Which Sampler Should I Get?

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mani
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Which Sampler Should I Get?

Post by mani » Thu Oct 27, 2005 3:02 pm

I'm going to be getting a sampler sometime soon. I'm thinking of either Halion 3 or Mach 5. I'm currently using Logic 5.5 on PC (windows 2000).Does anyone have any thoughts, suggestions, recommendations about which way I should go??Thanks

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Re: Which Sampler Should I Get?

Post by mani » Fri Oct 28, 2005 1:01 pm

Hi Nick,I was hoping you might chime in on this! First I don't have the EXS. It only came standard with Logic after 5.5! Wish I did but I can't get it now until I crossgrade to Mac. I don't have any sample library at the moment so I'm starting from scratch. Therefore the quality of the sample CDs that ship initially with the sampler is a very important consideration for me. I'd heard nothing but bad things about the sample CDs that ship with Kontakt even though everyone agrees it's probably the most powerful sampler. Maybe you have a different view?? I have no interest in Giga at all. Every post I've ever seen about it says it's riddled with problems. Most people can't seem to run it at all without using a dedicated computer. So no go there.So I'm down to Halion 3 and Mach 5. I've heard only good things about the sample sets that ship with these.My concern about Halion is that I'm on Windows 2000 Pro and according to the Steinberg site Halion requires XP. I find that kind of hard to believe. Do you have any knowledge on that issue Nick?Btw, as regards usage I'm looking to play a lot of bread and butter sounds that will cover a wide variety of styles reasonably well. Y'know pop/rock/urban/electronica with some decent tools for tweaking. Any other tips, thoughts, suggestions welcome too!!

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Re: Which Sampler Should I Get?

Post by mani » Fri Oct 28, 2005 5:09 pm

Like I said, I'm not arguing! I really don't know about it personally. I'm glad it works for you!My setup at the moment is really stable and I'm very happy with it. If I had my way developers'd be supporting W2K until 3005!!

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Re: Which Sampler Should I Get?

Post by ernstinen » Sat Oct 29, 2005 8:21 am

Hey Mani,I've been running GigaStudio for 3-4 years with ZERO problems.I just installed Kompakt on another computer, and I must be doing something wrong, but the for the last 2 days it crashes repeatedly. I hope to get it working next week!Ern

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Re: Which Sampler Should I Get?

Post by mani » Mon Oct 31, 2005 11:01 am

Well! There's two votes for Giga! Thing is, as far as I can tell it only integrates with Logic via rewire. Unless it operates as a plain ol' VST I don't think I'd be interested.Btw, no need to apologize Nick. There is indeed an inordinate amount of virtual loutery on the internet! Anyway I've been thinking about this some more and I'm wondering if I've got a solution. If I buy the Logic 7 update will that authorize the EXS24 even for version 5.5 on PC?? I do plan on moving to MAC next year btw, so I'm gonna have to get the update eventually anyway!

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Re: Which Sampler Should I Get?

Post by gongchime » Tue Nov 22, 2005 1:32 am

I'm not using a computer right now. I don't know what was in my post that lead you to that assumption. Since when do you need a computer to sample or sequence? Just asking. Maybe I'm asking the wrong question. Let's try this. What will make all of my melodic percussion instruments play perfectly in time and will allow me to do it quickly and inexpensively? I imagined a self contained hardware solution, not a computer or software solution which falls in the expensive category I suspect.Gongchime

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Re: Which Sampler Should I Get?

Post by matto » Tue Nov 22, 2005 9:07 am

Quote:I don't need midi or synthesis capability. The keyboards I've seen with integrated sequencing and sampling seem to have all this other crap such as midi and synthesis features that I will not be paying for if I can help it. I don't know, perhaps I want a rackmounted integreated sequencer sampler that I can just control with a cheap keyboard.Hey Greg...how are you gonna control your rackmounted sampler/sequencer from your cheap keyboard without midi? Telepathy? I agree with Nick that a computer based solution would be the best way of doing what you'd like to do. It will also allow you to integrate your production so you can skip the step of laying the tracks over to the Boss, a process which is which is frought with numerous problems, synchronisation being one of them. Also Nick makes an excellent point about properly sampling your Gamelan being quite an undertaking...if you wanted it to sound good and realistic enough for record production you would have to sample each sound at various strike intensities from soft to hard, and then program it so the different hits are triggered according to how hard you hit the keys on your keyboard. Programming these kinds of things will be far easier and quicker using a computer screen than the tiny LCD displays of most affordable hardware units.Proper sampling of gamelan instruments with their long ring times will require a lot of Ram memory, which once again most hardware solutions will not offer (certainly the affordable one's won't). If you use a software sampler inside a computer, you can use the computer's Ram or perhaps even stream long samples from harddisk.matto

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Re: Which Sampler Should I Get?

Post by matto » Sun Nov 27, 2005 12:22 pm

Quote:I have a cd of samples called "Heart of Asia" but I wouldn't call it a sound library. I think it's intended for sampling sections/phrases of the music and then looping it behind other stuff. I have never used a sound library before in any keyboard or other situation so I definitely don't know what I'm talking about. I was given the Heart of Asia cd and just played it in my cd player to hear what they sound like. I don't really see how I could easily use it in a sequencer. I'd have to isolate individual notes which seems to be too difficult. Why? because it doesn't have samples of someone playing the full range of each instrument. And the individual notes are not played slowly enough so that each note could be isolated for playback on a keyboard or in a sequencer.Greg, the AUDIO CD VERSION of "Heart Of Asia" only has phrases (= performaces), the CD-ROM VERSION also has the individual notes sampled and layed out across the keyboard so you can play whatever you want. That's why I recommended the CD-ROM VERSION.Quote:Also, you mention soft samplers. Is that a shortened version of software? If so, I don't know why you're mentioning it. I already said I don't have a computer and that they would be difficult for me to acquire and am looking for a hardware solution.In your previous post you ask: "How much does the computer sampler version run?", so I'm giving you an answer to that question.Look, you asked for opinions and advice here, so that's what you get. I'm not gonna recommend a system I believe will not allow you to do what you want to do or give you the professional results you require (you previously stated that you want to record a CD and have retained the services of a producer, so I have to assume you're looking for professional results).You're more than welcome to ignore my advice, but arguing about it isn't gonna change it .Quote:In any event I tried to find out how much the system would cost to run Cubase LE but I couldn't find out about a PC system. I saw the Mac version requires a G4 which I know is REALLY expensive!!!Any reasonably current P4 based PC should work fine, they're quite inexpensive over here but of course I don't know about Korea. Check this website for some ballpark figures.http://www1.ap.dell.com/content/default ... o&s=genBTW the reason the dialog boxes are in the Korean is that the OS is in Korean. You should be able to have an English OS installed instead.matto

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Re: Which Sampler Should I Get?

Post by johnnydean1 » Sun Nov 27, 2005 7:11 pm

Quote:Quote:I have a cd of samples called "Heart of Asia" but I wouldn't call it a sound library. I think it's intended for sampling sections/phrases of the music and then looping it behind other stuff. I have never used a sound library before in any keyboard or other situation so I definitely don't know what I'm talking about. I was given the Heart of Asia cd and just played it in my cd player to hear what they sound like. I don't really see how I could easily use it in a sequencer. I'd have to isolate individual notes which seems to be too difficult. Why? because it doesn't have samples of someone playing the full range of each instrument. And the individual notes are not played slowly enough so that each note could be isolated for playback on a keyboard or in a sequencer.Greg, the AUDIO CD VERSION of "Heart Of Asia" only has phrases (= performaces), the CD-ROM VERSION also has the individual notes sampled and layed out across the keyboard so you can play whatever you want. That's why I recommended the CD-ROM VERSION.In your previous post you ask: "How much does the computer sampler version run?", so I'm giving you an answer to that question.Look, you asked for opinions and advice here, so that's what you get. I'm not gonna recommend a system I believe will not allow you to do what you want to do or give you the professional results you require (you previously stated that you want to record a CD and have retained the services of a producer, so I have to assume you're looking for professional results).You're more than welcome to ignore my advice, but arguing about it isn't gonna change it .Quote:In any event I tried to find out how much the system would cost to run Cubase LE but I couldn't find out about a PC system. I saw the Mac version requires a G4 which I know is REALLY expensive!!!Any reasonably current P4 based PC should work fine, they're quite inexpensive over here but of course I don't know about Korea. Check this website for some ballpark figures.http://www1.ap.dell.com/content/default ... o&s=genBTW the reason the dialog boxes are in the Korean is that the OS is in Korean. You should be able to have an English OS installed instead.mattoI complimeted Mr Gong on one of his pieces recently and his response was to complain!Needless to say I removed my post.J.

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Re: Which Sampler Should I Get?

Post by matto » Mon Nov 28, 2005 3:39 pm

Greg,I'm sorry to hear about your predicament. Try to remember that taking your frustrations out on complete strangers that you're asking for free advice isn't usually going to help you get any answers ....making an exception here .The software solution: Get a reasonably recent PC. I don't know if buying used makes any sense when you can get a new desktop for as little as $350 in the US (I know you're in Korea but that's not my fault...). Plus if you buy new you should be able to get Windows (XP please!) in English installed on it.Beyond that, your best solution IMHO is to buy the Emulator X. This is a software package that includes a sampler, an audio interface and Cubase LE recording and sequencing software plus additional goodies. It costs about $300. This is all you need, plus the Gamelan CD-Rom (if that's the route you decide to go). Well, you need a little keyboard too I guess. Sell the Boss unit you have to help pay for this stuff, as you won't need it anymore.The hardware solution:I don't think there is one to be honest, and here's why:Sampler/Sequencers, and even hardware rackmount samplers, haven't been made in years. Back when they were popular, memory was expensive, so they all come with little RAM. They also don't come with CD Rom drives. So even if you were able to find a used Ensoniq ASR-10 for example (which is among the last sampling keyboards with built in sequencer made), you couldn't load the gamelan CD-Roms. Nor could you sample your own because it wouldn't have enough memory. And if you were willing to compromise your own samples enough to somehow make do with the 16MB Ram (Heart of Asia's Saron alone is 32MB) the ASR maxes out at (assuming you could find a fully expanded unit...) you would still need a way to lay these tracks to your Boss unit in a synchronized fashion.Which would cause you to go insane.Plus, you would need to save the samples themselves, since the Ram gets flushed each time the sampler is turned off. So you would either need a stack of floppies (if these can even still be bought); or you would need to find an ASR with a built in SCSI option and get some kind of a SCSI drive (if those can even still be bought).The cheapest I've seen ASR's on ebay is about $350.This is just an example of one hardware unit but it's all about the same.You'll end up with a heap of hopelessly outdated junk, get a compromised final product, loose all your hair in the sampling and recording process, and after you get all the little gadgets and widgets you need to get all the stuff to work together you probably won't save any money at all (remember you need to keep the Boss in this scenario).So...(surprise!) I would (for one last time) recommend the software solution. A fully integrated and expandable system that allows you to produce complete CD quality recordings in one box. If you can't afford it now save up until you can.matto

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