Definitely. Choosing only the FX you need for OT would be amazing. Customisation rules 
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I would guess this pricing model is hard to pull off, given the complexities of a fragmented user base, a low price ceiling on the new “machines”, trying to sell software updates rather than a shiny new box, etc.
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Having a fixed set of hardware controls that you try to map more features onto after the fact can get really messy.
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In general, when people buy hardware, I think they like to have a mostly full picture of what the machine does, and they don’t want to have to buy the features piecewise beyond the (high) initial asking price.
These things strike me as borrowing the less desirable qualities of the DAW experience. I do think your original complaint is sound though: every current sampler is missing some seemingly basic features.
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Amazingl! Keep hope alive!
to piggyback off this (sorry if someone else covered what i’m about to say already), I think a perfect sampler would mess up the workflow of a lot of people out there, myself included. I get lost in the intricacies and possibilities of the more complicated machines out there. I love the digitakt in terms of making music from sampling because i have limitations - i would love a songmode but the lack of that feature causes me to work through problems a different way. Maybe this doesn’t always pan out well, but I encounter this with writing parts for guitar or whatever anyway. The good parts of the DT really resonate with me and the limitations force me to work it out. I used NI maschine for a while and would barely ever complete music because i felt like i had too many options. As a hobby/amateur musician who has time limits, this was a problem. It’s going to be different for everyone though. I like this question because it can be helpful to musicians looking to improve their workflows to think about these issues.
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i think the points you are making are good, but i’m not sure pride is the reason as much as market forces driving decisions. I suppose that oculd be what you mean by pride though, but stuff like branding concerns (‘elektron sequencer,’ being an elektron thing etc.); tensions between shareholders, company leadership, and developers/engineers; public demand and competition from other companies; and resource limitations probably have more influence on things.
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A quick thought regarding the “just use a computer” response (which is irrelevant anyway given that this thread is explicitly about hardware);
Many hardware samplers impart their unique sound on samples which can’t be replicated on a computer without a lot more work. I’ve been experimenting with half dead tubes from the 1940s in my esx, it only takes a few seconds to swap them out and I can get gnarly harmonic valve distortion that’s a tall order to nail in a daw. The rytm is an even more extreme example since it has so many points of alterable gain staging, compression, and filtering, all in the analog domain. Just a thought.
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Maybe someone designed it, maybe built a prototype, but they dont have enough friends to amplify their crowdfunding to get into production.
Making hardware is way more complex than just a good idea or a bitchen design, no?
Similar to a tree falling in a forest: if someone built the perfect sampler but no one crowdfunded it, would it still bzip-bwarm-zzzhoookm…tchaka?
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Really, all they need to do is update the memory, processing power, and effects implementation of the Korg Microsampler. There are some things I loved about that machine.
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It does have a brilliant, unique sound to it.
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you’re talking about Edison right… loved that one
modular design isn’t what I meant my friend, I just meant different models with different options and I/o like there is now in the mpc line and the elektron line… trust me this isn’t something as difficult as peanut farming, half of the worlds groove box users would be satisfied with a model samples that had more ram, more storage, high resolution waveform editing, and sample slicing… this is not as serious as folks make it out to be… all of the different manufacturers don’t need to do anymore r&d, they have all of the tech, and know how… no need to hire a genius to get someone to put some good pads on the Rytm, give it stereo capability, more ram and more storage, supadupa slicing… eeeeeezy
add some comprehensive probability and trig conditions to the mpcs, this will cause no heart attack except by the end users who get to use such a machine that will die from happiness…
don’t believe the myth, we are not talking about daws here.
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used to call that one the mini asr-10
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Yes, anyone looking to design a new sampler should definitely spend some time with a Microsampler. An amazing combination of inspired choices and absolutely cursed ones. The form factor is so much better than it first appears. And they’re indestructible.
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I wasnt really referring to your posts, but idea of a sampling computer with different engines you could choose from, like from a DT-style beat machine to a granular synth. Why I said modular was that I understood that the idea was for the developer to release more engines for it that you could add and remove. I do think it’s a great idea, very cool and I would love to see that. Then again I already own it, as I have a computer and a DAW. That’s the thing, a computer is so powerful and versatile that I don’t think it’s very smart to try and develop a hardware box to do everything you would ever need a sampler to do, but rather try to think of things that are more efficient, more fun or more creative to do on hardware rather than in a DAW, even with a midi controller. The Octatrack is one, Digitakt is another great example of hardware samplers like that. Limited, yes but you can achieve things with them faster and more intuitively than in a DAW.
But as far as your idea that we should be abled to pay extra for more or “better” features, that might be feasible once someone invents a generic matter 3d printer. Until then electronics companies are slaves to their factory assembly lines.
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No. Not edison. I was still using Edison until the last couple weeks when I tried it on Bitwig (doesn’t get audio input as a VST). Love that program. I think they abandoned it tho. This was before Edison. It was a 3rd party company that had made kind of a Recyle! on steroids. You would load a loop in. It would chop it it rearrange, effects, ect. I actually bought it, but the company disappeared. Then I got Edison, which has its own uses.
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Gross Beat?
New Roger Linn sampling drum machine eh?
Ok, I’ll be watching for news on that one, perfect or not
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No, but I think it may have become Gross Beat…or Edison. Maybe that company got bought out by Fruityloops and then added to the new FLstudio architecture (seeing as Edison is sort of the basis of sampling in FLstudio, kinda like Simpler)
Like the perfect synth exists…?
we’re far but close, I mean it’s not a completely different engine but there are samplers that do have different bit modulations on board which I’m sure you’re already aware of, course that’s closer to fx than an engine but in the larger scheme of things it’s not like it’s impossible, I mean how hard would it be for the devs that made the GR grain sampler to actually add a chopshop and a sequencer to it…
I just think it doesn’t make much sense living in the future if we’re not going to get our flying cars… something you said struck me though… the thing about hardware is that almost everything you do with it is more fun than a daw or at least can be if the dev has the will imho
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