KVR Audio

schismatic · Post by **schismatic** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 11:40 am

Hi guys,

New here, but not new to music. I have many samples on my hard drive (have a few of the Beta Monkey cd's and also some other samples) and I was wondering if there was a good program available that will manage my samples for me. I'm looking for something where I can tell the program where the samples are on my hard drive and preferably use it to then preview samples before choosing them. I find it a bit of a pain and a drag to have to use something like winamp to test one out - far too time consuming adding them to a playlist and then playing them. It would be handy if I could choose for the selected sample to loop too. Support for Midi libraries would also be excellent.

Anything out there that does this well and simply?

Cheers,

Tom

zeep · Post by **zeep** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 12:33 pm

TrackerV3 (it's called xyplorer nowadays). I can't be happier with it's preview function. Any sound file selected will playback, has a timebar you can click and you can retrigger playback quickly with spacebar which is always handy.

Downsides are, the program is too bloated with options you never use, therefore it's a bit long on loadtimes (at least for me). The developer doesn't want to make a lite Media-only version, i asked him a few times.
Also, you can't set preview volume anywhere, it's always maxed. You also can't select an output (card). It'll take the windows default soundcard which is too bad since i have multiple soundcards installed and would like it to use my m audio card instead of the other one.

Anyway, hope it helps.

androidlove · Post by **androidlove** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 1:12 pm

loophorse works for me

http://www.zealey.co.uk/

JAB3 · Post by **JAB3** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 1:35 pm

schismatic wrote:Hi guys,

New here, but not new to music. I have many samples on my hard drive (have a few of the Beta Monkey cd's and also some other samples) and I was wondering if there was a good program available that will manage my samples for me. I'm looking for something where I can tell the program where the samples are on my hard drive and preferably use it to then preview samples before choosing them. I find it a bit of a pain and a drag to have to use something like winamp to test one out - far too time consuming adding them to a playlist and then playing them. It would be handy if I could choose for the selected sample to loop too. Support for Midi libraries would also be excellent.

Anything out there that does this well and simply?

Cheers,

Tom

Great News! I've been looking for the same thing, and have found a solution that you would not believe. But it is only applicable to WAV, MP3, M4P files. Ready for this one? It's ITunes! Yep that's right.

I basically have the same problem where I have literaly over 100 Gb of samples across my drives. When I am in the creativity mode. I used to hate to have to stop and use media player or some to hear a sample that I liked, but worse, try to remember what that cool sample and it's location, 10 months down the line on another project.

So I initially had start out doing something pretty archaic. I would make an Excell spread sheetsheet and form columns like, "Fat Bass Drops", "Tightest Snares", "Orchestral Hits", "Horn/Brass Hits" etc. Then when I found a heavy hitter sample, I would have to type in the name of the wav file in its respective column category, and then create a hyperlink to the file. Then I could just click on the wav file name in the spread sheet, and it would play when I clicked it. The problem with this is that it is tedious as you had to type and add a hyperlink for every darn wav of interest. Too much effort!!

So experimenting around, I found this out about Itunes.

1. You can add all of your folders of interest to the Itunes databases/library just like your normal mp3 stuff
By doing this, Itunes automatically knows where your samples are. This means that you can simply clip on the file in ITunes and it will sound off. But there is more!!

2. You can DRAG the file from Itunes straight into your audio app (e.g Sonar or FL Studio). It does not move the file from its original location; it makes a copy in your application. You can keep Itunes minimized until you need it. If you have two monitors, this works cooler because, say you have FL Studio up on one monitor, and Itunes on the other you can drag it from one to the other more visibly easier. There's more!!!!

3. Now that you are in Itunes, you have the power to make playlist and smartlists. This means that for example, you can add all of the folders on your machine to Itunes, but then you can make a smart list that says, for example, if any files in Itunes have a grouping classification of "Tight Bass Drops", add it to a Smart List called "Tight Bass Drop Samples" and so on. This way you can, on your off days of creativity, just sit down, go through your Itunes list, preview sounds and add them to certain favorite playlists. When you're up and running in creativity mode, just go your "Tight Bass Drops" folder and preview those samples if you need a nice bass drop in your track or sampler. Everything this is managable.

4. Finally, Itunes is FREE, and it does not make copies of files for multiple playlists. You may for example have a file that could be in two or two hundred different playlist of different classifications. But Itunes just references the file (links) without making copies to accomodate all playlists. For example you could have playlist 1, called "Tight Bass Drops" and another called "Dirty South", or "Electro Favorites". Your Bass0123.wav file could be on all of the lists.

Hope this helps.

JB

stk · Post by **stk** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 1:49 pm

It's ITunes! Yep that's right.

You could use Winamp to do that.. or a variety of other media players, all of which have the advantage of not being Itunes

thecontrolcentre · Post by **thecontrolcentre** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 7:41 pm

Live6 is very good for managing and auditioning your samples (at the current projects tempo) as well as hosting vsts and sequencing and midi and sampling/editing audio etc etc ...

MRT · Post by **MRT** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 11:40 pm

There are a lot of app's that kind of work. I've used wave browser for a long time but it is no longer under developement and does not support 24bit files.

Mac users seem to have the upper hand here. I think there is a need for a good windows app of this type.

Sorry for not offering a soloution but I support your quest.

zvon · Post by **zvon** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 7:40 am

Extreme Sample Converter and it will also convert them!

http://www.extranslator.com/

Rangtangtang · Post by **Rangtangtang** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 9:22 am

Too many samples can be a nightmare. Thing is to sought them out turn them into presets on your main sampler. Put in a main pre-set folder and group them. Then burn them to CD for backup. Like you don't want too many, but just enought. Also save the raw waves to an external drive. At the moment Im looking 6 CD's worth. I have a few sampling CD's, Computer music presets, things I have sampled, things found on the net..............ect Its very time consuming, but worth it in the end.

Now once you have done that and you want to work on them or change sampler, you can audition the presets you have while working on that next tune as you go....

John Vulich · Post by **John Vulich** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 11:21 am

I use Total Commander.

stk · Post by **stk** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 12:46 pm

Rangtangtang wrote:.. At the moment Im looking 6 CD's worth. I have a few sampling CD's, Computer music presets, things I have sampled, things found on the net..............ect Its very time consuming, but worth it in the end

try ~50gb worth..

the sample browser in FLS is pretty good.. only wish it had a dabase like Kontakt2, so it didn't take so long to find misplaced samples.

sk

Managing All My Samples