SJÄLV (Sample Library)

Själv /huelv/

Means “self” or “on one’s own” in Swedish. The name is a reference to these strange times we’re living through, but the project is very much created in the spirit of collaboration.

The latest global health developments have caused so much difficulty and disruption to so many all over the world – generating unknowns not just health related but also economic. A lot of musicians are affected from what I can see just in my own circles and the future is uncertain in many ways. But in parallel to this there have also been countless examples of generosity and inventiveness from so many of our peers. People have set up mentoring programs, virtual orchestras, made available online learning resources, etc. Inspired by these stories and in an effort to do my little bit for our music community, I’ve decided to share some of the sounds I’ve been collecting over the years, for free.

These are sounds I actually use. I think this exercise is only valuable if the sounds I’m sharing are ones which hold value for me. So I’ve tried to curate things through that lens. They all have my fingerprints on them of course, so may not be to everyone’s taste, but they’re made with care and love, capturing the spirit of a certain moment in time.

If you do download and try, then I urge you to dive deeper than what you hear at just face value – I hope you’ll find that even after just 5mins of tweaking you can create sounds which are dramatically different to the default presets. Below are some videos of me messing around with each of the libraries, stream-of-consciousness, in case they spark ideas.

All sounds were recorded through beautiful mics and hardware (U47’s, Royers, Coles, C12’s, Fairchild, Altec, Pultec, PYE, Neve, to name a few) with the help of some very talented friends, then mangled and tweaked by me (probably for the worse), then passed over to the wizardly production team who make the K5 instruments work. Please note – these instruments are built in the way I personally use them for my projects and with functionality I find useful, so may not adhere to standards people might be used to.

There are a few different SIGNALS/MICS per sound and a few knobs and sliders, nothing overly complicated. I don’t really use Kontakt for reverbs, so these are by no means meant to be final, just to give space before kicking into the final reverbs in my DAW. There is a FILTER knob mapped to the modwheel currently (all these mappings can be changed to your own liking and patches re-saved). Note – you can tweak the resonance of the filter under the hood, depending on what you’re trying to achieve.

I want to say a massive thank you to ongoing collaborators who have helped me collect and shape these sounds and more over the years, and to the friends who have generously contributed their valuable time and energy into turning some of these sounds into instruments I can share with others. Follow them on socials, hug them on the streets (when it’s allowed again), and buy them a beer. They are brilliant people and very good at what they do.

Harnek Mudhar, Mark Summerell, Sam Crossley-Lewis, Nick Taylor, Fiona Cruickshank, Richard Collins, Daniel Gadd, Jack Chown.

Stay safe and hope the sounds bring a bit of fun and creativity,
Patrick