Sw or hw sampler

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Hello

in your opinion, a software sampler has the same powerful of an hardware one
(e.g. Akai) ?
I need a sampler that could give me a good piano and strings (or other
natural sounds) but I don't know what I have to choose.
Any suggestion ?
Thank's a lot !

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

ret8bar wrote:
> Hello
>
> in your opinion, a software sampler has the same powerful of an hardware one
> (e.g. Akai) ?
> I need a sampler that could give me a good piano and strings (or other
> natural sounds) but I don't know what I have to choose.
> Any suggestion ?
> Thank's a lot !
>
>
Well it really depends.
If all you want is good acoustic sounds then go software. They can deal
with larger files.
I just love hardware samplers though. The sound of my old Roland 750
can't be equaled. It just sounds massive. It has a cool interface with a
screen and wave drawing and is fast to edit on (once you are used to
it). I can get what I want VERY quickly and without any aggro.
I also have a Yamaha A5000 and that has LOADS of features. The advantage
with hardware is you can carry them with you, they never crash, they
cost nothing for the minute, the good ones sound good and sometimes
having sperate boxes for specific jobs is nice.

If I was looking, I'd check out the S6000 from Akai. Serious hardware
for very good prices on ebay.
In short, software is very practical and usually comes with a large
library. On the other hand, software relies on your PC and your
Soundcard, plus it's another thing that's in the box.
Both have their advantages but software is probably the most logical way
to go.

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Reason has good sampler as part of the package, plus lots of other
great stuff. It's got acoustic pianos and electric pianos, rhodes etc.
plus electric organs (although no good church organs),and is good value
for money . . . especially considering all the other great sounds
you'll get as well as the samplers.

I agree that software samplers have many advantages. On the other hand,
the best sample library I've come accross is the EMU library . . .
sounds much more natural than the very over-compressed Roland library,
for example, to my ears. Depends what you want of course . . . if
you're only doing highly compressed "highly-produced" sounding pop
music, then the Roland type of sounds might save you some time

Another comment . . . have you considered a good physical-modelling
synth?? In terms of genuine naturalness of sound, this will be way
better than a sampler, due to the way the sounds are generated. I had a
Yamaha VL70m for example, which was amazing in terms of naturalness for
wind-instruments particularly. Of course, it has some significant
disadvantages . . . it's only monophonic, and some other sounds it
doesn't do so well. But in terms of real naturalness of sound, from a
synth, a sampler won't come close to the best of physical-modelling
synths in some areas.

Then again, if you want pianos and organ etc. then a sampler is the
best way to go.

Strings are never going to sound good from any synth or sampler (even a
physical-modelling synth) as they will never sound anything like the
real thing. Of course, you can get top-quality REAL strings for
realistic prices these days . . . from myself for example


http://www.chris-melchior.com/strings.htm


Chris

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

In article <42d0dfa8$0$338$5fc30a8@news.tiscali.it> retman@tiscali.it writes:

> I am not a professional musician and I always plays music at home.
> I already use a synthsizer that has great analogue sounds but it is very
> poor in natural sounds, such as acustic and electric piano (like DX7),
> orchestra sounds, and so on.
> So, I have found a lot of AKAI S30000XL samplers at a good price on Ebay
> (250-300 EUR) but a lot of people says me that the hardware samplers are
> been surpassed from the software ones.

If you're not a professional musician, but just play music at home,
I'll bet that you're not a professional computer tinkerer but just use
your computer to send eMail and look up things on the Internet.

Hardware sampler:
Plug it in
Insert the sample disk
Start playing

Software sampler:
Choose a computer
Choose the software you want to use (there are many, and it's not
something you listen to like a hardware synth)
Choose your sample library (there are so many and you can rarely
audition them at the music store like you can with a hardware
synth
Choose a sound card because without that you have no audio output.
Most will work with most computers, but some work better than
others with certain sampler/synth engines because of how their
drivers are written (something else that you really don't know
until you can't get it working well).
Don't forget that you have to play on something, so choose a MIDI
keyboard. You'll probably be annoyed because either you have to
buy something that already has sounds in it that you don't expect
to use or you have to buy something that's just a keyboard
controller, but it's very small and you have to keep switching
octaves to play the full range. And don't forget a MIDI
interface.
Get it all working
Start playing


--
I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Hello

yes, it is true that I am not a professional musician but it is also true
that I am really a professional computer thinkerer because I am the network
administrator of a company with 3000 people.
It is for this reason that I am oriented to a soft sampler.
Thank you for your clear explanation.
I opened the topic because there are a lot of soft samplers like Reason,
Sample tank, Hypersonic and so on and it is really difficult to choose the
right one.

Bye.


"Mike Rivers" <mrivers@d-and-d.com> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:znr1120993116k@trad...
>
> In article <42d0dfa8$0$338$5fc30a8@news.tiscali.it> retman@tiscali.it
writes:
>
> > I am not a professional musician and I always plays music at home.
> > I already use a synthsizer that has great analogue sounds but it is very
> > poor in natural sounds, such as acustic and electric piano (like DX7),
> > orchestra sounds, and so on.
> > So, I have found a lot of AKAI S30000XL samplers at a good price on Ebay
> > (250-300 EUR) but a lot of people says me that the hardware samplers are
> > been surpassed from the software ones.
>
> If you're not a professional musician, but just play music at home,
> I'll bet that you're not a professional computer tinkerer but just use
> your computer to send eMail and look up things on the Internet.
>
> Hardware sampler:
> Plug it in
> Insert the sample disk
> Start playing
>
> Software sampler:
> Choose a computer
> Choose the software you want to use (there are many, and it's not
> something you listen to like a hardware synth)
> Choose your sample library (there are so many and you can rarely
> audition them at the music store like you can with a hardware
> synth
> Choose a sound card because without that you have no audio output.
> Most will work with most computers, but some work better than
> others with certain sampler/synth engines because of how their
> drivers are written (something else that you really don't know
> until you can't get it working well).
> Don't forget that you have to play on something, so choose a MIDI
> keyboard. You'll probably be annoyed because either you have to
> buy something that already has sounds in it that you don't expect
> to use or you have to buy something that's just a keyboard
> controller, but it's very small and you have to keep switching
> octaves to play the full range. And don't forget a MIDI
> interface.
> Get it all working
> Start playing
>
>
> --
> I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
> However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
> lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
> you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
> and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Hi
For software I use EXS24 that comes with Logic Express. I find it very
cool and easy to use. It can import lots of formats and the whole
software is relatively cheap.. well $300 and it's only for Mac.
Not much experience of others, sorry.
Have fun
David


ret8bar wrote:
> Hello
>
> yes, it is true that I am not a professional musician but it is also true
> that I am really a professional computer thinkerer because I am the network
> administrator of a company with 3000 people.
> It is for this reason that I am oriented to a soft sampler.
> Thank you for your clear explanation.
> I opened the topic because there are a lot of soft samplers like Reason,
> Sample tank, Hypersonic and so on and it is really difficult to choose the
> right one.
>
> Bye.
>
>