Shopping for STS Samples

[Pete]

I really like the STS, and I've been shopping for samples to use with it.
I have a Kurzweil k2600xs and a Roland S-760 too.

In general I'm really impressed with the currently available sample cd's. They represent lots of talent, character, and hard work.

But it's not a perfect world.

While shopping, I found that:
Cd's for Akai S1000 are made for that sampler's memory, 32 megs max!
Of course the manufacturers try to make the samples small enough to get more than one sound in memory at once. They might offer the same CD in other formats. Might be the same thing with larger samples! Aargh. Do we want to get the bigger-sample format and convert?

Roland has these older disks for the S-700 series that are really good. You can find them factory resealed. I converted them with CDXtract to STS, and most of them come out ok. A few ( of the converted patches )have bad loop points or something. Those make a loud buzz on some notes. Probably not hard to fix.

I eventually got myself the Roland sampler to play these on. The converted patches don't have the same dynamic expressiveness as the originals.

Beware, some Roland disks just say "s-series", and might be for their earlier ( 12-bit ) samplers.

I also have some Orchestral and early/rare instrument soundfonts downloaded from
soundfont.com. These are cheap and have lots of character, I really like them.

The Akai CD I have is CD #1 from Akai's series, it's a general collection. It has a lot of good sounds on it, but not much that really hits the spot. They seem a little lifeless, but enhanceable by Creamware's goodies.

Wizoo's cd's of the DX7, Nord, and Waldorf synths are good deals, They were $20 each. I got the most use out of the DX7 one. They're meant to be tweaked.

My free copy of Giga LE has a good sample converter built in. As I remember, it can turn Giga to Akai or soundfont, and does it well.

What would I like to have?
I'd like to have some really good sample collections that are programmed to take full advantage of my STS sampler. Stuff with lots of character, from several different manufacturers. I'd forget the free downloads and the format converters. I'd write most of my stuff on the STS 5000, with the window open to 16 voices.

I'd like to write major film scores and tell everyone Creamware's my secret weapon.

ha.

Pete

[Herr Voigt]

Hi Pete,

I've never heard about STS-sample collections for sale. That's a pity! But if you own CDs from the german mag "keyboards", there are many good samples to put into STS. I've collected them all and tried to make interesting good sounds. The samples are of an outstanding quality. Björn Bojahr made them.
Unfortunately the using of these samples is only allowed when you bought the mags with the matching CDs. But sometimes there is announced that somebody will sell his "keyboards"-collection. It's not expensive.
And if you own these wav-files, I could send you the sts-programs I've made. I spent lots of time with producing these programs and I like to work with them cos I can use the full flexibility of my STS-4000. I'd give them for free.

Cheers, Thomas

[Pete]

Hi Herr Voigt,
That's a good offer!

I looked up the magazine on the web, looks interesting. I did download some EXS24 samples from Björn Bojahr's site, and there's some utility software there too.

The sample conversion to STS didn't work well for those programs, but I was just curious anyway. Emu is blowing out their sample cd's, I wonder how well those would convert. Hmmm, curious again, dangit!

Pete

[Herr Voigt]

Hi Pete,

of course, what you could download, you can use. So send a private message to me, and I collect the sts-files you want and send them to you.

Greetz, Thomas