Question about samplers and sample library combination

[Spaceman Sounds]

Bezo haven't protools just come out with a new software sampler? Have a look... I could be wrong, but also thought someone mentioned it to me the other day.

[hollowsun]

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

Cilla Black

Bonnie Tyler

David Essex

And an absolutely first rate session pianist, Hammondist, clavist, Rhodes-ist, programmer/player with experience dating back to pretty much the dawn of synths. He also programmed many of the patches in Roland's JV synths and is also a highly respected reviewer in the UK whose opinion is often brutally honest.

You may knock or laugh at some of his clientele but you have to be seriously up on your chops to get a gig with them as they are very demanding. Besides which, he's also played with ex-Genesis members in their solo capacity as well as most of the luminaries in the prog-rock field. He's released many library music albums which are in great demand and did a 'lifestyle' album that was in the upper regions of the European album charts for some months! He is also a heavyweight Kontakt user/programmer and so has a broad and historical range of musical and technical experience from the advent of the Minimoog and Trons, etc., right up to the present day so be careful before you mock!

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

I don't dispute that these massive multi-velocity libraries sounds great because they do (I don't suppose Lovesign does either) but they bring with them their own problems (such as CPU hog, disk/memory bloat and the associated software/hardware/driver/OS update catch-up hoop jumping) and so it is innappropriate to dismiss lean, well-optimised library as 'old hat' or irrelevant and smacks of the emperor's new clothes. There is room for both - horses for courses.

[Failed Muso]

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.

Can't say I've noticed, but I rarely use just one synth/MIDI device for a whole song.

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.

Different strokes for different folks

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.

Maybe BezO will take them off you ?

Akai as a sample format is dying fast.

Mate, it's dead. Even I accept that. But all samplers still cite it in their import lists which is testament to it's popularity and worthiness.

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?

That would all depend on the programming. As for how many "big name film producers" still use Akai's, I couldn't say, but what is that a measure of except fanboy'ism.

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.

I still say you need to listen to a Z8.

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.

We all have a different means to an end. Whatever floats your boat. But if you or your clique don't like it, it doesn't mean it's not for someone else.

Akai are pretty dead in the water now arethey not?

Nope. A wholly owned subsiduary of the Alesis group now. Just released the MPC2500 and the new EWI4000 to much acclaim. Rumour has it there is more to come

Reason is a good idea as it is very light and has a good library.

On that I agree wholeheartedly

[Failed Muso]

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

Well, I Googled Spaceman Sounds (thinking if you are in the business, you'll be around somewhere)....nope, I didn't find anything either.

Damn, you picked out all the best ones from that list that appeared at the top of the Google results page. Good job you forgot to mention Steve Hackett, George Martin, Brian May, Chris Rea, Mike Batt and Colin Blunstone otherwise people would think he was a right talentless shite !

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

Ah, so you're familiar with that library then ?? Yes, it is two velocities, hard and soft. It's an electric grand piano to be accurate. But, and this is the science bit, it has been so cleverly programmed that multiple velocity samples are simply not required. They would not add anything to the end product. And this library was for Kontakt, NN-XT, EXS24, GIGA and HALion as well as Akai, so even the "softies" benefitted from a high quality, small footprint instrument.

It does concern me that even without hearing either sample set, you so readily dismiss the smaller sized one purely on that factor alone. Obviously the marketing machine and peer pressure has worked.

(Another post closer to KVRAF status )

[Failed Muso]

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.

The entire ProSamples range from Best Service is Akai compatible. They are a great way to get into some good libraries. They are essentially "Best Of" compilations of much bigger libraries. At EURO 115 for three, you can't go wrong and there are nearly 60 odd titles to choose from.

Spectrasonics do all their sample libraries in Akai, although they are high quality, high price. Even the mighty Hans Zimmer libraries are in Akai.

And of course Hollow Sun have some great stuff, all in Akai S5/6000 & Z Series format.

Dude, Am I going to have to push you over the edge here to get you to decide ?

And don't forget that you can use software like Extreme Sample Converter or CDXtract to convert other libraries into Akai format The Z's natively read and convert Akai S1000, S3000 and XL series, S5/S6000, Z4/Z8, MPC2000XL, MPC3000, Roland S700 series, and EMU 3 and 4 series. The S5/6000 will do all those too but not the 24bit wavs.

As for the fate of the Z Series ? Well, by the time Akai had got that out, software samplers had gotten a hold, not really because they were better, but because you could get cracked copies of them for free. If you're a struggling musician on a tight budget, what option would you take ? £2000 hardware sampler by the gods of hardware sampling or free software sampler that works on the computer you already have ? Plus, the libraries were widely available too via the "inappropriate" channels.

A relaunch (Z4 with new name, built in library on HD and small cosmetic changes) was planned but never made it out of Japan. The Z Series engine lives on in the MPC4000.

[soniccouture]

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

really? even if it sounded worse? why? why would you prefer it ? don't you have ears?

Heh - 90 mb for a piano is huge. real men can make one in 8mb

[hollowsun]

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.

The timing is 'affected' yes (laws of serial physics) but still far less than a group of 'musicians' playing together. In a real band situation, just placing an amp/cab a few feet further back on stage or re-positioning the drum riser is going to create (technically) a greater delay than that of MIDI.

In a traditional orchestra layout, certain instruments are going to sound later not because of the musicians' timing (which in itself is actually a virtue in the organic life of an orchestra!) but just due to their physical placement on-stage - the brass and woodwind are going to be marginally 'behind' the strings in timing because they are behind them physically... the orchestral percussion section even more so.

But as you probably know, computers by their very nature are also serial so track 128 is going to be behind track 1 just like the voices of a hardware sampler driven over MIDI. Maybe not to the same extent (and no doubt they have excellent routines to cope with this by delaying lower numbered tracks proportionally but that's assuming, of course, that other host interrupts don't get in the way!).

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.

Because the samplers of the day (before Hans devoted racks and racks of PCs for each GigiSampler instrument ) didn't have onboard EQ, compressors and FX, etc..

How many big named film music producers still use Akai's for their work?

Quite a few have S5/6000s (one of the Newman brothers has two as I recall)

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.

Dunno about D+B but in hip-hop, etc., MPC is still king for any number of reasons - groove, tightness, sound quality, whatever.

Akai are pretty dead in the water now arethey not?

Akai *rack* samplers are no longer as popular as they were - that much is true. But this is for any number of reasons not least of which is widespread software and sound library piracy - however good, why buy a hardware sampler or a pro library when a mate will run off a copy of his or you can pickup a crack on any number of P2P networks?! Sure, software samplers are convenient but so are bland supermarkets - I for one would rather get fresh produce from a local supplier that has a fuller flavour than subscribe to some faceless multi-national that flies it's tasteless junk in just coz it's cheap and parking is 'convenient'.

At the end of the day, it's down to preference and I know which I prefer.


Steve

[hollowsun]

Heh - 90 mb for a piano is huge. real men can make one in 8mb

Ha! Touché

Steve

[BezO]

Dude, Am I going to have to push you over the edge here to get you to decide ?

I'm just extra cautious nowadays. I began buying recording equipment 3 years ago. I'm a guitar/bass player and song writer that thought it would be a good idea to record myself. I wasn't interested in making power trio music, so I bought a synth. Wasn't getting the sound I wanted. Did some research to find out, oh, converters, pre-amps, plugins, ect... that's how they get that sound? So I started to invest in the engineering side. Did wonders for the bass and guitar recordings but everything else still sounded like chit. To shorten the story, I ended up with a Motif Rack. Decent machine, but doesn't deliver the acoustic, organic sounds I need. Or at least my sound designing skills are not up to the task.

At this point i have about 50 songs at varioius degrees of completeness. In my opnion, good song writing, good arrangements, but everything aside from the guitars and bass (and now drums) sound terrible, or at least not how I want them to sound. I'm trying to sound like Funkadelic meets Miles Davis, but sound more like George Clinton introduces Daft Punk. Probably a bad analogy as I've never really listened to Daft Punk, but this and other sound modules I've tested are to synthy for my taste. I considered the Nord Electro which has some nice sounding keys. But I really need brass, woodwinds, percussion, strings and some ethnic instruments, and haven't found anything that emulates them as well as some sample libraries I've heard.

All that to say I can't afford to make any more mistakes.

And don't forget that you can use software like Extreme Sample Converter or CDXtract to convert other libraries into Akai format

Does that include any library?

[Failed Muso]

Does that include any library?

Nope, just the conversion programs, but they will allow you to use stuff that doesn't have specific Akai versions.

Nord's are great, but pricey. Samplers would give you limitless variety for a lot less. The Motif's are great too with some awesome ROM sounds. I'm currently working on library for a workstation that's going to knock the Motif, Triton and Fantom into a cocked hat ! And it reads Akai samples too

I love all those artists you mention

As far as the Akai's are concerned, as long as you get the right level of spec (S5/6000 must come with USB card fitted as these are as rare as rocking horse shit, if you are in the US, try to find one with the 64 voice expansion & FX board too and with a HD as well. European versions had them fitted as standard on the S6000 (Not the HD). The S5/6000 doesn't have IDE as standard. You need a IDE2SCSI converter. Cheap but not always easy to find. I'm watching one right now on eBay UK. Failing that, you can always get an internal SCSI drive. Z's aren't so bad. USB is standard, as is IDE) RAM for both is still easily available, although the S5/6000 uses 72 Pin EDO which can be a little more expensive these days, but nothing to stress over.

If you find one and want me to give it a once over for you, just shout

[BezO]

If you find one and want me to give it a once over for you, just shout

I'd appreciate that. I'm actually watching a S5, S6 and Z8 on Ebay now, but it's just to see what they go for. None of them have what I'm looking for. Neither the S5 or S6 have the specs you mention, and I'm hoping to get a Z already fitted with the 8 output option.

I contacted a guy with a perfect Z8 up on Ebay. 60GB drive, max RAM, 8 output option... but it was the first I've seen fitted with all of that, so I was hesitant on pulling the trigger on the Buy Now option at $800 plus shipping. He took it down before the auction ended... got a better offer than I made. Zs are going for $500-600 on Ebay, and I haven't seen an output expansion for less than $300(can't imagine finding a used one). $800 doesn't seem so bad considering.

[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.

Just getting into the "lighten up" spirit of things

Believe it or not,I'm from the old school of....how am I going tomake a convincing sample of this with only 2 mb ram to spare. I also agree that some of the new libraries are bloated for bloated sake. But the good ones are amazingly good.

What's missing I feel is using the sampler more as a synthesizer in it's own right. Something the Emu's had over the Akai's. They did colour the sound... true... but I really liked the warmness of that sound and the extreme synthesis capabilities.

Reason is an excellent alternative for synthesis with samples using combinator, butr I have to say that it does do something to the samples..... they don't allways sound the same on playback i.e something missing, like the difference between a good mp3 and wav.

"Spaceman Sound's won't have brought anything up on Google, because it's just a reandom name I used to register on these forums. When I'm up and running in a couple of weeks I'll use my business name.

I'm very much of the train of thought that sampled sounds should be able to be manipulaterd in realtime giving the user lot's of control to be able to impart their own personality on sounds. I used to get so pissed off having bought 2-3 £70 libraries only to find 5 or 6 decent samples in them. And the amount of shoddy cut up samples amazes me even now with some modern libraries. Lot's of space/noise on the begining of samples, bad looping or drum loops that go on for 2 to 4 bars when really it should have been 1 bar as nothing is different. Or some of the new 40 sec long sounds with no loops... sometimes I think they are bloated on purpose just to take up more room on the disk.

I had high hopes for the Akai vsti sampler and it's a real shame that they stopped it. Emulator really messed up letting Creative (I know they had no choice) do the Emu X. If they had a firewire interface on newer hardware samplers that gave sample accurate timing I would have dropped software samplers in a second for sure. Who know's what will happen in the near future though.

I actually sold so many hardware synths due to the "Vsti's really sound the same" goldrush. Then 2 years later I stopped kidding myself, and bought all my analogs back and then some I still think that sampling is the only way to capture the sound and fell of living breathing instuments be they Analog (my forte) or trumpets. And the modern samplers like Kontakt 2 with their disk streaming helps a lot. Just because the library is huge doesn't mean the programming has to be shoddy.

My multi velocity midi Moog samples for example have between 200 and 350 samples in each preset. Sounds a lot, but not really when you play it. And I still try very hard to keep each preset under 30mb. With memory being so cheap and fast, they load in a sec and cost so little $/mb I remember spending £300 on ram for my sampler

Hardware samplers also worry me about upkeep. Where am I going to get a 30mb scsi hard drive for my EIII in 10 years time, or next week for that matter if it dies. Analog's can be fixed easily but samplers are a different fish. Although that ide to scsi convertor you mentioned sounds good.

Anyhow, good discussion all, nice to see people passionate about their kit

I look forward to you guys testing ripping apart some of my demo presets I'll upload in a few weeks for Kontakt.

[Rodent]

Very interesting thread!

As for the whole argument of software vs. hardware, either are perfectly acceptable solutions providing you are able to get the sounds you want.
Just because it's 2006 doesn't suddenly mean that hardware samplers are no longer the serious, powerful tools they were regarded as a few years back. In fact, sticking with a hardware sampler using S*000 libraries will probably give you a more unique and fresh sound than the sheep who're all using the same bloatware libraries for their software samplers. =P

Regarding the MIDI timing issues, this is a problem that plagues both software and hardware alike. While it is possible to design software to be sample accurate all the time, in practice this isn't done as often as it should be, particularly with "plug-in" synths.
There is a technical reason why flanging is less often observed on a software sampler, and it isn't because of sample accuracy, but rather a limitation in the way software samplers fake "real-time" performance. This fake actually increases jitter; in some cases well above what you'd get with a hardware sampler (even over 5ms!). However, the jitter is the same across all channels using that soundcard, so phase differences never occur. The result is every bit as damaging musically as a bad case of MIDI jitter.

MIDI can provide pretty tight timing when it's working to its maximum quality (timing within ~2ms for rhythm parts), but it seldom is, especially under Windows and Mac OS X, and especially with USB interfaces.

If the CPU in a hardware sampler or synthesizer is overloaded, there can sometimes be delays in the timing, but this only happens in exceptional cases.
(the JV-1080, despite its other strengths, is very poorly designed in this regard, and may be the reason why so many people are nervous about poor MIDI timing)
Software samplers do the same thing too -- when it bogs down, instead of gracefully degrading by delaying a few notes slightly, the audio crackles, pops, stutters, the tweeters in your monitors get blown, and often the extremely poorly designed sequencer and software sampler crashes horribly, sometimes taking down the equally poorly designed operating system.

For very complex arrangements with a lot happening at the start of each bar, using multiple MIDI outputs can improve matters a great deal. The S5000, S6000, Z4 and Z8 all feature two MIDI inputs, which you can spread the load between.

That being said, while I don't (yet) own an Akai sampler myself, those I've used in the past have been very tight with MIDI timing.


As for the Emu / Akai thing, I've not used Emu samplers much (e6400), but to my ears, they sounded "warmer" (valve-style) than Akais. However the sound came out different than it went in. This may be good or bad depending on what you want. The S5000 appears to be fairly neutral, with no character at all.
The Emus can only take 128 megs of RAM as far as I know, and many of them have a (noisy) cooling fan too (the S5000 doesn't). However, they do appear to be good for "synth"-like purposes.


I've never used a Z-series Akai sampler, so I can't really offer any help there. It seems to me that the biggest advantage is twice the RAM capacity. Surely 512 megs is useful, but for a similar price two S5000s would give that, and would outperform the Z-series (128 total poly, 4 MIDI ins, etc).
The S5000 can play back monophonic samples direct from disk too; as far as I know the Z-series can't do that. It seems to me that the S5000/S6000 are more professional machines than the Z-series.

One point to bear in mind is that I believe the Z-series takes PC-133 DIMM RAM (I think). This might be easier to find on ebay than the EDO SIMMs that the S5000 takes, if I recall correctly.


Regarding size of the samples, memory alone is not the answer to creating expressive, good-sounding instruments. A fully expanded S5000 (256MB) can store almost an hour of mono CD quality audio -- that's rather a lot of samples!

Beyond a certain point, adding more (or longer) samples to a sample library isn't very effective. I feel that software samplers go well beyond this point, into the realms of bloatware -- taking up diskspace just because they can.
The loop-less sustain periods found on software sampler libraries sound good on paper, but in practice for many instruments it is merely a huge waste of memory. The expressiveness of the instrument is "sampled in" and cannot be changed. Even worse are sampled "phrases" -- you essentially build a piece of music like lego blocks; not very flexible, and not as much musicianship involved.

On the other hand, Akai sample CDs are designed for use in small memory capacities. The authors have (hopefully!) carefully programmed the patches to take as little memory as possible, while sounding realistic.
With a few shorter looped samples, taking 1,000+ times less memory than software sample libraries, you can crossfade between them with the mod wheel, etc., to change the timbre when appropriate, just like performing on an acoustic instrument. Add filters and other clever programming, and you have a real, expressive instrument, that sample size alone can never replace.

There are some well-programmed software sample libraries too, but all too often they're marketed on number of samples, sample size, and buzzwords like "no loop points". You can produce excellent results with a 256MB Akai and the right sample libraries. Combine it with careful MIDI programming and the result will be an awful lot more realistic and musically useful than someone using the latest and greatest sample libraries, but with no knowledge of how to make the instruments sound realistic and expressive.


Aaah, the hype about 24 bit / 96KHz sampling:
As far as I know, both the S5000 and the Z-series use more than 24 bits internally (devices like this often use 48 or 64 bits fixed point).
The Z-series is unique in being able to load 24 bit files directly. The gain from using 24 bit samples should be essentially *zero*. The reason being is that all samples should be stored normalized, and won't use a very large dynamic range.
The dynamic range is applied by the composer, using the MIDI volume controller and envelopes, which are applied in the 48+ bit domain.
In other words, play a 16 bit sample back on an S5000, with a MIDI volume setting of 10 (out of 127), turn up the input on the desk until you can hear it, and it'll still be the full 16 bit quality.

Pro Tools sounds better at 24 bits? That's possibly because some internal processing is being carried out at 24 bits, and at 16 bits when you select 16 bits. Not a very good design, and the S5000 should sound even better than Pro Tools at 24 bits.

96KHz; that may bring some actual benefits in sound quality, in theory. However, polyphony is cut in half when using this mode on the Z-series. Can you hear the difference? If not, 44.1 or 48K is fine. The listener probably won't hear the difference, but will certainly be able to hear notes cutting off if you use up 32 notes of poly. ;)



To throw in another couple of points to consider:

Roland make a variety of "SRX" expansion boards for their line of synths; one of these is specifically for brass, and a few other specific instrument groups are covered too. I've not heard these boards, but they do store 64 megs of samples each. That, combined with Roland's usually excellent patch programming and ability to cram good samples into small spaces, might actually sound quite good.
The board(s) could be fitted to an expander like the XV-2020, or alternatively into the XV-5080. The latter, in addition to taking expansion boards, can also take 128 megs of RAM, and load Akai and Roland sample CDs. With 8 outputs, two MIDI inputs, and built-in effects, it out-performs the entry level Akais in some respects.


Sample CDs, unlike ROM expansions for synths, are pure software. Therefore, the authors sometimes take every chance they can to impose weird and unusual license agreements on you. For instance, regardless of hardware or software, I have seen sample CDs require that you:

- Cannot return the CD once you open it
- Cannot re-sell the CD on ebay
- Some CDs require that you credit the author if you use the CD on an album, etc.
- A few CDs require that you pay royalties if you use it commercially
- A few CDs say that you can't use them commercially at all!

Not every sample CD has these; in particular I've not seen the last three very often at all.
However, it's something to be aware of, particularly if you're used to the freedom of hardware synths, which are essentially "musical instruments" rather than software.
Beware of "free" samples and soundfonts downloaded from the Internet in particular; they're usually anything but.


Most of the time, none of this stuff is listed on webshops stocking the CDs.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to how one might actually check the license agreement before placing an order for a CD?


Whoops; this post has turned out a lot longer than I expected it to! Hopefully some of it is of interest to someone, in amongst the rambling. =P

[Failed Muso]

Many good points well made

Probably the best first post I've ever seen on KvR

[Spaceman Sounds]

Soft samplers only really ever choke down splutter when they run out of cpu/too lower latency setting. If you fired 128 notes at a hardware sampler/synth at the same time they won't come out anywhere near the same time from the samplers outputs. A decent vsti sampler will though, if you have the cpu to spare.