NET NOTES
On-line Sample Libraries: Part 2
Technique : Net Notes
In the concluding part of our look at on-line sample libraries, we investigate Prime Sounds and Wizoosounds, as well as examining the implications of increased bandwidth and the potential for closer integration with music production tools.
The Prime Sounds Download Basket provides a flexible way to download the sounds you want in the format of your choice.
Mark Wherry
In last month's Net Notes, we took a first step into the world of on-line sample distribution and investigated Sonomic, one of the first companies to offer such a service. This month, the exploration continues as we focus on the other two key players: Prime Sounds and Wizoosounds.
Prime Sounds
Prime Sounds was launched last year, three months after Sonomic, and have already compiled an extensive catalogue from well-known developers like Sounds Good and Crimesounds. Like Sonomic, Prime Sounds have also formed alliances with music software companies, and Steinberg are now a partner in the running of the service.
To pay for the samples you download, Prime Sounds operate a subscription-based service with variations to suit the user's needs. A private account (for one user) will cost you approximately $60 per quarter ($90 bi-annually or $120 per year), and this allows you to download 30MB of samples every day. An important point is that, like certain mobile phone tariffs, your unused download allowance is carried over every day. So if you don't download anything for five days, you can download up to 150MB of samples on that fifth day, and so on. A Professional account is also offered, which provides 250MB of downloads each day, shared between a maximum of five users.
Finding what you want on Prime Sounds is fairly straightforward: the sounds are organised into sample packs, which are referenced by style, instrumental content, and developer. Real Audio previews are also available, and most sounds are available to purchase as a straight audio file, with most drum loops also being available as REX files. In addition to this, there are many HALion and SoundFont downloads provided for multisampled instruments.
When you choose the sounds, packs, or other files that you want, they're added to your download basket, which allows you to manage your downloads in some clever ways. For example, you can choose between AIFF, WAV, or MP3 formats (the latter being useful if you're watching your download allowance) for audio files, and specify whether you want to download SIT or ZIP archives. When it comes to downloading, you can select from your list of chosen sounds, and Prime Sounds will bundle those selected into one archive for you to download on the fly, saving you from having to download individual files.
There's a good deal of interesting content on Prime Sounds, particularly if you make loop-based music of any kind, and for $60 you can download in excess of 2.5GB of content over a three-month period. This is pretty good value considering what $60 will buy you in the physical product world, and it can only get better as the catalogue expands.
Wizoosounds.com
Falling neatly into the last but not least category, Wizoosounds.com launched at the beginning of the year as a collaboration between Wizoo Sound Design and Steinberg. Outside Germany, Wizoo are probably best known for providing factory sounds for Steinberg products like the LM-4, HALion, and, of course, The Grand. But since the company's launch in 1997 Wizoo have always had a prominent sample CD range.
A few things separate Wizoosounds.com from Prime Sounds or Sonomic, most notably the fact they only sell their own library. It's worth noting that at recent Frankfurt Musikmesse, Wizoo announced an alliance with Prime Sounds (which makes sense given the common Steinberg relationship), and you'll now start to see Wizoo content appearing in the Prime Sounds catalogue, which is great for existing subscribers.
Another aspect that separates Wizoosounds.com from the other services we've looked at is the lack of a subscription-based model — rather than paying a monthly amount, you pay for each sound individually. This highlights the fundamental aim of Wizoosounds.com, to sell individual multisamples as you need them, and the pricing for each instrument is highly competitive.
With the sounds organised into instrumental categories, plus musical and note-based MP3 previews of each instrument, navigating Wizoosounds is simple, and it appears to be the most elegant solution of the sites we've looked at. However, in fairness, Wizoosounds.com have less content to manage than the other providers, so it will be interesting to see if the navigation can remain this logical as the catalogue grows. The multisamples themselves are available in a growing number of formats, including HALion, EXS24, and Giga, with LM4, Battery, and Kontakt also on the agenda.
Most of the current content comes from Wizoo's back catalogue, including titles like their Platinum 24 drum and percussion series, Wizoo-powered synth collection, and more. However, one of Wizoo's latest CDs, MiXtended, was available for download on Wizoosounds several weeks before the CD-ROM version was available — an advantage of the Internet, for sure. And, at the time of writing, the Wizoo Grand samples have just been published, which are based on the material used to create Steinberg's The Grand VST instrument.
If you've never explored Wizoo's sample library before, there are plenty of treasures, and the Internet forums are already buzzing with positive feedback about the latest MiXtended drum and Wizoo Grand piano libraries. Given that you only have to pay for what you download, there's no risk or committment involved, compared with taking out a full monthly subscription.
Conclusions
Although it's still early days for on-line sample providers, in comparison to the established sample CD business, Internet-based libraries already provide convenience and a service that many will find invaluable. Musicians who use only hardware samplers may begin to feel left behind, since such computer-based services are targeted at users of software samplers, although it's perfectly possible to transfer single-shot and looped samples to hardware samplers from your computer with relative ease.
The primary concern of any sample provider, whether on-line or off-line, is content, and some of the material available through the 'Net right now is admittedly a little dated. However, providers like Wizoosounds, who offer new content ahead of CD releases, show how sound developers themselves can offer new content to users at competitive prices.
Perhaps the most exciting aspect of this area is the potential for integration with our software studios — and since the technology exists already, it can only be a matter of time before this happens. When we all have fast enough Internet connections, some day all our samples will be bought this way. Probably. 
A more interesting example is if my studio computer has a connection to the Internet, why can't sounds be downloaded directly to my software sampler? In fact, why can't the whole sample preview and purchasing process be integrated so I never have to leave my sequencer or break the creative process? Browsing an on-line service needn't be any different to browsing a local hard drive, and would potentially offer many advantages. For example, you could experiment with a track using low-quality 'preview' patches, click the buy button in your sampler (which would trigger a previously set-up account), and full resolution samples would be downloaded directly, replacing the preview versions — what's more, the new samples would be automatically catalogued so they were easy to find in your sound library. When Ableton announced their partnership with Sonomic before the release of Live last year, the press release claimed that "Live users will be able to access Sonomic directly through the Live software interface, allowing them to select and download sounds that can then be dropped directly into a Live session." Unfortunately, as mentioned last month, the current level of integration is actually a menu option that opens a web browser window; but the original information does at least offer an insight into how Internet-aware music software could operate in the future. And remember: these are the kind of services that traditional distribution models can't provide, which would give people a real incentive to use on-line services instead.
Let's Get Interactive
As with all Internet ventures, the admittedly important issue of bandwidth should never be the primary focus — it's vital that content vendors don't simply dump their catalogues on-line, encouraging people to pay for downloads when they have a fast enough connection. Putting a service like sample distribution on the Internet should take advantage of what can be provided in terms of an interactive user experience: a simple example being that if I download a number of drum kits, or if register my interest in drum kits, the site could tell me when a new drum kit I might be interested in is added. However, this is perhaps a little clichéd.
Wizoosounds are providing an interesting solution to this problem with what they call an iCD, a custom made CD-R containing your chosen sounds that's delivered internationally for an extra 9.95 US dollars plus shipping charges. Your iCD is free if you purchase over $100 from the site, and there's nothing to stop you downloading sounds while you wait for your iCD to be delivered. Although this brings the whole concept of sample CDs on-line full circle, being able to purchase a sample CD with only the sounds you want included will be quite an attractive option for some users.
Alt.mine's-faster-than-yours
The main criticisms about downloading sample libraries from the Internet will inevitably come from users with slower (modem or single-channel ISDN) connections. Of course, this isn't actually a fault of the companies providing the sample download services, and with more and more people gaining access to broadband connections, bandwidth will gradually become less of an issue.
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Sound On Sound : Est. 1985