XLN Audio - XO - Improvement, Pros, Cons

[noiseboyuk]

This is interesting. If I understand correctly, you mean deselecting XO Core Content folder and then using XO factory presets with our own sounds. Great idea and something I did not try before. It does work well and as you said, with search it is even more fun and potentially rewarding.

Oh that's odd, it plays with my selections from the first hit here. Even with the Core Content folder selected, if I've put "electro" in the search box, it over-rides the preset kit. I just updated my MBP version to the latest 1.4.2, and this also is instant.

It's a fantastic workflow. I did a test before I updated the Mac, and this is definitely new behaviour since 1.2.0 at least, and it's a really big deal. It actually makes me consider getting another expansion or two at the sale price, just because the available number of grooves increases a fair bit, and now it's a cinch to browse without the preset kits and put in something meaningful instead to get an interesting starting point very quickly. Can't think why I never thought to sort by tempo before now either.

[LoveEnigma18]

This is interesting. If I understand correctly, you mean deselecting XO Core Content folder and then using XO factory presets with our own sounds. Great idea and something I did not try before. It does work well and as you said, with search it is even more fun and potentially rewarding.

Oh that's odd, it plays with my selections from the first hit here. Even with the Core Content folder selected, if I've put "electro" in the search box, it over-rides the preset kit. I just updated my MBP version to the latest 1.4.2, and this also is instant.

It's a fantastic workflow. I did a test before I updated the Mac, and this is definitely new behaviour since 1.2.0 at least, and it's a really big deal. It actually makes me consider getting another expansion or two at the sale price, just because the available number of grooves increases a fair bit, and now it's a cinch to browse without the preset kits and put in something meaningful instead to get an interesting starting point very quickly. Can't think why I never thought to sort by tempo before now either.

Yeah, not sure why that is the case here (I am on Windows). The search with Core Content folder selected works fine though.

Interesting then. Looks like they are adding little useful things to XO that are not obvious. I asked them for the list of changes since 1.2 but it did not mentioning anything significant apart from OS updates.

Love this workflow for sure. Might grab one of the new XOpaks if I get tempted enough and while it is on sale (again).

[noiseboyuk]

I'm so knocked out by this update I'm going to a) harvest some more samples I have lying around and b) do a little demo video. I don't think words can do it justice.

I also bought Oscillations, which tbh wasn't nearly as good as Ultra Bionic. Only 17 different sets, the variations are mainly dropping out / adding kit elements, and some of the samples are long vocals which aren't really very generically useful. Oh well, that's me done on the pak front, and at least I do get a few more midi grooves as starting points.

[LoveEnigma18]

I'm so knocked out by this update I'm going to a) harvest some more samples I have lying around and b) do a little demo video. I don't think words can do it justice.

I also bought Oscillations, which tbh wasn't nearly as good as Ultra Bionic. Only 17 different sets, the variations are mainly dropping out / adding kit elements, and some of the samples are long vocals which aren't really very generically useful. Oh well, that's me done on the pak front, and at least I do get a few more midi grooves as starting points.

Sounds like a good idea. Here's what my One Shots folder looks like. Each folder contains samples categorized by company. I have dropped each sub folder into XO. That's 206K+ files. Not sure if I should strip it down by some thousands.

Oh and 70+ Native Instruments Expansions.

oneshots.PNG

Preheated XOpak is what I would probably be interested in personally. Whenever time comes.

[noiseboyuk]

I did find today that XO kept wanting me to rescan a folder, I'd do it and it would ask again in a permanent loop. I'm not sure if it's a function of database size - I'm around 85k, way less than you. In the end I deleted the problem folders from XO and then put them back, this seemed to restore normality.

Here's a rough and ready video showing 1.4.2 in action.

[LoveEnigma18]

I did find today that XO kept wanting me to rescan a folder, I'd do it and it would ask again in a permanent loop. I'm not sure if it's a function of database size - I'm around 85k, way less than you. In the end I deleted the problem folders from XO and then put them back, this seemed to restore normality.

Not sure if this would help or if you already know it, try doing this to stop XO from scanning on every startup.

viewtopic.php?p=8270429#p8270429

If you don't do the above hack, it seems that bigger the GUI size the slower it is. If you do the above hack the GUI size doesn't seem to matter. Makes it very responsive. This way, you can still let XO scan for any changes, but not automatically - only if you open the Sample Folders for manual scan, which you would only if you know you changed something in the folders you added to XO.

Here's a rough and ready video showing 1.4.2 in action.

Going to check this out tomorrow. Thanks for creating and sharing.

[noiseboyuk]

Not sure if this would help or if you already know it, try doing this to stop XO from scanning on every startup.

viewtopic.php?p=8270429#p8270429

If you don't do the above hack, it seems that bigger the GUI size the slower it is. If you do the above hack the GUI size doesn't seem to matter. Makes it very responsive. This way, you can still let XO scan for any changes, but not automatically - only if you open the Sample Folders for manual scan, which you would only if you know you changed something in the folders you added to XO.

I don't think it would affect this scenario, but I figured it was worth doing anyway - done and thanks! I've found it very snappy in general actually even with this number of files.

This was a strange one, I've not had it before. As I say, it was a sort of permanent loop of scanning, saying it was done then immediately changing its mind and asking me to scan again.

[LoveEnigma18]

Not sure if this would help or if you already know it, try doing this to stop XO from scanning on every startup.

viewtopic.php?p=8270429#p8270429

If you don't do the above hack, it seems that bigger the GUI size the slower it is. If you do the above hack the GUI size doesn't seem to matter. Makes it very responsive. This way, you can still let XO scan for any changes, but not automatically - only if you open the Sample Folders for manual scan, which you would only if you know you changed something in the folders you added to XO.

I've found it very snappy in general actually even with this number of files.

Yes, it has never been slower for that reason for me as well. I mentioned about reduction of sample size for another reason, like removing some folders so that XO can give better results.

I just watched your video. Great demonstration. And nice tips, especially useful for new users. XO is powerful and fun at the same time. Thanks again.

[colabean]

Why on earth did XLN not put an Undo/Redo button on this plugin? <scratching my head>

[LoveEnigma18]

They decided to give you "playgrounds" instead.

[BezO]

...BTW - I'm not sure if this is new behaviour in the latest build or if I just discovered it, but if you uncheck the XLN sample folders as you browse the presets, it doesn't play the presets with all the normally associated kit pieces. You can't lock the specific pieces you have set - they unlock the moment you change presets - but you can sort-of guide them to any of your folders. I have one for Analogue Drum Machines, and if I only have this checked all the grooves default to it browsing the presets.

This also works for any other search term you have going, which makes it quite powerful. If you type hip hop in the search box, say, and then arrange grooves by tempo you can quickly get something going for the feel of your track as every selection overrides the default sounds.

Damn this thing is fun.

I don't quite know how it selects the specific kit pieces... I presume it picks geographically near samples compared to the ones it would have used.

Yeah, this was a cool, accidental discovery. Fun stuff.

Good to see an update, but I'm hoping for something major, especially with the TRIAZ release. I hoping one of these developers steals enough from the other, upgrades to 16 channels and allows for separate saves of kits & sequences, to make the ultimate virtual drum machine.

[Echoes in the Attic]

I did find today that XO kept wanting me to rescan a folder, I'd do it and it would ask again in a permanent loop. I'm not sure if it's a function of database size - I'm around 85k, way less than you. In the end I deleted the problem folders from XO and then put them back, this seemed to restore normality.

Here's a rough and ready video showing 1.4.2 in action.

That's cool. Where do the tags from though? Can they come from folders? Multiple tags from muliple embedded folders?

[noiseboyuk]

That's cool. Where do the tags from though? Can they come from folders? Multiple tags from muliple embedded folders?

File names and folder names. I’d done some basic prep work as I think I mentioned, putting all the analogue drum machines into a named folder, giving the NI expansions some genre names in each of their folders, but nothing much more than that. It’s quite smart how it hoovers stuff up though - if you have a kick drum in a 707 folder and it’s just named Kick.wav, it of course will tag that with the 707 name.

I say “tag”, but they’re not really tags, it’s just name strings I think.

EDIT - just to add, I’ve not manually renamed any files (what with 80,000 of them an all) and it seems to just work.

[Echoes in the Attic]

That's cool. Where do the tags from though? Can they come from folders? Multiple tags from muliple embedded folders?

File names and folder names. I’d done some basic prep work as I think I mentioned, putting all the analogue drum machines into a named folder, giving the NI expansions some genre names in each of their folders, but nothing much more than that. It’s quite smart how it hoovers stuff up though - if you have a kick drum in a 707 folder and it’s just named Kick.wav, it of course will tag that with the 707 name.

I say “tag”, but they’re not really tags, it’s just name strings I think.

EDIT - just to add, I’ve not manually renamed any files (what with 80,000 of them an all) and it seems to just work.

Cool, thanks. And does it fid things in folders within folders? Like if you had a Roland folder and then a 909 folder within that and then a kick folder, you could search roland or kick or 909? And can you search from search results? For example if I wanted to search for all kick and roland.

[noiseboyuk]

Cool, thanks. And does it fid things in folders within folders? Like if you had a Roland folder and then a 909 folder within that and then a kick folder, you could search roland or kick or 909? And can you search from search results? For example if I wanted to search for all kick and roland.

Pretty sure it does- best thing is to try the free demo on your folders.

EDITED POST - I originally wrote I couldn't search for multiple strings at once, but that's nonsense.