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Hi folks.

A friend is doing a live theatre production with sampled sounds. Long story short, he needs a sampler, preferably a software one that runs on Mac. (I don't know offhand whether it's OS9 or OSX.)

Ideal requirements (in order of importance):

1. Lots of sample storage space -- preferably NOT RAM!
2. Easy to use
3. Cheap

The "lots of storage" requirement: There will be a number of voice tracks, some of them ~ 50 megabytes, which he would like to trigger by keyboard (synth keyboard or computer keyboard, either one).

From this perspective a sequencer, or looping software, that can be somehow configured to act like a sampler, might be a viable alternative.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks!

Johann

Ableton Live might be good to use - it lets you trigger audio clips via MIDI, and has a gap-free engine to facilitate live usage.

Hey thanks dArKr3zIn!

I downloaded a demo of Ableton for PC, and having played around with it a bit, I think it's perfect for my friend's needs.

The only issue will likely be price. $499 is most likely more than he's willing to shell out for installing software on a borrowed Mac. Nevertheless I'll recommend it + see what he says.

Thanks and cheers!

Johann

You might want to look at the Mackie's Spike. It's a hw/sw solution that includes both Abelton (though a shortened version), some other software as well as a hw unit featuring midi & audio sockets. Why I suggest it? Because the friend might want to have a low latency audio playback. The builtin soundcard produces some delay (depends on software though) in OS9. OSX is almost 100% latency free. A! And the Spike costs about $399.

_________________
Sir samplaire scopernicus

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: samplaire on 2004-10-06 03:43 ]</font>

if DR wouldn't have recommended ableton Live, i def. would have. at the moment i'm doing 'sound design' for a contemp. dance performance. nothing as easy as Live.
Samplaire's suggestion is nice as well. digidesign also include ableton Live, among other things, with their m-box, although at a slightly higher price tag.

if all the sounds your friend is using are ready to go, you could even do with the demo. it's only restrictions are saving and rendering/recording the outputs. however, you could use something like channelgrabber or tape-it to record the outputs.
put all the sounds in folders per track, open the folder in the live browser, select all the audio files and drag 'm to a track. now all you need to do is assign the samples to (midi) keys/drop fx.
however, it would be cool to support a 'young' soft house... but yes, 500 bucks is quite steep. it's a great app though.

Thanks guys!

I'll suggest the hardware possibilities as well, although I know he has at least one MIDI keyboard (mine) available for borrowing.

I don't think $500 is steep for good music software these days. Nuendo is a lot more than that, and it's a piece of crap in many ways. But staying on topic... I agree it would be nice to support the new kid on the block. I'll nudge my friend in that direction. But due to his "one-time-only" approach, I wouldn't be surprised if he opts to use the demo version only.

Thanks very much for the tips!

Cheers,

Johann

Try Buzz, it's free and it has lots of plugins, it must have a sampler:
http://www.buzzmachines.com/

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: BingoTheClowno on 2004-10-06 18:27 ]</font>

Buzz is PC only.

Oops!

What about that SuperCollider that many talk about:

http://www.audiosynth.com/

Or PD (Pure Data)?

Interesting... I don't think my friend would want to develop in SuperCollider, but I'm intrigued. I downloaded PD earlier this summer on someone here's recommendation (probably yours Bingo? ), and I also played around a bit with Max/MSP. I like the concepts behind such software, I just haven't gotten around to really using 'em yet. One of these days though...

Thanks + cheers!

Johann

The magazine Computer Music has developed a "free" software studio for their readers to use. Among the plugins are also a sampler which works on both Mac and pc.
I've never tried it myself, but it might be a cheap solution:

http://www.computermusic.co.uk/about/ds404.asp

Thomas

The sampler is (DS404) is buggy. I tried it to use though found panning sometimes looses its settings and some more annoying things which unable it to be used live. Besides, it's quite resources hungry, more than EXSP24, for example.

The other plugs are ok, especially the SR202 drum sampler which I use a lot. There is also a sequencer - Computer Musys, a cut off version of Musys and it's quite easy to understand and convinient to use

Thanks for all your advice everyone! Much appreciated.

Alas it seems the person who has the Mac couldn't figure out how to cue samples from MIDI. I offered to show him on my PC, but... Looks like the live troupe will be using a MiniDisc player now.

(I still can't believe that anyone would find Live difficult to use. It's one of the more elegant pieces of music software I've tried.)

Cheers all!

Johann