Karoryfer Samples Releases Free Bear Sax Sample Library (SFZ)

A bear is one of the most powerful animals in the nature and the team at Karoryfer Samples claims that Bear Sax, a collection of sounds made with the thighbone of a Siberian bear, is the most extraordinary sample-based instrument they ever made.

Apart from containing the samples from such an unusual sound source, Bear Sax is also Karoryfer’s first sample library to feature cross-faded dynamic layers. Needless to say, this adds a lot to the expressiveness of the instrument and will definitely lead to more natural sounding performances. It’s probably safe to say that this is the most expertly sampled Siberian bear thighbone instrument on the market.

Now, even though Drogomir Smolken, the mastermind behind Karoryfer Samples, is also part of the BPB team and I’ve known him for some time now, I still didn’t have the guts to ask him where he got that bear bone in the first place. Some questions are better left unasked, and I’m honestly not sure if I’d like the reply. Probably not.

One thing I do like, though, is the custom sforzando user interface which Drogomir crafted for Bear Sax. It features envelope, glide, and noise volume controls, along with a set of control parameters for the vibrato. The interface puts a lot of control at the user’s fingertips and really goes to show how great of a platform sforzando has become. Of course, the library will work in any other SFZ player as well (and pretty much any sampler on the market because the pack also contains the WAV files), but you won’t be able to use the custom user interface in that scenario.

So, who is this library for? I mean, I’m more of a non-animal-bone-instrument guy myself, but who am I to judge. If you want to experience the way in which our ancestors used to create music before the invention of fancy contraptions known as pianos, guitars, and Pocket Operators, then help yourself to this free bear bone instrument and let us know how you like it in the comments section below.

UPDATE: As most of you probably figured out already, the whole “bear bone” thing was an April Fools’ Day joke. This is actually a baritone saxophone sample library. The real GUI is pictured above and you can find additional info about the instrument at KVR Audio.

Bear Sax is available for free download via Karoryfer Samples (124 MB download size, ZIP archive, contains 755 audio samples in 24-bit WAV format, 44 instrument patches in SFZ format, custom user interface for Plogue sforzando).