Sample Libraries

Cinesamples’ subscription package promises an awful lot of bang for your monthly bucks.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 5/5 Stars. Prolific composer Max Richter turns his hand to sample libraries, recording a world‑beating Steinway D‑274 concert grand.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ 4/5 Stars. If you require a collection of textural sound elements that might enhance your latest sci‑fi based film, video game or TV drama, you’re in the right place.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 5/5 Stars. Aria Vocalscapes contains some beautiful content performed by classical soprano Emma May Price.

Toontrack get gritty with their Dark Industrial expansions for EZdrummer and EZkeys.

Join the Spitfire Audio team and engineer Simon Rhodes on a deep dive into one of the most epic orchestral projects of all time...

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 5/5 Stars. Emergence Audio’s latest Kontakt Instrument completes a line‑up that already includes Violin, Cello and Double Bass.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 5/5 Stars. Spitfire’s Crystal Bowls features seven quartz singing bowls played by composer Aska Matsumiya.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ 4/5 Stars. Produced with Sonuscore’s expertise in multi‑layered performance engines, as seen in products such as The Orchestra, The Score, Elysion or EastWest’s Orchestrator.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 5/5 Stars. State Machine’s designers suggest that Slow Drift's focus is on ethereal textures, though in reality it offers up a wide selection of preset styles, much as a hardware synth might do.

Sam Boydell talks us through selecting an orchestral sound library, creating a simple string motif and incorporating more realism into the finished piece.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 5/5 Stars. If you are a media composer working within the broad field of modern drama, action, horror or sci‑fi, Infinity Vol 1 offers a palette of sounds that might well appeal.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ 4/5 Stars. Nordic Spheres is inspired by the frozen lands of Iceland and combines carefully curated samples, categorised as Tonal, Non‑tonal and Percussive.

Orchestral Tools’ new strings library distils the sound world of a major European composer.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 5/5 Stars. MagicDrum 2 is a multi‑sampled steel tongue drum with on‑board sound‑shaping and processing that brings it into line with other recent Quiet Music offerings.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ 4/5 Stars.  Firestarter provides a modestly-priced collection of trailer‑friendly sound effects all served up in a well‑organised set of categories and in a 48kHz/24‑bit WAV format.

Heavyocity’s supercharged sequel rockets into orbit.

Rating: 4.5/5 Stars. For his latest release, Auddict CEO Dorian Marko dusts off his concert pianist chops and invites us to get our hands on his Steinway Model D concert grand.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ 4/5 Stars. Guitar Odyssey isn’t about creating conventional guitar sounds, but rather about creating entirely new sounds that use guitar recordings as the initial sound source.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 5/5 Stars. With its bizarre appearance and endearing‑but‑creepy sound, the acoustic instrument known as a waterphone has become a firm staple of the horror and soundtrack worlds.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ 4/5 Stars. The majority of the sounds in DRIFT003 were created from AI vocal generators, though we’re told there is a small amount of actual mouth‑generated sound in there too.