Quite dissapointed to Sampler

Robert Henke · Post by **Robert Henke** » Sat Jul 29, 2006 2:58 pm

Hello headquest,
this is a valid question. It is a bit tricky to answer for me since I am on one side part of the Ableton team and on the other side just a Live user who is as dependent on his tools as anyone else here.

Scheduling a release is something which needs a lot of planing and coordination.
I think we are getting better here with each release and the number of capital mistakes we make gets smaler. But also this time some tasks did take longer then expected and we finally could not put in everything we wanted to put in. Releasing the Sampler later is not possible for us, the development team is still to smal and all jobs are quite interleaved. This is why releasing the Sampler later would cause a significant additinal work load and this would affect implementation on new features in Live / Sampler if you regard it as one single project.

I do not think the Sampler feels unfinished, there are already a lot of great things possible and all features implenented in it work fine and are done with great care to detail. But at the same time i know that more exotic filter types, and other nice add ons will further enhance the instrument.

One of my biggest hopes for the future of Ableton is that we at some point have more resources to do all the fantastic things we would like to do.
As far as the instruments and effects are concerned, there is much more in my brain then in the software. This goes for enhancements of exisiting effects as well as for the creation of new ones.

We will see how Live 7 looks like. And how much of the smaler enhancements can be done for 6.1 or what ever interrim versions will come up.

Robert

headquest · Post by **headquest** » Sat Jul 29, 2006 4:25 pm

Thanks for a full and honest answer Robert.

I understand that it is not a perfect world, and that there are many realities which affect all these sorts of decisions. Knowing Ableton's reasons and your plans for the future really helps a lot - not all developers are so forthcoming!

Thanks again.

no_barcode · Post by **no_barcode** » Sat Jul 29, 2006 5:29 pm

Robert Henke wrote:...One of my biggest hopes for the future of Ableton is that we at some point have more resources to do all the fantastic things we would like to do...

Well, don't go getting too big. That might ruin some of the charm of Ableton.

A small tight group of programmers and R&D guys has done all of this so far. (We'll all agree that it's amazing) I'd rather wait a year for a few good, solid changes, coming from a good company whose employees all collectively care about the company's product and its customers. Rather than get a full-on whole new rework of the entire product and all its components, from a company that, well, sucks, in a very personal sort of way.

Large companies seem to breed angst and discontent among their employees, and it comes through in the end product.

Don't ever become that company.

[/end slightly cheeky comment]

headquest · Post by **headquest** » Sat Jul 29, 2006 5:35 pm

no_barcode wrote: from a company that sucks in a very personal sort of way.

Crumbs

no_barcode · Post by **no_barcode** » Sat Jul 29, 2006 5:44 pm

headquest wrote:
no_barcode wrote: from a company that sucks in a very personal sort of way.
Crumbs

What? I like Ableton. I don't want them to change into a big mean company. They're nice the way they are.

Machinesworking · Post by **Machinesworking** » Sat Jul 29, 2006 6:48 pm

My biggest problem with Sampler, and Operator is that they compete against third party developers, yet offer only small improvements over the same type of plug in, in AU/VST...
I'm still considering Sampler, but certain ideas in sampling that have come up, like being able to assign a sample to another audio out..... Sampler is like the EXS24 was in OS9, with a few improvements...
the Racks solution, you can do that with any sampler you buy third party as well, it's not a part of Sampler's "features".....
I like the idea of Live handling all the sampling needs, getting sound files to load as part of self contained sets, basically making it less likely that upgrades in computers, and other file management problems make you hunt for files when loading a song that hasn't been opened in a while, but the feature set is too small to really replace my sampling based third party plugins, and it so far hasn't shown me how I'll benefit from it VS Kontact.

here's the real beef! I wish Ableton could find a reasonable solution to this 128 parameter limit to MIDI controller assigning in Live. I wish that instead of looking to build a few embedded plugins with decent parameter control, they would offer some solution to this problem with third party plugins.
So far Kore is the only one I've seen, and a dongle, with the problems that creates.

..... but more are on the horizon,

djadonis206 · Post by **djadonis206** » Sat Jul 29, 2006 6:56 pm

Samplers really cool, I just wish I could spring the $200 when the times right - I got tution, books and shit coming due in September - plus I'd like ot get out of Seattle for a weekend or two this summer

But it's worth the money - it sounds super clean too

Machinesworking · Post by **Machinesworking** » Sat Jul 29, 2006 7:16 pm

djadonis206 wrote:Samplers really cool, I just wish I could spring the $200 when the times right - I got tution, books and shit coming due in September - plus I'd like ot get out of Seattle for a weekend or two this summer
But it's worth the money - it sounds super clean too

Out of curiosity Adonis, why do you like it better than Kontact? Is it ease of use? To me, that, and that Ableton assigned the Device parameters themselves so they hit the useful features.
I just can't wrap my head around why it would be a better solution to you than Kontact, except that it's straightforward, and has only a few features, so you can learn it quickly.
FYI, not picking on you, just know you sold Kontact a while ago.

djadonis206 · Post by **djadonis206** » Sat Jul 29, 2006 7:51 pm

Machinesworking wrote:
djadonis206 wrote:Samplers really cool, I just wish I could spring the $200 when the times right - I got tution, books and shit coming due in September - plus I'd like ot get out of Seattle for a weekend or two this summer
But it's worth the money - it sounds super clean too
Out of curiosity Adonis, why do you like it better than Kontact? Is it ease of use? To me, that, and that Ableton assigned the Device parameters themselves so they hit the useful features.
I just can't wrap my head around why it would be a better solution to you than Kontact, except that it's straightforward, and has only a few features, so you can learn it quickly.
FYI, not picking on you, just know you sold Kontact a while ago.

The Oscillators kind of sold me - and it's alot more straight forward - kind of hard to explain but this is what I've been looking for in a sampler

I'm able to take one sound and make it into something else - plus the filter is super duper clean!

deva · Post by **deva** » Sat Jul 29, 2006 7:51 pm

I own Kontakt. It is powerful and sounds good. I really like Time and Tone machine.

But I would like to get rid of it. The interface is too complicated. It is its own world and does not fit in well in a host. And it does not actually sample and it is clumsy to get the sample into it.

I maybe don't like the NI philosophy. They try to do too much. It is good that Kontakt works standalone I guess, but I don't need convolution reverb with Kontakt. That is a feature assuming everything is done in Kontakt. I think they do not give enough thought to how it integrates into the host. They are competing with the host. Same with KORE. They should create the NI host and make their own world if that is what they want, but they are like halfway inbetween and it does not work well for me.

Right off the ability to drag the clip right into Sampler makes me want to buy it. Jury is still out for me though on whether I will. But I like the Ableton approach to see the host as the instrument and everything integrating together being more than the sum of its parts. The new racks do a great job of integrating 3rd party vst's into the host. Sampler fits this approach.

ze2be · Post by **ze2be** » Sat Jul 29, 2006 8:01 pm

deva wrote:I own Kontakt. It is powerful and sounds good. I really like Time and Tone machine.

But I would like to get rid of it. The interface is too complicated. It is its own world and does not fit in well in a host. And it does not actually sample and it is clumsy to get the sample into it.

I maybe don't like the NI philosophy. They try to do too much. It is good that Kontakt works standalone I guess, but I don't need convolution reverb with Kontakt. That is a feature assuming everything is done in Kontakt. I think they do not give enough thought to how it integrates into the host. They are competing with the host. Same with KORE. They should create the NI host and make their own world if that is what they want, but they are like halfway inbetween and it does not work well for me.

Right off the ability to drag the clip right into Sampler makes me want to buy it. Jury is still out for me though on whether I will. But I like the Ableton approach to see the host as the instrument and everything integrating together being more than the sum of its parts. The new racks do a great job of integrating 3rd party vst's into the host. Sampler fits this approach.

I have exactly the same feelings towards native instruments, and live. So thats exactly why I would be interested in sampler too. The thing that conserns me most, is that it cant read akai proparly. So you buy it, and expect an akai update in the future, but it might never show up. So your stuck with a lot of sampling work done in sampler, and youd still need 3rd party samplers for managing your akai programs.

john gordon · Post by **john gordon** » Sat Jul 29, 2006 8:40 pm

please give us proper sidechaing in 6.1 for gods sake.i will promise to buy 6,7,8,9,10.....

Machinesworking · Post by **Machinesworking** » Sat Jul 29, 2006 9:32 pm

I guess I look at something like Emperor, a huge piano I have in Kontact, works with the sustain pedal, don't know if that would happen in Sampler. I can't see any multi audio out, so no way of adding your own filters to different sections, period. Racks do offer a way around this, but honestly it's much less elegant than audio out for each voice, or group of samples!
this reminds me of some of the things I don't like about Logic, the basics are there, and pretty easy, but once you want to do something even slightly more complex, you have to build it from scratch.

Just want to say I really like the features in Live 6, I was just hoping for more out of Sampler, but I'm starting to see a pattern here in the built in instruments, they get you up and running quick, but for the uber geek user like me, they don't offer enough.
If the bundled price for Sampler and the live 6 upgrade is low enough, I'll buy it just as a quick and dirty sampler.

GaryTracks · Post by **GaryTracks** » Sun Jul 30, 2006 12:40 am

I also agree about NI. I love Battery, but I'm grateful that i don't have to consider buying Kontakt, thanks to Abes' new SAMPLER. But......

My number one priority is to play AKAI libraries. Maybe i'm in the minority, but my basic needs are for a sampler-player. Tweaking is great, but I need good instruments, right away, from the Akai discs.

This is my first pause in my excitement for Sampler. It will be useless for me if the IMPORT functions are messy. Surely Ableton will be on this...???

conny · Post by **conny** » Sun Jul 30, 2006 1:09 am

Robert Henke wrote: I do not think the Sampler feels unfinished, there are already a lot of great things possible and all features implenented in it work fine and are done with great care to detail. But at the same time i know that more exotic filter types, and other nice add ons will further enhance the instrument.

Robert

Agreed but looking at third party developers as Paax sampler, I really think there should be more than one output, say assignable 1-8.
Great tool anyway.

// C