Reflecting on our first year as a sample developer
Ahh reflections… something I must admit I don’t love that much. BUT let’s do it!!
FIRST:
Happy 1 year anniversary to us - Triumph Audio!
Ghost Cello our first library was released February 2023.
Where to start? Well, how about the beginning.
I’ve been recording and sampling since the days before Kontakt and yes even Gigastudio. My first sampling foray was recording directly into the Roland S-760 samplers. Back then those machines had a massive memory of 32 megabytes. Yes, you read that right. 32 megabytes. Not gigabytes. One of my first video game scores I wrote included some crazy samples I performed, sang and created. It was then that I knew there was true power in creating your own samples and as a composer working with and sampling live musicians.
Fast forward a few years when Gigastudio reared its beautiful head. I started recording and sampling much more. One of my favorites was banging on huge metal children’s park slide that ended up in my score for Invader Zim and others. I sampled outboard electronic drum machines and synths for sounds we could use in the show as well. It was also the time that I moved beyond buying sample libraries for the Roland series and into samples for Gigastudio. Gigastudio was basically Kontakt but came about before Kontakt made its dent. It died a slow sad death and I have ported over all of my sounds into Kontakt now. Interestingly enough there is a plug in out there called Gigaplayer that can still load your original .gig files. So that’s pretty cool.
Back to my original point and post. I have always been sampling and recording bits of pieces of things and creating my own sounds. As I reflect on this past year of Triumph Audio and our successful launch I want to share with you all the huge amount of work it takes to do something as “simple” as sell a few sounds on the Internet.
All of the libraries we sold in 2023 were conceived in the years running up to 2023. Ghost Cello was in development for over 2 years as I had multiple recording session for it and would work on and off on it between other projects. It was recorded at a time before I even realized I wanted to start a sample library.
Ghost Ukelin was going to be this little library based on a single session of recording I did with it. But once we starting working on it inspiration struck and I spent a few months last year fleshing out some killer patches, drones and fx. The library spoke to me - it told me how big it was going to be.
Roadtrip Percussion is truly a library that was 20 plus years in the making. I have been collecting found sounds all around the US and last year in Italy and it all finally came together in a unique library. That slide I banged on for Invader Zim? It’s in the library. Lots of custom sounds I used for my composition projects are present in Roadtrip Percussion.
Feedback Drones came from an accident as I was trying to record some stuff for one of my Marvel Spider-Man animated shows. I ran with it and created what I think to be one of the most creative and unusual libraries out there. Drones created literally from musical feedback with live musician improvisations sprinkled in. Feedback Drones was used in Marvel’s Spider-Man: Maximum Venom for Venom who was the main villain. Feedback Drones was born and recorded prior to 2020. Four years ago!
Here is a cue using Feedback Drones as they discover the Seed that soon grows into Venom as the series continues:
Our Authentic Series came from recordings taken from a few years ago as well. Sprinkled into Bars was some recent purchases I want to add to finish it all up.
Back to the point again - this stuff takes lots of care, love and attention. And it also takes the willingness to listen to the library and ask it what does it need before it can be let out into the world. So many times we think we are done only to discover the library has more to share and there is more sonic goodness to discover.
Over the course of the year we discovered that our powerful engine could be a friend in helping us create more great content from our raw material. For Roadtrip Percussion we created our own set of programmed loops from the main sets of percussion for more content. I am using those on my current animated series! For Feedback Drones is was realizing that these long drones could be turned into pulses, rhythms, drones, pads, basses and leads. The library grew by leaps and bounds.
By the time we got to the Tongue Drum library we knew it was going to be a modern take on a traditional library. We have all the great velocity sensitive multi sample patches of course but we went a step further and created tons of cool hybrid cinematic patches that elevated the library to a modern cinematic choice for composers. We then replicated this for Bars. So don’t discount our Authentic Series as just some nicely sampled instruments - there are some crazy not so typical patches to be discovered!
Reflecting on other things from this year:
Making the sample library is the easiest part. Yes, that’s the fun and easy part. The hard part is getting you all to know that there is a sample library! That requires art, demos, video, marketing, newsletters, website, back end help, programming, creative programming, etc. It truly takes a village. I am so thankful for Royal Dean my main helper on this endeavor and many other friends and colleagues I have met along that way that have helped program, create, promote and help with all the heavy lifting.
As I reflect on this last year and of course look forward to our 2nd year in business I wonder what kinds of things are you looking for in a sample library? What get’s you excited as a composer? What libraries of ours have connected with you and why?
A final note about libraries coming this year.
I really take this one or two libraries at a time. I have about 10 or so libraries that are in various states of being finished. These will get out eventually. The one that is coming next and in fact will be out before February is finished is Short Wave. Short Wave is a library created from Short Wave radio signals I captured from signals around the world. These were then heavily manipulated in all the ways I have described above and the results are really awesome!
The library after Short Wave will get many of you excited! We will be announcing that probably in early March. Stayed tuned and please drop us a line to say hello. We love hearing from people.
Finally, anything I should talk more about, blog about, do differently? I am always looking for new ideas and fresh takes.
Best,
Kevin Manthei
