I STAND ALONE: a 2020 sampler thread

[coldbrightsunlight]

Ease of loading samples is nice, but recording straight into the thing is quite important to me I feel. I would even say having an onboard mic for acoustic recording is something I want to have, like ideally.

Yes this would be really good. I mean I have mics so I can do this but the low quality inbuilt mic thing is fantastic sometimes.

[fcknoise]

Yeah exactly same haaha. Also the SP-202 does that quite nice. Now I wanna go do some sampling

[01010111]

That style of sampling’s actually really excited to me. Like, if I find a cool, messed up sound on one of my synths, I could sample it and turn that sample into something and free up the synth to do other things.

If I carry the OP-1/digitakt around I could potentially find a construction site, hang out for a few minutes while I record something, and then make fun industrial noises. That kind of thing is really exciting to me. Organizing a sample library on a PC is the last thing I want to do. Though, I would need a battery powered mic to make the digitakt portable like that

[D.o.S.]

Ya and the digitakt is pretty big for that anyway, I would recommend the SP or the OP if that's what you want.

[fcknoise]

That style of sampling’s actually really excited to me. Like, if I find a cool, messed up sound on one of my synths, I could sample it and turn that sample into something and free up the synth to do other things.

If I carry the OP-1/digitakt around I could potentially find a construction site, hang out for a few minutes while I record something, and then make fun industrial noises. That kind of thing is really exciting to me. Organizing a sample library on a PC is the last thing I want to do. Though, I would need a battery powered mic to make the digitakt portable like that

One thing I do constantly is use the voice memos on my phone. I record stuff all the time, just like elevator music, white noises, music in the street etc etc. Then I can just hook up my phone and play it into my device.

[coldbrightsunlight]

That style of sampling’s actually really excited to me. Like, if I find a cool, messed up sound on one of my synths, I could sample it and turn that sample into something and free up the synth to do other things

Yes I love doing this on the digitakt! I do a lot of that. Patch a cool modular or Mother 32 sound, then when I'm happy with it, record it into digitakt for repeatable and sliceable use.

That style of sampling’s actually really excited to me. Like, if I find a cool, messed up sound on one of my synths, I could sample it and turn that sample into something and free up the synth to do other things.

If I carry the OP-1/digitakt around I could potentially find a construction site, hang out for a few minutes while I record something, and then make fun industrial noises. That kind of thing is really exciting to me. Organizing a sample library on a PC is the last thing I want to do. Though, I would need a battery powered mic to make the digitakt portable like that

One thing I do constantly is use the voice memos on my phone. I record stuff all the time, just like elevator music, white noises, music in the street etc etc. Then I can just hook up my phone and play it into my device.

I do this a lot. Easiest way of grabbing sounds on the go.

[chromandre]

[01010111]

But why, though? What’s good about the MPC workflow or makes it better than other things that are available?

I also had one of these for about a month ten years ago and found it too confusing to use (I have changed significantly since then, so, it might be a good option now).

[mcatano]

-something fun to use
-ability to sample material directly
-can play samples melodically
-can play samples as percussion
-battery power preferred
-No PC, or phone, required to use its basic functions

The model:samples checks most of these boxes and is a super fun, intuitive box. I don't think the lack of in-the-box sample recording is a very big deal, but maybe that's a dealbreaker for you.

[01010111]

-something fun to use
-ability to sample material directly
-can play samples melodically
-can play samples as percussion
-battery power preferred
-No PC, or phone, required to use its basic functions

The model:samples checks most of these boxes and is a super fun, intuitive box. I don't think the lack of in-the-box sample recording is a very big deal, but maybe that's a dealbreaker for you.

After some digging I found out that it requires Elektron’s proprietary software to load samples. That is a dealbreaker. If it was just drag and drop I could live with that, maybe. Proprietary software’s a dealbreaker, I don’t want to fuck with backwards compatibility in ten years or rely on Elektron to keep releasing updated versions of their software. It’s also weird that it doesn’t have an envelope generator?

[coupleonapkins]

The SP-202 was the first sampler I ever encountered, and it's still the only one I go back to due to simplicity, form factor & overall usability. I'm too used to the pad sizes at this point, and I feel like Roland really hit a home run with that one perfectly, inasmuch that the following boxes in the series all have nice upgrades, but still feel like too little evolution overall. As limited as the 202 can feel nowadays, it's really the most inspiring of the bunch, though if you need more banks of samples, there's always memory cards (still out there, more or less), or even the SP-303, which still has the ability to downsample (a feature that was nixed with the 404, a machine that still feels like too much for my brain) + a sequencer. Anyhow, ILFer bearstripes has a few threads about his ongoing quests with samplers that might help (he's in MPC territory at this point, I think?).

Despite what it can't do (at least in terms of 2020 tech-type possibilities), I can always find a use for what the SP-202 can do.

[01010111]

Those old SPs look interesting. The latest version looked really awful to use. Does the SP-202 let you play samples melodically? Does it have a way to record sequences on it?

[coldbrightsunlight]

-something fun to use
-ability to sample material directly
-can play samples melodically
-can play samples as percussion
-battery power preferred
-No PC, or phone, required to use its basic functions

The model:samples checks most of these boxes and is a super fun, intuitive box. I don't think the lack of in-the-box sample recording is a very big deal, but maybe that's a dealbreaker for you.

After some digging I found out that it requires Elektron’s proprietary software to load samples. That is a dealbreaker. If it was just drag and drop I could live with that, maybe. Proprietary software’s a dealbreaker, I don’t want to fuck with backwards compatibility in ten years or rely on Elektron to keep releasing updated versions of their software. It’s also weird that it doesn’t have an envelope generator?

I get that we all have different opinions on things and fair enough if that's your red line. But this seems like an odd line to draw for me. Backwards compatibility of most things is pretty good these days, we're far from the old nightmare days and it definitely isn't something I worry about.

I just looked up the manual about the envelope thing. Looks like you can always control the decay (not having attack on front panel is weird I agree with you on that). But you can also use the LFO as an envelope - bit of a workaround but it does exist.

[D.o.S.]

Those old SPs look interesting. The latest version looked really awful to use. Does the SP-202 let you play samples melodically? Does it have a way to record sequences on it?

You can record sequences onto the 303. You can't really play them melodically though: it's much more of a beatmaker in that sense.

[01010111]

-something fun to use
-ability to sample material directly
-can play samples melodically
-can play samples as percussion
-battery power preferred
-No PC, or phone, required to use its basic functions

The model:samples checks most of these boxes and is a super fun, intuitive box. I don't think the lack of in-the-box sample recording is a very big deal, but maybe that's a dealbreaker for you.

After some digging I found out that it requires Elektron’s proprietary software to load samples. That is a dealbreaker. If it was just drag and drop I could live with that, maybe. Proprietary software’s a dealbreaker, I don’t want to fuck with backwards compatibility in ten years or rely on Elektron to keep releasing updated versions of their software. It’s also weird that it doesn’t have an envelope generator?

I get that we all have different opinions on things and fair enough if that's your red line. But this seems like an odd line to draw for me. Backwards compatibility of most things is pretty good these days, we're far from the old nightmare days and it definitely isn't something I worry about.

I just looked up the manual about the envelope thing. Looks like you can always control the decay (not having attack on front panel is weird I agree with you on that). But you can also use the LFO as an envelope - bit of a workaround but it does exist.

I mean, I don’t really want to have to load samples from a PC at all. The fact that it can only be loaded from a pc isn’t a good thing, but given its other features and price it could be overlooked. So, where I have to add the additional complexity of using their proprietary program, that tilts the scale enough.

As someone who switches to linux roughly every other year, compatibility’s always an issue... Usually the switch is because I get sick of Windows not letting me change things, and the switch back is normally because of compatibility issues (also using linux seems like it’s its own hobby).

[quote="<a href="tel:01010111">01010111</a>"]Those old SPs look interesting. The latest version looked really awful to use. Does the SP-202 let you play samples melodically? Does it have a way to record sequences on it?

You can record sequences onto the 303. You can't really play them melodically though: it's much more of a beatmaker in that sense.[/quote]

That’s pretty close to what I want, tbh. It can even record samples directly. I’ll have to look into this a bit...