TAL Sampler

[Ghost_Train]

I'm a little late to the TAL Sampler party. I have Kontakt, HALion, and Falcon, so I thought my sampler needs were met. But all of these programs are ridiculously complicated to use. I'm pretty savvy with this stuff so I can figure it out. But it just annoys me how convoluted the architecture is for the major samplers (especially Kontakt which is my main sampler).

But building your own multisample instruments in TAL Sampler looks very tedious. But maybe it's worth it. The sound of TAL Sampler is instant Depeche Mode back in their sampler-heavy days when the brilliant Alan Wilder did most of the production (starting with an Emulator I and moving up to an E-III on Violater). It's really easy to get those types of sounds in TAL Sampler.

Its actually a lot of fun. I didn't know how cool it was till watching one of Fanu's vids on it. It's very oldschool style. The manual labor is kind of intimate. The first thing I did was set up the separated left and right channels of all drum hits of a high quality amen break recording. (a bit overkill) It was not too bad. Basically assigning every drum hit to a key and then setup ping-pong looping.

If you want to see the vid on youtube:

[Ghost_Train]

Also, if you own TAL Sampler, they give you TAL-DAC for free. its awesome

[OllieBoi]

I checked out the sampler program TX16Wx just out of curiosity While it's great that there is a free version, the program doesn't seem very intuitive. I might as well use Kontakt (or TAL for really simple instruments).

[scarletdawn]

Also, if you own TAL Sampler, they give you TAL-DAC for free. its awesome

I didn't even know this! Thanks for the info. I just bought it recently; there's something I love about the old way of working with samples. As Dan Worrall said, there's beauty in looping.

[Lucastyle]

Anyone knows how to enter parameter values with the keyboard?

[zerocrossing]

Here’s a fun trick I do with TAL Sampler. Bring in a wavetable file as a sample, then modulate the loop points. It’s like Ensoniq Transwaves. Mess with the resampler for extra fun.

[Vortifex]

Edited

[FapFilter]

yup, looks like a lot of tabbing now, what was there on one page before (except for the sample layers, which were always on different tabs)

[Vortifex]

Edited

[gauderbock]

I prefer it FWIW, much cleaner.

[fmr]

He's called it a workflow improvement but tbh it's actually a workflow downgrade. I'll stick with the current version for now.

I prefer this way. I like to have the browser permanently open on the left, and sincerely don't mind the tabs. Maybe because I'm used to complex instruments, where tabs are the only way to accomodate all the paraneters.

And I very much welcome the presence of the chorus. Missed it since day 1

[Echoes in the Attic]

Oh no, all these tabs now? What a shame. The browser should be the tab, you only need it sometimes. gah, whyyyyy...

[MTorn]

For my taste, it's a significant downgrade, especially the move to using tabs and needing to scroll to se all the matrix slots.
I wrote Patrick a few long list of bugs and low-hanging-fruit improvements, but it seems like he hasn't done any of them.

For example (about tabs), if I want to add the old staple Delayed Vibrato, I might have to click on three different tabs (Layer A, LFO 3, Envelope 3), and assign two matrix slots (LFO 3 to Fine Tune A, Envelope 3 to matrix slot 1 depth). That's a lot of faffing about for something that's meant to be a quick and intuitive sampler.

And there's no way to get a monophonic LFO, something that's standard on just about every analog synth. He confirmed in an email abut two years ago that this would be a sensible functionality to include.

Here's an odd bug: I like to modulate the amp attack time with velocity (harder hit notes have faster attack). But doing this in the matrix will not change the attack of the note you just hit - instead it changes the attack of the note the comes AFTER! I reported that bug about a year ago, and am surprised to find it still in v4.

Adding the chorus was nice, although it's odd to have a big blank chorus tab with only two toggle buttons.

Oh well, the search for a good sampler goes on.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Oh man I just realized the mod matrix is now showing half as much and you have to scroll. And the resample quality settings are also on a tab with envelopes? This has got to be the worst redesign of a UI I've ever seen.

[Lucastyle]

Not a fan of the redesign also