Hello, well the subject says it all. Is there a goodie sampler engine that's cross-platform, VSTI/AU, not too bloated, and doesn't have any silly limitations playing its own instruments? Kontakt 5 Player as an example has all sorts of weird limitations with regards to free files, and it's a tad heavy for a multitrack session.
There's Magix Independence, but the interface is rather awkward and it has quirks.
The sampler itself has to have its own container format (preferrably with non-extractable samples) and it has to be capable of creating files in its own format with no silly limitations like locked edit controls unless the full version is bought.
Any recommendations?
Any Good Free Samplers Out There? Alternative to Kontakt Player?
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- KVRist
- 57 posts since 21 Nov, 2008 from Elsewhere
Last edited by Seidhepriest on Tue Aug 05, 2014 5:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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- KVRAF
- 2399 posts since 10 Jul, 2006 from Tampa
Not sure I follow what you're looking for with that sentence. Kontakt, Independence and most of the other ROMplers aren't true "samplers", and most of them have their own file formats and limitations.Seidhepriest wrote:The sampler itself has to have its own container format (preferrably with non-extractable samples) and it has to be capable of creating files in its own format with no silly limitations like locked edit controls unless the full version is bought.
SampleTank can make its own files from standard .WAV files, and version 2.55 of the SampleTank player (called "SampleTank Free") has no restrictions or locked edit controls.
There are truly free samplers, such as TX16Wx (http://www.tx16wx.com/), but they just load .WAV (or other standard audio) files.
Steve
Here's some of my stuff: https://soundcloud.com/shadowsoflife. If you hear something you like, I'm looking for collaborators.
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 57 posts since 21 Nov, 2008 from Elsewhere
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 57 posts since 21 Nov, 2008 from Elsewhere
The sampler has to have its own container format, that's just it. Something like Kontakt .kt files - everything self-contained, images, wave files, etc. So an instrument can be saved in a single file.
Basically something like Kontakt or Independence, but without the annoyances or flaws.
Basically something like Kontakt or Independence, but without the annoyances or flaws.
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- KVRAF
- 2399 posts since 10 Jul, 2006 from Tampa
Ah, ok. Well, SampleTank 2.55 doesn't store all the necessary files in one "container"; I haven't received my copy of SampleTank 3 yet, so I can't comment on that. That said, you can at least put all the necessary files in one folder.Seidhepriest wrote:The sampler has to have its own container format, that's just it. Something like Kontakt .kt files - everything self-contained, images, wave files, etc. So an instrument can be saved in a single file.
Basically something like Kontakt or Independence, but without the annoyances or flaws.
Then again, Kontakt 4 doesn't store all the files in one container, either. The actual samples are stored in a different folder. I only have the Kontakt 5 Player, but I believe that's the same, though the container format is compressed in a way that makes in incompatible with Kontakt 4. But I believe the actual samples are still in their own folder, aren't they?
Steve
Here's some of my stuff: https://soundcloud.com/shadowsoflife. If you hear something you like, I'm looking for collaborators.
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 57 posts since 21 Nov, 2008 from Elsewhere
Nope. There's a self-contained option. At least that's how Battery 3 exports Kontakt files.
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- KVRAF
- 2399 posts since 10 Jul, 2006 from Tampa
Check. Well, I haven't created any libraries in Kontakt, so I'm not sure what it does. All I know is what I see from the libraries I buy. I created a library in SampleTank though. But again, that was version 2.55. Until my copy of version 3 arrives, I can't speak to what it will do when creating libraries. (And at this point, I'm not aware of a SampleTank Free "player" for version 3. It took years for IK Multimedia to release a "player" for SampleTank 2.5.)Seidhepriest wrote:Nope. There's a self-contained option. At least that's how Battery 3 exports Kontakt files.
As long as you're listing criteria for this sample player, you might want to specify if it needs to be 32-bit or 64-bit, or if that even matters. That may limit your choices.
Steve
Here's some of my stuff: https://soundcloud.com/shadowsoflife. If you hear something you like, I'm looking for collaborators.
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- KVRist
- 305 posts since 25 Jun, 2010
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 57 posts since 21 Nov, 2008 from Elsewhere
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- KVRAF
- 8150 posts since 13 Jan, 2003 from Darkest Kent, UK
I think Maize Sampler ticks all your boxes (bundling up samples etc) except it's not free.
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- KVRian
- 1094 posts since 13 Mar, 2008 from Arnhem, Netherlands
plogue sforzando.
The SFZ file format is not that hard to master...
The SFZ file format is not that hard to master...
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 57 posts since 21 Nov, 2008 from Elsewhere
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 57 posts since 21 Nov, 2008 from Elsewhere
Well... Maize isn't too great for a number of reasons (one of them being how it bundles samples rather than packing them in a single file). It also has a maximum duration of 5 secs. for a sample - it goes into a buggy broken loop with anything longer. It lacks any fancy effects like saturation also - samples can be pre-saturated with processing, but it's that tiring extra (Battery and Kontakt have internal saturation effects).
Maize-generated VST files are free though. And it's not too expensive, either.
The concern is that the end result must be in a free sampler (ROMpler?) format for whoever buys the sampled instrument, so they don't have to pay extra for an expensive sampler engine. Also as free of quirks and trickery as possible (UVI Workstation as an example installs a software key driver, that's a minus).
Maize-generated VST files are free though. And it's not too expensive, either.
The concern is that the end result must be in a free sampler (ROMpler?) format for whoever buys the sampled instrument, so they don't have to pay extra for an expensive sampler engine. Also as free of quirks and trickery as possible (UVI Workstation as an example installs a software key driver, that's a minus).
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- KVRian
- 1094 posts since 13 Mar, 2008 from Arnhem, Netherlands
According to this article it supports any samplerate (but I haven't tried it myself).Seidhepriest wrote:Does SFZ support anything higher than 48 KHz?
http://www.keyboardmag.com/miscellaneou ... iles/31010
What’s in an SFZ instrument?
There are two components:
- First, a collection of samples (WAV, AIFF, MP3, Ogg Vorbis, or FLAC; stereo or mono; 8/16/24/32-bit resolution; and any sample rate).
- Second, a text file that specifies how these samples behave. This file maps samples across the keyboard including splits, multisampled velocity splits, and crossfades among layers, but also offers envelopes for pitch/filter/amplifier, filter attributes, LFOs, step sequencing, MIDI controller associations, sync-to-tempo, round-robin sample triggering, key-switching, and much more. Although not all players support all SFZ functions, they support the basics and often quite a bit more.