Happy April! Did you catch the eclipse last week? I didn't. Too cloudy. But it did get cold for a solid 5 minutes while I sat inside a restaurant with a steak-stuffed mexican style bell pepper and a thicc side of nachos. I've been real busy with work this month, but it hasn't stopped me from doing some investigative cases on 90s synths and samples CDs, the kinds used to create my favorite classics, like the Goldeneye OST.

That lead me to Sonic Atlas and down a long rabbit hole. You'll see why.

If you're new here, dig into the last few issues.

Previous articles: Marchlist 2024, Februarylist 2024, Januarylist 2024, Decemberlist 2023, Septemberlist 2023, Novemberlist 2021, and finally Octoberlist 2021!

And if you still want more freebies, keep reading!

90s Baby Rompler Nostalgia - The Grant Kirkhope Kit

Grant Kirkhope was a prolific composer in the era of the N64, possibly best known for his work on Goldeneye. He extensively used two popular synths at the time, the E-Mu Systems Proteus FX (demos) and the Roland JV-1080 (history), as well as some sample CDs according to the composers on this making-of. There were also two expansions, the SR-JV80-04 Synth Expansion and SR-JV80-02 Orchestral I found elsewhere.

Ofc, all these sounds can be nabbed in their grungy compressed, single-shot form from the Goldeneye Soundfont, but I decided to dig deeper.

The Proteus Synth

The E-Mu Proteus synth has little known software options, alternatives that Sonic Atlas doesn't tell us about, presumably because abandonware doesn't pay sales commissions. Cough. (details) But enough shade. The Proteus VX is one of these options, dead now that E-Mu has become a reference headphone company.

Not to worry, Archive got us with the Proteus VX. (link) VX is nice and compact, works as a standalone and a VST, should load all the preset libs you desire. Or at least that don't require disc streaming. Apparently you have to "update" the libraries every time you load up the synth, but with my PC that took seconds.

Still, there are other options with less operator complaints. There's the Emulator X3. (link) It's compatible with the same sound libraries for the Proteus 2000, the final software iteration of its family. Full writeup available in that link.

This and the VX are my pick for software emulation -- from the original manufacturer, unmolested. However, there's more ways than that to format a cat. And by that I mean more downloads. For a simple workflow and expansive libraries, Cakewalk's discontinued Dimension Proteus pack is a solid option, and it's even been converted into SFZ format. (link)

Includes the Proteus 2000 Multi-Purpose Pro Sounds, Mo' Phatt Hip-hop/Urban, Xtreme Lead 1 Dance/Electronica, Planet Earth World, Virtuoso 2000 Orchestral, and PX-7 Drums & Perc -- everything the VX and X3 cover. That's over 3500 instruments and 3 ways to tackle it. And that's just the Proteus rack! I might be a little spoiled. Sweatdrop.

After checking these out myself, I'm digging the horn stabs in particular. Got some tracks lined up off the inspo. The SFZ is harder to navigate at first, since you'll have to import them to sforzando or your sfz player of choice, but I found it easy to run through the libraries first in Proteus VX, then select the patches I liked out of the converted Proteus pack.

Good hunting!

Roland JV-1080 Libraries

Next up is the JV-1080 libs. These might be a little trickier to find, since Roland is determined to make their old products into new ones, or otherwise lump them into subscription models.

That's exactly the case with the 1080. The purist will be hard pressed to find an emu, vst or otherwise. The only source that is readily available is the expensive Roland Cloud offering. BUT, that doesn't mean it'll be impossible. As I mentioned, a lot of these sounds can be found in videogame soundfonts, and the options don't stop there.

I did some more digging. Apparently, the XV-5080 contains all the patches from the 1080. Roland does love to recycle sounds. The 2080 is a curiosity I keep seeing mentioned alongside. They allegedly sound different, perhaps due to sample rate disparity, but I can't imagine it's drastic.

The patches of the JV/XP series are available here…. But no clear idea how to use them unless you were importing to a 1-1 recreation you made of the synth. There seems to be no other VST option, so that leaves free formats like SF2s and samplers. After all, the JV series has been derogatorily referred to as glorified romplers. I completely ran out of gas looking through dead links on dedicated Roland support/mod link lists. They were either dead or wrong.

BUT I did manage to find some JV-2080 samples at legowelt.org. (link, replete with a huge variety of samples) It could very well be this guy's own patches, but from a cursory look, guy is OBSESSED with retro synthesizers. Well worth a look. There's also a TON of other synth samples on there. Worth doing a dive!

There's a beta soundfont of the 1080 too (sf2). The author admits having trouble making it sound good on "fast notes" which might just be an attack release, or looping problem. That can probably be fixed in the free editor, Polyphone. For any offending patches, that's a start. I'm gonna check it out myself, and if that's the case, you'll be the first to know when I fix it (and upload my results).

There's also some drums to nab. Under the search tab at that link, jv-1080 yields some more results, keys, bells, etc. We're getting somewhere.

This archive has 500 soundfonts, including a Roland JV-1010 and several other old keyboards, but it's … over 30 gigs. Pain. But might be worth it.

Some more vintage synth samples here, including some Rolands, but I think we got a dud if you're looking for the JV series.

Apparently there were VST emulators in the past by Norsez, but those are gone along with his website. I can't find anything else, so we may indeed have a dead end, EXCEPT there are individual 2080 samples at freewavesamples.com, probably not all of them, but still. (link)

Note, you'll have to navigate freewave by hand. Recommend watching a product demo and finding the names of the patches you want for samples.

And that about wraps it up for the legal means by which you might come across these synth sounds digitally. I'd be shocked if anyone were giving away hardware like these, but keep your eyes peeled! Might just have to hit the Goldeneye sound font and check some alternatives. Onto the rest of the list!

More Analog Inspired Freebies

Venus Theory's Decent Sampler freebies are a goldmine! There's a lot of them. On each individual page, you can scroll down to the bottom and see three related (and probably free) instruments for Kontakt, DS, and/or sfz (sforzando). You can get Decent Sampler here! It's closest I'd say to sforzando but nice and simple, and yes, it's decent!

Freaking Wild Percussion Synth

TECHNICALLY NOT A FREEBIE, but the trial version of Forever89's VISCO percussion synthesizer is simply the coolest thing I've seen in years!

Here's the sound demo.

 I've seen people use this badboy to resynthesize kicks, snares, and percs from sample packs, overlap hits, create round robins for samples. Pretty gnarly if you ask me!

Think the secret sauce will be wacky metallic noises and modulating parameters for transitions.

The "full" version is a little expensive, but for an all in one percussion synth, not too shabby! I say full in quotation marks because the real kicker is the demo is completely unrestricted. And unlimited. Every so often a nag will pop up to remind you that it is in fact the demo, and that's it! That leaves one thing for certain, you won't get tired of trying to use it until you save up the cash! Now that's a company I can get behind.

VISCO is available for Mac and Windows. VST3 format. Negligible impact on RAM. Zip file is 3MB! I guess what they say is true, and big things do come in small packages.

Unbelievable Plugin Giveaway

Next up, courtesy @ kitikdub on X, Spectral Plugins is offering $200+ dollars of their plugins for free! Check out this post.

Here's a video from Weaver on the deal.

These 3 FREE Plugins are Actually REALLY GOOD

What this means is, we'll soon have a case of abandonware for Spacer, Pancz, and OCS-45, and I'm inclined to agree with Weaver. These are not your usual run of the mill freebies. They're good plugins that just happen to now be free, and they need to be kept alive!

Direct link: https://spectral-plugins.com/

You'll have to give your email for future updates. The company is not going totally belly up but shifting its focus elsewhere, and given their recent generosity, I want to know where that'll be!

KiTiK.dev (where I found this freebie!) also offers a selection of his own free plugs over at his gumroad!

More DNB "Essentials"

Caught this little baddie on Reddit. ROLLERS ESSENTIALS VOl.1 (Free Drum & Bass Rollers Sample Pack) by DnB Rollers

Available behind a social lock on toneden.io. Working!

Sample Preservation Alert! Aka the crux of my sample inquest

I won't say too much because these samples speak for themselves. The absolute SAUCE of their era, and thanks to internet preservationists, perhaps long after.

Over on Archive, MANY 90s sample CDs are available. More than you could ever possibly need. I found these while digging for some 90s drums for a project. You'll find over 320 gigs (if you want that much) of samples available in Torrent form, and several 7zips if that's not your thing! And in case Archive disappears, here's comfybox (so you can select the exact cds you want!)

Beware, any of the Ensoniq CDs are probably in the proprietary Ensoniq format and will need TLC, or Tedious Labor to Cop. And by that I mean getting a program that can extract Ensoniq file formats/disks. Don't know if they're available in wav format elsewhere because I haven't tried them.

With all of these freebies -- I mean, we're at over 300 gigs now, come on -- you might think I'm about to wrap up and go home, but the party don't stop til you have a fully capable FX plugin suite for the price of free, dear reader. And with the next freebie I found, I think we got that covered.

To brokebois around the world, if you ain't seen this, get your reading glasses ready! Abandonware alert!

BlueLab made all their audio plugins free

I found them today, and some of them are really fab. For instance, Rebalance can replace what I currently use iZotope RX10 for all the time (music rebalance wink-wink). AutoGain is a cool little gain rider. And there are plenty of panners, spatializers, width-izers, saturators, and shapers to keep you content for weeks to come.

You can grab the plugs here as a bundle or individually. It's always sad when a plugin company goes under, but it's amazing when paid software becomes free, for all the things I just said you can do, which usually cost a LOT of money.

And for those of use who need drums, there's Drums In Your Face!

I found this kit on Reddit, looking for that New Jack Swing (aka 90s R&B) sound. Don't know where this one really came from, if it's from a famous producers' cellar or just a collection of old sample CDs, but it's got some truly ancient (in terms of sample content) sounds on it!

You know me, I love all things obscure, so we're gonna have a TIME crate digging over the next few months. I haven't had time to dig through the whole kit, but seen it recommended more than once. Worth a looksie!

Nice and thicc so will take a sec to zip up on the drive.

Next up, lil 90s Rave Oneshot pack from Sam Smyers. Those who love a little lo-fi grit and will appreciate this. Quick and dirty kleptomania. Will need to give a name and an email.

At this point, I'm rambling. But you get it. I don't know how many gigs of samples and FX we've uncovered in this issue. Let's wrap up the 90s obsession and move onto the usual suspects.

The gifts that keep on giving

PresetShare is still straight fire. Worth checking once a week for new free presets for your synthesizer of choice. As of today there are 8778 free presets available!

Looperman is another occasional mine of gems. I'm sure you've found it. But were you aware that there are professional artists like Nat James who dump their acapellas on site for non-commercial use -- or that you could do the same? Smart. Worth checking into this one when you're bored.

Proof is in the pudding. I made this track with his vocals!

Also, as an honorable mention, I found a selection of Roland themed free VSTs in their dedicated section. Let the supersaws and reverbs and drum machines warm your hard drive. (link)

As with other user-generated sample sites, your mileage may vary, but occasionally I find a gem!

If you're going for quality, you might try Splice or SampleFocus.

Splice does allow you to do a 2-month trial for free, with a given number of credits. If you're afraid of getting trapped in a subscription loop, you can sign up for it on a new account with a prepaid card. I usually do that anyway, so I can't be double and triple charged, or god-forbid perpetually subscribed despite attempts to the contrary.

You may find the limitation of 200 sample credits (200 samps per month) actually forces you to use what you download. This can be helpful if you're like me and, you know, have almost 2 TB and counting of samples alone.

If you're new to Splice, I do think they offer a cursory number of credits for free. I do like to explore their sample library randomly with the new stacks function. They also have a list of free plugins from Voxengo, Bluecat, and Xfer. 25 to be exact.

SampleFocus gives you some free download credits rather than forcing you to subscribe immediately. Always seems to be a couple there when I head back. If you sign up using this link, you'll get 10 free samples, and so will I. You can also submit your own samples to get more freebies.

Works like this: people submit samples, samples go through approval, and approved samples give points to get more samples. A paid membership is almost unnecessary, but if you don't want to bother with uploading, it's between 8-ish and 22-ish dollars a month for 100-600 samples per.

To get your samples approved, best practice is a detailed descrip, key, tempo, and relevant tags. Once your samps are approved, you get your credits to go shopping. You don't have to download all your samples in one go, as tempting as it is. Favorite what you'd like to stash for later, and the algo will serve you up similar content in your suggestions. Pretty noice little system, and samps are usually approved same day!

And of course finally, the motherlode. The Internet Archive -- for all your abandonware, free samples, and data-hoarding needs. Often comes with torrent links for the big collections, so you can keep 'em kicking. You've probably caught on, because every other link in this article has been Archive related.

Archive.org also has a GREAT search function. I found the 90s sample archives and probably about half of my sound library from gems uploaded here. Try the Samples section and see what you get!

That's it for this month's freebie mag. I've gotta run. If you've read this far, thank you! I told myself if even one person found these useful, I'd keep on writing. Another big thanks to my lovely supporters @Matrvg @CyberDevil @MariogD.

I'll see you guys next month!