Hive Feature Request: A simple sampler as an oscillator option

[audiojunkie]

Hi Urs,

I know you aren't a big fan of Sampling, but Hive 2 and Zebra 3 would both benefit from even a very basic sampler as an oscillator option.

See my reasoning in the link below:

viewtopic.php?t=603445

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

We may need a sticky in the U-he forum about why Urs isn't interested in adding any kind of sample playback into U-he products so it can just be pointed to every few weeks when this comes up. It's just not going to happen from U-he. Stick to other products for that.

[Urs]

It's a little bit more complicated than that. It's not just that I'm some kind of bored or ignorant about sampling. I'd probably enjoy the work on it.

However, it is my opinion that simple sample playback commonly takes away more from a synthesizer than it adds. Like, there'll be a temptation to just drag a sample there instead of dealing with the tuning of oscillators and filter modulation. And even if that happens just a little bit, that little bit is going to be a lot less expressive than what the sounds could have been, even if not quite the same.

What I mean to say is, a good synthesizer is not necessarily capable of everything, and extending the scope does not necessarily make it a better synth.

That said, sample playback gets really interesting when there are enough means to make it come alive. But that's not simple playback. But then, once we're in the territory that makes sample playback interesting, we're in the territory where a synths turns into a sampler. Once that's the case, there needs to be all sorts of weird stuff, like a sample library, importers for various formats, and probably a team twice or thrice the size of u-he right now, just to meet the most basic of expectations that people have of such a product.

What I mean to say is, others are much better at this, it's not really our thing.

[audiojunkie]

No worries! I can just layer a sampler track with my synth track to get the same thing. I was just hoping to create D50-esque patches that I could save and load directly from Hive.

[audiojunkie]

We may need a sticky in the U-he forum about why Urs isn't interested in adding any kind of sample playback into U-he products so it can just be pointed to every few weeks when this comes up. It's just not going to happen from U-he. Stick to other products for that.

I was aware that Urs didn't want to move into sampling, but I thought I had found a valid reason for an exception. I understand the reasoning behind why he doesn't want to do that, and I accept the decision.

[Jac459]

Yeah the explanation actually makes a lot of sense...

Better spend effort to implement voice stacking with CLAP

[pdxindy]

I was just hoping to create D50-esque patches that I could save and load directly from Hive.

Convert the sample transients to wavetables and you can do just that.

[pdxindy]

What I mean to say is, others are much better at this, it's not really our thing.

Plus it's not like synthesis development has been exhausted.

[koalaboy]

Convert the sample transients to wavetables and you can do just that.

What's the best way to do that ?

[audiojunkie]

I was just hoping to create D50-esque patches that I could save and load directly from Hive.

Convert the sample transients to wavetables and you can do just that.

Interesting! Please explain further!

[pdxindy]

I was just hoping to create D50-esque patches that I could save and load directly from Hive.

Convert the sample transients to wavetables and you can do just that.

Interesting! Please explain further!

That subject was covered in the thread you linked to!

[audiojunkie]

I went back and found your comment:

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Synths like Icarus and Serum can convert audio samples to wavetables.

As one example, I sometimes convert vocal sounds and words to wavetables. As long as you are playing them at or near the original pitch, they work well enough. That's long enough for transient samples too. Just don't expect a wide pitch range of multiple octaves. My experience doing this sort of stuff is 1 octave is about the best you can get in Hive.

The process of converting samples to wavetables is not automatically great sounding. I prefer Icarus for doing it and it takes some experience to get results that are free enough of artifacts that it wont be noticed.

Also, note that in converting samples to wavetables, any pitch data is lost. So if the sample depends on pitch changes for its character, you have to add that back in manually once it's a wavetable.

---------------

So, the sample of the transient only sounds good for a single octave? The chipmunk effect. Is there a way to assign zones or keyboard splits to multi-dimensional wavetables? Possibly octave groups of wavetables per keybord split?

[audiojunkie]

I think in the end, it will be easier to just layer two plugins on two different tracks to achieve the same result: A sampler on one track and Hive 2 on the other.

[pdxindy]

So, the sample of the transient only sounds good for a single octave? The chipmunk effect. Is there a way to assign zones or keyboard splits to multi-dimensional wavetables? Possibly octave groups of wavetables per keybord split?

It depends on the type of transient it is. For example, if it is mostly noise or inharmonic, you can get a wider range. Like the breath noise of a flute. It's not tracking pitch like a harmonic sound.

You asked for a simple sampler as an Osc option, but it would have the same limitations as we're talking about.

[pummel]

Sample playback would have formant *and* timestretch limitations. At least the wavetable can maintain audio clip playback length over the keybed. For many sounds (not vocal lyrics) one would only need one sound clip per two octaves. So with hives 3D wavetable, one could do 3 clips each of 256/3 samples. The only issue then is the absence of a convenient tool to do the clip(s)->3d wavetable conversion.