A FREE DECENT SAMPLER LIBRARY FOR
Metallic percussion and huge textured pads
A digital noisebox with a twist
This library is based on a D.I.Y. noisebox made from springs, metal pieces and two piezo mics mounted on a block of cork. The purpose of this instrument is to be a creative tool that can generate a wide variety of sounds and not to just accurately capture its physical counterpart. Its sound palette ranges from metallic/cinematic hits, screeches and metallic foley to textured pads and drone layers.
detailed source sounds
BLOCK is coming with 30 source sounds, consisting of a total of 600+ individual samples. Many of the available sounds are captured with up to three velocity layers and between three and six round robin samples each. The sources are grouped into four sections by playing style (plucked, hit, bowed and special). Each source sound is recorded with two mic positions, that can be blended freely.
Flexible sound sculpting capabilities
What separates this instrument from a straightforward digital replica of its physical counterpart are the added sound sculpting capabilities in the form of an included drive section, two cascaded impulse response (IR) loaders and a master low-pass filter. The IR loaders are the essential building block to craft pad and drone textures. BLOCK offers five custom IRs ranging from big room reverbs to more unorthodox IRs producing slow swells and dense reverb tails.
Frequently asked questions
If you have any questions that do not get answered below, feel free to send me a message via my contact form.
Is this library free?
Yes. This library is completely free for private and commercial use.
Which DAWs and systems are supported?
The library should work on almost everything that can run Decent Sampler 1.11.12 or newer. This includes Windows, MacOS and Linux systems.
BLOCK was extensively tested with Ableton Live 12 (Win10, Win11) and Cubase 10.5 (Win10). You can try your luck with older versions of Decent Sampler, but some of the more recent features might be unavaliable.
If you encounter any issues please let me know via the contact form and I will see if I can help.
How do I download, install and use this library?
BLOCK can be downloaded directly by clicking here or on itch.io and Gumroad. Please note that downloading it from one of the stores might require an account for the respective page.
To use this library, Decent Sampler has to be installed on your system. Decent Sampler is a free plugin available for most DAWs. More information on how to download, install and use Decent Sampler can be found here. The library then can be used by opening Decent Sampler, clicking on „File…“ -> „Load…“ and selecting the BLOCK.dslibrary file. As soon as Decent Sampler finished loading the library, you should be ready to go.
For more information on how to use the library itself you can have a look at the manual.
Are there any restrictions on using this library?
Reselling of the samples or codebase that makes up this library is prohibited. You’re also not allowed to recycle elements as another instrument, library, sample pack or anything related. This also applies if the instrument, library or sample pack is given away for free. Please make sure to contact me if you are uncertain about your specific project.
I also explicitely do not allow the use of any part of this library in training of any LLMs, NNs and any other use cases that are related to what is colloquially called genAI. If you are unsure if your use case is permitted, just write me a message via my contact form so we can discuss your specific case.
Are there any additional features planned?
The short answer is: Currently not.
This is the first instrument/library I ever made and I am quite happy with the way it turned out. But it was a lot of work and I am currently far more interested in starting something new. I am aware of some rough edges and open issues regarding this instrument and I might revisit it and improve on some things after a certain refractory period.
If you, in the meantime, encounter any issues with the library, please let me know. If you have (reasonable) feature requests or ideas, please send them to me as well if you want to. Just know that I do not plan to do any extensive work on this project in the near future.
Is there any way to support this project?
While this library is 100% free to use, your support is greatly appreciated.
The easiest way to support this project is simply to let people who might be interested know about it.
If you have an account for any of the stores where BLOCK is available, downloading it from there may help increase its visibility as well.
Sending me some feedback, or just letting me know that you liked it, is equally appreciated. You can do so via my contact form or send me a message on Bluesky or Instagram.
If you have a little spare money, you can also support me financially via Ko-Fi, or you can check out some of my music on Bandcamp.