u-he sampler anybody?

[jupiter8]

I had a Casio VZ-10m back in the day.

Fantastic synth but very hard to program! Exotic synthesis + many parameters + many sub menus on a "tiny" screen = very bad idea!

I agree on principal but i had an Ensoniq EPS and i was faster with that one than i've been with anything. Funny that because it has (almost) the most arcane UI possible. But it had shortcuts (IE 161 is loop start 262 filter frequency) so i could navigate it in no time.

[Sendy]

Just to stick up for Akai samplers, I used to make all of my music on nothing but an Akai-S3000xl. Admittedly it was top of the range and I paid extra for the filterboard (multimode dual filtering) and the effects (2 multimode effects and 4 reverb sends), but the synthesis side of it which came as standard (well, apart from the extra filters) was VERY extensive, to the point that it was very plausible to create allsorts of synth sounds from synth basses to layered pads. The amount of modulation options were huge and went well beyond expectations.

Of course, I outgrew it, and a bad experience with a particularly rude Akai staffmember turned me off Akai's products, but they were le poop back in the day.

[elcallio]

p.s. I was so happy when I saw this TX16Wx sampler came out, but it's too buggy. It kept crashing on me every now and then, and I can't save programs in EXT1 for some reason. Shame, TX16Wx is nice, but crashes kill creativity.

Sorry to hear you had trouble with the TX, but would it perhaps not be more constructive to actually report the bugs you encounter (along with detailed steps to reproduce them) to the dev (i.e me), thus perhaps get rid of them? My apologies if you have, and I've missed it.

[Howard]

...i had an Ensoniq EPS and i was faster with that one than i've been with anything. Funny that because it has (almost) the most arcane UI possible. But it had shortcuts (IE 161 is loop start 262 filter frequency) so i could navigate it in no time.

Same here (ASR10)!

Musing: I especially miss the *practical* design of EPS/ASR and Cool Edit Pro. Presonus Studio One is on the right track, so to speak...

[BDeep]

Just to stick up for Akai samplers, I used to make all of my music on nothing but an Akai-S3000xl. Admittedly it was top of the range and I paid extra for the filterboard (multimode dual filtering) and the effects (2 multimode effects and 4 reverb sends), but the synthesis side of it which came as standard (well, apart from the extra filters) was VERY extensive, to the point that it was very plausible to create allsorts of synth sounds from synth basses to layered pads. The amount of modulation options were huge and went well beyond expectations.

Of course, I outgrew it, and a bad experience with a particularly rude Akai staffmember turned me off Akai's products, but they were le poop back in the day.

Absolutely, I still have an "all-options" S5000 - 128 voices, 16x ADAT out, FX board, USB. Before that I had the S3000XL. I remember the first time I tried out Kontakt. I was *much* faster with the Akai than with Kontakt. I didn't quite understood why I should be exited about it, I figured software should make a task like assigning samples easier. But for me it didn't.
Even now I don't need Kontakt (well, I'd like it for the various sample sets available), but use much simpler plugins to trigger samples. It's just too convoluted for "normal" sampling.

[DuX]

p.s. I was so happy when I saw this TX16Wx sampler came out, but it's too buggy. It kept crashing on me every now and then, and I can't save programs in EXT1 for some reason. Shame, TX16Wx is nice, but crashes kill creativity.

Sorry to hear you had trouble with the TX, but would it perhaps not be more constructive to actually report the bugs you encounter (along with detailed steps to reproduce them) to the dev (i.e me), thus perhaps get rid of them? My apologies if you have, and I've missed it.

I'm really sorry, man, yeah I didn't report them. I only posted like 2-3 messages of praise in your forum, because I like the TX so much, however, then I began to encounter problems. One more thing, I don't think many people use EnergyXT1 these days, so I thought "I don't want to bother him for this, since I'm like one among 20.5 EXT1 users probably". I'm not pushy, especially when freeware plugins are concerned. Unlike many others...

The issue is that for some reason TX16Wx doesn't save its state at all in EXT1. I'm on Windows XP SP3 btw. My "nLited" version. The other bug that is not that significant is that TX16Wx doesn't really do drag and drop of samples from the Explorer, but I actually got used to loading the samples from within TX. So that's not a big issue. It used to show me an error of some kind.

I'm glad that this thread is still alive and that some sampler lovers gathered at one place. I'm really glad I started it.

Sendy, you cannot compare S-950 or S-1000 to S3000XL with the filter board. LOL You're absolutely right about S3000XL with a filter board being a formidable and creative sampler. But have you ever used Yamaha A3000 for example? hmmmm That thing is gorgeous. Although the screen is a "little" uncomfortable... I'm so considering acquiring one. But I dislike e-bay. I think I might get scammed, and I'm not so full of money to throw it away to scammers. I rather give to animal shelters, charity, and free VST developers, of course.

BDeep, Absolutely agreed! My Kontakt is collecting dust. It's just too confusing to program. I know many wouldn't agree. Just IMO. I use SFZ and Highlife a lot, too. But there's just no ONE software sampler that is really "it". Is there, chaps? Do you get the same feeling? For instance, I'd like HighLife to be multitimbral, and it just lacks some essential stuff, not to mention how much stuff lacks in SFZ... it's sad that in these times when we're able to do so much with a computer, 99% of the developers still develop some kind of analog [and bad at it btw.] synths. There are so many VA synths around it's overwhelming. For me, only U-he and VAZ synths do it well, regarding VA synths. And I've demoed a lot throughout years, and I had a full room of the real ones a million years ago. [~18 actually] I know how they should sound.

Cheers!

[BDeep]

Sendy, you cannot compare S-950 or S-1000 to S3000XL with the filter board. LOL You're absolutely right about S3000XL with a filter board being a formidable and creative sampler. But have you ever used Yamaha A3000 for example? hmmmm That thing is gorgeous. Although the screen is a "little" uncomfortable... I'm so considering acquiring one. But I dislike e-bay. I think I might get scammed, and I'm not so full of money to throw it away to scammers. I rather give to animal shelters, charity, and free VST developers, of course.

BDeep, Absolutely agreed! My Kontakt is collecting dust. It's just too confusing to program. I know many wouldn't agree. Just IMO. I use SFZ and Highlife a lot, too. But there's just no ONE software sampler that is really "it". Is there, chaps? Do you get the same feeling? For instance, I'd like HighLife to be multitimbral, and it just lacks some essential stuff, not to mention how much stuff lacks in SFZ... it's sad that in these times when we're able to do so much with a computer, 99% of the developers still develop some kind of analog [and bad at it btw.] synths. There are so many VA synths around it's overwhelming. For me, only U-he and VAZ synths do it well, regarding VA synths. And I've demoed a lot throughout years, and I had a full room of the real ones a million years ago. [~18 actually] I know how they should sound.

Cheers!

Before my S3000XL, I had an E-Mu ESI-4000. Now those filters were mad. There was also a filter that let you pan a sound front to back, it was really something magical to hear it panning around (now I'd like to see a plug with THOSE filters). But it was a PITA to program, and I traded it because I had ongoing problems with it.
For sampling now I use Minispillage2 (I'm on a Mac), which is just a very very basis drum sampler, but covers most of my needs. I'd like to have Battery for sampling though, it's a full featured sampler but with pads. And without the plenthora of features from Kontakt. I'm using Logic and I think EXS24 goes a long way, it just needs a GUI overhaul badly.
I don't entirely agree with you on the VA's though. I mean, I still have them, hardware ones (An1x, Virus b), but they're collecting dust. Now, I can't quite get the same sound from a plugin as from the Virus (not referring to the hypersaws btw, just a raw saw with LF and some resonance). But in a mix, when blended with other instruments, I find that plugins work really well. Plus I'm beginning to like working in the box. The integration with your favorite DAW is key in this (and not having loads of stuff in the room a big bonus ). but I have to say that I didn't like it in the beginning, mainly because of synths mimicking HW in their GUI. I had to discover FAW Circle to find out that it could be more of a pleasure to dial in sounds on a PC than on HW. It just has to be tailored to a screen and take advantage of the possibilities in the GUI.
Plus, a synth like Massive just sounds extremely good, albeit not analog like.

[EvilDragon]

AN1x! *_* <3

[BDeep]

AN1x! *_* <3

I would sell if it would be worth something substantial. But I figure they sell quite cheap nowadays don't they? Hmmm, have to investigate.

[EvilDragon]

I got mine for 300€. And I love it. It definitely sounds different than VSTs.

[paradiddle]

To be back OT, I would surely like to see a sampler module in Zebra, something along the limes of absynth from simple sampler module to some granular synthesis type of sampler module. Not a full blown sampler.

[BDeep]

Yeah it's great, I should dig it up sometime. It's still packed since I moved to my new home two years ago... Shame really.
I bought it new by the way, before the existance of euro's

[bobbybland]

Still have my ASR!! and YES TO THE OP's question, YES ANYTHING U-he

[BDeep]

To be back OT, I would surely like to see a sampler module in Zebra, something along the limes of absynth from simple sampler module to some granular synthesis type of sampler module. Not a full blown sampler.

OT? OT???? The blasphemy!
I believe Zebra3 will be able to load samples the way Synthmaster is capable of. But yes, granular would be great as well....

[Arrested Developer]

I can understand the call for a u-he-Sampler,
i also think, Urs' point is more than clear, since manpower is limited.

But i would recommend to give a try in using Zebrify in combination with samples.
In fact, it's an unbelievable multi-effect-machine, which can modify samples in different ways.

there are tons of possibilities.
and as Urs wrote in the dark-zebra-thread, it's possible that there will be some zebrify-tutorials too...