I know I been quiet for a few days but it was thanksgiving in the US and the holiday week got the best of me! Cooking, eating, cooking, eating and chilling with the family!

But we back at it this week!

To go along with the post I did about the Top 10 places to download samples legally, I wanted to take it in another direction.

When I first started making the switch over to software production, I didn’t quite have many plugins yet, so I would look around for the free stuff.

Let me just say that, while there is some good free plugins and instruments around, you really have to look, and do a bit of trial an error.

I don’t use every single free thing I can find, I just look for those that have the best sounds, are expandable, and have a nice appearance

I don’t go through the torrents and other dark corners looking for software, so if that’s you as well, then you’ll love this article.

The 5 dopest FREE workstations and samplers

Hot off the press or… hot off the hard drive…whatever!

P5audio’s newest construction pack is the Queens of RnB loop set, of course they sent it over for me to review.

So if you’re looking to add some RnB to your catalog, pull up a screen as I dig into this collection

What is the Queens of RnB about?

according to the website:

Queens of RnB Loop Sets are inspired by the lady megastars of RnB.

These styles of these Music Loop Sets range from the sexy grooves of Keisha Cole and Keri Hilson to the Ballads of Beyonce and Mary J. Plus, we also threw in a few Club Pounders in the style of Rihanna!

We got all your bases covered with these music loops… These loops are perfect for today’s modern RnB Divas!

Collection Quick-Specs:

• Contents: 25 Construction loop sets
• Formats: Rex, Wav, Apple, and ACID loops
• Price: $49.99

What does it sound like?

It sounds pretty good. You have a nice mixture of various RnB style tracks.

Nice and mellow ballads, as well as more popish club type rnb so you can get pretty diverse with the sounds.

The quality is good as always, not distortion, clicks or popping, unless it’s on purpose of course.

The synths are big, but also some nice mellow leads.  The basses are deep, the kick drums are pretty good, the snares could be better but in context with the other sounds they fit well.

Some guitars, keys, and strings are thrown in as well, and they are all nicely played.

What’s the bottom line?

I like it, it’s well produced and once I gave them my personal “reorganization” it makes using the sounds much quicker.

One thing I would like to see is the actual drum hits in their own folder or at least thrown in, in addition to the drumloops they include.

I can chop the loops just fine, but browsing through sounds is much quicker when you have a folder of individual hits… so David if ya reading this, look into doing this in the future, your customers will love you for it!

The price is right in the general construction pack range and the quality of the pack is top notch, I’d definitely use it.

And as you know by now, I only like posting up stuff that I would use myself No point in telling you about something I can vouch for 100%!

All in all, I give this collection a 4 out of 5 subs. It’s a solid collection, very good sounding, only thing I’d like to see changed is the addition of the individual drum and percussion hits.

So if you’re interested in some RnB loops, go on over and checkout Queens of RnB, they got some free demo sounds on the page you can download.

peace!

lemme know what ya think, leave me a comment below.

Got a new collection of videos coming to ya, where I’ll be “In The Lab” with Nova Loops, reviewing a bunch of products they sent over for me to checkout.

They have a ton of sounds in various styles, so I’m going to go through a bunch of their construction loop sets and makin a track using only their sounds.

In this video I am using their Urban Pop Egos Vol 1 collection.

Quick-Stats:

• Format: 25 construction loop sets
• Content: 924 total wav, rex, and apple loops
• Price: $64.99

It’s a “Pop style” collection. So I just found some stuff I liked and chopped it up.

Let me know what you think about the sounds and the track, and look forward to more installments of “In The Lab with Nova Loops”

If you like it, go checkout Urban Pop Egos at NovaLoops.com and tell em saintjoe from SoundsAndGear sent ya over! Maybe they’ll hire me one day lol.

leave a comment below, peace!

Big Fish Friday…on a Saturday?

I know it’s late! But it’s still Friday where I’m at while writing this! How long the video will take to upload is a different story!

I had some crazy stuff going on today (Friday)…but I couldn’t leave ya hangin!

Technical difficulties…but I still got it done…the video took forever to export/render for some reason. The review and video was done on Friday, but everything with the video export and upload didn’t finish until after 12 midnight lol. I still had to post it!

Anyway…today we aren’t looking at a sample library, per se…. it’s a sample based workstation instrument that big fish sent me!

What is VI One?

Well just think of your fantom, motif, triton, kurzweil, etc.. and all around work horse of an instrument with sounds covering every different instrument type from pianos and orchestra to drums and synths.

This collection comes in the popular kontakt player format…so you don’t need the full version of Kontakt to play it.

The Kontakt player can be loaded as a plugin in your favorite host.  Of course if you have the full version of Kontakt then this library will show up.

according to the site:

Far more than just a sound library; consider this a major studio upgrade.

Vir2 Instruments’ VI.ONE is a massive multi-disc sample library encompassing over two thousand instruments, kits, and other sound effects, and is designed to be of maximum usability to musicians across a wide span of genres.

What’s in VI One?

Everything! lol..like I said this is basically your all in one rack module.

If you’re just getting into virtual instruments this is a great place to start because you get tons of sounds.  If you have a lot of specialty instruments but need a general bread and butter workhorse this is your instrument as well.

It’s great

How does it sound?

Vir2 is a division of Big Fish Audio, so you know the quality is where it needs to be. I am really a fan of the Vir2 instruments, they are easy to use and a very high quality.

Multiple velocity layers and nice fx are a good touch.  The recordings are done right so everything sounds tight with no weird artifacts.

How about the value?

I think it’s a great value… this instrument drops in at 199, pretty normal for a virtual instrument.   Folks like me that come from the school of $1000+ instruments welcome a plugin like this with arms wide open.

The amount of sounds you get for the price is incredible..and it’s not like a collection of loops and riffs…these are sounds that will remain useful forever, synths, pianos, bass, horns, strings…that stuff doesn’t get old, or you can’t “overuse” it.

What’s the bottom line?

I don’t really give a sub rating on virtual instruments…I just tell weather or not I like it.

If I put it on the site and take the time to give you information on it, then you can pretty much bet that I highly suggest the plugin.

This is a must have, 5 star plugin… if I had to rate it with subs it would definitely be a 5 out of 5 and would be on my “must have” plugin list.

If you need a good collection of quality instruments that can last you a long time, and give you a great alternative to all those thousand dollar rack modules you keep buying…look no further.

Vir2 Instruments’ VI One is that workstation… cuz I said so!

Every once in a while you can catch it on sale at places like musiciansfriend for 99 bucks… either what it goes, it’s a great workstation to have.

let me know what you think about it. Leave me a comment below

Yo, I know I’m always reviewing dope sounds and software, but I want to provide a resource for everyone form the professional producer to the bedroom hobbyist, or the person just getting started with little to invest.

When I first started, I was always looking for free sounds, and there are plenty. I soon found out some where plain illegal!! So in order to keep you away from the illegal stuff, and still allow you to find some good sounds, I put together my list of the best place I PERSONALLY think you should download sounds from.

Sure there are others…but I posted what I’ve found to be quality sites.  Some are all free, some have free and paid stuff, it’s all good. Just check em out.

Who doesn’t like to get free stuff?

Novaloops – http://www.novaloops.com/

Its gotta be Nova baby! Go get over 500mb of free sounds, just join their newsletter…be on the lookout for lots more nova coverage on this site, they are working on some amazing stuff

motinsamples – http://www.motionsamples.com/free_sounds.php

Of course you know we love motion samples around here, so I had to put them on the list. Anything you can get free from them is dope, just like their paid products.

loopgalaxy- http://www.loopgalaxy.com/user.php?op=register

loopgalaxy has been proving free samples for producers for years. This site is run by the same folks that run platinumloops, so you get a nice

collection of free stuff, like most, you have to join their newsletter. So go join it.

p5audio – http://www.p5audio.com/

You know what it is man…p5audio, what else can I say? Go join the list, get ya free stuff, and make sure you’re own the soundsandgear.com mailing list so you can get some exclusive free samples from them…not available any where else

platinumloops – http://platinumloops.com/free_loops.shtml

When I first started looking for samples online years ago, platinumloops was there…and they had free demos in all of their categories. I downloaded all the freebies, I suggest you do the same.

Primeloops – http://primeloops.com/free-loops/prime-updates/

More free samples, primeloops has quality products

so getting freebies from them is a good look in my book

Downlod my drums - http://downloadmydrums.com/

I love this site, it’s just a guy like us…finding all the free sounds he can, getting his friends to give him sounds, and sharing his own sample archive with ya, go support him.

Blazin Kits – http://www.blazinkits.com/soundkits.html

Some of the ILLEST up to date/commercial drums around…

and the free joints are ill too. Support this man!

soundstosample – http://www.soundstosample.com/freeSamples

How about a sample buffet! Tons of free samples across multiple genres for your slicing, dicing, and looping pleasure…tell em Joe sent ya

soundsandgear.com – http://soundsandgear.com/free-sounds-and-samples/

so, this dude is crazy right…he be giving out a bunch of free stuff and even goes to other companies and gets them to give you free stuff, you should definitely check it out

share this list, enjoy it, and make music!

I already told you why I love kontakt 3.5,  but I also told you I would follow up with a video showing some of the new features in Kontakt 4 when NI sent it over for review.

So here we are!

The reasons I love kontakt 4 even more than the previous version…

kore like browsing interface is now standard in pretty much every native instrument program…maybe with the exception of battery 3

yes, this categorizes all the tons of sounds in kontakt 4, making it easy to find what you want in their library.

you can also bring in and tag your own sounds for use in their database if you’re feel adventurous.

I like it, it’s simple, it’s easy, and you really don’t have to use the library browser for their internal sounds.

Good move.

It gives you a familiar interface for sound browsing across their entire range of instruments, they are not stupid, they know what they are doing….I smell a take over….hmmm….wonder if there are any subliminal messages hidden in the navigation and interface of their programs!

They also gave each “collection” of instruments a new interface, as well as adding a brand new choir collection, all the sounds from their Elektrik Piano instrument, some solo strings from Vienna, a collection of mellotron sounds in the vintage collection, and other gooodies.

Each one is a nice visual representation of the collections contents.

But it is also functional, allowing you to access all your desired parameters

directly from the front panel.

This is a vast improvement from previous versions, and the controls seem “simpler” if that makes any sense.

Everything you need, nothing you don’t, however you can go as deep as you want if you feel the need to.

They also updated the scripting and added some humanization/dynamic functions that allow for more realistic playing.  But I will tell you the truth, I didn’t mess with that much, I’d much rather just let it do it’s job.

My absolute favorite update…and this is the truth…is the new quick load browser!

Basically, you can setup your own “virtual” file system, no matter where instruments and samples are on your hard drive or external drives or even across the network!

You can put them in your own folder structure…and the files are not copied anywhere…it’s basically just links to your stuff.  This is very helpful, as the last quick load version just organized things based on how they were on your hard drive.

Now you can set things up exactly how you work…want a folder of sounds for a specific project? Go for it…you can have the same sound duplicated and triplicated lol..if that’s even a word!

I love it…this is my favorite feature and I use it all the time. I have tons of Kontakt instruments and libraries, and I always wanted to organize them MY way…now I can, this is the feature I’m most excited about and thing is the best addition…well, that and the ability to drag the kontakt window to adjust the size

Is it worth the upgrade? heck yeah… is it worth a try if you’re new to it? Heck yeah! But again…I would NOT buy it alone, at the price it cost just for Kontakt, the better deal is getting Komplete 6… real talk.

4 payments of 124.75 at zzounds is always a good deal for budget musicians lol.

If you just plan to get it all in one swoop, head on over to native-instruments.com

lemme know what ya think about it, any questions, or if you’re using it, let me know your favorite features.

leave me a comment below

I spent the two days re organizing my sample library.

I’ve been wanting to do it for a while, but up until now had only managed to do maybe one or two collection.

However, I just decided to get it done.

My sample library file system

Basically what I do is this.

I have two main categories, Sample Packs and Sample Libraries

In the “sample pack” I put all the stuff I get like drums, loops, and riffs, the smaller collections.

In the “sample library” folder I put all my dvds and large libraries like stuff from Big Fish or Sample Magic…the multi gigabyte stuff.

After that I organize them even further.

For the sample packs, I break them up first by company, then within each company folder I will break it down more depending on how much I have from them.

Companies like nova loops, where I have a bunch of stuff, I’ll break into categories within the folder.

I’d do drums, keys, synth, strings, loop sets, etc.

Then in each folder I’d put the sample pack that goes in there. So if I have roots rhodes, I’d put that in the keys, if I have Hood RnB construction set I put that in loop sets.

I THEN break down the loop sets even further.

First I break them down by genre, like pop, rnb, dirty south, chillout, etc, depending on what collections I have.

Then I go into each construction set collection and break it down.

By default, they are just a bunch of folders with each individual construction kit, that includes the bass,  keys, strings, drums, etc for that kit. You get anywhere from 10-30 of these depending on the set and the company.

Basically these are “pre made” beats, that you can put back together.

I don’t roll like that, so I needed a better way to utilize these kits, since many companies make them and they have dope sounds. I hated going through each folder looking for some keys, or strings, or bass.

So I take all the files out of the individual kits, and put them in one big folder.  Then I create new folders based on the instrument category…so I’d have bass, keys, synths, drums, brass, etc.

So now instead of a bunch of folders with premade beats, I have a bunch of folders with various instruments from across the whole collection. So I can find what I want much faster, go to keys for keys, bass for bass, etc.

I do the same thing for my sample library collection, it’s just much bigger because they are dvds full of stuff.

I break it out by genre, then I put each library where it needs to go.

After that I break each library up into folders of sounds instead of construction kits.

I also take the demos out, which is a full mix of each construction set. I only use those for review purposes when I show yall the libraries, then I delete them.

Okay…so how does all this help me work faster?

First off, I get more use out of construction kits this way because I don’t feel “boxed in” to the way they put it together. If I do this before I even listen to the demos, then I’m not tempted to just recreate what they already made…it doesn’t give me a predetermined goal…so now I can just grab what I want and make it fit my creation.

It also let’s me go to the specific sounds I need, without having to go through each baby loop set in the collection. All my keys are together, all tempos, from all the sets in that collection.

So if I want a pop style keyboard riff, I go to that pop folder, pick one of the collections and go to the keys. Easy…

Before I’d have to go to a collection, then look in each little loop set to find the keys…not anymore.

I like it, it took a while, I’m not all the way done, but from now on anything I get will go into this system…

lemme know what you think, leave me a comment

do you have a way you like to organize your samples?

Is it Friday already!?

Dang!

Well it’s time for another edition of Big Fish Friday…time to take a look at some more samples sent to me by big fish audio.

This week, we’re gonna get a lil jazzy on ya!

Talkin all that Jazz…

This isn’t one of those “hip hop jazz hybrid” collections, this is straight up for people looking to compose jazz music.

This is perfect for us! No matter if you’re not making jazz, a lot of urban producers like to sample jazz records, myself included.

So anything that can give us an authentic sound without worrying about royalties and sample clearance…bring it on baby!

What’s in this Jazz Session?

My personal description would be ” a gang of smoke flowing hole in the wall bare chicken bones on a napkin type sounds”

But that’s not really technical enough so, here’s what they say on the site:

Jazz Sessions is a unique sample collection bringing you all the vibes you would hope to hear at any great jazz club, and adds swing, soul and solid jazz attitude to your productions!

Featuring a huge 3Gig library of jazz samples played by seasoned professionals and captured with maximum realism and authenticity. Jazz Sessions is the consummate tool for jazz-influenced producers worldwide, whether you are looking to make pure traditional jazz, nu-jazz, broken beats, or are looking to melt a pure jazz feel into another style of music – Jazz Sessions will deliver what you need.

Okay, that sounds good but what does it actually sound like?

Dopeness, pure finger snapin, diggin in the crates, authentic jazz dopeness!

Seriously, the riffs,  licks and loops are well played and definitely have a certain “feel” about them.

Heck man, I heard the breathing and foot tapping when demoing some of the flute riffs!

Like I said, it’s not jazz with a hip hop affection…it’s straight up jazz from the horns to the drums.

So this would work well for folks trying to actually compose jazz records, but my purpose would be to put together jazz compositions that I can then slice up like I would on from a jazz record!

Works perfect, recorded right, no distortion whatsoever.

One thing I didn’t like though, the release noise on the rhodes multisample…it was pretty loud, but that’s okay, there are plenty of rhode loops and riffs to use, and I’m sure I could tweak the multi in Kontakt if I wanted. But I had to let ya know about that one.

Okay, so it sounds good, sounds authentic, what about the pricepoint?

The price is right baby! Just like a majority of sample dvd libraries, this comes in at 99 bucks, and with all the money you save in royalties…I think it’s a good trade off.

BUT, they also did something very nice, probably for folks like us. You can download separate section from the collection for 29-49 bucks!

So if you want JUST the flutes, or the keys, or guitars, or brass…you can do that. You may not want the drums and bass…maybe you just want the instruments. Go for it then!

Final thoughts on the library?

If you can’t tell by now, I really loved this one. I’m a jazz music lover, even just for listening pleasure, but also for sampling and music production.  To be able to add some nice authentic jazz sounds to your music that actually sound good, it’s always a pleasure. Especially when the library is made for jazz musicians and not “jazzy hip hop samples”

I like those too, but sometimes you just want some real jazz infusion for ya grooves.

This is a 5 out of 5 straight up no questions about it. Great content, tons and tons of samples, multiple formats, and if you don’t want the whole thing you can go with individual sections!

bottom line is, if you like to use jazz samples, you definitely should check this library out.

Go listen to the demo at Big Fish Jazz Sessions and tell em I sent ya

What do you think?  Leave me a comment below.