Sample Libraries

The kalimba (aka 'thumb piano') has long been a featured sound on keyboard workstations. Also known as the sanza...

It's a hard noise to verbalise, but it sounds like this: gu‑gu‑gu‑gu‑GRNZZZZ. Yes, folks, it's the unmistakable...

World Impact: Global Percussion (12.2GB) contains around 270 percussion instruments from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe...

I've reviewed a good number of Nine Volt Audio's BPM Flex Series loop libraries now and they've been...

Alleluia! Cinesamples Voxos surround-ready choir delivers a near-religious experience.

Drum Tools has been produced and recorded by Wave Alchemy's Daniel Byers and Steven Heath. The two have all the gear...

Now, here's a first. I was so taken with some of the sounds on an album I'd bought (the excellent Leylines, by AES...

There can be no doubt that, as a genre of music, hip-hop has overcome its street‑based roots to become a major...

Sample Magic are now well established in the sample library world. While they are perhaps best known for their dance‑ and...

The British are back! Spitfire Audio's orchestral percussion library flies the flag for the UK.

836 live drum loops: a cross between the Sex Pistols and The Who.

Live Acoustic Drums, Loops & Hits is another bargain‑priced drum sample pack from Original Music. For a mere...

As its title suggests, Nexus is a drum & bass sample library from Zero‑G, produced by the mysteriously aliased Base...

A couple of Ueberschall's 'Score' titles have been reviewed in the pages of Sound On Sound: both Score FX (SOS...

The duo behind Cinematique Instruments have been composing music for films and documentaries for 10 years and have more recently extended their talents to the sampling of rare and strange instruments. 

Dance Drum Samples is a bargain‑priced sample pack available to download from Original Music. It's a healthy 658MB in size and contains 116 WAV loops, of which 103 are presented in REX 2 format with accompanying MIDI files.

This set of 40 hip‑hop backing‑track construction kits is the work of producer Soul‑G and includes Apple Loops, Acidised WAV and REX formats.

Symphobia's sequel probes deeper into the psyche of the sampled orchestra.

Sanctify your soundtracks with Tonehammer's new choral library.

I first saw Vocaloid demonstrated by Yamaha at the 2003 Frankfurt Musikmesse, and even though the chap presenting the demo spoke few words of English, the product's impressive capabilities were obvious.

This is the first in a new series of libraries for Tonehammer, relying on field and instrument recordings instead of synthesizers.