What sampler is a good one to get started with for a novice?

Also, what format is best to use for saving/loading sample files - is it best to use soundfonts (SF2) for example or something like the Akai format or just wavs (I'm on a PC) - is one more efficient than the other in terms of memory use, disk sppace, speed of loading, sound quality etc?

I notice most samplers available support several formats but no-one gives advice re which is the best musically.

Thanks in advance

steve, what host are you using?

concearning the format...wavs is the most common format because nearly every modern audiounit can read them...and they´re not limited in soundquality..
wav is cross-platform compatible, so in case you´re porting projects to mac, you´re nearly always on the safe side..

I don´t know the exact technical terms of soundfonts but I´m pretty shure tat they work with a certain data-compression to keep the filesizes low.

What do you want to do with the sampler? universal soundsource or specialized on drumprogramming or on playing multitimbral patches like pianos, strings or synths?

let us know!

peace, moritz

Thanks

My main host is Cakewalk Home Studio 2002 (because its easy to figure out) but I also have fruity loops (so I can use vsts too) and was thinking of trying the new free version of Cubasis to see what its like (I think it supports VSTis - I have an old version of this that doesnt as well that came with my SBlive card).

I'm mainly interested in playing pitched instruments and am looking for something that will play a realistic piano, guitar and flute in particular. What sort of samples should I go for (I would prefer something I can download but I have broadband)

Do I need something that supports streaming and if so what works best - is Kontakte good for this sort of thing for example or is Halion or Virtual sampler any better - it is hard to get a good idea of what to get when everything is worded in such technical terms.

i think, if you are searching for samples in the web, that you have to search for uncompressed formats like .wav .aif .snd.

there are many sites of soundfonts, also good quality ones, and if you use , for example, halion, when it converts the sound fonts, generates automatically the correspondant wav files... in this way these sounds can be used also with other softwares.(maybe there are less expensive soundfont-wave converters in pc..... i am on mac)

but the very best sounds, usually, are sold on sample cds, because is not uncommon to see multisampled instruments of various hundreds megs or one or plus gigas

the best sampler, for me, is Halion.. but often, when i do not need all the setup options and simply i want something simple, i use the excellent and light on cpu, vsamp

i think, if you are searching for samples in the web, that you have to search for uncompressed formats like .wav .aif .snd.

there are many sites of soundfonts, also good quality ones, and if you use , for example, halion, when it converts the sound fonts, generates automatically the correspondant wav files... in this way these sounds can be used also with other softwares.(maybe there are less expensive soundfont-wave converters in pc..... i am on mac)

but the very best sounds, usually, are sold on sample cds, because is not uncommon to see multisampled instruments of various hundreds megs or one or plus gigas

the best sampler, for me, is Halion.. but often, when i do not need all the setup options and simply i want something simple, i use the excellent and light on cpu, vsamp

As a Cakewalk user, your first, best bet will likely be VSampler. There are a few sounds available at their site (check the KVR intrument list for the link), and it can read Soundfont2 and Akai disks. Some people have had troubles with some of the fonts not loading right, but I haven't experienced this (maybe that was just the VST version?). I use Sonar 2, and have most of the samplers available running through VST wrappers. HALion is good, but only seems to work well with DirectiXer. If you are only wanting to play back samples, then LiveSynth will give you an excellent way to play soundfonts, if VSampler isn't to your liking. There are excellent soundfonts available from Sonic Implants. Also, if you perhaps have a VST wrapper, I would be remiss if I didn't shout the usual clarion cry of "Sonic Synth" for a wealth of fantastic quality sounds such as pianos, guitars, basses, keys. I stopped looking for pianos as soon as I got it. You can't load your own into the included SampleTank LE (other than SampleTank formats, of course), but there are over 500 onboard, and lots more available.

Oh, and if you are running in a VST host, or have a wrapper, you can get AudioSynth from www.webmassiva.com. This is around $30, and loads soundfonts, wave files, etcetera. No included sounds, but there are loads of soundfonts, both pro and free out there. Try the demo, and see if it'll work for you. I used it in my contest entry this month.

Thanks for the help

so far it sounds like VSampler seems popular - can it stream from the disc or does it load a whole sample into RAM? I can't afford SONIC Synth, though it looks lovely.

I'm still not clear about formats - if you just have a bunch of wav files doesnt that mean that everytime you want to use a sampler you have to match every key on the keyboard to a corresponding sample - that must take forever. Surely its better to use a soundfont because it seems to do that automatically. What about the AKAI format - does that work more efficiently memory wise because it supports streaming (or is that just due to the sort of sampler you use, not the format).

Sorry to sound so confused - these are probably all dumb questions but its the only way to learn


btw - fruity loops acts as a "wrapper" now

SteveW wrote:

I'm still not clear about formats - if you just have a bunch of wav files doesnt that mean that everytime you want to use a sampler you have to match every key on the keyboard to a corresponding sample - that must take forever.

Most samplers will let you save a "program" file, which acts as a record of what samples you were using, and what keys they were assigned to (plus filter and envelope settings etc).

E.G. Battery saves *.kit program files, along with folders full of *.wav sample files.

Once you've created your program and saved it, you wont have to do any more work; just reload the program file, and the sampler will "remember" what samples it was using, where and how.

BTW - the Akai sample format is no more efficient than any other, just older.

answering to steve:
streaming is a feature of a sampler and not depends on what kind of sounds you are loading, when you looad soundfonts, wavs. aiffs, akay in vsampler than save in its format, the sound behaves as a vsamp sound

streaming is not so important for me, if you are planning to load sounds and patches from internet, rarely you will have to do with patches more big than 10 mega (my theory is also that the memory used does not make necessarily a good or bad sound)


if you build a patch with individual samples then you save, this is done forever and you will have only to load the patch, the individual samples will follow

As it's not yet mentioned, the DS404 from computer music is the cheapest way to get your hands on a fairly capable sampler. It let you build your own stuff, and there is already a load of usable sounds available for free download.

Thanks for all the advice so far

sorry to come back to this subject but I've been playing around with a couple of demos. I tried loading VSampler and Kontakte demos with the same 250meg Soundfont Piano (Splendid Grand from Soundsite.com) and they were so different. The Kontakte demo loaded the quickest and played the sample effortlessly but the VSampler demo took ages to load and kept stuttering when it played back the sample. It also seemed to take up more RAM or CPU (I think). It also crashed a couple of times trying to load some other plugins into itself?? So my money so far is on Kontakte I'm afraid. I also thought it was the easiest to work out as well - very intuitive.

As a comparison I also tried loading this sample into the FruityLoops soundfont player but it took forever and then played terribly. (ps - I've got nearly 500meg RAM and an Athlon 550 CPU and SBLive card)

So I guess some samplers are more efficient in how they use memory than others - now I'll have to save up for Kontakte unless you folks can tell me about anything better (I haven't tried Halion or GIGASampler as I couldnt find any demos). Which is best? Are there any others I need to try out?

in my (mac) experience vsamp has not all these problems, i am a (little) fan of it because, done the patch with the main program, you can use a very simple and cpu light vst player in the host........


halion is very good, complete, and it is surprisingly light for the features..... it is a new "de facto" standard.

i have used once gigasampler, i do not like it...... in the same machine (a pentium 1200) the same sounds were loaded more fast with halion.... and we were already into a cubase vsti without any patching or so.

yasodanandana wrote:

halion is very good, complete, and it is surprisingly light for the features..... it is a new "de facto" standard.

..at least for cubase-users, I guess..