Question about samplers and sample library combination

[BezO]

Go to www.soundsonline.com or www.timespace.com or any of the other online sample distributers.

Thanks for the links. Looks like I'll be able to use libraries with specs somewhere between what I was hoping for and what I expected. I was hoping for this type of detail, but this and this seem pretty close.

I wouldn't stress too much about whether 512 Mb ram is enough, if your buying sounds designed for hardware samplers, you'll always have enough to get a full backing track going at very good quality.

I'm seeing that. My dilema is now deciding between the S5/6000 and the Z4/8. I haven't seen any libraries made specifically for the Z series, so none of the libraries I'm seeing are 24 bit. That feature is seeming more useless. But I want the extra RAM.

[BezO]

Have you considered Reason? You can connect it to Pro-Tools over Rewire and its cpu usage is almost nothing. It comes with a pretty wide-ranging library of sounds - and you can always add more with Refills.
With Reason you could probably add 8-16 relatively simple tracks without using any significant cpu at all.

Really? I didn't know that. I will have to take a trip over to their site. Thanks!

Do other companies make libraries for Reason or would I be relying on Reason refills alone? Either way, how do you feel about Reason's sounds? Is it possible to get realistic sounding brass, percussion, keys and strings out of it?

[Failed Muso]

Midi timing is sloppy on any hardware sampler simply due to the fact of the midi serial design. Lovesign, I know this for a fact and have done many tests. I released over 40 commercial records using midi and samplers as my main source.

Congratulations. Given your reasoning, MIDI timing will be sloppy, period, on any hardware device yet it has never stopped thousands of pieces of MIDI equipment being successfully used the world over. I'm glad that you have time to sit down and "test" for 6ms delays. I'd rather spend my time doing something creative

To say that Emu were allways playing catch up is a bit odd really, Emu were making samplers waaaaaaaay before Akai. And Emu's filter are awsome compared to anything up until the Z3 which I haven't had the chance to use.

Just because E-MU were making samplers before Akai doesn't mean to say they didn't fall behind in terms of features and quality. It happens all the time. New boy comes along with fresh ideas and old guy has to play catch up. Akai stole the lead from E-MU and the battle began. Either way, we, the consumers, were the winners. As Steve says, E-MU's filters did have a character, and to many musicians it added something they liked to whatever they used them for. If that floats your boat, great, but if we're being technical here, which we are given your jitter arguement, we can say that the E-MU filter colours the sound and that can be just as unnacceptable as your jitter.

BTW, it's Z4 or Z8. Never was a Z3. Unless you're referring to the BMW

All the Drum and Bass boys use the Emu filters because nothing else quite messes up a sound in such a unique way.

Great, but D&B isn't everyone's cup of tea and one could also argue that it explains why a lot of D&B is indistinguishable from ither D&B J/K there, all you junglists

Working with drum loops from a sampler was a nightmare, even on a rock solid midi machine like the old Atari 1040 running Creator, (which still hold's better jitter figures than modern pc's). You just couldn't have 2 or more drumloops triggered on top of each other due to midi jitter and the queing system. Yes vsti's have latency on monitoring recording in i.e your soundcard but playback IS sample accurate. Try layering 32 stereo drumloops on you Akai launched on the first beat of the bar and see if you don't get flamming and phasing and inconsistent timing.

This is where I think the argument (if it is such a thing) gets a bit off line. Why would you want to use a £2000 hardware sampler to playback loops ? It's like using a Ferarri to travel to the end of the street to pick up a paper. This is where sample playback devices like Kontakt, HALion and sequencers like Live or Reason do take the "awards". Sure, you can use your kit to do whatever you want, but I know that many sampler owners invested large sums of money in hardware samplers to use them for muchmore than loop playback machines.

I stay away from strecthing samples across a key range these days, but in the days before of 16mb in a sampler (or 4mb in the EIII) you had to strech and I just never liked the newer Akais, they aliased a lot.

Why not stretch ?? If your samples are good and you are a good programmer, you don't need a sample per note. You don't even need more than 1 or 2 velocities ! Sure, if you have acres of HD space and memory to spare, go ahead, but it's really just plain lazy. And you'd be hard pushed to find any aliasing on the newer Akai's at all. As Steve said, the interpolation in the S5/6000 and Z Series has yet to be bettered. Maybe it's because I was taught by "old school" samplists who can get lush, evolving, multi velocity instruments from 500k total sample footprint. To me, that's clever, economical and efficient and comes with a multitude of benefits.

All good samplers hardware or vsti will convert Akai cd's, but I really think to keep up with the the pack and mix in the box it would be better to use a software sampler and the newer bigger streaming libraries. It's so much easier adding eq, compression, fx to 32 audio channels from a software sampler than having to get a big mixing desk, lots of fx, hardware compressors etc..... and a lot of patching and wiring up.

Why "keep up with the pack" ? As your signature says, "If it sounds right, it is right". Why be a sheep ? I'm not denying the convenience of having everything in one place, but as BezO says, he is already drawing a lot of resource from his machine and he doesn't want to add to that for fear of the negative effects. As for adding FX, compressors etc to a hardware sampler, most come with high quality FX boards built right in so require little external effects and the inherent "wiring up".

I just wish sample dev's would add a high quality interpolation for exporting on it

You see, another thing we have on the Akai

[Failed Muso]

Lovesign..... Emu complained and said I was being anal about a 6 ms jitter in their sample (supposedly) accurate vsti sampler. all the guys that crossed over from hardware to software samplers noted how much tighter their drums were.

And yes I can notice the midi timing problems on any sampler when it comes to drums and tight percussion and seq sounds. Maybe if you write Jazz on your sampler then 128 note polyphony and drunk timing is cool. But when you're doing electronic/dance music it has to be spot on.

By the way 6ms Jitter is a hell of a lot of jitter, 2ms is still totally unacceptable by my standards. I just can't stand drums flamming all over the place.

Actually do this test with just 2 notes on your Akai Z3. Take a drum loop mono. Split it into left and right assign one to C1 and the other to D1..... note not both on C1 as that's cheating Trigger the 1 bar loop every 1 bar with both C1 and D1 and see how they flange and phase as each bar gets re triggered. That's just 2 note's so imagine it get's worse every extra note of polyphony. Now try the same with kontakt 2.

In fact to make it easier, reverse the phase of one of the samples. It should come out as pure silence if the Akai is doing it's job.

I'm sure people like Moby, Liam Howlett, Gary Numan (all Akai users) and all the other big Electronic artists lay awake at night cursing that few precious milliseconds of jitter !

Like I said before, if you're going to use a hardware sampler, simply to play back loops, then it's like buying a sit on lawnmower to do the back yard which is 3ft by 3ft. I'm guessing a lot of the D&B boys were picking up old, used hardware samplers, as others had been picking up old 303's and 808's, because they were cheap and abundant. Nowadays they are all probably using Live as it far superior for that kind of thing because that's what is was designed for.

When I'm over my flu and my hearing is restored, I will try your little experiment. Why ? Because I've never actually used my sampler to play drum loops, so it will be something new for me. I'm not saying I won't hear what you describe, and I will record an MP3 of the result either way.

Bottom line is, BezO has asked for info on hardware samplers, that's what I've been giving him here and at my place too. I'm not here to argue in a petty "internet flame war". I'm sure you do whatever you do and are successful at it and I applaud that

[Jeremy_NSL]

Have you considered Reason? You can connect it to Pro-Tools over Rewire and its cpu usage is almost nothing. It comes with a pretty wide-ranging library of sounds - and you can always add more with Refills.
With Reason you could probably add 8-16 relatively simple tracks without using any significant cpu at all.

Really? I didn't know that. I will have to take a trip over to their site. Thanks!

Do other companies make libraries for Reason or would I be relying on Reason refills alone? Either way, how do you feel about Reason's sounds? Is it possible to get realistic sounding brass, percussion, keys and strings out of it?

Tons of companies make sounds for Reason. Take a browse through the refill section of their site... I think you could achieve quite decent results with it - save for perhaps brass which is very tricky for any sampler. And then you'll also have the excellent synthy stuff Reason includes in case you ever need it...

One potential issue though - do you use BFD over Rewire? I am not sure whether you can run two Rewire apps simulatenously...

Another option is to get the excellent 'Reason Drum Kits' add-on - might replace BFD for you and then you could go Reason + Protools only.

[BezO]

Thanks for the explainations. That helps me understand more of the specs on the samplers.

As some have already stated, the most popular Akai format is the S1000/S3000 format. There are a few specific S5/6000/Z Series format discs out there, but not many.

Could you provide or direct me to a list of compatible formats for the S & Z series? All of the specs I've seen for the Z simply say "Akai and other formats". I do remember seeing that they planned to add Emu and Roland to the list. Did they get around to that before discontinuing?

From what I'm seeing so far, there doesn't seem to be a lot of multi-sample libraries formated for Akai. Or are there just not a lot of multi-sample libraries for hardware samplers?

Why the hell did they discontinue the Z any way? With continued support, this could've been one of the greatest pieces equipment ever. But I'm sure they have something new coming.

[Spaceman Sounds]

Quote from Lovsign "Congratulations. Given your reasoning, MIDI timing will be sloppy, period, on any hardware device"

Are you allways this patronising?

The pack has moved on from having to have 8 compressers and hardware eq's just to feed the samplers outputs. Internal fx... please ... come on they all suck. If you're being proffesional about this you just don't use the onboard fx on any sampler.

Midi timing coming out of a multi output midi interface sent to SEVERAL midi devices makes for a tighter midi set up. Having 128 notes of polyphony coming out of your Akai Z8 would make for a very sloppy track.

A lot and I mean a LOT of producers use drum loops in some form or other, and how are they going to use this if they don't have a software sample accurate sampler.... a hardware one? The timing is just not up to it. I used the loop problem as an example to show the problems with hardware samplers.

I would rather program feeling into my midi pieces rather than have the 128 notes of serial device'd que'd up midi information make random timing issues.

Most hardware synths suck in multitimbral use for exactly this reason.

I'm trying to have a grown up discussion about this, but I don't think I'll bother with your patronising attitude to be honest.

As for my samples being of any use... we shall see. I truly believe if you are trying to replicate something that is organic and to some extent random be it an Analog Synth or a guitar, then you need as many samples as possible to recreate all the subtleties you can.

If you think that a 4 way multisampled piano cut's it in a modern orchestral piece then I'm afraid I'd have to disagree with you.

If you are being 100% pro about this you would not be writing a song using on board EQ, FX or all your voices coming out of 1 midi module.

[Failed Muso]

I'm seeing that. My dilema is now deciding between the S5/6000 and the Z4/8. I haven't seen any libraries made specifically for the Z series, so none of the libraries I'm seeing are 24 bit. That feature is seeming more useless. But I want the extra RAM.

Sadly, there were few, if any, 24bit specific commercial libraries for the Z Series. By that time, hardware samplers had been on a downward decline, so most people just used the long supported S1000/S3000 format, with a few using the .akp/wav format of the S5/6000 and Z Series.

I still think you are worrying too much about memory, but only you can be sure of that one. The Z Series will do all that the S5/6000 can do in 16bit and a few extra "bonus" things besides (mainly little tweaks and enhancements here and there). If you go the way of the Z, then at least you can take advantage of any 24bit samples you come across. Unless you want certain instruments in perfect isolation in the mix and want impeccable clarity, you will not notice the difference between the 16 and 24 bits. In DAW work, yes, as you have discovered, 24Bit gives you more headroom and more leeway, but ultimately, your stuff gets mastered down to 16bit anyway

Now, Reason is an awesome piece of software. You can ReWire it into your Pro-Tools rig, it is very CPU efficient and there are hundreds of ReFills available (many free via places like Combinator HQ). Many argue that it is a closed format and doesn't host VST's or even record audio, but you don't need to worry about that. The NN-XT is a good soft sampler but it's still a software sampler and if you have a large ReFill, the resource drain will be close to that you would get from any other soft sampler.

I love Reason and use it a lot as a sketch pad. I love it's immediacy and think it's great.

The choice is yours

[BezO]

...It's so much easier adding eq, compression, fx to 32 audio channels from a software sampler than having to get a big mixing desk, lots of fx, hardware compressors etc..... and a lot of patching and wiring up.

Am I the only one that records all MIDI to audio first then mixes it, all in the box.

[Spaceman Sounds]

...It's so much easier adding eq, compression, fx to 32 audio channels from a software sampler than having to get a big mixing desk, lots of fx, hardware compressors etc..... and a lot of patching and wiring up.

Am I the only one that records all MIDI to audio first then mixes it, all in the box.

I used to to get around the midi timing problems, by recording my midi tracks one by one to audio so that all the midi traffic was on one track at a time. Then software samplers came along and there was no need.

If you by an Akai you will be buying an instrument no longer really supported by sound libraries. And their second hand value is falling allthe time.

[Failed Muso]

Are you allways this patronising?

Only to people who deserve it Lighten up !

The pack has moved on from having to have 8 compressers and hardware eq's just to feed the samplers outputs. Internal fx... please ... come on they all suck. If you're being proffesional about this you just don't use the onboard fx on any sampler.

Midi timing coming out of a multi output midi interface sent to SEVERAL midi devices makes for a tighter midi set up. Having 128 notes of polyphony coming out of your Akai Z8 would make for a very sloppy track.

That just reinforces my belief that you seriously haven't used something like the Z4/8. It's internal FX are simply brilliant.

I have never noticed any sloppiness when using heavy polyphony on either of my samplers, but then I didn't spend £4000 on them to use them as fancy loop playback devices.

I have Kontakt for that

A lot and I mean a LOT of producers use drum loops in some form or other, and how are they going to use this if they don't have a software sample accurate sampler.... a hardware one? The timing is just not up to it. I used the loop problem as an example to show the problems with hardware samplers.

Huh ? Yes, loops are very prevalent in music. In fact most of them use Akai MPC's to do that job ! Strangely enough, they use the same engines as the rackmounts Otherwise they use software, like I said. I was agreeing with you there

I would rather program feeling into my midi pieces rather than have the 128 notes of serial device'd que'd up midi information make random timing issues.

Yes, I often see the little fellows with their hats and brollies, waiting to get thru the chain

Most hardware synths suck in multitimbral use for exactly this reason.

Indeed. You are so right. The industry has been wrong the past 30 years. Hardware sucks. Totally.

I'm trying to have a grown up discussion about this, but I don't think I'll bother with your patronising attitude to be honest.

My, aren't we sensitive !

As for my samples being of any use... we shall see. I truly believe if you are trying to replicate something that is organic and to some extent random be it an Analog Synth or a guitar, then you need as many samples as possible to recreate all the subtleties you can.

If you think that a 4 way multisampled piano cut's it in a modern orchestral piece then I'm afraid I'd have to disagree with you.

I can show you a 90MB piano, sampled with 2 note velocity across it's entire keyboard range that craps all over a 15GB bloatware package of the same instrument. Not my opinion, but that of Nick Magnus. Don't know him ? You ought to.

If you are being 100% pro about this you would not be writing a song using on board EQ, FX or all your voices coming out of 1 midi module.

True, but we all used to and I never had any of these issues when running 16 tracks thru my ol SC-88

[Failed Muso]

If you by an Akai you will be buying an instrument no longer really supported by sound libraries. And their second hand value is falling allthe time.

Many libraries still support Akai. There are hundreds available on places like eBay at great prices and if the hardware value is dropping, which it is of course, you will get even more of a bargain

[BezO]

One potential issue though - do you use BFD over Rewire? I am not sure whether you can run two Rewire apps simulatenously...

I run BFD as a RTAS plug.

Another option is to get the excellent 'Reason Drum Kits' add-on - might replace BFD for you...

That does look/sound nice. Do you use this? If so, is it as light on the CPU?

Not sure I'm ready to give up on BFD. Although it's kicking my CPU's ass, it sounds excellent.

[Spaceman Sounds]

What I meant by hardware synths suck... was in Multi timbral use over midi. Come on you must agree that if you use a normal synth using all midi channelsand polyphony, the timing goes out of the window.

Most studio's I used to use, printed each midi track to tape/daw.

Using loops in a sampler BEFORE software samplers and DAW's was the only option, hence why I used to have to use them for that purpose. It's not entirely the samplers fault, midi in itself and the way each note has to form and wait in a que is partly/mostly to blame, but it still doesn't change the fact that using a lot of polyphony in a hardware sampler just wasn't good enough for midi timing. This is why Hans Zimmer used to have racks and racks of them. one for each instrument and even then each sound would go through analog eq and compressers....NOT the onboard fx.

If Emu had made the Emu X like the Emulators of old and if they were sample accurate I would still use it. I don't use my hardware samplers anymore due to the fact that they just sound sloppy when used with vsti's. Their sample accuracy reallyshows up midi timing and that includes the old akai's I have in the corner doing buggerall. Not worth enough to sell, not doing enough to use.

Akai as a sample format is dying fast. There is no way a 32mb violin patch can compete with the ltest 400mb multi sampled violin libraries. How many big named film music producers still use Akai's for their work?

I never said that hardware fx sucked, I said that the ones built into samplers do. Can you honestly say you would use the eq or reverbs built into any of the modern hardware samplers? I know I wouldn't.

All the producers I know that do this for a living (including myself) have ditched hardware samplers unless they actually change the sound in a way that software samplers cannot. Drum and bass boys use the emu's for a reason, the filters... it's the sampler of choice for them. I still use my EIII because of the lovely analog filters and the beautifull way it crunches up my samples and makes them sound more organic.....as an effect yes.

Akai are pretty dead in the water now arethey not? Reason is a good idea as it is very light and has a good library.

[Spaceman Sounds]

Not my opinion, but that of Nick Magnus. Don't know him ? You ought to.

No never heard of him...let me check google....ahh yes he worked for such greats as:

Cilla Black

Bonnie Tyler

David Essex


seriously though.... I'd still prefer the 15gb grand piano over a 2 velocity...whats that? ... really soft and...really hard? recorded 90mb sample.