By Craig Anderton | Mon, 01 Mar 2010
In the old days, organizing sounds in
the studio was easy: The Hammond B3
and/or piano sat in one corner, the
drum set in another, and if there was a
synth, you organized sounds within the
synth itself.
But then came computers and virtual
instruments, with an explosion of
sounds—drum software with hundreds
of kicks, synths with 40GB libraries,
orchestral libraries that needed more
than one computer to function . . .
wow. But have these huge libraries
simplified our lives, or complicated
them? If you’re looking for that perfect
kick drum, do you really need to audition
4,156 samples?
Well, that’s what this roundup is all
about. We’ll cover a few tips, then
review some cream-of-the-crop programs—
including two seriously cool
programs you can get for free.
Fig. 1. With IK’s instruments, and those from Native
Instruments, you can specify a particular path for the
library.
DRIVE MY DATA
Programs with big libraries are picky
about finding their data. If a hard drive
crashes, or a
library’s moved to a
bigger drive, the
program might lose
track of its sounds.
Many programs
default to storing
libraries on your root
drive (C: drive in
Windows-speak)
because that drive
is guaranteed to
exist in any system.
However, it also
holds your operating
system and applications.
If your instrument
streams
samples from disk,
then you’re asking your root drive to do
a lot. Storing libraries on their own drive
means being able to stream more data.
Programs often include a setup
option to install the library on a separate
drive, but you can change the path
later if desired. For example, clicking
on Prefs with IK Multimedia’s instruments
lets you specify the library location
(Figure 1); Spectrasonics and MOTU
instruments require that you place a
shortcut for sound libraries within the
program file folder (Figure 2).
STORAGE
Invest in the future and spend $200 on
two Terabyte drives (or bigger!)—one
to store your libraries, the other to back up the first hard drive. Backing up
that much data takes time, so do it
while you’re at a movie (or asleep); but
backing up is less of a hassle
than reconstructing a TeraByte
of data after a crash. Libraries
are seldom copy-protected
(that task goes to the playback
engine), so you can usually
replace a crashed drive with
your backup, and keep going.
An internal SATA-type
drive that connects directly
into your motherboard is
ideal, but if you hate opening
up computers or need portability,
then use a quality outboard
FireWire or USB 2.0
drive. However, for optimum
results consider adding a USB
or FireWire port card to your
computer rather than using
the onboard ports.
Fig. 2. Instruments from Spectrasonics and
MOTU use aliases (shortcuts) to locate
libaries.
KNOW WHEN TO STOP
If you have a program with, say, 100
kick drums, go ahead and audition
them but when you find one that
sounds good, stop—don’t keep going
because “maybe there’s a better one.”
Music is about inspiration and
emotional impact, not getting lost in
kick drum sounds.
FAVORITES
When you have a bazillion
instruments and presets, take
advantage of any “favorites” options
so you can return to sounds you like.
But don’t become so stuck on a few
favorites you stop exploring your
options—the advantage of big
libraries is a wealth of choices that
almost guarantees you’ll be able to
find the right sound for the right
project.
And while we’re on the subject of
favorites, let’s get to the reviews—
these are a few of the better
instruments that have crossed my
desk in the past few months.