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We have entered a time were many libraries have become apocalyptic like Heviosity and the like. There are very many of these libraries for Kontakt today… too many.

Because you can easily have huge rhythm sections, very heavy loops and very heavy effects available to be played with one finger, there are too many people composing this way and overdoing their music all the time, so much so, that the impressions of “danger”, “persecution”, “fear”, “violence”, etc., that the composer is trying to build for a given particular scene, have no longer this strong effect in the audience like it used to have before. TV shows, presentations, even many commercials, have these kind of heavy-looped-one-finger-super-sampled-exaggeration on them.

I am looking for freshness nowadays, a guitar and a voice may impress me more and give me the richness I need for a given project. I am tired of the use of so many instruments been played at one single time, particularly orchestral hits…

It is fantastic to have enormous orchestral sounds at your finger tips (literally by the way), but overusing them for every kind of music of today market, is becoming really tiresome.

On top of it, most of these composers are pretty rude in their harmonic approach, rather cheap, so most things sound kind of bad hip hop being played with a huge philharmonic orchestra.

i think it misses the point when you can buy these over bloated 1 note sample playback as your playing some one else performance

i come from the sampling time when we had 400k on the eII and 64k on the mirage

and we were experimental because of lack of time we had to be creative and we also made it to play like an instrument

now with konkrapt libraries and multi gb samples the art of playing and creating interesting sample instruments has died apart from some who are doing emulations of synths so that you still have to play them and make presets like the real thing

synthmagic and rhythmic robot do n ice sample libraries that you still have to use just like the real things

but these film type libraries that have orchestras playing at on key presses is just killing the music as a lot of music today is just preset samples being triggered no thought or creativity gone it to it

and the music scene and film scene is just flooded with it

how many time have you heard that advert with dub wobble bass preset from massive also in songs and films

I'm glad to see Korg is releasing this fun stuff. It is bringing back the fun of sampling, in that limited way.

http://www.korg.com/us/products/dj/volca_sample/

it is funny to observe just how much effort goes into these one note performance packages tho. (temporarily ignoring how sad it is) Hit one note, bam! You get 500 of the largest frame drums in the world playing in unison, recorded at some insanely expensive hall, played by the most world renowned percussionists. Next note, bam! You get a 1000 piece brass section all playing the same fog horn note, over, and over again. Yet again played by those that are deemed the best in the world at playing that one single note, with the utmost, maximum, lip burning intensity. Many trombonists have fallen fatally ill from the gut wrenching note, or have permanently damaged their lips in the recording process.

And the third note? a 5000 piece strings orchestra, doing what they do best. Detache staccato played at ffffff intensity that causes each stroke to burn and destroy both bow and the instrument. On some occasions, the heat is so intense it forms a ball of plasma and destroys the recording equipment, killing some of the nearby performers in the process. It is debatable whether there is more carnage during the recording or during the epic war battle scene the sample is meant to score.

The forth note... there is no forth note. The studio cannot endure any more sacrifices. No audio medium can hold that much grunge and amplitude. No movie violent enough to match the explosive power of the 3 note crusade.

Well, as far as recordings go, I guess these types of libraries sound nice.. ONCE. But you need to make sure you buy it and use it faster than anyone else, because everyone's output is going to sound exactly the same, down to the sample.

So in the end, at least for me, there's always room for a well written, well executed 4 part strings arrangement. Especially slow, lyrical playing that swims around in emotions. That sort of material can never be packaged as a "construction" pack, you just have to arrange and play it note by note, and actually make sure you instill some musicianship in the execution. For me, if you take that out, music's not worth writing since you're really not writing anything. And yes, I completely agree with you Nestor, less but real writing is much better than massive quantities (and intensity) of no writing. I think that's actually what being good at anything's all about. You always try to make just a little bit of the best stuff. And in the process you make heaps and heaps of junk. So you try again.

well said, Ken.

Gameproducer: "yes yes I completely agree with all what you said, as long as it's EPIC and LOUD!"

Why bothering so much about commercial or 'producers' music?
What's the point?

jhulk wrote:i think it misses the point when you can buy these over bloated 1 note sample playback as your playing some one else performance

i come from the sampling time when we had 400k on the eII and 64k on the mirage

and we were experimental because of lack of time we had to be creative and we also made it to play like an instrument

now with konkrapt libraries and multi gb samples the art of playing and creating interesting sample instruments has died apart from some who are doing emulations of synths so that you still have to play them and make presets like the real thing

synthmagic and rhythmic robot do n ice sample libraries that you still have to use just like the real things

but these film type libraries that have orchestras playing at on key presses is just killing the music as a lot of music today is just preset samples being triggered no thought or creativity gone it to it

and the music scene and film scene is just flooded with it

how many time have you heard that advert with dub wobble bass preset from massive also in songs and films

I'm glad I'm not alone in this perception of things so... All I can say is, "Exactly".

Wow! We really are in the same team, I am released...

But, don’t misunderstand me, I think these libraries are great and can have their place into the market and be very useful if exploit carefully and creatively. You can save a lot of time and PC resources when needed, because you don’t need 25 tracks for the effect, instated, just about 3 of them. The problem is using those libraries and their heaviest presets as a machinegun composition unit! This makes its grandeur become, in fact, very, very small…

In the other hand, I am overwhelmed at the quality of the latest Albion libraries coming from Spitfire, I have never heard such lush, perfect set of strings, which gives you, in the opposite direction, the joy of building orchestras and playing them in every possible detailed way through their amazing legato and great articulations.

it's one of those strange facts of life. Fire and lasers raise the most brows on stage, but are the quickest to become old and formulaic. The brain's just too good at processing high stimulation, the body too good at adapting to high stress situations. Bottom line, the mind is smart and it remembers experiences with high stimulation with great detail and weight. What makes it memorable (through stimulation and stress) is exactly what makes repetition impossible. This is the day and the life of DIRECT stimulation.

On the other hand, implicit stimulation is much more interesting. You provide the elements that constitute the stimulus you want to achieve, and the receiver puts it together in his head, and then experiences the stimulus. Arguably, that's how all methods of concept transfer (or more accurately, "replication") takes place, but the dependence on receiver side replication is much higher than the DIRECT stimulation method. The elements that constitute the desired effect in instruction form, bit by bit. The pieces are put together over time in the receiver's head using parts that are available to him at the time, resulting in a different outcome depending on what ever else resides in the receiver's head. The effect is personal, direct, and much less prone to fatigue than direct stimulation. (this view that I have is based on the conduit metaphor from Reddy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conduit_metaphor) This is much more tasteful and artful than bashing someone over the head with a bat and calling that a "memorable" experience.

It's debatable whether the inability for directly stimulating things to be repeatedly interesting is actually a pro or a con. Business wise, it's actually not so bad because it's kind of like built in obsolescence. Of course, value wise (to humanity) it's worthless because it deflates over time and contributes very little, if anything to the accumulation of human culture. If I were to build a tower, balloons would not be my material of choice.

petal wrote:Gameproducer: "yes yes I completely agree with all what you said, as long as it's EPIC and LOUD!"

one should always make the kind of music that the client wants, i suppose. that doesn't change the fact that the stuff made by "musicians" has been lazy and crappy lately. if lazy and crappy music gets you paid, then you should definitely make lazy and crappy music(to a point), but there's no sense in making lazy and crappy music just because you can.

Sure, if one finger stabs help earn money by all means.

But as a composer making boring crappy music can be done just as easily with a guitar as a stacked sample.

The sample isn't the problem here.

I can see a usage problem with over dramatic usage on a reality show though like on Master Chef - they use the same dramatic music over and over as the cook screws up the recipe and the same calming pads when the judges like it anyway.

Really, those types if reality shows - and I like MasterChef - are where it gets a bit tiring. On analysis though - the composing behind it is quite clever - and I don't think overused samples are an issue here either .

It's simply this : the majority of the viewing population must like (or accept) it more than I do - the over use that is. Composer and producer are merely satisfying demand.

It is quite funny sometimes to hear that dramatic stuff, just as intense over someone dropping thier well prepared dish on the floor and racing against time to fix it - as you would hear on an Aliens vs Preditor movie when one of the Aliens is mashed up by a Preditor saving a human.

Mind you - the Masterchef winner gets $200K and a new sports car - maybe that could be almost as life changing as being stalked by an Alien....but hey they should reserve the one finger superstabs for the finals and maybe use just an acoustic guitar and a glockenspiel for the first episodes when home cook grannies dont make the final 24 ...to provide at least a bit of proportionate build up here.

that volca sampler is not that helpful in that you need a ipad or phone to load samples into it

when there micro sampler you could use sd card

if you ask me they are going backwards not forwards

at least you could load samples into the old synths and sample direct with out having to succumb to the apple

I don’t think producers themselves demand this kind of supercharged-mega-dramatic-music, it would have been extremely difficult to achieve anyway, without these libraries. In fact, “libraries” are the key command leading “how” and “what” composers are composing today.

What musicians are coming up with is a sub-product of ready build libraries. Libraries go first, and compositions come as a result of their existence. Music today is like fashion, it depends of raw materials offered by big fabric companies. “Fabric” is exactly like “libraries”, and becuase it is so easy to come up with something big, many do.

A very good precedent of being artistic is Hanz Zimmer way of working. That is the way to go if we want to respect our musicianship. He builds his own samples and programs in detail before starting a project, because he does not say: “Hey, here there is a cool orchestral hit, I will use it somewhere”. All on the contrary, what he does is thinking about the movie plot and then, through imagination, he constructs in his mind the kind of sounds he is looking for, that brings up quite fresh sounds and music.

Well, I am not as wealthy as Zimmer neither have such wonderful composition opportunities, but I work in the same way as much as possible, and I enjoy the process.

Yes, but Zimmer is behind the whole Spitfire series isnt he ? Therefore he is making samples for other reasons than to make his own (or his teams) music compositions, even if they are a bi-product of the compositional process.

Either way, if a composer chooses to use a single library for an entire composition rather than mix and match all sounds at his disposal for the sake of it that might be as restrictive as only using one instrument.

When I hear a new sound there may very well be a case of 'hey that sounds good - it would fit well in bla tune I made years ago' - then I might remix that entire track just to fit that new orch hit in.

Or, I might buy Juggernaut just to try to make music like the Juggernaut demos, but fail and come up with something completely different. And if one can make a great tune out of the discovery of one hacknied new sound - good luck to em.

Btw, it's not only by demand, Dante, there's also the supply side: the software marketed.
Years ago I was on Ozora festival in Hungary and quite some dj's were playing Psy music with hardrock guitar samples, more than probably made with the then new Guitar Rig.
And I hated that
More of those fantasies btw

But we can say that what sells best will be served by the main stream music industry.

I was thinking, there's some logic in why the stabs are so popular in some music, which I don't like, so I'm only thinking.
Orchestral hits sound familiar for everyone in western culture.
So they do their work without drawing more attention then needed only for doing heavy accents.
The music shouldn't get to get too experimental, as it's meant as mainstream.
In techno or other music styles you would choose for a sample which fits best for the track under construction, and manipulate it.

This way those stabs are just style elements of the music style.
You dont won't them being exchanged by unknown sounds then.
You also wouldnt ask James Brown -if he was alife- to change his Uúh! sometimes

Most people go for the recognition effect of wellknown music anyway, personally I hate the top 2000 spread over several days on tv here, at christmas.

So we were talking about eigther dumb and abused elements of some mainstream music or we are talking about not-so-original style elements of some mainstream music.
That is an interesting subject, seriously, with historical, sociological, psychological and musical entries, but too much frustration would mean you take mainstream too serious.
Personally I would be angry when they would play distorted guitar samples in my beloved Psy Trance music

dante wrote:Yes, but Zimmer is behind the whole Spitfire series isnt he ? Therefore he is making samples for other reasons than to make his own (or his teams) music compositions, even if they are a bi-product of the compositional process.

This is a bussiness, it is a different story, Spitfire and his movies are not really much related beyond adds for you to buy its products. For every movie he builds everything from scratch, samples and the needed platform, expect for some few instruments that may already suit the job. He would go as far as building a player exclusively for one go.

This is typically what I'm talking about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYgpwNvBuLA

Yes, similar to Juggernaut except Juggernaut doesnt have the drop in midi phrases. It does have usefull wobble FX though.

I say bring 'em on bro, if they are cheap enuff & have good usefull sounds.