Sample Libraries

Rating: **** 5/5 Stars. This library delivers big, bad (in a good way) drum and percussion sounds designed for epic TV and film music creation.

VSL push out the boat with hall-recorded rock power drums and two top of the range grand pianos.

If your thunderous cinematic percussion is getting out of control, you need Taiko Creator.

Two new libraries see Orchestral Tools extend their Metropolis series and take a bold leap into the world of big band jazz.

Rating: ***** 5/5 Stars. Producer Eduardo Tarilonte's library provides a collection of instruments and soundscapes inspired by the sounds of Vikings and the dark ages.

Rating: **** 4/5 Stars. What Toontrack are presenting us with here is more a collection of atmospheric sound-design patches than a virtual Bösendorfer.

Rating: ***** 5/5 Stars. This solo violin virtual instrument will easily compete with and even surpass products emerging from much larger competitors.

Rating: **** 4/5 Stars. The source instrument for this library is a 21-string West African harp called a Kora.

Rhythmic Odyssey represents a collaboration between Soundiron and the highly regarded UK-based percussionist David Oliver to develop a virtual instrument built around live percussion performances.

Bass Banjo is based on a bespoke instrument originally built by one of Modwheel's founders, David Donaldson, together with collaborator Stuart Porter, for performance duties with an outdoor marching band...

This Kontakt instrument has been built from samples of the 19th‑Century English pipe organ installed in the church of St James The Great in Snitterfield, Warwickshire...

Rating: 4/5 Stars **** Resembling a cross between an elongated viola and a hurdy‑gurdy, the Nyckelharpa is a four-stringed instrument played with a bow.

Rating: 4/5 Stars **** Custom Shop features a range of rather exclusive hand-crafted drums and includes some very welcome brushed sounds for certain instruments.

Rating: 5/5 Stars ***** If you are a budding or busy composer looking for sonic inspiration in this style, then Ueberschall's Synthetic Soundtracks titles may well be of interest.

Mojo 2 Horn Section is an ambitious instrument that aims to succeed where other virtual horn sections fail.

Great vocalists are in short supply, but EastWest might have the answer...

A chance meeting with a leading choral composer sparked a major new Spitfire library.

***** 5/5 stars. Produced by Grammy-winning engineer Josh Wilbur and Lamb Of God drummer Chris Adler, this is a collection of hard-hitting drums that sound big in every sense of the word.

**** 4/5 stars. Unorthodox Audio are a fledgling sample library company, set up by composers Richard Norris and Mike Gunn with the aim of trying to "capture something wonderfully peculiar within each virtual instrument".

**** 4/5 stars. This Matt Halpern signature pack sample library is designed for productions ranging from rock through to thrash metal...

**** 4/5 stars. Synthetic Strings focuses not on string synthesizers per se, but on synthetic textures inspired by synthesizers and string machines.