Drag n' Drop and the non-sampling "Samplers"

[noiseblast]

Reporting in on DirectWave

Can DnD from Edison (only) to DirectWave (only). Cannot DnD from other hosts/appz to DirectWave

This is bad: Cannot DnD from DirectWave to anything else, not even Edison.

DnD from Windows Explorer to DirectWave works.

[kippertoffee]

sorry if this has already been said.

Energy xt2, still in development, will allow audio recording and then the dragging of audio files into the in-built sampler/synth.

As i say, still in development, but as it's being designed by Jorgen Aase, you can guarantee it will rock.

pete.

[agoz]

Well....try Keymap. It's pretty much light years ahead of everything.

Judging from their website, am I correct in assuming that it only works with EXS24? So, one would need both a Mac and Logic to make use of Keymap?

Keymap is a Mac-only application. The EXS24 format is supported by all major sample players, and Keymap can write mapping data inside samples, so that any reasonably implemented sampler can actually import the files either from the instrument data or from the mapping data inside sample files.
Logic is not needed (Keymap is a standalone app).

Best Regards
Andrea at Redmatica

[lordvader48]

Well....try Keymap. It's pretty much light years ahead of everything.

This "Keymap" is a cruel joke. Aside from the very lovely Mac interface, let's take a look at what's really being provided here. "Keymap" seems to be nothing more than an EXS-format bank creation utility, that does not even have sample editing.

How useful can something like this be? I mean think about it for just a second. Sure, "Keymap" may or may not be able to "integrate with an external editor", but so what? Isn't preparing the samples for an EXS bank a central part of what this kind of a program should do? "Externalizing" the waveform editing destroys workflow, and makes it a lot harder to create banks because of all of the back-and-forth required with samples.

And what about preview? Don't you really need to be able to listen to the samples in context, so you have some idea of what you're creating? Well I think so.

These days, building a softsampler is just not that difficult. Look at both Image-Line and 112db.com, who have each built SAMPLING softsamplers in less than a year's time.

The point is that the "distributed sampling model" has really rotten workflow, and it's much better to have INTEGRATION of some core, usable features in one program or VSTi than it is to have everything (lots and lots of features) spread out all over the place with terrible integration. "Keymap" clearly delivers the latter.

If you need the former (like I do..) get thee to image-line.com and pick up your copy of DirectWave. Tell them the Good Lord sent you

[noiseblast]

+1

Right on, vader...

[bluepride]

Not my idea - have been working w/DirectWave & Edison per Shamann's suggestion, using the combo for sample cutting and making DW programs/banks. Best way to do sample cutup I've seen. A great way to work...

Thanks for the idea

[vanheusen]

Ableton lives implementation of drag n drop samplig is really great. It really makes the whole thing into a musical process rather than something tedious. Probably my favourite thing about live.

[Meffy]

@Andrea: I got your PM but can't reply privately as your profile has both PM and email disabled. I recommend chopping your reply up into segments, each addressing one person, and trying to post those separately. When you hit one that triggers the spam alert, you can skip over that and try the rest. Once it's narrowed down it'll be easier to detect the triggering word(s), and IIRC as your post count increases the detection might become less rigid; not sure about that.

[agoz]

(Thank you meffy, let's try posting in this way then)

Interesting discussion. Here's my contribute:

This "Keymap" is a cruel joke. Aside from the very lovely Mac interface, let's take a look at what's really being provided here. "Keymap" seems to be nothing more than an EXS-format bank creation utility, that does not even have sample editing.

Well, Keymap *has* a built in sample editor. Actually there is a sample editor in each editor window, and they are all interconnected.

[agoz]

How useful can something like this be? I mean think about it for just a second. Sure, "Keymap" may or may not be able to "integrate with an external Editor", but so what? Isn't preparing the samples for an EXS bank a central part of what this kind of a program should do? "Externalizing" the waveform editing destroys workflow, and makes it a lot harder to create banks because of all of the back-and-forth required with samples.

Ok, but we have the sample editor....

[agoz]

And what about preview? Don't you really need to be able to listen to the samples in context, so you have some idea of what you're creating? Well I think so.

Yes, but we have a sample editor, a loop editor, and many other editors
They are all connected, and if you have a MIDI keyboard you can actually play instruments while you edit: no need to have Logic or other apps open at the same time. You can see the sample editors in our initial web page at www.redmatica.com

[agoz]

These days, building a softsampler is just not that difficult. Look at both Image-Line and 112db.com, who have each built SAMPLING softsamplers in less than a year's time. The point is that the "distributed sampling model" has really rotten workflow, and it's much better to have INTEGRATION of some core, usable features in one program or VSTi than it is to have everything (lots and lots of features) spread out all over the place with terrible integration.

Here I disagree with you. I mean: integration is wonderful, and we integrated a lot of things in Keymap (streaming audio engine, instrument editor, sample editor, surround mixer, loop editor, setup editor, etc) but how many times should the wheel (the sample player plugin) be re-invented? How many samplers do you really need? What about getting some more independence from the sample playback engine when building your instruments? What about saving processed samples so you can use them anywhere right now and in the future?

Keymap gives you that: it's a single application focused on building great instruments. Everything is realtime and non destructive, and once you want to "export", everything that needs special features (as DSP, etc) is rendered in standard sample files, so you can be sure that what you created today will be playable also in 10 years, on whatever sampler you'll use at that time.

Back to the "building a softsampler is just not that difficult", you are right, and we could easily have built one. However, there are *many* excellent samplers out there: do you really feel we should add our own? The real point for us was looking at the sampling experience and noticing that, after 30 years since the start of the sampling revolution, we still are doing things more or less as we did on the Emulator I: you take a sample, you trim it, you normalize it, you map it on your keyboard, you loop it crossing fingers that you can do that quickly and well, and then you go to the next sample and the next and the next, which if you allow me the comparison, looks more like a Ford car manufacturing line than a creative process.

We genuinely felt there were many aspects of this process that could be improved, and that's what Keymap is all about: having your computer do the "computer" things so that you can think to the important things: i.e. sounds and music.

[agoz]

"Keymap" clearly delivers the latter.

Keymap was designed to be the "Photoshop" of sampled instruments, and guess what? Photoshop isn't a DVD creation app, or a presentation app, or a movie app, or a web creation app, but it works very well with all these apps and gives you amazing additional capabilities.

We have some videos online now at

http://www.redmatica.com/Redmatica/Videos.html

that can give you a better idea of what we are talking about.

Best Regards
Andrea at Redmatica

[shamann]

Some interesting points, Andrea, and certainly it shows that the argument is part of the long-running question on whether technology functions best as separate components or in an integrated form. Do you buy an all-in-one Hi-Fi system, or do you buy separate components? Should you have an integrated amplifier, or get a separate pre-amp? For mixing and recording, should we use a channel strip, or individual pre-amp/compressor/EQ? Are guitar multi-effect processors better than individual effect pedals? And so on. It's a neverending concern. For every fully loaded DAW application like Cubase or Logic, there comes a new pared-down model, sold on its absence of feature creep.

The real point for us was looking at the sampling experience and noticing that, after 30 years since the start of the sampling revolution, we still are doing things more or less as we did on the Emulator I: you take a sample, you trim it, you normalize it, you map it on your keyboard, you loop it crossing fingers that you can do that quickly and well, and then you go to the next sample and the next and the next, which if you allow me the comparison, looks more like a Ford car manufacturing line than a creative process.

But here's somewhere that positions differ in this thread. I think many of us who hold that sampling, sample editing, resampling, drag and drop, etc, are good features to have in the sample playback software itself aren't using samplers to make reusable instrument libraries. I've used samplers in my music for about a decade (and prior to that with tape), I've never once felt the need normalize a sample. I use samplers immediately, as I would a synthesizer or a guitar. Stuff goes in, I set it to how I want it to sound, and I start playing it back. I almost never map samples in advance of making music, it is nearly always a function of writing the music itself (or the music comes out of the process of working with the sampler). And that's where the "sampler-bots" come in, because we are looking for sampling tools designed as instruments, not really as archival utilities. I almost never use sounds a second time after they've gone in to a project. There are just too many sounds out there to repeat myself.

I think that utilities like Keymap and the non-sampling software samplers, and even a few of the sampling software samplers, have been designed very well for people interested in making and playing with reusable sample libraries. But until the last 2-3 years, most software samplers haven't been very handy for people interested in using samplers as central components of their music making practices.

[bluepride]

What he said!

Man, can that Shamann guy write