Haha, thanks! That's very kind. And no I've never heard of anyone being targeted legally. I highly doubt that anything like that would ever happen, but in the event that it did, it's very easy to prove that my sounds are original. I wouldn't call those older samples the "source" so much as the "inspiration," as my work truly uses 0% of them, and 100% original creations. For example you can null check my samples against any similar sounding PCM or retro sample and you'll see that it's very obviously not the same. Alternatively, you can compare the spectrograms and see that they are distinct.
I'm not a lawyer, but I would strongly doubt anyone would come under any legal fire for using these samples. There's just no real reason to. If they would go after someone, it would be whoever they suspect of illegally distributing their copyrighted content - which is not me. However, websites that distribute video game soundfonts (which contain those copyrighted samples) are susceptible to legal targeting.
If I'm being honest, the quality of my samples is not really on par with those classic samples. While I do work very hard to evoke the feeling of that era, my sounds are still amateur productions made by one Guy™ rather than professionally recorded, processed and produced. I'm very proud of the work that I do, but it's not really on the level of something like Roland, Korg or E-mu Systems. And that's partially by design.
My samples are designed to sound not just exactly like the samples of those old romplers and synths, but specifically the unique texture that they take on when compressed for use in games like N64, PS1, PS2, etc. I'm going for the "vibe" rather than a perfect 1:1.
I digress. In short, there's no legal trouble with any of these works because they are all distinct and original creations that contain absolutely none of the data from the games or music equipment that inspired them.
Additionally, the loops in this particular pack were made using real 90's hardware - so those do technically contain the PCM samples from those synths, but what makes this different is that these are performances rather than "rips." The melodic loops are quite literally just me playing the instrument - the original hardware. As it is my performance, the legal license belongs to me and I'm free to sell or license it as I please, hence this sample pack!
So you can use these loops in your own music, but if for some reason you attempted to extract the PCM from the loop, that would technically be infringement, and against the pack's EULA.
