Since we’re approaching the holiday season, I figured I’d get in the “giving” frame of mind by rounding up every single loop I’ve ever posted on this site and zip them up into one file for an easy and free download. So here you go, everything from country to zeibekiko, 60 to 300 BPM, WAV to AIFF to REX2, it’s all inside this one zip file.

These are professionally recorded loops and licensed with a Creative Commons License.

Illuminated Sounds has been doing twisted things with children’s toys, and they’ve got a free sample library to prove it – James’ Circuit Bent Library:

Here is a Collection of samples from a few of my own circuit bent toys. I’ve made a quick couple of videos that will show you the method of how I captured these samples. I edited them in Protools at 16bit 441khz as mono WAV files. Feel free to comment or request any more. Enjoy.

See the Illuminated Sounds site for more video demos and the free download.

Way Out Ware’s Jim Heintz demos iSample 2 (App Store link), and makes some pretty freaky sounds along the way.

Here’s what’s new in iSample 2:

• sample trimming with pinch to zoom, two finger scrolling and scrubbing
• sample length quantization
• loop positioning/viewing screen
• mixer
• delay effect
• a reverb effect,
• step sequence pattern editor with 12 separate pattern buffers
• a song mode that allows you to build songs out of patterns
• WIFI sharing
• tempo control with tap to set tempo

iSample 2 retails for $9.99.

via wayoutware:

http://budurl.com/isamplevid

This is a straight take without video edits of an iSample 2.0 demo session by Jim Heintz. It was done using the built in sample bank called Chillbeat 86 that ships with iSample 2.0. This demo shows only a small fraction of the features new to iSample 2.0.

iSample 2.0 is available at the Apple App Store by clicking the following link: http://budurl.com/isamplevid

Propellerhead has released a new funk-flavored ReFill, Soul School, that features the soul sounds of the 60’s and 70’s.

To introduce Soul School, Propellerhead put together several very nicely done videos that introduce the library and the people behind it.

The Reason Soul School ReFill is available for download through Propellerhead’s web shop for EUR €79 / USD $99.

The Soul School ReFill sample library features twelve unique soul and funk instrumentals with all their musical elements – bass, drums, guitars and horns – in Propellerhead’s tempo-independent REX format, as well as a collection of the 60’s and 70’s-sounding instruments multisampled for use with Reason’s NN-XT sampler and Combinator device.

Composed exclusively for this ReFill and recorded using vintage technology, all material was played live by funk-savvy session musicians – simultaneously, without overdubs.

Every drum fill, bass line, guitar riff and horn lick featured in Reason Soul School is in Propellerhead’s REX format, sampled in different keys for full flexibility and tempo independence.

Complementing the loops and licks are the multisampled versions of the included instruments, as well as the Reason Soul Keys ReFill, containing patches for the Reason Factory Sound Bank and Propellerhead’s free Electromechanical ReFill as well as Abbey Road Keyboards and Reason Pianos based on the Soul School sound.

Using Reason Soul School

Click here to view the embedded video.

Using Soul School with Propellerhead Record

Click here to view the embedded video.

Soul Searching – Using The Patch Browser

Click here to view the embedded video.

We do our best to avoid “cute kitty with music gear” photos at Synthtopia. You can only get so excited about another shot of somebody’s cat peaking out of their Buchla modular synth or sleeping on their Korg OASYS.

Jaded as we may be, though, this is the cutest kitty DJ in the world.

Ohhhh, kitteh so cute!

We’ll try to redeem this post by linking to the source of this photo, the blog of Ryan Gruss – a drummer who says that “the world has been overrun by shitty producers with their 808 samples and re-mixed Ableton Live schlock.”

Gruss is drummer on a mission to put more groove in your mix, and he’s doing it by blogging a free professionally recorded drum loop every day. He includes MP3 previews, but also multitracked Logic sessions and mixed down WAV, AIFF and REX2 files.

They’re Creative Commons licensed, so you can slap it up, flip it and rub it down as long as you give Gruss credit.

Special Secret Groove Sauce: Gruss’s RSS feed has MP3 enclosures – which means it’s a podcast and you can subscribe to it with iTunes and get the free loops delivered to your ears automatically.

In iTunes, navigate to Advanced – Subscribe to Podcast and paste in his feed URL: http://feeds2.feedburner.com/ryangrusscom

Hollow Sun has announced plans for a new virtual instrument based on the rare and amazing Hammond Novachord – a polyphonic analog synthesizer released in 1939!

The Novachord is sort of the B3 of synthesizers – a huge, unwieldy beast that sounds like nothing else.

Unlike the B3, though, the Hammond Novachord has largely been forgotten. They were expensive, few were made, and few have survived because of their complexity.

The Novachord features divide-down oscillators and individual envelopes and LFO for each note. Yeah – this thing could do 72-voice polyphony in 1939!

Here’s an example of what this 70 year-old monster synth can sound like:

Imagine if this technology had taken off!

The Hammond Novachord Sample Library

Hollow Sun is working with Novachord owner Dan Wilson of Hideaway Studios in Bath, England, to capture the sound of this beast in all its epic glory.

Here’s what they have to say about this project:

Work has begun on this and tentative sampling sessions are beginning to reveal what lies ahead of us – textures that would not be out of place on a modern synth 70 years on in 2009 but with a strangely ‘earthy’ and ‘organic’ quality quite unlike I’ve heard before, full of flawed nuances and subtelty. The Novachord doesn’t generate sounds … it breathes them in gasps and grunts and squeals and whispers!

It’s early days. As time allows, I shall be bringing news of progress on a (hopefully) regular basis … so bookmark this Blog to watch us through our laboratory’s musty window. Dan and I aren’t quite ponsing about in white coats here (I favour a good tweed and a robust brogue!) but it feels a bit like it as Dan probes and regulates the 70 year old valves and massive capacitors with voltmeters and oscilloscopes and I work the resulting samples into an accurate representation of this incredible instrument.

No release date or pricing has been set.

This video shows you how to use Ableton Live like an MPC to chop and play your samples so that they can cut each other off.

The video also shows how to setup your own custom drum racks in Ableton so this chop and cut off setting is done automatically when you slice a new sample.

via SoundsAndGear

Here are the details:

Create your own samples, add them to an audio track in wav format and submit the track to this Soundcloud group Want To Be A Professional Sample Producer it’s that simple.

Even if you don’t enter the competition we welcome your comments on whose samples you think are great and thanks to Soundcloud’s amazing  interface, commenting couldn’t be any easier. For new Soundcloud users you will need an account to both submit your samples and comment on the entries. Registration and a personal account are 100% free.

Details below.

Competition Rules

• Producers must submit a minimum of 10 samples contained within one audio track and submit their entry to this sample competition group.
• Audio tracks must be in wav format.
• Samples can be in any style you wish, one shots, music loops, drum beats or even sound fx .
• Samples can be added to the audio track either in isolation, looped or as a musical track showcasing the samples.
• All genres are welcome from Tech House & Minimal through Drum & Bass and Breaks. If you can produce it we want to hear it!
• Producers may submit as many audio tracks as they wish.
• All samples submitted must be the producers original work and must not violate any common law or statutory right of any third party including, without limitation, contractual rights, copyrights and rights of privacy or publicity.

Here are the entries that have been submitted:

Tom at Waveformless has put together a free sample library of percussion noises created with a Sequential Circuits Pro One.

Here’s what he has to say about the samples:

It’s hard to believe another weekend is upon us, but it is, so here are some more free samples to get your weekend off to a good start.

This time, it’s a set of 21 24-bit synthetic percussion sounds I made on my Sequential Pro One (that’s it to the left).

Get the download link at Tom’s site and let me know what you think of the samples.

Native Instruments today introduced the BERLIN, NEW YORK and VIENNA CONCERT GRAND as well as UPRIGHT PIANO, four software instruments that offer detailed reproductions of some of the world’s most revered pianos.

Previously available within the acclaimed AKOUSTIK PIANO, these instruments can now be purchased individually to specifically accommodate a certain sound or musical genre, or as a bundle that offers the full range of piano tones.

BERLIN, NEW YORK, VIENNA CONCERT GRAND and UPRIGHT PIANO are available in the NI Online Shop at $79 / 69 € per individual instrument. A bundle of all four instruments is available for $189 / 169 €.

Details:

All four pianos are powered by the industry-leading KONTAKT engine, and are playable in the free KONTAKT PLAYER as well as the full KONTAKT sampler. The three concert grands and the upright piano recreate each nuance and detail of the original instruments by combining elaborate multi-sampling with sophisticated emulation of soundboard resonance and pedal behavior. Making full use of the advanced sampling and scripting features of the KONTAKT engine, they remain both efficient and convenient to use for a wide range of musical styles and applications.

Each of the original instruments was carefully set up and recorded using a special recording technique that completely minimized room ambience, resulting in pristine sound quality:

• The BERLIN CONCERT GRAND is based on a modern masterpiece of German piano construction, and carries the original’s vitality and expressiveness throughout the entire dynamic range.
• The NEW YORK CONCERT GRAND is the authentic rendition of the standard in concert halls worldwide, especially suited for jazz and classical solo material.
• The VIENNA CONCERT GRAND replicates an acclaimed Austrian piano design, with eight full octaves of powerful, orchestral sound.
• Complementing the three concert grands, UPRIGHT PIANO offers the warm and intimate tone of one of the world’s best concert pianos.

You know what else raises the hackles around here?

Sample libraries with porn movie names.

You know you’ve seen them.

Ghetto Grooves, for example, is a pretty descriptive title. You can figure you’re going to get some solid hip hop and r ‘n’ b loops, with a title like that.

By the time you get to Ghetto Grooves 3, though, you’re moving into porn movie title territory. You gotta figure that the sound developer has put things on autopilot.

Ghetto Grooves 3 sounds like something that you’re going to find in the back room at Guitar Center….through the 18 and over door.

Here are a few more titles for you to consider:

• Heat Seekers 2
• Nu Jointz II
• Big Booty Remix 2
• Ethno World 4
• V-Spot
• Bollywood Bangers
• Black Butta 2
• Backside Bounce 2
• Urban Jointz
• Funky House Grooves 2

Sample libraries or porn movies?

You make the call!

iPhone Music Software: The Strange Agency has announced the launch of Slice (App Store link), a $.99 beat-juggling app.

Check out how it works in the demo video above.

If you’ve used Slice, leave a comment with your thoughts!

SampleRadar has released a collection of free trance samples, royalty free:

The samples are split intro instrumental categories: Basslines, Drums, Explosions, Leads, Pads and Trance Piano. The Drums folder features both loops and single hits.

All the samples are supplied as 24-bit WAV files so can be imported directly into your DAW of choice. Because they’re royalty-free, you’re welcome to use them in your music in any way you like – all we ask is that you don’t re-distribute them.

The trance samples are supplied in a zip file, so you’ll need to extract them before you can see them. Enjoy!

The samples were originally released in Computer Music magazine.

Download at MusicRadar.com.

Image: alexander yee

OT: The Halloween Scream Machine (App Store link) is a free iPhone app for Halloween.

It plays back creepy sounds and soundtracks, and it also lets you record and play back custom samples.

Combine these scary sound effects with the Halloween dark atmospheric music mix and get read to scare the neighborhood……

Description:

Experimental Box focuses on aspects of glitch, minmal and noise music and gives you a full toolbox of ingredients for cacophony, dissonance, atonality, noise, glitch, machines, hum, and repetition.

The rhythms, ambients and instruments of the Experimental Box were assembled from unique sounds such as stations-announcements, trains, paper crumpling, acoustic and electronic noise, station hum, underground-railway noise, pneumatic doors, crown cap shaking, glitches, noise, hiss, hum and other weirdness.

Check out the demos at the Cinematique site.

Contents:

• Brakes & Noises: Screaming brakes of an underground railway and noise ambience sent through a tape delay.
• Clashing Rails: Screaming rails and station ambience including an announcement gong. Modwheel switches between the two scenarios.
• Cuts Cap & Paper: A couple of tempo-synced loops: Crone-Cap shaking, Paper crumpling,  Tapping the strings of a guitar and Steps in leaves. You can control the filter, delay and reverb and a quarter note gate.
• Electro Wrong: An eighth note gated distorted alarm sound.
• Frog Angels: Kind of whistling/ kazoo sound mixed with electronic filtered noise. Modwheel changes between the two ambiences.
• Harmonize Arp: Lot hum through an arpeggiator with 6 presets.
• Lonesomescape: Different recordings of synthetic generated noise and sine oscillators. Low and deep!
• Noisescape: Different recordings of a busy lot and a sample of a station hum manipulated by filter and gates.
• Railway Slices: A couple of samples and recordings of trains and underground railways of cologne as well as station announcements in German and English.
• Reverse Garden: A combination of autoharp and psaltery fragments mixed up with a “bad” synthetic sound.
• Western Dirt: A dirty, dry muted E-guitar with 3 Round Robin variations, additional noise, scratch and attack recordings. It´s easy to edit the delay (amount, speed and feedback) and reverb (amount).
• ZW Expressive: A very expressive and percussive variation of our Zeitter & Winkelmann Piano.

Experimental Box retails for 19 EUR.

Note: Kontakt 3 or higher full version is required.

This tutorial video shows the key features of the Impulse drum sampler in Ableton Live 8 and how some of these features operate.

This video is ideal for the novice to intermediate level Music Technologist wanting to learn Live 8.

This video demonstrates using Propellerhead’s ReCycle software to create your own REX loops.

via muzicali:

Eric Archer, an electronics designer and musician who builds unique electronic sound generators, has posted a collection of samples made using one of his latest projects, the Mini Space Rocker drum machines.

Here’s a preview:

See also our earlier posts on Eric Archer and his Mini Space Rocker drum machines.

This is a demo of Roland TB-303 Acid Sounds, a free collection of Roland TB-303 Bassline Synthesizer samples.

via LorDBassePL:

Acid Sounds from Roland TB-303 great for Hardcore/Rave/Hardstyle production.

The sound library was designed by Yvat, a Rumanian IDM-artis, to create a new world of soundscape sculptures.

About Yvat

Yvat embraced a double track career of sound designer & producer and of experimental music artist. Over the past 10 years, more than 25 albums have been released by well known labels of experimental electronica, like Cactus Island, SubliminalTapeClub, Envizagae, Experimental Seafood or Boltfish.

His geometrical constructions combine fortunately unpolished textures and fine crafted sounds to give you a fresh and yet rough approach on intelligent music.

Art of Sounds retails for 99 Euro. An audio demo is available at the Ueberschall site.

Description:

Activate the parallel atmospheric energy in your productions with Ueberschall’s new school tool “Art of Sounds”. This versatile ensemble of FX mechanism based grooves and loops was made for progressive and experimental sound chemistry.

From this original standout concept, you can construct edgy, texturally emphasized grooves for Tracks, Film Score, GameAudio and New Media. With “Art of Sounds” you will be able to shape material beyond conformity.

Art Of Sounds provides 69 construction kits between 60 and 136 BPM, separated into:

• Single lines
• Artificial ambiences
• IDM illustrations
• Unperfected loops
• Additional drum kits shots to generate your own loops with

The 1.06 GB variety of content includes warm pads which conflict within themselves, defused and torn. Combined with rhythms which seem to diminish into an airy mist, while at the same moment the melody carries them on. Creating an aesthetic symbiosis of rhythm and harmony that fuses deeply within the meaning of sound. Unpredictable, living FX design, turbulence and nanotone logic help deliver unparalleled immersion in use. From soft and calm to chaotic and disturbed you’ll find everything that you need for modern and sophisticated multimedia productions. The single part loops in “Art of Sounds” can offer more than their sum, considering the flexible workflow within the Elastik engine that allows you to suite the material to your needs.