Sample Libraries

The latest release in the series is Twelve String Electric, which conjures the sound of late-’60s pop like almost no other instrument.

Subtitled ‘the other film orchestra’, the focus is once again on the jazzy film and TV scores of the ’60s, epitomised by the likes of Mancini, Schifrin, Barry and Goldsmith.

Adding strings to an arrangement is a great way to inject motion into your music.

New sound companies seem to spring up every day, each one bringing a fresh selection of sample library treats. One such...

Analog Strings is a Kontakt instrument based on a dual-layer playback engine fed from sound sources that include orchestral strings, vintage synths and other sound design elements.

The Vienna Symphonic team go forward into the past.

Grindhouse provides a collection of playable instruments that aim to capture the musical essence of some of the more popular sub-genres of the B movie/exploitation film soundtrack.

Ethno World is advertised as being the ultimate sample library for ethnic instruments and voices from all over the world...

RealiTone Fingerpick provides the user with a fingerpicked acoustic guitar within a compact Kontakt-based virtual instrument.

Timphonia is fairly conventional, focusing on the kind of timpani instruments that are typically used by classical orchestras. Nevertheless, the library does include some quite experimental patches...

As the title suggests, all the sound sources are guitar-based, but their treatment here is very much aimed at providing a further palette of pad, ambience and soundscape-style sounds...

Bringing together the samples from their previous three Thunder libraries, X3M adds some 6GB of new sample content and adds a new Kontakt front-end...

This latest Expansion for Toontrack’s EZdrummer was recorded by Steve Albini in his Electrical Audio studio and, through the kit pieces and the tunings used, offers something of his signature sound in bottled form.

Sonokinetic have been carving out a niche for themselves in phrase-based orchestral libraries, and with their latest offering, Maximo, that niche just got a whole lot bigger!

Tucked away behind the unassuming title is a sample-based drum instrument that manages to deliver something rather special...

Ethera is meant to sound ethereal, and it can’t be denied that Clara Sorace, whose vocal performances were sampled to create this 3.4GB Kontakt library, definitely leans more towards Enya than Aretha...

It has to be said that musicians are not short of choice when it come to vowel-based choir sounds. Vir2’s latest addition to this broad and well-stocked selection box is Aeris Hybrid Choir Designer, a Kontakt-based sample library.

DrumCore users have been waiting a very long time for a new version, but version 4 is finally here — and available for both Mac and PC.

Orchestral Tools complete their symphonic series with a major brass library.

This sample-based virtual instrument designed for Kontakt features the voices of the award winning Uganda-based Aba Taano choir, a group of four male and two female singers...

This compact 2.23GB library gets its big, ultra-dynamic sound from jumbo-sized sections of 10 French horns and 10 trombones recorded in a large concert hall...