General sampling questions

[floydianite]

Sorry in advance if this post goes on too long but I'm quite confused about some things. First off, the only experience I have with sampling consists of using a Roland R8 mkII for creating percussion tracks. It has some decent sounds, but I'm tired of the user-unfriendliness of switching back and forth between various screens to edit and check settings with a very limited amount of control.. all while squinting at a tiny monochromatic screen. I know there must be software equivalents that can do everything my R8 can do, for example, but easier and with many more options. I do everything else on my computer so why not this? BTW, I'm mostly interested in creating acoustic drum and string/orchestral tracks for rock/pop-type music.

Ok some questions: 1)What's a good program that can take samples and allow me to edit and arrange them into entire tracks? Right now I'm mainly using Audition and Tracktion 2 for my tracking and mixing. Ease of use and flexibility like being able to "humanize" things like timing, tempo, velocity, pitch, timbre, etc are important. 2)Where can I find good quality sample collections? Are they usually included as libraries with the software samplers? 3)How is midi typically used in sampling, and finally, 4)What's the difference between a sampler, sample-based synth, sequencer, and loop workstation??? (told ya I was confused ) The first 2 questions are really the most important, but if anyone would rather just direct me to general links (other threads, faq's, articles etc) I'd very much appreciate it!

[jupiter8]

1.You'll need a sampler VSTi for this. There are general samplers that works for everything and those made specifically for drums. The big dog in the first category is the NI Kontakt. It comes with a huge sample library,it can do pretty much anything imaginable to a sample. However it is a very deep and expensive alternative. Another popular one is Vember Audio Shortcircuit. A lot cheaper but does'nt come wtih any samples as far as i know.

Drum samplers. You have FXPansions Guru and NI Battery.
They are 2 very different beasts. Guru is more of a "dance" drummachine and Battery is more focused on "real" drums. Both can do both things of course,it's more how they do it. Battery has lot's of velocity layers for example which is good for acoustic drums. Guru can slice a drum loop into different hits and play it back at any (well almost) tempo. Guru has a built in sequencer for drums where Battery has'nt.

There are other options as well. You could buy the CM magazine.It comes with some cool plugins. One of them the DS 404 sampler but to be frank i never got my head around this one. It also has the 202 drumsampler which is kinda cool. You get a lot of plugins for the cost of the magazine.

2. You can buy them,DL free ones from the Net,make your own, or some plugins come with samples when you buy them. You have to check the different plugin for that.

3. If you use a plugin midi isn't used at all except maybe for your controller keyboard.

4. A sampler can load new samples where a sample based synth usually can't. There are a lot of blurred lines here. It has more to do with the intended use than feature set. A sequencer is your host program.In your case Audition and Tracktion. A sequencer hold notes in memory and sends those notes to whatever instrument you're playing. Be it a hardware synth,drummachine or plugin. A loop workstation is something made specifically to manipulate loops.

EDIT: Forgot this link. The BIG free sample link thread.

[floydianite]

Thanks for the excellent info, very helpful! I meant to say "step sequencer" in my last question above as I was confused about the difference between a step-sequencer, sample synth, etc.
I'm currently checking out the demos of BFD, dfh Superior and AD. Impressive stuff for sure, if a bit pricey. There's also lots of free/very cheap samples like you mentioned but I doubt the quality is anything close. A search for "drum samples" on eBay for example yields more than 300 results, most claiming to be "unmatched".
Right now I'm leaning toward Kontakt or something similar and maybe bfd for drums. I'm not letting go of the r8 just yet though.