Are Sample Libraries Getting Better?

[bayswater]

I downloaded free VIs from Ample Sound, an acoustic guitar and a bass. These are not going to replace my guitars, but they really do sound amazing compared to sample based VIs I've paid for in the not so distant past. They're musical, articulations sound real, and they're playable on a keyboard. I had several paid libraries for SampleTank, Falcon, Kontakt, etc, over the years, and as a niece of mine puts it, these are more reminiscent of her dad's old Lowrey organ than of real guitars.

Has sampling technology changed? Has there been some new approach to playback engines in VIs?

[mhschmieder]

The main difference is that the vendors are doing more scripting, akin to what the Keyboard Workstation vendors have been doing all along in order to make the samples more playing and to make it easier to get natural phrasing vs. discrete disconnected notes.

Also though, better mic choices are being made for the most part.

Having said that, I am trying to resist most sales these days as I feel I have spent FAR too much on vendors whose product is middle-of-the-road at best. There are only a handful of vendors whose material is consistently top-of-list, and they provide enough coverage to not need to very often look at other vendors.

I'm not going to list those vendors, because it would be bad form.

[mikehalloran]

I bought one VI during the big sale and only after I was thoroughly impressed by the demo.

I passed on the Ultimate upgrade as I've barely scratched the surface with Komplete. Perhaps next year or when 12 comes out.

Much of what I have sounds pretty good and some doesn't. I've been trying to put together a decent library for only a couple of years.

Anyway, a lot of what I hear nowadays is better. This is good since picking up my guitar and playing is no longer an option.

[cuttime]

I'm on a(n) Audio Modeling (Sample Modeling, SWAM Engine) high right now and I'm not trying to make a sale. There is some dark magic going on in these VIs, and I don't really pretend to understand what is going on behind the curtain. There might be some sampling technology going on in there along with physical modeling algorithms, but neither technology describes what is happening in these instruments. Sampling tech, for the most part, is better than physical modeling, IMHO. Most physical modeling instruments sound unbearably harsh to my ears-all hammer, bow, pluck, and miscellaneous hard substances. Samplers, to me have always been the way to go, but with that path there is always a huge memory footprint, and the constant danger of static sounds. Something entirely different is happening in AM's instruments. For one thing they are tiny (around 12MB!), and they are CPU blowtorches. I suspect some sort of wavetable technology is going on. Again, I'm not trying to sell you, and these folk really need some playable demos, but you really need to get your hands on a rig with some decent MIDI controllers and try them on for size.

[bayswater]

I'm on a(n) Audio Modeling (Sample Modeling, SWAM Engine) high right now

Something going on between Sample Modelling and SWAM. Not sure I understand it, but doesn't look like they're talking to each other. Is this a good thing to start on if you don't already have it?

Sampling tech, for the most part, is better than physical modeling, IMHO.

Maybe that's what's going on with the VI I downloaded from Ample.

Most physical modeling instruments sound unbearably harsh to my ears-all hammer, bow, pluck, and miscellaneous hard substances.

I've always thought so too, but I have to make an exception for MODO Bass.

[cuttime]

Something going on between Sample Modelling and SWAM. Not sure I understand it, but doesn't look like they're talking to each other. Is this a good thing to start on if you don't already have it?

I don't understand it either. Something about a German and Italian company, and international laws. I'd wait, for sure. I've just spent the last five days trying to transfer and register license keys.

[David Polich]

Speaking as a someone who earns a living doing
programming and sound design..yes of course
sample libraries have gotten much better.

The reasons for this are easy:

1. Computers are faster, and can handle huge
amounts of data now.

2. When disk streaming came on to the scene,
that changed the game. Disk streaming allows
the program to stream from disk just the
samples that are needed, not the whole pool
of samples. Thats the reason you can
access a 55GB piano..not all 55GB of samples
are loaded, just the header information for
the samples that are “going to be needed”.

3. Digital recording convertors are much higher
in quality these days. People who record the
instruments for a sample library routinely record
through ultra-high quality audio interfaces at
96khz, and many record at 192khz. These sample
rates were unheard of twenty years ago. But the
biggest improvement in audio convertors has been
in clocking..reducing “jitter” to the point where it
is next to nonexistent, which translates to superior
fidelity.

4. Sample library producers have learned WHAT
to sample. You have to know where the samples
are going to end up..in a product triggered from
a keyboard, played by a keyboard player. Not just
the notes, but the extra noises and artifacts that
an instrument exhibits, have to be there. Here’s
an example..piano string resonance. When you
hit a key on a piano, multiple things happen, one of
them being that a secondary “note”
about one to two octaves above the pitch of the
struck note rings out. Its not always a perfect
interval, and isolated it sounds like a very thin,
“super high-pitched” piano string ringing, almost
like a reverberation. This is string resonance.
Early sampled pianos didnt include this effect.
Actually, all acoustic instruments exhibit additional
resonances. Our ears are accustomed to them,
which is why we say a sampled instrument sounds
“fake” if they aren’t included.

Oh, and about those Amplesound guitars..
I have used them to replace poorly recorded
guitars. You just have to know how to play
“keyboard guitar” to use them in a way that
will fool even guitar players into asking, “who
played guitar on that?”

Two modeling products that are awesome and
do not use samples: Modarrt Pianoteq 6, and iK Multimedia
MODO Bass.