I'm just about to completely revamp my studio with a new Mac. PT HD and Logic upgrade. Before you ask, I'm not sure how all that's going to fall into place. I'd like to work inside PT if their midi comes up to snuff.
My real question....
I'm currently running 3 x sampling systems; Akai S5000, Kurzweil K2000 and Roland S750.
I know a few people who've dumped hardware sampling for software. I'd like to hang on to my Akai. I've also got a big library of sounds for the Roland including many sounds I sampled from a large collection of analog synths.
I don't really care for the K2000 BTW.
Is there software I can use to maintain use of my Roland library if I sell the sampler?
More to the point....
Is there any software you can realistically use at the same time as PT or Logic (on the Mac) without having to have a separate dedicated G4 or PC

Chrisso

I take it you'll be plunging head on into the world of OSX then.
It looks like Mach5 from MOTU will be the best softsampler for PT in terms of range of sample imports/conversions and the speed with which it is supposedly due to hit the PT60SX platform. Worth checking if that will import Roland. 'Translator' for Mac by Chicken Systems was supposed to be the answer for Mac sample conversions but my experience of it has been that they are very big on promises and very slow to deliver.

I am caught between Mac upgrades and semi-compatible bits of software for my sampling, it's bugging me. I sold my Akai's and my Emu too soon, got caught up in the hype! For Pro Tools user's it's been a tricky time. The (Soft)SampleCell debacle for starters. I'm hoping in 6 months to have a decent sampler again, I may even buy a hardware one again! Maybe hold onto your Akai and Roland until you find you're really flying.

I'm sure when it does all 'come together' it will be marvellous.

Good luck

You don't like your k2000? Oh well, each to there own...wouldn't be without mine lol

There will be quite a few choices for a soft sampler to run along side your sequencers/DAW.

The 3 three that spring to mind are:

N.I Kontakt. will run on OS9 as VSTi in Logic, and DirectConnect in Tools. Seems to have good synthesis features too.... OSX support sometime around late March to April.....

Bitheadz Unity Session: This is quite unique piece of software. Works as much as a SamplePlayback synth, than as a Sampler (Think Sample Tank with advanced sampling features..) The downside with Unity is that it's abit ropey under OS9. Hogs loads of CPU and isnt the most stable on a working DAW Rig... I try'd it under OSX though (its had OSX support for quite a few months) and ran much better!! no crashes, and felt much better to work with. I'm gonna give this a serious look again on my PT6 rig.

MOTU Mach5: Perhaps the best alround may/will be Mach5. It will support all formats (e.g: AU in Logic OSX and DXi in Windows... helpful if you have to swap sessions with a wintel user.)
Saw a demo of this @ sounds expo and it looked very slick.. The user interface was better (IMHO) than kontakt and it uses the UVI engine like stylus and plugsound, so its cpu usage was very low.

All these will run well on your DAW. But I'd only consider unity session under OSX.

Just my opinions.. hope its of help..

Al.

Thanks Al for your detailed reply.....
and Renie for the Mach5 tip.
Trouble is, most of the soft samplers mentioned wont load Roland format libraries.
Fingers crossed for Mach5, although it seems a ways off yet.
I have a particularly bad one, always freezing and crashing. I think using AA batteries for flash memory was a bit crappy. Also, I find the edit features overly dense. You need to go through a couple of edit pages and input at least two numerical values just to add a bit of release to a sample.
Too complicated!!!
Roland and Akai systems are much quicker.

my 3200xl hasnt been on for at least a year i love the exs24 on logic and although i feel there is a little diffrence sonicly the ease of having ex24 is just too good to be true. i created ideas i could have never done before(using conventionals samples). dont think twice move forward

If your favourite Softsampler doesn`t support the Roland format, try CDExtract, as it converts Roland CD`s or images into about every other format, even softsampler formats.

CDXtract looks promising.
All these translation programmes are a bit vague on self sampled sound banks. I don't need to translate a load of commercial CD Roms, but a stack of 100 and 250 Zip disks of my own sample library.

of course a translation program is always a compromise.
It`s much easier and faster if you can load direct from the source into your sofware.

In the review of Kontakt in Sound on Sound the reviewer said that "Dedicated sample-conversion utilities such as Translator and CDxtract will always be more thorough". I don't know if he was talking generally or with specific ref to Kontakt. I also wondered how accurate a view that was.

I heard that Kontakt was due to appear in RTAS OSX form later in the year rather than April. I hope April is right. Good ole April.

Renie, are you using Kontakt at the moment, with ProTools I gather?
I've been contemplating the purchase but I'm a bit leary of having to use
Direct Connect. I've never used the latter (recent pc to mac convert), having heard of serious latency issues, so an RTAS version would be welcome (I aslo have heard that Kontakt rumor). SAme thing with Battery, I have no problem spending the money, I just don't know how the integration with my PT LE setup would be via DC. Is it worth the purchase?

Then, there's the forthcoming Mach5, which could make any NI decisions obsolete (one thing about NI is that they are very slow in making things happen), and to counteract that, NI is releasing a few Kontakt-like siblings (IMPAKT and KOMPAKT) and they have yet to mention any RTAS compatibility for those two.

The options are soon to be abundant....

Clipgod said

I have CD Extract. I use it to translate from S-760 Librarise(CD-Roms) to SSC and it is not good. Too much tweaks, even some loops are bad, lots of mistakes. Maybe it translates better to another software/hardware Sampler but I doubt it!

I would say keep your hardware samplers because their libraries are much more expensive compared to samplers.

I have similar suspicions about all these translation programmes and soft samplers.

I'm very suspicious for peoples who say that this or that soft does all the tricks for translation. Usually theese peoples didn't even tried it or they use it only for sound FX triggering.

If you use it musically for real musical instruments and with delicate enveloppes settings, individual tuning/loop/stereo or mono samples, all those parameters won't usually be well translated. Most of the time a tedious task is asked for bring back layers, enveloppes, tunings, loops, modulation settings(often lost in the translation process) etc., etc.

Just take for fun Distorted Reality I (from S-760 format) and take the megapad(any version) and import it in the SSC library. Listen to it!!!

You'll be really dissapointed!grudge

And forget about sound! The SSC filters are not as good as the 760's

1. you jump to soft samplers
2. you decide you want to record at 96k
3. you remember all your sample libs are at 44.1k
4. you wonder why you threw out the hardware

I'm a software guy looking at buying a hardware sampler for just this reason...

besides, if you've got a setup that works for you, stick with it.

ex24 is just friggin GREAT.

You don't need a separate mac either, i have run 24 of them at once and only had 50% cpu drain on an old dual 500. Delightful.
I kept my hardware too..3 emus, 2 rolands, a s1000 and a k2000. Rolands sounds the best, followed by akai/emu..akai wins for drums, emu for softer stuff. Don't really like the k2000 much either. I use the hardware for stock sounds and ex24 for anything unusual or project-specific.

The roland translations only work if the sounds have loops that are the same for both sides; ex24 won't load sounds with independantly looped stereo sides. Keep your hardware man. You will get nothing when you sell and it just keeps working forever.

You were asking about logic sampler, I would just go and get ex24 today. today! It is a nobrainer.

Some complain that ex24 lacks some features, mostly that is corrected in ex24v2, but frankly I have yet to find anything lacking anyhow so you have to be pretty friggin hardcore not to be happy imho.

cheerz!

Efex looks like an experiences guy

You nailed it!

Do yourself a favor, get a seperate machine to run your virtual instruments. Even on a fast machine, a modest virtual studio will start to choke. Hard to believe these words are coming out of my mouth, but you can pick up a loaded PC for the same price as a sound module. Pop in a sound card and you are ready to rock. Gigastudio is an excellent choice and with Chicken Systems translator you can use virtually any sample library on your new monster sampler. This also allows you to use VST instruments that would be otherwise unvailable in the TDM world. Latency is better than most hardware units, and with some decent converters, it sounds better than any sampler you've ever heard. Or you could just go digital into your DAW.

Kaiser

Mach5 is looking more and more like the PT TDM frontrunner. NI apparently won't be supporting the RTAS format for now, but they might in a year or so..maybe
So that's Kontakt dead for now for PT6 OSX....

It doesn't sit right with me that Digi recommended Kontakt for PT6OSX
when they dropped SSC...

Kaiser: the issue with using a dedicated machine is recallability..with vsti's in your main seq app you just open the file and poof you are ready to work. Having said that, I have a giga-box and plan to get another! they are most suited to having huge stock setups that you seldom change, then you get recall as well..

Renie: welcome to digidesign, at least you didn't spend 3 grand on hardware that was sposed to work with the new system like I did then have them go "oh, well we changed our mind, sorry!"..or how about "a hardware samplecell? oh sorry we don't fix them any more but we'll give you $50.00 off full list if you'd like to buy another!" (and on and on and on). I started with digi in 1989 with sound tools, and made it up to the TDM rigs before I got tired of such treatment and bailed!

I wish I had beat detective. otherwise, good riddance! I just do music composition and don't rent my studio so I can get away with it, if I was in post or producing bands I'd have to bite the bullet for the latest forced upgrade.

I do have my criticisms of digi but also recognize that they have a difficult job.
Digital audio products are fraught with redundancy and incompatibility issues as "improvements" are demanded. On the whole I'm satisfied with PT and digi.

Well, that is great, we cannot all be of like mind or the world would be indeed a dull place.

BTW if you would ever like to use Sound Designer II on your G4, or with a Mix system it is quite possible, I recently heard that digidesign was not telling people how to do it as they wanted to encourage people to have to scrap their older systems.

To run it on a G4: The trick is this, the copyprotect scheme for SD II requires that you run the PACE copyprotect extension that makes your system think you have a floppy drive...at that point then SD II's copyprotect is happy (you still need an AM III card or any card with the copyprotect compatible with SD II). Note some AM IIII cards need a rom update.. I have no idea why the would not tell anybody this, I was told several times that the program was just too old to run on a current mac, thankfully someone tipped me off to the real story. I use it on a dual G4.

To run on a Mix system..you need the older PCI card, whatever it is, to make the copyprotect happy. Once you have that then the software will run happily on the new system, the issue of compatibility is not a technical issue, merely a marketing issue which encourages the user to get a new system.

You won't get to use the wonderful SD III audio plug-ins, unless someone can make some kind of an extension to beat the cripple digidesign installed when they shifted their hardware to PCI from nubus; as an effort to encourage sales they removed the ability for the user to run any of their plug-ins on the newer systems. As far as I know this was a firmware level cripple, but I heard a rumour that someone had made an extension to restore the functionality to the users.

For users on the PC someone has released an extension that removes the track cripple from the Pro Tools free or LE (not sure exact name) (?); you can run the full 32 tracks instead of the 8 tracks limitation from the cripple.

Ahhh, digi trivia. They make great hardware indeed, I just got annoyed I suppose with them. I didn't know they dumped the samplecell software, I still have some nubus samplecells and they work great as a slave samplebox.

Is this true on the Mac too? There may be a update out there that I don't know about anyway - I'm a little slow to change when things are stable...

as far as I know it is true only on the pc version...