And at least some of those flaws were due to the limitations of the technology at the time.
Guarantee if you brought a new sampler out today; there would still be cats complaining about the lack of memory compared to a top of the line desktop; screen size vs a 27" iMac etc; loading on a single/dual core versus 16 core multi-threaded etc etc
I am quite partial to the Akai Z4 and E-Mu Ultra that I had/have; one day I’d like to spend some time with a Kurzweil.
I’d probably use Kontakt more in Native Instruments made a scalable gui…
Sure. (Although some are deliberately limited - take DT for example, which sells at exactly the same price as DN but the latter has double the horsepower). Anyway, now, then?
Maybe you didn’t read my comment properly. I left multisamples and huge libraries to one side. I want to manipulate single samples in every which way possible in a single box, without any needless limitations
It just ain’t gonna happen until production costs take another massive drop, and by then our expectations will have risen and what seemed perfect just a few years earlier will again seem unnecessarily limited.
The most expensive sampler on the market today is the MPC-X, which is 30% more expensive than the runner-up which is the OT MK2. Neither of these are close to doing everything on your list and in order to do them they would need to be more expensive. More features-more code-more trouble shooting-more tech support-more DSP-more elaborate interface-bigger chassis-bigger box-more storage and transport costs. So this perfect smaller would have to cost well more than the ca. €1800 which an MPC-X costs and how many people are going to buy one? and after delivering all these features, it will still be either an MPC sequencer or an Elektron sequencer or a Tracker or something else but it will never be all of them and so it will never be perfect and it will never earn back it’s production costs and r&d.
I disagree with the notion that the designers are generally egotistical, incompetent and detached from their end users. Improvement is always possible and actually happens continuously. If making this über-sampler in an economically viable way was that easy, someone would have done it already. Or, if the contention is correct and it is really easy, anyone up for starting a sampler company with me?
Your requirements look so light on details to me. Then again, I’m one of those people who needs to see pretty pictures to better understand what you’re looking for.
Alright, have fun. No, really! I’m going back to strictly lurking on this thread, as I have nothing more to say. Cheers!
Deluge is cool, I haven’t done much with sampling though. I do have a bunch of multi sample instruments that I’ve imported, though. I should dive into sampling a bit and see how it goes. I just really like the way OT handles slicing.
Well, that’s part of the SAAS research Elektron corporate’s been doing.
Hardware expansions… as someone who dealt with a commodity device that persons bought because it was “upgradable”, consumers rarely upgraded and usually replaced entirely. There’s not a lot of money in upgrading persistently.
A cool part about Deluge slicing is that each slice essentially is its own synth (or kit row) and hence you edit the heck out all the slices and then still have control over the FX of all the slices at once. And everything is nice and polyphonic.
Downsides include that editing slices can be cumbersome and MIDI mapping the slices is tedious.
I’ll watch with morning coffee right now. I enjoy this series very much. Nice!
Edit: Nothing I hadn’t already heard. Roger obviously hasn’t realized how important this creation is for humanity. In all seriousness though, as wild as the tempest is (I owned one for a time), as much as I want to see Roger’s creation, I don’t think it will happen. It’s a shame because he puts the love into his creations. Tempest would have been somewhat of a failure imo had @JohntheSavage not coordinated Roger directly and worked through the long list of unfixed bugs in the firmware. I hope I’m wrong and he does see it through.
Are we talking pure physical specs when you say “double the horsepower” because raw physical may be different for different algorithms, requirements etc.
Like this it sound more as a rompler to me, both beat-oriented (one shots or looping?) or massive multi samples to simulate existing instruments.
I also follow Fairlight CMI IIx user groups, same kind of attitude about collecting the original library or samples from famous users. Almost no attention for creating your own sample content and further towards sound design.
A sampler is way more exciting to use. Overal it sound like it’s sampler used like to top of the iceberg… limiting in the wrong way!
Those twiddly bits are a compelling feature for lots of people. Bigger screen, 16 encoders and a bigger chassis are a major feature for lots of people and they add a lot to the cost. Current MPC-X users would say that a sampler is less than perfect without them. Others would settle for 4 encoders if you just add a cross-fader, yet others will not touch a touch-screen based interface with a light-saber. Some would insist that cross-faders are for morons and 8 vertical faders are a must. For some people there is an absolute requirement that it fits in carry-on luggage/runs on batteries/ does FM/ has tubes/ has after touch/MPE…when you get up to a €2000++ price point, the addressable market becomes very small and very, very picky. To the point that it currently does not exist. You can imagine some company investing a huge amount in developing that €2k+ super sampler and us sitting on the couch and going “pfff, for that I kind of money I can buy an MPC 1 and a Digitakt and a Tracker and enjoy the best of all worlds, why would I buy that bloated piece of junk that doesn’t even have a Euclidean sequencer”
It might be an interesting exercise to try and design the perfect sampler (for oneself, obviously). Think seriously about what features are important to you, and then how you would physically lay things out to give quick access to everything you need and want without making it the size of an aircraft carrier.
I tried. It was hard.
