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Create your signature sound with Sample Library Creator 101 (intro pricing!)

Andrew Aversa

Andrew Aversa

Lead Developer
If you've ever wanted to add truly unique sounds to your sonic palette, to stand out from the crowd, go beyond presets, and get inspired with one-of-a-kind virtual instruments... then I have good news!

Impact Soundworks is proud to announce Sample Library Creator 101. Our first-ever course, designed to teach you the process of creating your own inspiring and one-of-a-kind virtual instruments. No graphic design or programming required!



As referenced in our recent 20-minute YouTube tutorial, this is a true, in-depth course that will have dozens of lessons covering:
  • How to decide what instrument(s) to record
  • Where to find interesting sounds, spaces, and performers
  • Planning the right articulations and sample depth
  • Essential recording equipment
  • How to set up for a sampling session
  • Efficient editing and organization
  • Patch creation and sound design
  • ... and plenty more
I'll show you the complete process, step-by-step, from start-to-finish, even if you've never done any sample recording, editing, or patch creation, and even if you're a beginner or hobbyist.

Sample Library Creator 101 is a DIY course that you can take at your own pace with video lessons, text resources, and other materials to help you make your first library as quickly and easily as possible.

INTRO SALE​

Now through the end of January 2024, we're offering heavily discounted Introductory pricing: only $99 for lifetime access.

You'll also have get access to our private Facebook group for help, support, and inspiration.

If you've seen any of my YouTube tutorials, you can imagine how excited I am for this project! Obviously, I love making custom samples (understatement) but I also believe that anyone can do this, even if you're not super technical. I promise that you can make inspiring sounds without worrying about having a pro studio/gear at your disposal or advanced KSP, UI, etc.

Get the course, and I hope to see you there!

https://learn.impactsoundworks.com/create-virtual-instruments/

LESSONS / CONTENTS​

6 hours of videos and counting!

Foundations
  • How to Decide on What to Record
  • How to Find Instruments, Objects, and Players
  • Sampling Synthesizers
  • DEMO: Finding a Giant Box to Sample
  • DEMO: Conceptualizing an Electric Piano Library
  • Project Design: Self-Assessment
Preproduction
  • Planning Articulations to Record
  • Dynamics, Pitch Technique, Round Robins
  • DEMO: Selecting Articulations for the Box
  • Sampling Depth for Synthesizers
  • Using the Sampling Estimate Planner
  • Project File Setup
  • When to Use Sheet Music for Sampling
  • Preproduction: Self-Assessment
Recording
  • Recording Gear Check
  • Preventing and Mitigating Noise
  • Mic Setup and Testing Theory
  • Recording Session Prep
  • Recording: Self-Assessment
Editing
  • Session Audio Intake and Editing Setup
  • Constant Noise Removal
  • First Pass Slicing and Cutting Samples in REAPER
  • Regions, Rendering, and (Re)naming
  • Creating Useful Naming Schemes
  • Sample Looping with EndlessWAV
  • Loudness and Normalization
  • When to Use Phase Alignment
  • Tuning and Pitch Correction
  • Editing: Self-Assessment
Patch Creation
  • Intro to Kontakt - Mapping
  • Intro to Groups in Kontakt
  • Automapping and Round Robins
  • Using Keyswitches in Kontakt
  • Intro to Modulators in Kontakt
  • Kontakt Filters, EQs, and Buses
  • Prototype: Self-Assessment
  • DEMO: Second-Pass Editing the Box Samples
  • Advanced Modulator Techniques
  • Dynamicc Crossfades for Continuous Volume Control
  • DEMO: Building an Electric Piano Ambient Patch
  • DEMO: Box Sound Design with Kontakt FX
  • Patch Creation: Self-Assessment
Bonus Content
  • Intro to the Business of Sample Libraries
  • Setting Up a Sample Library Store
Click to read more...
 
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This is great! Strange that no one has made a structured and accessible Kontakt/KSP course like this - at least not to my knowledge.
 
peterharket said:
This is great! Strange that no one has made a structured and accessible Kontakt/KSP course like this - at least not to my knowledge.
Click to expand...
Cheers! To be clear, at least at the moment, I'm not planning on including any KSP lessons simply because it's a MUCH much more complex topic.

What I'm teaching is a process that will allow you to create playable instruments in a matter of hours (or even less than an hour, for a simple one) that can be used in your music ASAP.

There is a TON you can do with Kontakt itself (or other free software like Polyphone, which I'll touch on) to get high-quality results as a lot of the most important work takes place in the planning process, the 'dimensions' of sampling, and editing approach.

That said if there's a ton of demand for KSP... of course, I'll think about how we can cover it without getting way too complex for a 101 course.
 
From ISW site: “Harnessing the power of REAPER to handle even large amounts of files”

Is Reaper necessary for this course?
 
Andrew Aversa said:
p.s. It's amusing to me that Stratisound, Audio Imperia, and ISW all launched some kind of educational initiative at about the same time. And they all seem complementary! Great minds, right? 😉
Click to expand...
I thought the same thing. I've been waiting for developers to start doing courses. It seems like the next logical step to present a course doing something related to development, scoring , or sound design. I learned to use Zebra from your old videos on youtube. They were the only ones at the time that properly explained how things worked. I'm surprised there aren't more mini in-depth courses from developers on how to get the most out of their flagship libraries.

Is this course available through Teachable or directly from the ISW website?
 
MPortmann said:
From ISW site: “Harnessing the power of REAPER to handle even large amounts of files”

Is Reaper necessary for this course?
Click to expand...
I will be showing a couple of functions in REAPER that I think make life easier, but the principles and techniques are applicable to other DAWs as well.

For what it's worth: I'll be using it not just because it's powerful and the industry-standard sample editor, but also because it's the most inexpensive & accessible DAW.

paulmatthew said:
I thought the same thing. I've been waiting for developers to start doing courses. It seems like the next logical step to present a course doing something related to development, scoring , or sound design. I learned to use Zebra from your old videos on youtube. They were the only ones at the time that properly explained how things worked. I'm surprised there aren't more mini in-depth courses from developers on how to get the most out of their flagship libraries.

Is this course available through Teachable or directly from the ISW website?
Click to expand...
Cheers! Anything that would directly help people use ISW products will always be free. For example, we recently published nearly an hour of tutorials on our YouTube channel about producing a metal song with all virtual instruments. I'm going to keep doing stuff like that. 🫡

The course is integrated directly with our site and user account via the LearnDash platform. It's really straightforward to use and lets us keep everything in one place. You can even use existing loyalty rewards for example toward the course.
 
Is this going to cover the process of making sampled instruments that have enough samples/keys/velocity layers to be realistic, or are you aiming it more at people who want to record a few samples and process them into something interesting? I feel like in the description on your site you are leaning to the latter.
 
fieldmousetrebuchet said:
Is this going to cover the process of making sampled instruments that have enough samples/keys/velocity layers to be realistic, or are you aiming it more at people who want to record a few samples and process them into something interesting? I feel like in the description on your site you are leaning to the latter.
Click to expand...
The first, actually. It's for all kinds of sample libraries! Pianos, guitars, violin, percussion, found sounds, and of course, sound design-y instruments.

Of course, the complexity of the project scales with how deeply you want to sample something.

Here's a bit more detail on the current structure and available lessons so far. More material is being released daily.

FOUNDATIONS
How to Decide on What to Record
How to Find Instruments, Objects, and Players
Sampling Synthesizers
DEMO: Discovering a Giant Box to Sample

PREPRODUCTION
Planning Articulations to Record
Dynamics, Pitch Technique, and Round Robins
Sampling Depth for Synthesizers
Using the Sampling Estimate Planner
Project File Setup

RECORDING
Recording Gear Check
Preventing and Mitigating Noise
Recording Session Prep
 
Quick update to say the course is not quite finished yet... but we're getting closer! I was a little slowed down by my kids getting sick in sequence, however we're still at 20+ lessons and nearly 3 hours of content already.

Targeting ~December 15th for everything to be done, which means the Early Adopter price is still in effect until then.
 
First of all, good health to you and your family!
Secondly, I have decided to purchase your course and I hope it doesn't disappoint me!

And thirdly, whoever made your landing page https://learn.impactsoundworks.com/create-virtual-instruments/ needs to explain themselves to you, as there is a lot of hidden text with marketing and e-commerce ads left on the site. (Sometimes the page layout lags, especially on a cell phone in PC view mode and besides your text, I see a bunch of garbage)
 
nikkimoll said:
First of all, good health to you and your family!
Secondly, I have decided to purchase your course and I hope it doesn't disappoint me!

And thirdly, whoever made your landing page https://learn.impactsoundworks.com/create-virtual-instruments/ needs to explain themselves to you, as there is a lot of hidden text with marketing and e-commerce ads left on the site. (Sometimes the page layout lags, especially on a cell phone in PC view mode and besides your text, I see a bunch of garbage)
Click to expand...
Welcome to the course! I just shot 5 new lessons yesterday and I'm editing them now, so there's plenty of good stuff to look forward to.

Re: the page, that should be fixed now :)
 
Quick note: We are now up to over 5 hours of content and counting. The course also now includes access to a private Facebook group (and Discord chat) for getting help and answers to your specific questions as they arise.

And I'm not quite done with the content yet! I expect another 5 lessons or so before I'll call it v1.0 complete.
 
I'm thinking of getting this.. Could anyone who has got it already give some comments or feedback about the content? I'd really appreciate it as I make my decision to buy it.
 
Now that the core content is officially done (v1.0, anyway - I'll continue updating & adding things from student feedback!) I'm starting Q&As with existing members and will poke some folks to provide feedback as they work through it :)

By the way, I have some full videos available now on our website if you'd like to get an idea of the video presentation style. These don't including the accompanying written material for those lessons, but still, you'll start to get the idea!
 
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