The sound of samplers - important or not?

[DrGonzo]

How important is the sound of old hardware samplers?
A big deal or just snake oil?

[BertKoor]

[Etienne1973]

For me personally simple: If I need clean sampler playback then I choose a modern soft sampler like Logic Sampler (EXS24) or NI Kontakt. If I want more lo-fi crunchy goodness right from the start then TAL Sampler gets the job. My music doesn't need more specialized sampler tools. But important or not depends heavily on the genre I think.

[masterhiggins]

Kind of conflicted in this one. Back when digital samplers were hitting the market they were just what was available at the time, extremely limited in fidelity due to minuscule storage space and cpu capabilities. I don’t even know if “sound quality” was that much of a concern. It was more like, “hey! This machine allows me to play back short audio clips! Cool!” The sound kind of fell in place in the music at the time. In the present people try to recreate that gritty sound because that’s what was on countless records, and that grittiness is revered for nostalgia reasons. I can see kids in the future trying to emulate the earlier software sampler aliasing of exs24,

In the end, sampler sound quality has sort of taken a back burner spot in my priorities. I’m more concerned about workflow and stability. I’ve never switched out a sampler in a project because of quality. With other plugins like reverbs or compressors I’ve done that. I frequently switch out old platinumverb instances on old projects m because I hate the sound of it.

[DrGonzo]

I’m more concerned about workflow and stability. I’ve never switched out a sampler in a project because of quality. With other plugins like reverbs or compressors I’ve done that. I frequently switch out old platinumverb instances on old projects m because I hate the sound of it.

Workflow is an interesting part of hardware, and while that is a bit of a tangent of this discussion, it is very interesting. A few days back I saw a video comparing the old Akai MPC 2000XL and the new MPC Live.

The conclusion was basically

MPC 2000XL sounds gorgeous.
MPC Live sounds good. Hifi and clean.
MPC 2000XL very little memory, pita working with scsi/floppies.
MPC Live lots of memory.
MPC 2000XL finished many many songs on it - but it makes you work for it.
MPC Live everything is streamlined, chopping tools, good effects etc. Never finished any music on it.

[Effectsworks]

z-plane filters!

[pdxindy]

The sound kind of fell in place in the music at the time. In the present people try to recreate that gritty sound because that’s what was on countless records, and that grittiness is revered for nostalgia reasons.

It might be nostalgia for some people, but that is not all it is.

I bought a new Waldorf M which is a near emulation of the original Microwave and was immediately taken by the sound of it. The original method of low-res wavetable calculation has a character that none of my wavetable softsynths replicate.

I never had the slightest interest in the original. I like the M, not from nostalgia which in non-existent, but because I like its unique character.

[masterhiggins]

Interesting point about the workflow thing. I should’ve said intuitiveness. I do some writing and have found I’m unable to compose drafts on a computer or tablet. I have to use a typewriter, usually an Olivetti Lettera 32 or 22. I focus better on one.

[kritikon]

Completely unimportant to me. I kind of get it why some would like old-school sampler sound, as it's all subjective anyway, always is. But I literally threw my old S950 in the bin a wee while back. It seems I could've sold it for a silly price but I think anyone who would've bought it at a silly price is...silly. It had a distinctive sound - crappy is what I'd call it. It sounded like it did because of the limitations of the tech at the time. But limited digital usually means crappy. I'd be able to spot an S950 quite easily just because it's so shite compared to anything more recent. I don't really want shite in my music (even though the music itself might be shite )

[DrGonzo]

But I literally threw my old S950 in the bin a wee while back. It seems I could've sold it for a silly price but I think anyone who would've bought it at a silly price is...silly. It had a distinctive sound - crappy is what I'd call it.

The prices the old samplers are going for these days are beyond silly. Have you seen the prices for the Ensoniq ASR? Or the MPC3000? The 3000 have always been expensive but these days

Not flamebaiting you, but why do you think the 950 sounds "crappy" - or rather, what would you define as crappy? I could absolutely understand why someone would characterise the original Ensoniq EPS to sound bad. Or the Mirage. Or an old computer sampling cartridge. But the 950? Hm. It sounds like a warm loving hug to me

[BONES]

It might be nostalgia for some people, but that is not all it is.

I'm pretty sure it is because the audience and music buying public won't notice the difference or, of they do, they'll just wonder why it sounds worse than it should.

I like the M, not from nostalgia which in non-existent, but because I like its unique character.

Which, again, nobody else will ever notice, making it utterly pointless (beyond any inspiration it might give you).

Anyway, the sound of a Korg DSS-1 might matter because it had an amazing sounding analogue filter in it. Beyond that, though, I can't see why it would.

[revvy]

Isla Instruments SP2400 looks and sounds great. Nothing wrong with a bit of nostalgia for an SP 1200



Sounding old school doesn't necessarily mean sounding worse than it should.

[kmonkey]

I am going to write as short as possible about my experience and VERY subjective opinion.

I recently sold a maximally upgraded AKAI S6000 - previously I had an E6400 Ultra. SCSI2HD and all that. Really nice.

Here is a thing. Every time I turned on say AKAI S6000 (most recent memory) I ended up with an awesome sound. Like in my head I was "wow....this is so crispy and warm and mix ready..."

Then the cursed person in me literally every time said: "ok let's convert that patch to your DAW sampler to see if you can achieve the same sound"...

And in EVERY patch or multi-patch, I ended up getting absolutely the same sound. Sometimes when multi-transpose was drastic (pitch way up or way down) difference was there but nothing that couldn't be compensated for and nothing that I could objectively say; ooo AKAI sounds better.

Yes, S3000 had some beef which you can emulate today, yes E6400 had different bass color but nothing that couldn't be redone in DAW.

Nothing like that. Bitwig Sampler or Ableton or Kontakt could easily match "tone". Filters may be different but in a real-life scenario one could NOT say "oh this is created with a hardware sampler" type of thing.

So I decided to sell my hardware samplers.

However....for some reason, I couldn't understand one thing after all these years and my best shot is: that it's a subjective thing tied to our(mine in this case) personality.

And that thing is every time I started working with a hardware sampler I ended up with an awesome sound far quicker than when I started clicking with a software sampler(note: I am aware both ore software - I am making difference for the sake of discussion) .

No, I wasn't using the AKAI S6000 remote, I used a USB card and AkSYS so it's also clicking on AKAI.

But for some reason, I always ended up "there" faster. Like...I was inspired better than with DAW sampler.

And then It occurred to me that in my case I am getting faster and "better" material because I influenced myself dubiously and subconsciously forcing myself into that mindset that every time I turn up hardware I am getting better results - but in reality, the same thing can be achieved with software (DAW).

So I sold my last hardware sampler just recently. This does not mean they were inferior. They were amazing and inspiring actually but so are DAW samplers.

TLDR: you can get a pass with today's VST samplers and get the same sound. Depending on your sensibilities and workflow hardware may work better for you.

But a hardware sampler isn't superior to a DAW sampler or vice versa. They are complementary. IMHO today there is no "sound" of samplers that can not be remade in your favorite software.

[Biome_Digital]

How important is the sound of old hardware samplers?
A big deal or just snake oil?

I've done some '90s style drum and bass, having an "old skool sample" sound was integral.

[kritikon]

But I literally threw my old S950 in the bin a wee while back. It seems I could've sold it for a silly price but I think anyone who would've bought it at a silly price is...silly. It had a distinctive sound - crappy is what I'd call it.

The prices the old samplers are going for these days are beyond silly. Have you seen the prices for the Ensoniq ASR? Or the MPC3000? The 3000 have always been expensive but these days

Not flamebaiting you, but why do you think the 950 sounds "crappy" - or rather, what would you define as crappy? I could absolutely understand why someone would characterise the original Ensoniq EPS to sound bad. Or the Mirage. Or an old computer sampling cartridge. But the 950? Hm. It sounds like a warm loving hug to me

There's a name for it but I can't remember what it is - when you play a sample a few keys down on a 950 it sounds awful. You don't even have to go 1 octave down for it to get all grainy and crappy with that horrible buzz, whistle or whine that changes tunes each note you go down. Just awful. You could only really play maybe 3 notes down on any sample before it became bad. Presumably because of the very limited bandwidth - Wasn't it 15kHz, might even have been lower? No resonant filter whatsoever. Anything up high just sounded brittle and...crappy. A 909 hat was about the top of what it could sample effectively to my ears. And the odd vocal samples I used to record on it all sounded just poor, dirty, false somehow. I record similar vocals or samples in a DAW or whatever today and it sounds exactly like what I put into it, the same quality. Vocals on a 950 always sounded like you were hearing them through a cardboard box or something weird IMO.

They were fine in the day. I mean, it was a miracle to be able to sample at all back then at that price. I think I paid 1000 quid new or something like that, plus the extras for memory upgrade (wasn't cheap either) and it meant I could do vocals, drums without a drum machine etc. And I remember being wowed that I had 8 individual outs when I got it (it gave me a great excuse to get a bigger 24channel/in-line/8-bus desk ). But it just doesn't stand up to anything from now. Some old drum machines, analogue synths etc could be cheap but still have some character. S950 just didn't have any character whatsoever IMO. Gritty, grainy or whatever collectors bang on about just means poor quality to me. In fact I don't think any of those old samplers have any particular character except the ones that had analogue filters, and they were expensive.