New Age is a problematic title, and more so with the passage of time, but despite that we can quickly make a sonic association with it: misty, atmospheric synths, lots of reverb...and anything that can be described with 'esoteric' or 'ethereal'.
This sample set straddles new New Age and more old-school New Age, if that makes sense. As the main building blocks are pad sounds and arpeggiated sequences that's what is focused on here.
The Arps n Sequences comprises of four tempo folders (80, 90, 105 and 120bpm), each containing loops derived from ten synths, all from the Arturia V Collection. There are five loops per synth (per tempo) in the keys of A, C, D, E and G. Two passes were made of the synths with some tweaks to processing (EQ, reverb, etc.) so there is some tonal variation across each batch of five loops.
The Pads folder also features ten synths, though a different set from the arp/sequences set. Each synth folder is made up of chord one shots and chord loops. The former are 16- 26 second chord hits, using six chords across three keys (A, C & E), which are spaced to make it easy to pitch shift a maximum of a tone to get to where you need. The loops are chopped from these one shots and edited to loop seamlessly.
The chords are six essential types (major, minor, 9th, 6th, major 7th and minor 7th) that suit the 'genre', if you can call it that. The voicings and chord structures often differ by key to get the best from the synth sound used.
What you need to know
These samples are divided into two folders: one for pads, and one for arps and sequences.
All the samples are supplied as WAV files so can be imported directly into your DAW or sampler of choice. Because they're royalty-free, you're welcome to use the samples in your music in any way you like - all we ask is that you don't re-distribute them.
The samples are supplied in a zip file, so you'll need to extract them before you can see them. Enjoy!
Example sounds
New age synths samples: click to download
New age synths samples (1190MB)
These samples originally appeared in Future Music Magazine. Check out the latest issue for many more.
Head over to the SampleRadar hub to download over 75,000 more free samples.
