HighLife

HighLife also includes a range of effects, such as high-quality chorus, delay, and reverb, along with unique effects like "Daft" and "Rock Da Disco." These effects add depth and character to the audio, allowing users to create unique and captivating sounds.

I had the pleasure of exploring discoDSP's HighLife, a performance sampler that offers a comprehensive suite of features for audio enthusiasts and professionals alike. It supports a variety of import formats, including WAV, MP3, OGG, RAW, and FLAC, and even includes support for .AKP (Akai S5000/S6000), Akai MPC .SND and SFZ programs.

This product was kinda cool in it's heyday when it featured VST sampling, upon which Bliss sampler was born from. The size of the GUI is really not acceptable by today's standards and monitor sizes. As freeware, you can't really complain. The commercial use license is fair in price, but I can't see anyone trying to use this for commercial productions given the cumbersome workflow of this product by modern standards.

Some issues of Highlife sampler is you have no audio preview of samples in it's browser. The Gui is still based on a time period when 15-19 inch monitors were a standard. Workflow is awkward and not ideal for modern workflows. In conclusion, I think the developer would be better off stripping Bliss sampler of it's VST sampling feature and making it available for the commercial pricing of Highlife sampler. I appreciate the developer keeping the memory of the original developer of Highlife alive by continuing the legacy of Highlife.

Updated for ver:2.2

The new 2.2 update is a welcome improvement. The updated GUI offers several resize options and the graphics are crisper. There is no custom resizing, but the sizes offered are quite adequate. This improvement alone makes for a better user experience. Maybe in a future update there will be the ability to preview samples in the sound browser? In this day of having multi GB's of samples laying in various folders where it's easy to forget what's there... this is essential.

You do have the ability to step threw samples in a folder which kinda makes up for the lack of sample previewing. However, having to use a media player to audition your initial sound is not ideal. I don't know how far the developer is willing to go on feature enrichment, but the following would be great to see.

(1) The ability to export cue marked samples as sliced audio.

(2) Improvement to the reverb where it sounds fuller like a hall. Not that important, but would be kinda nice.

(3) The option to choose sample range via MIDI keyboard would also be welcome.

Something worth mentioning about this sampler is it retains sounds you've loaded in the user preset locations. This is convient for recalling sounds you haven't saved as SFZ. This makes it comparable to a rompler and make experimenting with Highlife more fun! Thanks to the discoDSP team for the quick improvements and being receptive to feedback! Looking forward to future updates.