music ...

Or trousers with pockets and sh!t

Isn't it

--------------------
Website / Music Lab Machines / Blog

On a semi-related note...

At last year's Game Developers Conference, an audio Director (for a large, well known game company) told me they were contacted by lawyers from a sample library. Apparently they recognized their orchestral samples in the videogame's music, looked up the composer and saw that he didn't have a legal version of their sample library! so they sued the game publisher for distributing their sounds without authorization.
Brian Schmidt
www.GameSoundCon.com

Like already mentioned before, all samples/wavetables/wavs/midi files in your synth (or sample library for that matter) are covered by copyright. And if you look at the manual for your synth, you will probably find a copyright notice where you are prohibited to copy the samples as such. That would prohibit your proposal of sampling the synth in as far as such samples/wavetables etc are used to produce the sound (after all that would be a copy as such). Of course, playing the instrument also involves reproducing the samples, but that is allowed (otherwise there would be no use for the instrument...).

With analogue instruments, there is no copyrighted information that is/can be reproduced, so no problems here. This would also hold for virtual analogue synths.

(If you of course start to heavily modify the standard settings of your sample/wav based synth, the result will start to deviate so much from the original sample that it would original (and copyrightable) in its own right...)

If you (or your supplier) use unlicensed samples/library, then of course, like the case of the previous poster, your are simply infringing...