Sample Libraries

Rating: ***** 5/5 Stars. Scoring Acoustic Guitars is most likely to appeal to media composers or more experimental musicians. The quality of the sounds is most certainly big budget, but the price of access is not.

Rating: **** 4.5/5 Stars. A mouthwatering library of samples from reputedly the largest modular setup in Europe, owned by media composer Lester Barnes.

Rating: ***** 5/5 Stars. Electric Vintage has been created around samples and performances from a vintage ’50s Fender Telecaster.

Rating: ***** 5/5 Stars. A new strings library from Vienna Symphonic Library comes as no great surprise, but this one’s a bit special.

Toontrack go fretless with a new EZbass expansion.

Rating: ***** 5/5 Stars. Performance Samples’ description of Vista as a ‘larger‑than‑life’ chamber ensemble aptly describes this beautiful‑sounding string library.

Rating: ***** 5/5 Stars.Terracotta is based around samples taken from recordings of 25 different Terracotta pots, divided into four round‑robin and four velocity layers.

Rating: **** 4/5 Stars. These high-quality WAV samples would most certainly feel at home dropped into a high‑end blockbuster movie, action trailer, or AAA video game.

Rating: ***** 5/5 Stars. Rhythmus is built from over 2.5GB of samples taken from a variety of ‘found’ percussion.

EastWest/Quantum Leap unveil their expanded orchestral masterwork and built‑in orchestrator.

Audiobro faces the future with an all‑new divisi strings collection.

Rating ***** 5/5 Stars. For quick and effortless choral mock‑ups, or even more complete works, Choir Essentials boasts a healthy 11.5GB of sample content at a very attractive price.

Rating **** 4/5 Stars. As promised at the time of release, Spitfire Audio are now following up Abbey Road One with a series of smaller, inexpensive mini‑libraries derived from the main collection.

Rating **** 4/5 Stars. As the title suggests, this is a collection of string‑based sound effects designed with horror or tension in mind.

Rating **** 4/5 Stars. The Cinesamples approach to granular synthesis is based on a library of samples taken from recordings of violinist Michael Levine, which are divided into textures, pulses, pads, one‑shots and sound design patches.

Cinematic Studio’s eagerly anticipated Woodwinds library does not disappoint.

We look at the Gospel according to Toontrack.