FREE SAMPLES ? How GREAT can $0-libraries sound? Alex’s self-experiment!
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- čas přidán 9. 07. 2024
- We're close to the finish line for season one of Virtual Orchestration. In the last regular episode of the season, Alex digs deep into the possibilities of creating music with free samples. Which ones are the best you can find on the net, how you can use them and how it’s possible to match the different sounds of various sample libraries from different developers ? Plus, Alex goes the extra mile to show you how you can apply effects creatively with your samples to make them sound amazing and how to build your own instruments!
Virtual Orchestration is a collaboration between Berklee College of Music (Boston, USA) and Orchestral Tools (Berlin, Germany).
A big warm thank you to Clara Baesecke and her cello 🎻 for supporting us on this episode.
More infos on her and her Ensemble Mosatrïc here: www.mosatric.com
List of free sample libraries Alex is using in his composition, sorted by developers :
Orchestral Tools
Layers - www.orchestraltools.com/store...
SineFactory - www.orchestraltools.com/sinef...
Gearbox (studio percussion)
Dynamo (drums and percussion)
Manifold (choirs)
Helix (strings)
Spitfire LABS - labs.spitfireaudio.com/?sortB...
LABS Piano Pads
LABS Choir
LABS Strings
LABS Scary Strings
LABS Autograph Grand Piano
LABS Hand Bells
Pianobook - www.pianobook.co.uk/
Northern Film Orchestra (NFO) Orchestral Swells by Dan Keen - www.pianobook.co.uk/packs/nfo...
Dan Keen - Soft String Spurs - www.pianobook.co.uk/packs/sof...
Dan Keen - Soft String Spurs Extras - www.pianobook.co.uk/packs/sof...
Project SAM
The Free Orchestra - projectsam.com/libraries/the-...
8dio - 8dio.com/collections/free-ins...
Copperphone - 8dio.com/products/the-new-cop...
Free Radicals - 8dio.com/products/free-radica...
Logic Sound Library
Harp
Alchemy (Synth)
▬▬ Table of content ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
0:00 - Introduction
1:35 - First Inspiration
2:08 - Strings and choir
4:20 - Percussion
6:29 - Harp + Reverb
7:38 - Choosing the right sounds
8:46 - Create your own sounds!
10:52 - Creative sound design
11:56 - Wrap up + conclusion
13:32 - Alex’ FREE SAMPLES composition
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Video creation credits:
Script / video concept 📜 : Alex Lamy, Eduard Flemmer
Music 🎶 : Alex Lamy
Camera 🎥 and Editing ✂️ : Fabián Barba Hallal
Motion graphics 🎨 : Michael Logar
Congratulations Orchestral Tools. I found it very cool that you featured your competitors free libraries as well! And what a great - "real musicians" interpretation of Clara! You rock!
Custom samples and sample instruments are an invaluable tool to my collection. I highly encourage people watching who haven't already to take a shot at making a sample instrument: you can use your phone's microphone and hit a resonant thing for a starting point. A few months ago I made some amazing high percussion using plastic wrapping from a carton straw.
There's another video by Virtual Orchestration called "Make your MUSIC STAND OUT by creating a UNIQUE PAD sound! feat Yao Wang" that goes into this a little more. Thanks Alex and the Virtual Orchestration team for another great video!
Yes, Yao’s video is great and shows you that you don’t need to do some crazy multi-sampled thing, you can just record almost anything and find creative ways of using it!
That was one of the most insightful videos ever presented on this channel. Insightful in the sense that it reinforces the invaluable axiom that states, "It's the talent, not the tools".
Alex, your creativity, imagination, and skill shine brightly in this little experiment. As a beginning composer/orchestrator, I've been tempted by the never ending rollout of sample library after library. But your presentation reaffirms that honing one's craft, practicing, studying, and conceptualizing is a big key and will likely always trump the tools. Back to the 'woodshed' for me! Well done, Alex.
Cheers, Kevin! I’m glad that came across in the episode. Having imagination and clear ideas before picking any tools up often helps you find the right one to start with as well.
Slightly hypocritical of me there, as something like the layers library did create it’s own inspiration when I put my hands on the keyboard, but that also sparks more imagination and creativity too.
How interesting that you started with OT's "Layers" and "Manifold" as I was just using them yesterday. The use of various effects plug-ins as shown in this video can really bring flat samples to life and is something I will be exploring further.
I really like Manifold. I also like the libraries that some of these samples must come from, like the OT Time Macro and Micro libraries. They’re excellent collections to start crafting a more unique sound.
Plugins is hopefully a whole episode in the future! 😅
My personal take is that if it’s not in the sound to begin with, then you can’t put it in with plugins - I kind of allude to this in the video, commit things to what they’re good at, and if they don’t work, don’t force them.
Of course with more expansive and expensive libraries you’d hope the sound is there straight away, and then the use of plugins is more a mixing thing.
One real issue I have with free libraries is that they tend to be very pad-like. Really soft and slow attacks, and very mushy when you’re playing chords. For me, that’s quite limiting to the type of music you can make, and no plugin is going to fix it 😕
Awesome video! That’s the perfect proof you don’t always need expensive libraries to write great music. I wish this already existed when I was starting out with film scoring 😅
I also love that you showcased libraries by other developers. Thanks a lot for all the work you put into creating this awesome educational resources 👏🏻👏🏻
Cheers, Friedrich! I wish there were free libraries when I started out! 😂
I think doing something like this shows you where it’s worth spending money too, so you don’t have fomo of every library that comes out, and you know what you need and don’t need.
Awesome master piece. Talent again money, talent will always win.
I did all my career with free libraries so far, and I am pretty happy with that. If you are starting out or maybe consider making music as a hobby, there is nothing wrong with that. I even wrote a book about all that. Might be worth having a look at, if you are intrested...
I wish you all the best!
Nothing wrong with that at all!
I think we all get GAS/FOMO with new libraries coming out so frequently. I try to not buy libraries until I actually need a specific sound for something (or unless the sale is too good pass up! 😅)
Another well-done episode! Great job. You're adding Clara in for the melody was *perfect* -- what a fabulous player she is! 😊
She really is great! Keep an eye out for a bit more of her coming soon 😉
I’m lucky that I’m able to afford the libraries I want to use nowadays , but years ago I struggled to find the right sound since decent samples weren’t available then. You nicely mention the pros and cons and give sound advice!
Incredible final result.. Very impressive! 👍
the piano pad mixed with the contrabass clarinet, nice one and very nice video, sounds great thanks to all those great mixing tips and the awesome free libraries, the real cello brings the final life to the track ! great job !
Cheers, Julien! Those were the Mr. Harvey Contrabass Clarinet things you foresaw recently 😉
@@alexlamymusic Cheers Alex ! I figured out for the Mr Harvey Contrabass Clarinet, close from what I imagined , Thank you !
What about "Spitfire Audio Discover Orchestra" ? It's free and you got a limited but very workable library almost full orchestra with a few articulations for almost each instrument. Then you can choose to buy the upgrade to "Core" and later an upgrade to "Pro". BBC Orchestra.
Great video (&superb composition!) Alex - good that you covered other developers' libraries as well as the excellent Sine from OT. Project Sam FO is one of my favourites and delighted to see that they have started releasing FO2 this month with a set of sul tasto strings. Thanks to you and the team for all the excellent content
Thanks, Joe! I didn’t know that about FO2, that’s very cool. And yes, I think with an episode like this you can’t just use one developer’s set of free tools, that would always be too limiting. The cool thing is that there are so many! I’m showing my age a little by saying that there were genuinely no free sample libraries when I started (there was basically just VSL, LASS, and East West if you weren’t in the Gigastudio world). I can genuinely remember the day I got the close mics upgrade for EWQLSO, was like a whole new world! 😂
@@alexlamymusic When I started there were just Casio keyboards 😉 Then the Yamaha CX5 music computer came out with an orchestral FM instrument cartridge which was groundbreaking but proved to be a dead end. I still have mine in the attic! Got half way through programming a movement of a Brandenburg concerto before deciding life was too short 🙂
Great episode!
One thing I'm interested in trying is to compose with some programs designed by Eric Bowman. He uses a free synth plugin called Vital and shows you how to build up e.g., brass sounds from first principals. This gives you full control over timbre, sustain, etc. You just have to be willing to twist enough knobs and know which one does what.
In his videos, he gives the recipe for free:
czcams.com/video/HWAAtk6GpfM/video.html
...but you can also buy his "sounds you know" library to skip the reconstruction step. I'd still work through the video for any sounds I particularly like to dig past the surface level understanding.
Wow Alex, congrats for that great piece of music and thanks to a well performed cello solo. Amazing what can be done with free samples. But Alex, we NEED your trumpet solo!
Could be a start to a competition: "composing with free samples". My favorite is ProjectSAM's Free Orchestra. Of course, quite limited in patches and articulations but the samples are very high quality. Heavyocity's Foundation Library is a killer, too.
Thanks, Jens! I like the foundations stuff too - can't remember why I didn't use them in this as I know they're on my drives! Probably just that there's an abundance of options! That said, I do think the Helix strings are the best sounding free strings out there for your regular sustains and staccatos
@@alexlamymusic Thanks Alex, I will try Helix strings. With CSS I'm very well equipped, but there is an ancient saying: "One cannot have enough string libraries".
My pops use to always say that you can use what you have to make great music!!! You have talent on your side you just have to know how to use what you have!!!
Very Impressive sounds great and and with your joker Clara it turns from great to amazing :)))
I’d say she’s more of an ace! 😉♠️
@@alexlamymusic indeed :) hopefuly there will be one day a cello sample vst that come close hahahahh :D
Not gonna lie, with the face you made while saying "You know what it means!" I thought you would pull the trumpet again! :D
🤣 we totally missed a great gag there!
That was my thought too! 🙂
nice video,you also have red room audio's palette primary colors,project sam the free orchestra 2 (where there is a free instrument every month) VSCO 2 Community Edition,VSL Big Bang Orchestra,Synful Orchestra,and the Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra,some of these have single instruments instaid of a full orchestral ensemble,enjoy
Thank you, Ronny! I hope lots of people see your comment 😊
@@alexlamymusic youre welcome Alex
Can’t watch this just yet, but I’m looking forward to it.
That said-the extreme version of this is doing the same thing on a ten-year-old laptop😵💫
(I’m on an 11-year-old iMac-very slow, but a good size-and a two-year-old MacBook-very quick but incredibly cramped, so I know this pain well.)
Spitfire Audio - "BBC Symphony Orchestra Discover" offers a full integrated sample orchestral library (percussion included) for the beginner.
It is one of the best free libraries out there. I'm sure you already know this. I wonder why didn't you took advantage of it for this exercise? (maybe because you preferred to show other multiple free solutions?). Anyway, Stay safe and thanks for sharing.
Where can you find this ?
I don't understand musical jargon and am new to learning music so asking.
@@vedangarekar1390 Write in Google search engine: "Spitfire audio discovery"
Then go to the link: "BBC Symphony Orchestra Discover - Spitfire Audio" and download the installer.
Firstly, this channel is made by Orchestral Tools, and we were careful not to be too biased or unbiased towards other developers while using cool free samples.
Second, personal preference.
Third, there are quite a few more developers and free orchestral libraries out there that also were not featured. Can’t really do them all in on track, and the video is meant to teach people some other things about music making, rather than just making a video comparing all free samples out there, for example (which I’m assuming must have been done?)
@@alexlamymusic Thank you for your reply. I only posted my comment because many of the "free" libraries are !very-very! limited (sure the one I pointed out it is also limited, on its own way) but it surly allows "many" possibilities for the beginner on the same pack. This is the only reason I pointed it out. Sure, I do have some Spitfire products but I'm not in anyways affiliated with them and I'm very open minded in that regard. Looking at it from your point of view, well, it makes sense. Stay safe.
BBCSO is pretty limited and is pretty mediocre in sample quality for a lot of things. It's only perc is that it has some larger ensembles than free libraries, but by combining multiple free libraries you can get a better sound IMO.
Alpine project, Helix, angry brass freebies (with Kontakt full) etc.
How do you program the glissandi (sp?)?
Are you going hand over hand on a keyboard or making a zillion clicks with a mouse? Maybe a pre-programmed midi asset pack?
I play them in and edit them as needed.
A personal plea from me: please never use a midi pack 😊
There’s also a good video on the channel about programming harp glisses! 👍🏻
So many sample libraries, but so low on the HD space 😅
I feel your pain. But the good thing is they’re cheaper than they ever have been!
Not like the first ssd I bought… £500 for 250GB 🤮
I created a PDF with all the free sample libraries I know of. I can send it to you if you're interested. It's a HUGE list...
Interesting video.
Any plans for a video to help a complete novice in orchestration to clear the most fundamental basics?
I have tried your plugin "Orchestral tools" to try some basic orchestration for a song in a minimalistic approach, but ended with no result because of lack of knowledge, sounded or boring or too heavy.
How to support a voice melody in a simple way? How to make it dynamic? Which register i should use?
Where 5ths, where 3rds, where doubling the melody will be good?
I'll chime in if you don't mind. You might explore Alex Heppelmann's free course 'Fundamentals of Orchestration'. czcams.com/play/PLuiUfQk8zxhQmWpD1iNvYs7qPTB60MBxt.html ... He also just released a more in depth, pay version of that course.
We have some episodes on range and register, and arranging for orchestral sections that will help you with figuring out where melodies sit best, when to double and so on. And we have an orchestration hacks video too that helps with some core concepts in orchestration, as well as a few videos on how to get the programming right, which in my opinion is more than half of the reason things don’t sound good enough. I’d recommend looking through the playlists on this channel, and hopefully you find the videos useful! 👍🏻
you should have layered it with spitfire bbc symphony discover
any reason for that?
@@alexlamymusicThat's also free and I mean you could use that too and sorry if you get confused and misguided by layered
Ah, understood! I thought you had a cool layering technique to share there 😅
Yes, there are quite a few other free libraries out there, which is really great. It’s a good time to be starting out!
I didn’t use the free BBCSO library here because it’s a one stop shop in many ways, and (personal preference too) I wanted to combine more unique sounding collections together for this.
Can you make a video about explaing Modes like sort of how same piece of music can be sound in different modes.
FYI there's something weird with the audio of your voice in this video. Pretty often it sounds like someone's running a high-pass filter up and down on it, sometimes almost to the point it gets a bit of a "telephone effect". Very odd.
It’s probably a result of some de-noising. Where exactly do you hear it?
A lot of work goes into matching voiceover and live dialogue, but I didn’t hear anything off when I went through it
@alexlamymusic It does seem to be partly related to cutting between live and VO, but it seems to be most noticeable a few seconds after the VO starts. One example is at 1:19... "so I went on the hunt" sounds choked off, then the rest of the sentence is a bit better, but then "the first thing that inspired me" is really tinny or hollow. It goes back and forth fairly regularly, often within the same sentence. It's more common in the first 5 minutes of the video.
@@chrishillery Honestly, it's probably bad mic technique from me! It sounds like I'm moving away from the mic and back in.
I got a new mic recently... dynamic, not condenser, end firing, has to be this!
@alexlamymusic Definitely could be that - proximity effect, I guess. That would explain why it seems to fade in and out semi-randomly. Hope you can sort it - love the content!
@@chrishillery cheers, Chris! Yeah, I’ll pay closer attention to it for any future voiceovers 👍🏻