as someone who struggles to find good samples for music...
where do you get yours?

https://freesound.org/ has a varied assortment

man there are like... a million bajillion zips of wavs floating around the internet. 'where' is not even a possible question to answer at this point. Old forum posts? really specific subreddits?? stuff I chopped out of random tracks posted on newgrounds over a decade ago???

Me personally, I compulsively download them all, then hoard them in increasingly complex systems of category folders, then eventually move them all to an _arch sub directory and start the process over again.

protip: this method works for free VSTs too

There is some cool links here!
https://openmpt.org/top_picks

Also, I often use samples from pixabay, mostly for sound effects.

For video game samples, you have a lot of choice with the sample packs from the YEA VIDEOGAME battles that are hosted by damifortune (SNES) and the Unlocking Nintendo DS Samples battles hosted by Tex.

Some useful links for these:
- https://battleofthebits.com/lyceum/View/XHB+series
- https://docs.google.com/document/d/1b__EpCPVwg3E5-4ahFODHJIB5DD3wCSsoJcEB_pajjw/edit#heading=h.5quidp2qggru

(look at the end to have the list of SNES games that were ripped by damifortune)

on this very site, also from software

Random forum posts++
Or even unexpected places like this youtube video

with a linked compilation of all drum/fx samples from a large library of Megadrive/Genesis games.

Like opilion I've also gotten a ton of mileage out of Yea Videogame and DS sample packs. Also various s3xmodit battles around the joint.

stole samples from various modarchive mods, somewhat prev. compo I missed, s3xmoditmania's and whatnots...

@kilowatt64 but do you have the updated version of that sample pack?

:)

I've grabbed stuff from freesound and Mod Sample Master

over the years. archive.org has a lot of stuff too, if you go looking for it.

I used GS samples, sites samples (I don't remember links), YouTube samples too.

is it bad that I get mine off furnace demo songs

You can record synth leads/pads/drums from VSTs.

Also, sfz instruments have their samples in an accessible folder. Here are some free sfz collections:

https://musical-artifacts.com/
https://www.pianobook.co.uk/packs/
https://versilian-studios.com/#freeware
https://freepats.zenvoid.org/

Oh I stumbled on this thread, it seems there is a lot of cool stuff :o
https://chipmusic.org/forums/topic/136/tracker-food-samples/

If you care about people getting paid in some capacity (I only do if they allow me to pay them. Looking at you, Distorted Reality 1+2 on ILIO) these sites are really good for relatively cheap sample packs that are super classic:
https://samples-now.com/WAV/WAVFileStore/ A lot of AMG's old CD releases can be found here.
https://zero-g.co.uk/collections/wav (all of these go on sale frequently. I don't get why some of them are priced so high when the go on sale 90% off but whatever.)
https://www.goldbaby.co.nz/formats/othersamplers.html

This looks great! I'm tempted to buy a pack but I never used paid samples and there is a thing that bothers me... I know you can use it in allgear but what about module based formats like s3xmodit or furnace? I mean, you can easily extract the samples from a module file so I'm afraid this could cause some legal issues

I found a old page from the 2000s made by BBC Radio 1 (British radio) they uploaded samples, they're FREE !!!, (there's D&B, Garage, House, Hip-Hop), and it works :)

Link : https://www.bbc.co.uk/1xtra/1xmusic/sample/

@opilion:

Zero-G's license should allow you to repackage the samples; I just put a disclaimer when possible to let people know that they can't take the samples without holding the license themselves. It's better to loop or edit the samples to be safe in this case as in this license in particular, it states that you can use them in your own sample packs under those conditions.

samples-now's stuff is a little different; they don't have a clause that allows you to use them in a transformative manner, packaged as standalone samples in your work.

To be honest, though? I think for me, personally, the fact that I paid for these samples justifies me using them in ways that may not necessarily be explicitly stated by the license holder. Maybe that's my warped perception from getting away with pirating sample CDs to trial them. I dunno.

Another source, this time free:
https://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/free-music-samples-royalty-free-loops-hits-and-multis-to-download

huge collection of samples and loops

If you know good search terms you can find some GOLD lyin round on YT