On 10/27/06, Tom M letterrip@gmail.com wrote:
I personally believe a symphonic (and other musical instrument) sample library might be a worthwhile acquisition.
[snip]
Providing sampling libraries would be a major enabler for the unleashing of creativity and potential among individuals desiring to create music across the world. Perhaps doing for music creation what the printing press did for reading.
Of course, they are straight forward enough to build that we don't need to ask for megafunding.
There are two reasons for this:
1) because buying one is probably out of the question, as you pointed out VSL (and most other libraries) sell for absolutely insane prices. To buy one, we'd have to pay an amount equal to the revenue they'd lose, not what it cost to make one.
2) because we don't need to start out making a world class library in one step, and a lower quality library is very inexpensive to make... we already have all of the resources we need to get started at our disposal.
I've been toying with this sort of project on and of for a couple of years now, but haven't bothered to sit down and do it.
I think that for right now, such a project is far enough outside of the scope of Wikimedia that this is the wrong forum to discuss it (really, even the Linux-sampler mailing list would be a better place).