BPB Interview: Glyn Lloyd (Sampleism) + Special Offer For BPB Readers!

At first glance, I figured Sampleism looked pretty much like any other soundware shop out there. However, one short browse through the available content later, my awesomeness radar started bleeping like crazy.

I was completely surprised by the large amount of awesomely unique and original sample libraries on offer at Sampleism. Percussion samples made of scrapyard items, sounds made by circuit bent toys and radio telescopes, various exotic drum machine sample packs… How have I not heard of this place before?!

Seeing that several names who were featured on BPB in the past (Waveshaper, Zvon, SampleScience, etc.) were also selling their products on Sampleism caught my attention even more. Could this website turn out to be the marketplace for independent sound designers looking to promote and monetize their work? It sure looked so!

Being a person who enjoys sampling and creating sample packs myself, I had to investigate this a bit further. I figured that interviewing Glyn Lloyd, the founder of Sampleism, would be the best way to do it.

BPB: Hi Glyn, thanks for joining us for this little interview! Sampleism really caught my interest, and I’m hoping you’ll be willing to share a bit of insight about the project.

Glyn: Thanks! I’m really pleased you like the concept! Sampleism is on it’s way to becoming a huge resource of cool, independent sound designers and a thriving marketplace. We first opened Sampleism just under 6 months ago and to celebrate we are offering all Bedroom Producer Blog readers a little gift….but I’ll get to that in a little while!

BPB: A gift for BPB readers?! Sweet, I can’t wait to hear what it’ll be! Let’s talk a bit about the site first, though. During my first visit to Sampleism, I was pleasantly surprised to see so many sound libraries from smaller sound design companies which don’t usually get enough coverage. Do you find the promotion of smaller sound design companies as one of Sampleism’s goals? Also, from the perspective of a sound designer, what are the benefits of publishing their work on Sampleism?

Glyn: Absolutely. Our primary goal is to help bring fresh talent into the spotlight. There are hoards of highly skilled sampleists and producers developing sample collections for their own personal use and projects. We aim to give these people the ability to earn extra money and promote their sounds by allowing them to sell these unique sample collections on Sampleism. It’s for this reason that Sampleism contains so many cool packs that you won’t hear anywhere else! One of my favourite examples is a little known chap called MA Simon.

He had never released a sample pack before and had never even considered it but he uploaded one of his Kontakt Instruments to Sampleism and it was awesome. He has now received a 9 out of 10 review in Computer Music magazine, he gained a lot of kudos and he made a name for himself. If it wasn’t for Sampleism this would never have happened.

When a sound designer sells a pack on Sampleism it opens up a new world for them. They get to meet new people and customers and use all of our cool account tools. We have full Soundcloud connect too. Users can connect their Sampleism account with Soundcloud and then select tracks they have hosted on Soundcloud to use as demos which appear on our site. This gives them the ability to promote their sample packs and reach out to their followers on Soundcloud.

BPB: It seems that Sampleism is a great place to look for sounds which could be described as “different” – not just specific genre oriented sample libraries you’d find in most online shops. Will you continue pushing such less common releases on Sampleism? Also, in your opinion, what is the main advantage of Sampleism from the perspective of a music producer looking for new sounds?

Glyn: While large genre specific loop collections are pretty cool for some people we feel they lack in depth and variety in a lot of ways. We will certainly keep promoting the smaller niche libraries which are more suited towards musicians.

The main advantage of using Sampleism is the variety of sounds we have on offer. With every new developer comes a new collection of sounds and techniques. Other loop sites tend to produce all their sounds in-house to suit whatever genre is popular at the moment. This means they become stale rather quickly as they try and rush the next release out to market. By opening up the sale of sample collections to everybody the amount of potentially new and interesting sounds is huge. Additionally, we don’t ask for exclusivity or restrictive contracts to be signed so developers have maximum flexibility. We have worked hard to make the service open to everybody.

So far it’s the lesser-known and new developers that are achieving the most success on Sampleism. It would appear that musicians and developers are hungry for new sounds and independent releases. People are always searching for something new and Sampleism is becoming a melting-pot of new sounds and instruments open for anybody to use.

BPB: I know it’s often hard to pick just one or two, but would you please recommend us a few of your favourite sample libraries from Sampleism?

Glyn: Sure, no problem!

Harmonic Wineglass is the kit I mentioned before. MA-Simon (the designer) had never released an instrument before but now he has a successful outlet for his creations. It’s a beautiful multi-sampled Glass-Harmonica instrument with real depth and atmosphere.

Tronsonic is an awesome sound designer and developer of Kontakt Instruments. Tronsonic is all about warmth, character and larger than life dynamic sound in the digital domain – recording instrument samples with high quality vintage 1960s valve equipment to tape, to emulate the Mellotron sound, as well as creating innovative tube distorted, saturated oscillator waveforms for virtual and external synthesis.

Synth Magic make Kontakt instruments based on rare vintage synths and instruments and what a wealth of talent these guys have! Each instrument they make is fully realised from the ground up to be an almost exact replica of the original synth. Very deep programming is used in Kontakt to create some of the most amazing Kits you could imagine.

The Resonator is one of my personal favourites. It’s been on Sampleism since the beginning and is very popular. It’s been created by an individual named Michael Bietenholz and is simple but highly effective. Michael has been a long-term supporter of Sampleism and has created 25 unique instruments for Kontakt. The Resonator is a unique sound, reminiscent of pioneering, pre-1950, electronic instruments like the Ondioline and the Theremin. Unlike those strictly monophonic instruments, this Kontakt kit has, in addition to the melody oscillator, a set of “resonators”, which produce an ever-shifting set of drone voices, sort of like the oscillator version of sympathetic resonator strings on a sitar or a viola d’amore.

Dusty Eclectic Goldmine is a recent addition to Sampleism but I love the style and premise of the collection. It is a collection of sounds consisting mainly of breakbeat loops. The focus is on dirty, lofi sounds that would fit well into a mix of Boards of Canada & Aphex Twin tracks.

The collection also include a dialogue folder full of sound clips from vintage advertising & educational movies. Those public domain cuts have been selected to be useful for anyone seeking worthwhile sound bites to put in their mix. They have been sampled with Ninja Tune records & early 1990 IDM in mind. The rest of the collection consist of inspiring music loops as well as FXs, one shots, field recordings & vinyl crackles.

BPB: What can we expect to see on Sampleism in the days to come, what are your plans for the future? Any future releases we should look forward to? I’ve also noticed that erb N dub (dubstep producer) has recently announced that his first sample library will be published on Sampleism – will there be any similar releases in the future from other artists/producers?

Glyn: We are in the process of building another set of cool user-interface features into the site, including mailing lists, statistics, and promotions, so we hope to unveil them soon. We are also very responsive to what the community needs, therefore we are constantly re-evaluating our service to provide what our developers and customers ask for. We appreciate and desire their input and suggestions. It’s not always possible to do what everybody asks but we have a huge list of great ideas from our users that we are working through.

Personally, I have just completed and released a new Bandoneon Kontakt Instrument. I’m really excited about this. It’s my first large scale custom built Kit. Over 700MB of professionally recorded authentic Bandoneon sounds have been captured. The Bandoneon was recorded in Buenos Aires, Argentina by Guillermo Guareschi, a very talented composer for film and TV.

Four microphones were used to capture all the nuances of the instrument. One Neumann was in charge of registering the left hand where all the bass notes are generated plus an additional ribbon microphone that handled the very low frequencies with precision.

The right hand was captured by a modified SE A5600 II tube microphone and an AKG mic was set to record the natural high roof ambience of the recording studio. All the microphones were connected to vintage Telefunken preamplifiers that delivered the signal directly to the computer without any console or black box in the chain.

The recordings were made at 24 bits 48Khz with no upsampling or downsampling. I’ve written a custom Kontakt script to control various aspects of the instrument and designed a GUI front panel with working controls which respond to cc messages. It will be released very soon on Sampleism.

BPB: So, you’re also a musician and a sound designer yourself. Do you use a lot of sampling in your music production?

Glyn: I’ve been producing and making my own music for many years, mainly for pleasure. I’ve had over 15 tracks released on various independent underground labels but I’ve had to take a bit of a break recently while I concentrate on the Sampleism project but I’m always playing with new techniques and processes to develop my skills.

BPB: What are your favourite freeware effects and instruments? This is BPB after all, so you’ll have to share your freeware favourites with us. ;]

Glyn: Atlantis Filter! This is a little known plugin and it is quite old but I still use it regularly. It’s just so damn versatile. Check it out!

BPB: Are there any freebies we can download from Sampleism? Free taster packs and similar goodies?

Glyn: Yep – most packs feature a free preview pack that can be downloaded directly from the site. You need to register before you can download the free packs but registration is super simple! Anybody can register instantly by just signing in using an existing ID (Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter, Open ID, Blogger). You can create a free profile with just a few clicks without having to complete any annoying registration form.

You can also sign up to our mailing list to get updates on new promotions, discounts and free give-aways.

BPB: Do you prefer using hardware or software samplers? There’s a lot of talk about the magical properties of vintage Akai and E-mu samplers – what’s your take on this?

Glyn: Ha – well I don’t have much space, time or cash so I’m mostly software based at the moment. In the past I had a decent collection of hardware but switched to software a few years ago due to space limitations. I’ve used some Akai samplers in the past and yes, they do have a real charm to them but, if you use clever programming and decent sounds the results you get from software samplers can be equally expressive.

Conversely, the other half of the Sampleism team is a hardware sampler aficionado. He is the brains behind the technical aspects of the site. He designed and developed the website and it’s core functionality and has a wealth of sampling hardware at his disposal – Ensoniq Mirage, Sequential Circuits Studio 440, Emu Emax II to name a few.

BPB: Your favourite software sampler and why?

Glyn: I’ve used many software samplers but Kontakt wins in my opinion. The versatility of Kontakt is staggering, I love the scripting and custom design abilities of Kontakt. Anything is possible. I know developers who have recreated granular synthesis machines by using clever design within Kontakt and developers who have built complete recreations of vintage synths in Kontakt. It can be expensive and a little daunting and tricky to use at times but the results are simply outstanding.

BPB: Ok Glyn, thanks for taking the time to answer these questions.

Glyn: No problem. Thanks for the interview. I’d also like to add that our free account now has more storage space and gives out higher royalty payments than before and that we’ve prepared a special offer to Bedroom Producers Blog readers.

BPB: Ah right, you mentioned that in the beginning! So, what is it?

Glyn: If you open a free account between now and the 22nd April we will upgrade you to our Bronze account for free, no strings attached. The bronze account will give you 3GB of storage space for your sample libraries, pay royalties to you at 60% and allow you to upload files up to 2GB in size. Just create a free profile and send an email to [email protected] with your Sampleism URL and ‘BPB’ in the subject line and we’ll sort the rest!

BPB: That’s simply awesome, thanks so much guys!

So, there you have it! If you’re in need of interesting sounds for your sample collection, definitely check out Sampleism. You’ll find a healthy amount of unique content, offered by some very talented individuals.

If you’re considering selling your own sounds online, definitely hurry up and take advantage of the special offer they have for BPB readers! If you need more info, visit the FAQ section on Sampleism, or simply leave a comment here.

Once again, thanks to Glyn for taking the time to answer these questions and for the special offer. Thanks for reading everyone and happy sampling!

Special Offer

Create a free profile on Sampleism and send an email to [email protected] with your Sampleism URL and ‘BPB’ in the subject line (before April 22nd!) and get automatically upgraded to the Bronze account!

Links

Sampleism Online: click here