Yeah, I have an S950, which is only eight voices like the OT or DT (and several others), but it’s still better for a few tasks, and this is one of them - the somewhat lost art of playing a sample chromatically with polyphony (and having it sound great).
It’s not really lost, of course - I have several current devices that can do it - but it is regularly sacrificed in modern hardware, and all the devices that can do it have other frustrations. I guess it’s not as important a feature in an age of abundance for virtual synths and plugins, but it does highlight the question of what constitutes a sampler, which was much easier to answer in the days of the rack-based dinosaurs that generally did everything that was currently possible.
Yep. Old samplers could often do legato with pitch change too, (so pitch would change smoothly to new note without restarting sample or envelopes) fuck knows why that does not seem to be a feature anymore.
Sure, you’d have to be demented to argue that SD cards, USB ports and big handsome screens aren’t a massive improvement over How We Used To Live. Sticking to old gear is sometimes clearly an affectation, and it’s interesting you mention the 2000 series MPCs, as they certainly used to be the poor realation - 16 bits, no character, etc. etc. Lately they seem to be having quite the renaissance, and I wonder if that’s related to their perceived “old school” sampling simplicity (I suspect it’s largely to do with the 3000 and 60 drifting further into the realm of the rich collector). Nobody’s really fetishising the rack samplers of the era yet, as far as I’m aware, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the S6000 was “rediscovered” before long. Tiny SNES Mini-style format with a wee rack for your desktop, USB keypad support for numerically editing your samples… I suppose the Tracker is the midway point, with its single jog wheel. I’m talking myself into a Kickstarter as I type.
Yeah man. I’ve been thinking about reconfiguring my set up for a minute. Nothing out there quite fits with what I want to do. But a desktop version of one of these old rack samplers would be just about the exact thing that I want. I’m leaning towards picking up one of those Lofi 12 samplers and sequencing that plus my Sampletrak from my Digitakt.
And I wouldn’t be surprised if people start going for the S6000 either. I don’t have a good place to put a rack sampler. But with the S6000 it doesn’t really matter as much since you can take off the front panel. I think a lot of folks are in the same boat.
i resisted going down the MPC road initially because of the form factor and the way it’s typically demo’d on YT videos. but especially since the 61 Keys version dropped and they made key range mapping across plugins and programs easy and uniform, MPC really does do everything the old rackmounts did and more* workflow maybe isn’t the ideal for ease but also it’s so deep that the learning curve was probably always going to be steep.
*except for the old-school Akai S-series timestretching. but if you’re not doing ardkore junglism, it’s fine
Nah, I’ve been messing around with MPC Beats and I came to the conclusion that it’s not for me. I figured out the keygroups and the drum programs. I like that part of it. But I just don’t like the sequencer. I prefer to step sequence and I don’t like the way that’s implemented on the MPC. It also doesn’t do portamento as far as I can tell. That’s why I’ve been thinking about just using a Lofi 12 as a module.
i once converted a bunch of them with an old cdxtract copy using XP/virtualbox setup on MacOS to use in TAL sampler. nothing for MacOS natively i think
Nice. I think I’ll take another crack at it with the software. I’m guessing you’re MIDI mapping the Q links and assigning the parameters you want to modulate?
i hadn’t gotten that far with Hapax (assigning modulation to its encoders) before I switched to Deluge. will probably ultimately run everything through a Launchstation XL as basically a live MIDI mixer
Okay. So, I messed around with this a bit this morning. It works perfectly as long as you’re only controlling one track.
But since Q links are just how you control whatever is active, it won’t work if you’re trying to control more than one track. You also can’t set it to MIDI learn specific parameters like say the filter cutoff for pad one on track one.
So yeah, if I want to pitch around a bunch of stuff on my Sampletrak, make some keygroups out of that and play it with my Digitakt, that can work. But I can’t go as far as I would like. Plus, I don’t have access to as many parameters.
So I’m in the market for a sampler. I’ve been considering a Korg ESX1, mostly because the user interface and workflow seems so straightforward. Would anyone advise against this and recommend a modern sampler instead (like digitakt or sp404 mk2)?
I think I’d want to make sure the ESX was an SD model, at the very least - you probably don’t want to be engaging with Smartmedia in this day and age. I’d also want to give all the buttons and knobs a decent check, ideally before buying but otherwise as soon as possible,
Beyond that, it all depends what you want to do with it. The ESX has a lot of front-panel controls, which might well appeal, but looking at eBay prices it’s hard to deny a 404MK2 is probably a better proposition - or in roughly the same zone, an MPC One, which has arguably the best price / feature balance among current hardware samplers (but may be on the cusp of a refresh). If you’re thinking of a Digitakt then you’re nudging into MC-707 territory, and we’ve also skipped over the Blackbox and the Tracker.
Generally I’d say the current sampler market is so well stocked that the only reason to go for older gear is if you get a stellar bargain or you’re in love with a particular feature, and even then you need to weigh up the assorted modern conveniences you’ll be passing on. Better to draw up a list of the features you absolutely couldn’t live without, and start narrowing down your options. Do you want to use long samples? To play samples polyphonically? Mainly drums, or melodic samples? Onboard effects? Etc. etc. This can quickly help you discard a few contenders and zero in on the solution that will work for you.
