Trendsetting Sampler Functions - let´s look into the Future

Sampler and Sampling discussion (techniques, tips and tricks, etc.)
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@GRUMP

First off: could you please try to make use of the formatting function in the editor? Your replies are really a complete mess.

Back to topic: Yes, those functions are actually trivial (as I said), but yet the combination of these basic functions is missing in almost every sampler plugin, not to mention in the rudimentary or not existing sampler functions in most DAWs.

So, before we attempt to "look into the future", we should first establish the current state of affairs:

1.) rudimentary and essential functions are missing in most sampling plugins
2.) most sampling plugins don't offer a user experience & interface that takes the workflow and requirements of "crate digging" kind of beatmakers and "sample-mangling" producers fully into consideration.

Hence, there are only a few products that "got it right". And Serato Studio / Serato Sample is one of them. I also very much liked the old Shortcircuit 2 beta version (32 bit only) which also offered quite an efficient and unbloated way of getting creative with samples. I hope that just like Vember Audio's Surge synth Shortcircuit will eventually become open source and the development will be continued. New Sonic Arts Vice is another product I like, but it's not as good as Serato Sample and in comparision slightly overpriced.

By the way: whether you play a sample in "one-shot" mode has nothing to do with the underlying material being a multisample or not. Those are two entirely separate issues.
A multisample is just a collection of samples that are mapped over the keyboard. A single sample within a multisample can be played in one-shot, reverse, loop or any other available mode. So, please do not conflate these two issues.

But I get it that you are not really coming from the "crate digging", Akai MPC / BoomBap culture of working with samples, but rather want to use samplers for advanced synth-like sound design purposes, which is an entirely different focus. I did not claim that Serato Sample is the most advanced tool for this purpose, but Serato Sample / Studio is the best tool for basic sample mangling requirements - and most other sampling applications don't get this right.

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Izak Synthiemental wrote: Mon Oct 07, 2019 11:25 pm ... I also very much liked the old Shortcircuit 2 beta version (32 bit only) which also offered quite an efficient and unbloated way of getting creative with samples. I hope that just like Vember Audio's Surge synth Shortcircuit will eventually become open source and the development will be continued.
Yes, yes, yes. I very much second to that. Shortcircuit 2 is fantastic, but got stuck in the middle
of its development. A big bummer! :(
free mp3s + info: andy-enroe.de songs + weird stuff: enroe.de

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enroe wrote: Tue Oct 08, 2019 6:12 am
Izak Synthiemental wrote: Mon Oct 07, 2019 11:25 pm ... I also very much liked the old Shortcircuit 2 beta version (32 bit only) which also offered quite an efficient and unbloated way of getting creative with samples. I hope that just like Vember Audio's Surge synth Shortcircuit will eventually become open source and the development will be continued.
Yes, yes, yes. I very much second to that. Shortcircuit 2 is fantastic, but got stuck in the middle
of its development. A big bummer! :(
We need to start a "Bring back Shortcircuit" petition! It seems that open-sourcing Surge was quite a successful move. So why not SC2?

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DSmolken wrote: Mon Oct 07, 2019 9:07 pm Yup, stuff like controlling bow noise, or deconvolving violin samples to remove the "color" of a particular instrument and then reconvolving them with different violins' IRs - that's stuff in the Sample Modeling strings which is being used for realism but could also be used for weird out-there sounds. A thing that I haven't seen used yet but could be - what I mentioned about singers in a choir drifting towards a common pitch. Use non-music flocking algorithms to control detune, and beyond choir singers drifting towards a common pitch, you suddenly can start making unison a lot more interesting than it's ever been before.

A lot of our favorite sounds started as ways of making earlier sounds which didn't quite work out. Roland tried to make the supersaw a better synthesized string ensemble, and unintentionally made a bright, powerful lead that's stuck around for decades.
Whatever you do with it - it´s a very interesting Playground. My Focus is VOX-Pad / Synth Choir Sampler Patches - and I´m just getting deeper inside the "AIR-Frequencys" (>6.000 Hz) and Layering them with deeper Harmonics. The Results are very satisfying for the Beginning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWRvBKW2PfM

Do you have an Example for waht you want to do to the Choir Singers? I can´t really imagine that ...

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No example yet, but I've been thinking about how to get there with existing envelopes and LFO features. For pads, making them evolve is often important, and this would be a good way to add a little interest to the first second or so of a new chord.

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funky lime wrote: Mon Oct 07, 2019 8:20 pm
GRUMP wrote: Sun Oct 06, 2019 12:30 pm That is an interesting Point of View, for sure, but my Subject is not and never has been the Recreation of Real Instruments. I can´t say much about this and I have never tried Kontakt Librarys. Modeling Real Instruments is also a Topic for the Core-Funcionalities of a Sampler, the sampled Materials and its Combination. The Result is more or less something existing.
I think maybe you missed his point a little bit. It's not just about recreating real instruments, it's about recreating actual human performances of those instruments through use of clever scripting and circumnavigating the limitations of a traditional sampler. The idea is that, ultimately, you will be able to "perform" the sampler with the level of control that an instrumentalist would have over the actual instrument modeled, which is way different than 99% of orchestral sample libraries where the performance/expression is more "baked into" the samples and the composer only really has to worry about dynamic crossfades, vibrato, and volume/expression.

The newer tech, on the other hand, lets you get into the finer details, like bow position/pressure/direction, rosin/bow noise, resonance of the instrument's material, which string to play on, etc, so that you can actually model/program a "performance" instead of just sequencing/playing a traditional violin sample library where what they recorded is basically what you get.

It may not be trendsetting for the kind of music you make, but I think it's pretty new and exciting for purveyors of virtual orchestral music. It's about clever people pushing the limits of sampling as we have known them, which does seem to align with what you're talking about.

But then, maybe that's more rompler territory, now that I think about it.
But why not play the real Instrument instead? Do you remember the Beginnings of the digital Age? People spend lots of money for Vinyl today and we all know why. It is surely interesting to model Instruments and it would be Progress, too - but ... and what I was thinking and wanted to discuss about here are the Limits and Restrictions that Samplers currently have.

BTW: it´s very difficult to express that in english, sry!

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DSmolken wrote: Sat Oct 12, 2019 11:08 am No example yet, but I've been thinking about how to get there with existing envelopes and LFO features. For pads, making them evolve is often important, and this would be a good way to add a little interest to the first second or so of a new chord.
Definitely. And we have many Options for Variations already. Very interesting: Variation Groups (Halion). Many Samplers offer Options already, that more or less randomly switch between different Samples in one Keyzone. This Function should not be underestimated(?) !

But: we have a lack of good, natural, harmonic Sounding and Control over the Spectrum/Harmonics. I want to mention Band Splits in this context again - and that woul/will be just the Beginning.

BTW: UVI Falcon has a three Bands Splitter FX already.

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Izak Synthiemental wrote: Mon Oct 07, 2019 11:25 pm @GRUMP

1.) rudimentary and essential functions are missing in most sampling plugins
2.) most sampling plugins don't offer a user experience & interface that takes the workflow and requirements of "crate digging" kind of beatmakers and "sample-mangling" producers fully into consideration.
1: That´s why I investigated quiet long before I decided for one Platform (that should please survive for some time, too).

2: We have mainly two different Kinds of (more or less!) Samplers on the Market: the "serious Oldschool Samplers" (and nearly ROMplers already) - and all those Toyboxes for Beat Mangeling (that always miss essential Functions of a Sampler).

I must admit: I don´t know much about the last Fraction. From my Point of View there are unlimtited Options for Sample Mangling today - and the most severe Problem will still(!) the Selection the right Sample (out of a Bilion, probably unsorted and unknown WAVs on the HD). Turning a fart into a Kickdrum may be challenging. For me (Fulltime, M2C ...) it´s simply a waste of time!°
Last edited by GRUMP on Tue Oct 15, 2019 7:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Izak Synthiemental wrote: Mon Oct 07, 2019 11:25 pm @GRUMP

But I get it that you are not really coming from the "crate digging", Akai MPC / BoomBap culture of working with samples, but rather want to use samplers for advanced synth-like sound design purposes, which is an entirely different focus. I did not claim that Serato Sample is the most advanced tool for this purpose, but Serato Sample / Studio is the best tool for basic sample mangling requirements - and most other sampling applications don't get this right.
That smells like Advertisement :/ Mangling in which way? Each of the Toyboxes offers different Functionalities and SS is simply way to cheap to compete with more professional Tools like MPCs, NI Stuff or Groove Agents. And will it still be there tomorrow?

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Izak Synthiemental wrote: Fri Oct 11, 2019 2:10 pm
enroe wrote: Tue Oct 08, 2019 6:12 am
Izak Synthiemental wrote: Mon Oct 07, 2019 11:25 pm ... I also very much liked the old Shortcircuit 2 beta version (32 bit only) which also offered quite an efficient and unbloated way of getting creative with samples. I hope that just like Vember Audio's Surge synth Shortcircuit will eventually become open source and the development will be continued.
Yes, yes, yes. I very much second to that. Shortcircuit 2 is fantastic, but got stuck in the middle
of its development. A big bummer! :(
We need to start a "Bring back Shortcircuit" petition! It seems that open-sourcing Surge was quite a successful move. So why not SC2?
yeah, absolutely! Where can we start?
free mp3s + info: andy-enroe.de songs + weird stuff: enroe.de

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GRUMP wrote: Tue Oct 15, 2019 7:52 pm We have mainly two different Kinds of (more or less!) Samplers on the Market: the "serious Oldschool Samplers" (and nearly ROMplers already) - and all those Toyboxes for Beat Mangeling (that always miss essential Functions of a Sampler).
Exactly! :tu: The two kinds are:

1. The instrument-sampler, which tries to imitate instruments on a keyboard.
2. The construction-sampler, which triggers loops and complex one-shot samples via MIDI.

I am - like you - only interested in (1). And here again we can differentiate two categories:

1.a. Instruments which are triggered once and then the sound is performed.
These are drums and pianos. You hit them once, and therearfter it sounds. These can
be perfectly simulated and substituted by a sampler. And in both cases you can't hear
a difference between a live-drumset playing or a good drumsampler playing. The same
is valid for pianos.

1.b. Instruments which are triggered, but they are influenced by the player also
after the triggerpoint
. These are brass, strings and guitars. Here the picture is very
complex, there's a multitude of articulations and modulations. So it it's very
challenging to play these instruments by a sampler. However big libraries like shreddage
for guitars or VSL for strings show that it is possible and convincing.

2. construction-sampler: Here I can't say anything since this is a more experimental field, and
I guess that a synthesizer will do this job also - or even better.
free mp3s + info: andy-enroe.de songs + weird stuff: enroe.de

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the OP seems to be talking more about synthesis based on samples rather than samplers? (or even ROMplers) For example I wouldn't count Iris as a sampler but as a synth.

Oddly it seems that a number of the approaches that were interesting to me seem to have fallen out of favour. Iris seems to be abondoned, Alchemy never quite got there with the spectral morphing (I don't know about V2). Kyma seems to be the best route for that and even then it's difficult.

I get the feeling that actually the answer lies in applying various FX (like Spec Ops, Zynaptiq Morph2) and then resampling
Pastoral, Kosmiche, Ambient Music https://markgriffiths.bandcamp.com/
Experimental Music https://markdaltongriffiths.bandcamp.com/

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I would say Iris is a sampler in that it manipulates samples.
Synth is for synthesize. It creates the sound form scratch.
And there are hybrids.

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Kalamata Kid wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2019 7:00 pm I would say Iris is a sampler in that it manipulates samples.
Synth is for synthesize. It creates the sound form scratch.
And there are hybrids.
Iris is indeed very interesting, esp. the basic Functionality: Filtering Harmonics. But it can not handle Multisamples and you´ll frequently end up with very experimental Sounds. It seems mainly interesting for Ambient Music?

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ChamomileShark wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2019 6:40 pm the OP seems to be talking more about synthesis based on samples rather than samplers? (or even ROMplers) For example I wouldn't count Iris as a sampler but as a synth.

Oddly it seems that a number of the approaches that were interesting to me seem to have fallen out of favour. Iris seems to be abondoned, Alchemy never quite got there with the spectral morphing (I don't know about V2). Kyma seems to be the best route for that and even then it's difficult.

I get the feeling that actually the answer lies in applying various FX (like Spec Ops, Zynaptiq Morph2) and then resampling
Right. Mangle and resample - and the WAVs spectral Content remains static. Isn´t that a Shame?

Despite of interesting Sounds that may result and the Possibility to adapt them to the Track later on Samplers still have the same Restrictions concerning Articulations like in the 90s. Filters and not much more ...

Imagine a Velocity or MWheel-Modulation of certain Harmonics... Or especially how much easier it would be to stack two or more Sounds.

We have lots of Plugins that make Life easier already, but their Potential is limited, because they are implemented in the Samplers Structure.
Last edited by GRUMP on Wed Oct 16, 2019 7:29 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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