The Sound Board

Ever wanted to make your own Cinesamples bundle? Do you know exactly which libraries you need to take your composing to the next level, but they're never on sale at the same time?

For only two weeks, mix and match any three (or more!) libraries, and get Black Friday prices - 50% off - your entire cart!

Need some inspiration to start your mix n' match? Check out some of our latest Hollywood-ready sample libraries below.

Pick any three, the discount then appears automatically in the cart.

https://cinesamples.com/products

Having recently decided that I was completely wrong and do, in fact, need more pianos in my life, I've picked up CinePiano, Piano in Blue and a filler of Ancient Bones.

I don't have CinePiano, but I predict you will really enjoy Piano in Blue!

And sadly, I own everything of theirs that I have any desire to own... oh well.

Both seems lovely Bill. CinePiano seems to slot in nicely, and has a terrific range - compared to Emotional Piano which it will often now replace, all the velocities need to come down and there is a much more aggressive fff. Also the response is quite different, I find I'm lengthening many shorter notes on the Emotional Piano midi. It does sit very nicely in an orchestral mix out of the box.

Piano in Blue is gorgeously mellow. I'm almost allergic to most jazz, but this begs me to add three more notes to every chord.

Try PIB at the lowest velocity with a fair amount of verb. Pretty nice for cinematic mellow.

wst3 wrote: ↑Jun 15, 2020 5:08 pm And sadly, I own everything of theirs that I have any desire to own... oh well.

That's ok, just pick your best 3 and send them to me

Lawrence wrote: ↑Jun 16, 2020 12:46 am Try PIB at the lowest velocity with a fair amount of verb. Pretty nice for cinematic mellow.

It is! However, I haven't found the same degree of just-sitting-comfortably at the medium or higher velocities. Also in one piece I tried I found it gave a dark tone to the whole thing, which wasn't quite what I was after... again, I think these are at medium velocities.

But its a gorgeous sound that will suit some stuff just great.

Thomas Mavian wrote: ↑Jun 16, 2020 2:40 am

wst3 wrote: ↑Jun 15, 2020 5:08 pm And sadly, I own everything of theirs that I have any desire to own... oh well.

That's ok, just pick your best 3 and send them to me

Sure - just be forewarned, might take me time to identify them!!

It's a new-ish trend that sample developers that priced their libraries at the upper end, and never did sales, all have joined the sales frenzy. VSL never had any sales until quite recently. Now they have them constantly. Orchestral Tools even had a 'no sales' policy. Then there was that Native Instruments sale, and now the port to Sine player sales. Maybe Cinesamples have had a few sales in the past, but as far as I remember not as deep nor as frequent as they do now. I think it's probably that the highest priced libraries don't sell as well as they used to, what with all the competition.

For me, these sales come too late to win me as a customer. When I started to build my arsenal, I would have been interested in these libraries at their current prices. At full price, they were out of range. But now that I have amassed all the libraries that I need, and then some, I'm not even interested in yet more traditional libraries at the 300 to 400$ price point. I'm wondering how many of you more experienced people feel the same way.

CineSamples did used to offer a lot of great updates - the CineBrass series have had revisions and quite a lot of new content over the years (same deal for Spectrasonics or VIR Harmonic's Bohemian series). It feels like a good trade - no sales, but extra content over time. However I think I'm right in saying that these updates have got less frequent in recent years for CineSamples. Also they don't seem to do sale deals on upgrades for customers of existing related products - you get a discount all the time, but not a steeper discount in the sales.

I'd pay a lot for a product that I thought was either blemish-free and/or groundbreaking, or was going to be developed ongoing. But in terms of regular products, then these sale prices feel about right for the marketplace now. And once you've started on sales, you can't go back - you just have to vary them up I guess.

As I'd posted recently I felt I wasn't in the market for pretty much anything, frankly. This was an easy purchase however, as it came out of need - nothing I had fit the bill quite right for a project I was on. Thanks to the patient kindness of Piet, he rendered a few alternatives for a couple of pieces so I could try them in situ, and it felt like CinePiano had the most potential for this specific purpose, and so it has proved.

Being as it was a labour of love project not a commercial one, I decided I'd wait for the next sale - 50% off means that its kinda hard to just go back to stump up the full price the following week.

wst3 wrote: ↑Jun 15, 2020 5:08 pm And sadly, I own everything of theirs that I have any desire to own... oh well.

This seems like an enviable situation to me, Bill. It's like an "alll the products you want for 100% off" sale, because you don't have to pay a penny now to use your favorite Cinesamples titles.

Best,

Geoff

Geoff for the win!

There are situations where some of my favorite developers are not releasing libraries that interest me. When I first noticed this I thought maybe there was something wrong with me, but I've accepted the fact that I really don't need anything, and even the list of things I'd like is frighteningly short (although still expensive!)

So yeah, over the last several years I have purchased all the Cinesamples libraries that interest me, and that is quite a few. As with Sonore, Decant Horn, and Monster Low Winds they do come up with interesting things, (and I did buy all three eventually), but that's pretty much it.

I admit I read Guy's ravings about Cinepiano, and it is tempting, but one is not enough. I hate to sound cynical, but frankly, paying full price, or anything more than 40% off for a Cinesamples library no longer makes sense. I feel bad for them, and I hope they know what they are doing, but they have lost the reputation of holding infrequent sales.

Just a quick addendum on CinePiano - my only real frustration thus far is that some of the releases feel unnatural. I need to play around with it some more to see if I can isolate when it happens. Otherwise its fab.

you are killing me here Guy<G>