KVR Audio

thecontrolcentre · Post by **thecontrolcentre** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 5:52 pm

Radek wrote:You might try to buy Yamaha A5000 as it has some interesting capabilities (every sample is a synth on its own) but can handle no more than 128MB of memory.

Watch out for the dodgy rotary controllers on the Yamahas ... my A3000 drives me nuts when i try to use it these days.
Live6 has a nice add-on Sampler ...

Bruce Bartlett · Post by **Bruce Bartlett** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 6:02 pm

Radek wrote:The Akai Z4 is kind of cheap now and it has 512MB capability. You might try to buy Yamaha A5000 as it has some interesting capabilities (every sample is a synth on its own) but can handle no more than 128MB of memory.

I switched to software and my A4000 is gathering dust. It's far too limited, quirky, has terrible timing, and most of all, is much too tedious to create new samples with. I'll never go back.

Sascha Franck · Post by **Sascha Franck** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 6:22 pm

One thing I like about software samplers (and any software synth and effect in general): I can always have my entire studio with me on a laptop. Try working with your AKAI or whatever in a plane...
Seriously, these days, transportability is *the* key issue for me. For the two mobile machines I bought during the last year (one PC laptop, one Macbook) I could as well have gotten quite some massive desktop machine or even some (*shudder*) hardware. But I'm just as happy as I could be. Apart from the master keyboard and monitors, my entire studio setup fits in a rather small suitcase.

kuniklo · Post by **kuniklo** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 6:29 pm

Sascha Franck wrote:One thing I like about software samplers (and any software synth and effect in general): I can always have my entire studio with me on a laptop. Try working with your AKAI or whatever in a plane...

Software wins easily for convenience and portability.

I'm happiest with a hybrid approach. I prefer hardware for sound design and sketching out ideas and I use the computer to record and mix everything and for plugin effects. I can toss my laptop in a bag and make music anywhere but I have some physical instruments to play at home which is where I do 95% of my music. People tend to talk about software/hardware as either/or but you can easily have the best of both worlds.

Otterfan · Post by **Otterfan** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 6:33 pm

hollowsun wrote:
Distorted_Mastermind wrote:The editing abilities of software are more advanced, and the sound quality is going to be a bit better since it isn't being converted as many times.
Eh??

A hardware sampler has A-D convertors to get the sound in and D-A convertors to get the sound out. What other 'conversions' are being used?

I think D_M's point was that a hardware sampler recorded into a computer involves three conversions--A/D to get the sound into the sampler, D/A to get the sound out of the sampler, then A/D again to get the sound into the computer. Plus if you want to sample something you generate on your computer you'll add another D/A to get it out of the computer.

Of course, if you get a sampler with digital I/O it's a moot point.

thecontrolcentre · Post by **thecontrolcentre** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 6:56 pm

Otterfan wrote: Of course, if you get a sampler with digital I/O it's a moot point.

or SCSI or midi or a floppy drive ... some of 'em have CD drives too.

Otterfan · Post by **Otterfan** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 7:13 pm

thecontrolcentre wrote:
Otterfan wrote: Of course, if you get a sampler with digital I/O it's a moot point.
or SCSI or midi or a floppy drive ... some of 'em have CD drives too.

Hey, it's all digital I/O to me...

ford442 · Post by **ford442** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 7:50 pm

pfff.. hardware.. X-( pfff..

software is much more convenient - i bought a boss sp505 - never used it.. i was thinking of getting it an electrix filterfactory analog filter, but after waiting for the filterfactory MKII for like a year - i've gone back to software samplers - why make it hard on yourself with hardware..?

uvacom · Post by **uvacom** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 7:52 pm

hollowsun wrote: If anything, a hardware sampler is likely to have better sound quality because it will have dedicated ASICs and hardware (coded at the 'machine level') to provide higher quality interpolation for transposed samples and it will have hardware dedicated to accurate loop playback, etc.. This is particularly true of the S5/6000 which has excellent interpolation, etc..

In fact, a hardware has dedicated bits of electronics throughout that are optimised for the specific task they have to perform.

Software samplers, on the other hand, either have to 'fudge' these in software. Or they ignore them completely (a transposed sample without interpolation - yeeeeugh!!!)!

I don't think there are any software samplers out there (at least, not any that are even remotely common) that are transposing without interpolation. Actually, a lot of software performs really well in the interpolation arena. E-mu's Emulator X uses their proprietary multirate algorithm, Vemberaudio uses a very nice sinc algorithm, I think Kontakt's HQ transposition is using like a biquad algorithm or maybe sinc as well. Even the really shoddy softsamplers usually use at least linear interpolation, which is probably the most common method in the hardware world.

You may know of some comparative tests on the net that I don't, but this is one of the most comprehensive I have seen and I would say that the hardware samplers do a pretty good job, but the best performers are software - Vsampler, Shortcircuit, sfz, and Emulator X all perform better than even the Akai Z8 IMHO.

and as far as I know, looping isn't exactly CPU-intensive, even crossfading and such isn't a big deal. If you have any data which demonstrates the superiority of hardware in this area, I'd love to see it but I'm pretty skeptical that your S6000 has any advantage there.

kuniklo · Post by **kuniklo** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 8:32 pm

ford442 wrote:i've gone back to software samplers - why make it hard on yourself with hardware..?

I can't help but point out that just about everybody with this attitude has never used a good hardware sampler.

As elaborated in this thread, there are plenty of good reasons to prefer software, but if you haven't tried the alternatives you can't really rate them.

ford442 · Post by **ford442** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 9:13 pm

i can't afford a good one.. but even so - i love the convenience of rendering VSTs.. i will probly never buy a hardware sampler - if i really wanted such a thing i would set up a second computer with more VSTs..

Radek · Post by **Radek** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 10:52 pm

The problem with hardware samplers is they weren't updated at all. And it's a pity because they have shortcomings like too little memory capacity and usually poor I/O perfomance. The FantomXR looks like being best bet being also an expandable "rompler" and it's in just 1U rack case.
(so probably someone might find some uses for XR beyond using it as sampler)

I doubt that any of those mentioned here samplers use just linear interpolation. A quality isn't problem but convenience certainly is. Yet those machines have some nice functions like consecutive sampling, build in sample editing and processing.

If you can buy one for real cheap then you might try... otherwise stick to some soft sampling solution.

jones-y · Post by **jones-y** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 2:33 pm

ckett wrote:HOn the discussion about whether samplers sample or not seems a bit goofy. I find using an audio editor on a DAW is far better to prep samples for the sampler.

Good point, but that breaks down when the sampling process itself is a part of the creative process. In other words, for me, the 'prepping samples' part is exactly what turns me off to software samplers and makes my creativity run dry. I will admit however, that I frequently dump my samples from my hardware sampler (EMU EMAX I SE, and soon, ASR-X) into software once I'm closer to a finished sequence.

Another aspect that was briefly touched on from a technical perspective here is that with the cream of the crop hardware samplers, (S3000/5000/6000, EIV/E64, ASR-10/ASR-X, etc) and the classic samplers (EMAX/S950/MPC60 etc.), what you get out is not equivalent to what you put in, its better, at least subjectively.

hollowsun · Post by **hollowsun** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 1:54 am

Otterfan wrote:I think D_M's point was that a hardware sampler recorded into a computer involves three conversions

With the S6000 that the original poster was referring to, samples can be transferred to a Mac/PC via Akai's ak.Sys software over USB so it's a non-issue - no conversion involved.... a straight data transfer Furthermore, such samples can then be taken to a software sampler with loops, etc., intact.

In fact, this is how I do a lot of sound lib development for clients. Develop, loop, mangle, edit the samples on my S5000 (where I am totally comfortable, speedy and efficient) then take them to my Mac via ak.Sys where I can move them to my client's preferred sampler. I can also use ak.Sys to get samples into the Mac to be edited in various wave and looping editors and then back to the S5000 to play and program. Then I can chuck those back at the Mac to use in other samplers.

Suits my way of working. But all the time, only two 'conversions' - the A-D of the source material and the D-A of the destination sampler!

Steve

thecontrolcentre · Post by **thecontrolcentre** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 2:05 am

kuniklo wrote: I can't help but point out that just about everybody with this attitude has never used a good hardware sampler.

I have owned many hardware samplers ... i currently have a Yamaha A3000, a Roland S750, and a Boss SP505. They haven't been switched on once this year. I prefer to use Live6 and Sampler ... it's quicker, easier, better sounding and more flexible than the hardware. Cheaper too ...

Hardware or Software sampling?