How I make sample libraries - 2020 Edition (Kontakt, SFZ, Decent Sampler, REAPER)

[@XRaym]

Many thanks for the showcase of my scripts at 10:11 !! Very nice to see them in action :P I have embeded the video on the product page, cheers !

[@famitory]

tip for recording percussions: round robins are far more important than velocity layers on most percussion insturments, and having more round robins is more important at the highest levels. it's harder to hear the subtle differences in tambre or machine gunning on a low volume sound, ie a low velocity layer

[@martifingers]

Skill, generosity, creativity and communication ability in equal large measure. Exemplary YT.

[@dmitryostapchuk9148]

I've been searching for how to create perfect seamless loops in Reaper for so long. And finally that's it. I'm so so grateful!

[@dimitrivanlieshout1615]

you inspire me to sample my Homemade Bansuri Flute , very nice to see how you make your librarys , thanks for the info David

[@Matoro342]

Very cool, you make the only tutorials that actually feel accessible, like I could do it too. And I've never done anything like this before.

[@eylam9690]

The clapping to identify mistakes in the recordings was a little gem. Thanks.

[@AmpBeazy]

this was a very informative video as im beginning my decent into VST creation. made things easier to understand on the sample creation side for me, ill watch this video again once my samples are ready.Thanks

[@sashasmusic2463]

this is so nerdy and amazing. thank you for this.

[@christianr391]

I found your channel via Mr Henson’s channel and I’m so happy for it. I love your videos and how educational they are. Well done, and thank you for sharing your knowledge!

[@jerrymartin79]

Thank you David! Fantastic video. I am currently falling down the rabbit hole of sampling pipe organs for the Hauptwerk platform. There are many elements of your workflow which are very elegant and I plan to study more! (I am relatively unfamiliar with Reaper but am very impressed) thank you again!

[@FiddlingwithmyWhistle]

Thanks David... love seeing how you make your libraries Merry Christmas

[@Markplaysmusic]

Good to see someone else in Reaper - I love it. more powerful than many give it credit for. I used to use some of the more expensive daw's and when I realised what reaper did, i quit them after they ran out and paid my $60. SFZ? I don't have that. Do I need it? Good video.

[@MAXIMBOARD]

Отличная работа, интересный рассказ! Большое спасибо и творческих успехов!)

[@Utamaru56]

Your channel is a goldmine. Really enjoying it. Thank you

[@DavidHilowitzMusic]

So glad you've been enjoying it!

[@nick3795]

Really very interesting indeed, I am new to this and was looking for a way to import samples into a Plugin in Reaper but this has opened my eyes, thanks

[@escheide]

Very useful video. Gotta love reaper!

[@PK_PrzemyslawKepa]

Hi David! Thanks for the inspiration and valuable tips. I bought a Kontakt 7 sampler and recorded the first samples of my 13-string Koto - demo on my channel. Greetings!

[@Mrjononotbono]

I've just started my first first Sample library. Your channel is amazing. Love it and thank you!

[@TerenceKearns]

Fantastic video man. You are a legend. We definitely have no excuse not to make instruments if there was any doubt.

[@DHealey]

I really like your method for looping, I'm going to have to see if I can write a script to do some of the heavy lifting!

[@artemi-music]

hello! any success with that?

[@DHealey]

@@artemi-music I never got around to trying it, the sampler I use got some built in loop facilities so I started using those instead

[@artemi-music]

@@DHealey ok, thanks!

[@RybergNikolai]

This is insane! You are brilliant and creative man!

[@bennethos]

Thx for sharing the workflow. Very relaxing to watch too

[@Drinkyoghurt]

Dave, your content has been amazing. I've started sampling my synths but since Ableton doesn't have an automated sampler I almost gave up. I found out that you can use the free MPC beats software (DAW?) which has a really powerful built in autosampler and you can pull that into kontakt and have it work pretty much without any adjustments. Might be something you could add to a new video. Having a free option for autosampling midi instruments is really useful for beginners like me.

[@EliyahuDesmond]

THANK YOU this comprehensive tutorial finally taught me what i needed!!

[@LosingTouchWithLosingTouch]

It’s been 8 years since I made sample libraries. I had recently returned to Kontakt for the first time in forever. I was looking at it like a cat trying to learn a stick shift on a school bus. 🙀 This video brought it all back. Thank you so much.🥳 This channel is the best I have found all year. Joining patreon for sure.

[@ZethKeeper]

That loop trick is dope. Thank you!

[@stefanwessel6092]

Great Explanation and a turn on to reaper really. You show off some really cool workflows that I would not really know how to realise (so quickly) in Cubase. Have you always been working with reaper?

[@muralist_]

It would be nice, to have a video in which you explain the procedures as shown in this video, but then understandable to beginners in this kind of work. I find it very interesting (and have been a composer and musician for many years, both professional and amateur), but 3/4 of the tasks you do and the terms you use while explaining the process in this video, are completely Chinese to me as it all is very advanced technical jargon.

[@stephenbreitling2327]

very interesting to see how capturing a real instrument is actually done. although there are many helpful tools, this still looks like a very tiring process. i can understand now, why most sample libraries are rather expensive! i don’t think, i will ever try to put together a complex instrument instrument like this, but also for a few samples your tuning and looping tricks should be quite helpful. thanx for all the effort you put into decent sampler, looks like this will be the new, big thing in the sampling realm.

[@cadolar]

Thanks for this really helpful video. David, I found out, that your method of changing the rate rather than the pitch in REAPER for manually tuning the samples (as remarked in 8:30) is sort of mandatory on the looping trick you showed in 16:45. I was using pitch at first but ended up with clicking when using your loop trick as described, which does not appear when using the rate. It even appeared when setting the loop points exactly on the zero-crossings. I guess the reason for this is, that REAPER does not show the actual waveform when using pitch rather than rate.

[@carlraven75]

Dave, your videos are super clear and go just at the right speed. And you're a great musician. I'm a classical saxophonist and Reaper user in UK and have been trying to make realistic Kontakt saxophone samples. Getting there with the legato and velocity layers thanks to you. I want to access smoothly different velocity layers using my ae30 wind synth (breath control) when the brath increases in value. Have you done this? really happy to collaborate if it's of interest! Keep up the great work.

[@nexbeats7341]

Hey, Could we get a video of you making a super complicated SFZ instrument? That'd be dope, because many of us are completely new to SFZ. It would be nice to see you make GUI, write the entire thing by scratch and then add ADSR, Reverb etc.

[@danielebortoluz]

Very useful and interesting! Congratulations!

[@micalopez3707]

Thank you, will be following your work to help asap, thank you.

[@troymarshallmusic]

Thanks Dave 😀

[@davetbassbos]

Thanks! very helpful although I'm more of a sample user than creator, it helps to see what goes into it and how it affects sound and playability.

[@marylewis3311]

Perfect thanks 🙏💖🙏

[@leonardosales526]

your violin is great man! ive already downloaded!

[@SHVEDsax]

Amazing Video! Still a very complicated process...

[@macronencer]

This is a really useful video - thank you! One day I'd like to make a sampled instrument from my tin whistle, but I know it will be a tough challenge, so I'm going to start simple...

[@IleSpasev]

Great content! Thank you!

[@user-vk5fi6hh1r]

I wish i can give more than one like thaanks man.

[@kalle665]

Super Typ

[@GusWMusic]

Damn, I didn't know you could export loops out of Reaper and have Kontakt AND Sforzando read those! 😱 That will save me a ton of time indeed... Dave, what do you mean by "some sort of automated solution" when you refer to the case of having a large number of samples? I can't imagine how to automate a delicate process such as creating smooth loop points.

[@HealyHQ]

Love the hair!

[@patchesinblue]

Excellent, thank you for making this. How did you become as proficient as you are, with Reaper? If you don't mind sharing, I'd love to know what your favorite resources, "penny dropped for me" tutorials were, that helped. Thanks!

[@timgough942]

Thanks so much for this. As an Ableton user I am struggling massively with Reaper. When I use the X-Raym autopitch it's not naming the files with the pitch, and I cannot work out how to export the notes as individual files. Might have to switch back to Ableton and do manually.

[@Copiio]

hey man it would be dope if you could make a 1950s terz guitar or a 1958 swingmaster or a 1959 thunderstick with looser strings as a library! Thanks for the content man.

[@ROQSTAR]

Great! Would love to see your NI Kontakt libraries on Roqstar!

[@JeffyG]

Great insight into your process and inspiring. But, I'm struggling with all the sampled instruments in different formats. I'm a Logic guy, and have NI Komplete/Kontakt and I've tried Decent Sampler, and a few others. From a user point-of-view, it's getting impossible to remember which format and where some of my sounds came from!!! I can't remember.... was it in Kontakt? Logic? Decent? There are commercial forces at odds with the open sharing of Decent / Pianobook concept. I wish I could just stick with one sample player. Any advice?

[@haraldsalaun6862]

Great stuff! Is your workflow of setting the loop points and exporting them integrated in the wav files also possible in Logic Pro X?

[@sitmotivation8704]

thx work

[@holymountstudios9099]

If you zoom in and make sure that the waveforms overlap as well as possible, you can make the crossfade very short without any audible effects. I wouldn't use the method mentioned in the video (in the section about removing re-bows), which has two violins playing during the crossfade, and also the big potential of phasing issues. The important thing (apart from volume and tone differences, of course) is to keep the phase of the audio consistent in a crossfade. This is also important for loop points. You need to be aware of volume, tone, and especially phase.

[@MusicalWizardryMarcoIannello]

Genius!

[@mimosa-music]

When recording velocity layers, how do you ensure the performer is playing notes at the correct volume? How many velocity layers would you expect for a high quality instrument?

[@mediacomposer]

Can this be done with RX Elements, or is the full version required? Also, what beginner microphones would you recommend to get into sampling? Thanks for a great video!

[@DavidHilowitzMusic]

Yes. If you're using RX Elements, just use "voice de-noise" instead of "spectral de-noise". It has fewer controls but I used it for many years and can confirm that it does work. As for what microphones to get, I'll have to give that more thought... :)

[@mediacomposer]

@@DavidHilowitzMusic no worries, thanks very much - let me know if you get the chance!

[@tonymckeown1314]

Dave made an earlier video using RX7 Elements, in the 1st few minutes of it, that might be useful to you: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eGPMdpuAmNd7rqs

[@mediacomposer]

@@tonymckeown1314 great, thanks very much!!

[@Metalpazallteway]

@@mediacomposer Regarding microphones, mics are a varying subject depending on the instrument. For close micing use sturdy mics like sm58 for example, for vocals high quality mics are great like beta58a and so forth, all depending on your budget preferably condenser or ribbon-like Neumann mics for high end artist or instrumentalist is great option.

[@technotechmusic]

Hey David, just wanted to say thanks for your tutorials, I don’t have full Kontakt, but you’ve inspired me to create a sample library in SFZ. This is such a good tutorial for making sample libraries. Have you considered using Session 2 WAV or Endless WAV?

[@paulshelleyaudio]

Appreciate the tutorial, that was greatly useful and very cohesive, thanks very much ! Could you elaborate on how you've determined you cent calculation in your script?

[@aniruddh_d16]

So, the SFZ Lua script can only be opened in creator tools or can it be opened in a text editor too(Like Visual Studio Code)? And can I find the Lua script for the SFZ version in the My Reaper Scripts link that can be found in your video's description? Sorry for asking too many questions

[@DavidHilowitzMusic]

SFZ export script: gist.github.com/dhilowitz/4af789fd36e8a9f8b6b8764ad658828e Decent Sampler export script: gist.github.com/dhilowitz/98f46b22f38d96f8a818e7fa62874c57

[@aniruddh_d16]

@@DavidHilowitzMusic Thank you so much in advance:)

[@aniruddh_d16]

@@DavidHilowitzMusic Sorry, but the Decent Sampler Export Script link works, the SFZ Export Script doesn't, but it does show up on your github page, just the link is wrong.

[@DavidHilowitzMusic]

Ah, thanks for the heads up!

[@lbmusic_rusty]

by any chance would you happen to have a video discussing a drop-down system in Kontakt (select different types of reverb or different styles of playing)? If not do you know any resources that cover this topic?

[@girliepopcornpiggy7003]

I love the hair

[@mrprisbrando]

I have a question.. I just started making my own sample and still in the learning stages but how do I create a preview audio when I’m done with my samples. I have a few samples already and they don’t do a preview before selecting a sample. Thanks for your videos.

[@Superdelphinus]

Is there a way you can make a decent sampler instrument without having to use kontakt at all, or is it really like an alternative player for kontakt instruments rather than a sampler in its own right?

[@juneaftn]

Sorry but I'm just curious as a novice. What's that springy thing attached to your violin when you are recording?

[@DavidHilowitzMusic]

Ah, that's just a silly experiment I did-not a normal part of the sampling process. ;) You can see more about the experiment here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/q36bf553eMyrh9U

[@VKJ85]

Would this be an ok thing todo: "when You're recording using multiple microphones: Recording the room for 30 seconds as separate files would be created for each mic at the sametime. Then recording each instrument with different velocities and notes. In RX, Learning Voice Denoise from the room silence and from that batch processing Voice Denoise for all of the recorded files on different instruments velocities and notes." Other info: My main DAW is Ableton Live 11. I do have Cakewalk by Bandlab, but haven't dig into it much (lack of basic knowledge on the shortcuts for basic editing etc). I cannot select nonadjacent clips and do the fadeouts. Tedious timeconsuming process.

[@nickplaysviola]

Daivid, just found your videos, thank you! Curious what you think about changing the velocity range from dynamics to some other parameter, say stereo imaging or something like that? Or maybe even articulation, like a range of smooth attack to harsh attack, but not really dynamics?

[@antoniocasas8176]

Hi, David. In the part of looping I did it exactly like you did but it didn't work at all. I can hear always a click 😔. **Edited**: Now I realise that it was because I changed de shift of the item. If someone has this problem too: you have to consolidate the items after tune them but before split them

[@pedrohenriquemendes8788]

Hey David✌️, are you going to develop some way to change the timbres or groups of instruments using the keyboard keys like kontakt does? that would be very useful!

[@AntonKuznetsovMusic]

Does anyone else have a problem with Creator Tools recognising the groups in Kontakt? I hit a rock at the moment when I want to run the script but the instruments and groups in Creator Tools simply don't show up. Any input would be much appreciated.

[@giuseppevasapolli]

Very informative video, any chance to see a similar process in Logic Pro X?

[@willswitchcraft]

I downloaded a couple of your FREE offerings, however I don't use software to play samples, I use hardware. Is there a place I can find (even single velocity strikes) of your sample instruments, as a collection of INDIVIDUAL .aif or .wav files? Thanks for your time and all your wonderful insights......

[@DavidHilowitzMusic]

Yes, they are all available. If you have a .dslibrary file, you can just change its extension to .zip and unzip it. Inside of the .zip file you will find all of the raw WAV or AIFF files.

[@willswitchcraft]

Thanks v much for the quick, concise response.

[@sujoybose77]

Your video is very helpful as always. I sampled a few instruments. But I am facing one challenge with the pitch bend range. I need large PBR (at least 12) for the type of music I perform to achieve smooth glide and slide... But whenever I set PBR 12 and gliding fron lower note (say C) to higher note (say G), the higher note sounds synthetic compared to if I just play that higher note.. Is there any way to solve this problem? It's the same problem I faced in Ableton sampler, Audio Layer ios sampler as well as bitwig sampler.. How to avoid this synthetic sounding slide? (By the way I sampled every alternate note)

[@holymountstudios9099]

I had better results with Acon Digital than with RX. You might want to try that out.

[@chrissavage5298]

Is the MIDI instrument you created not available for download anymore? I don't see the link you mention, unless I'm trippin...

[@EverettVinzant]

In my career round Robbin has a meaning… I can’t figure out how to make it apply to what you guys are talking about. I’m seriously asking, what do you guys mean when you say round Robbin?

[@isleofdeath]

Sorry for the noob question, but what is "round robin" in this context?

[@MadSteex]

All great, But I was here to know how to create the library, basically I do not want to have the recorded .wav files and create a library pack that can be sell and people can use without having all the .wav files and the paths

[@dafingaz]

Hey Dave, can you add a felt piano to Decent Sampler? I have a few friends looking for a felt piano on iOS. Thanks for considering!

[@DavidHilowitzMusic]

Yes, I’ll see if I can add one. 😀

[@dafingaz]

@@DavidHilowitzMusic 🥺🙌🏾 THANK YOU! 🙌🏾

[@the8ctagon]

There's Something About David Hilowitz

[@mybiggrin]

Would you mind explaining to me about what the nfz thing is all about?

[@ayeapprove]

I'm currently sampling a bass for decent sampler that I want to release for free - here's a question: How do I map a key change for open string or 5th string (same note)?

[@samuelsantana7630]

how to do pitch bend in decent sampler?

[@kettenlaiho3983]

What a nice video! I actually didn't know this was possible lol Does anybody know is it's possible to use kontakt player to do such a thing? If not, which version do I have to pay for?

[@Keepjamn]

could you show us the process of making skins for decent sampler?

[@alphabeets]

But how does he get his hair like that.

[@tuneboxmusic]

How and where i can sell my own library?

[@marksadventures3889]

Removing Boeings? I thin k covid did that for awhile.

[@benji_tunez]

whats a round robin lol

[@joshuagood4237]

Can you please help me out with the looping problem I have sent you several messages and emails but get no reply

[@DavidHilowitzMusic]

I actually did respond to your email. Did it maybe go to spam? Specifically, I asked you what operating system you are using? Does changing the buffer settings in the preferences change anything for you?

[@joshuagood4237]

@@DavidHilowitzMusic hi yes I tried all that it didn't make any difference there are some messages on messenger that I sent you Thanks

[@joshuagood4237]

Did you send me a testflight through the email? As I wonder which version it was before it's stopped working it was about 3 or 4 updates ago Thanks

[@joshuagood4237]

Did you send me a testflight through the email? As I wonder which version it was before it's stopped working it was about 3 or 4 updates ago Thanks

[@joshuagood4237]

@@DavidHilowitzMusic ios 14.5

[@julianokhoshaba1]

It sound like a horn of a bus when you play chords . .

[@ItsKruski]

Python code

[@rhomboidman]

I’m Dave Hilowitz