Serato Sample

does Egoist have time stretching?

 

The key detection feature as well as being apple to directly load songs from my iTunes library make Serato Sample a worthy addition. Can the products just mentioned accomplish this?

 

Key detection is indeed interesting and the time stretch sounds proper, but, it still is somewhat of a Cue Point oriented and very basic sampler.
It's suitable for playing chops from records but for more advanced stuff it still lacks a lot of features, but then again it's pretty new, I am a SeratoDJ user for around 7 years and i can say from experience that they update and add features to their stuff frequently, if they do the same with Serato Sample it will probably evolve fast

 

I just checked the manual and Sugar Bytes website and while nothing specifically says the Egoist Slicer has time stretch, I would say it does since you can manipulate the pitch of any of the individual 16 slices per sample or re-pitch the entire sample while tempo remains sync'd to your DAW.

 

Specifically what more advanced features are you referring to that Serato Sample lacks?

I ask because I am an MPC X user. The only thongs I need an MPC to do is support the adding of 'Warp Markers,' key detection. and support more sample formats. I use Serato Sample as just another tool to compliment what my MPC does.

 

Well... Most people look at sampling as just chopping something up and triggering the pieces with in one-shot mode, other people need more options.
Heres are just some things can quickly come up that are missing:

• Velocity sensitivity? I can't believe it doesn't have this... If possible sensitivity could affect other things beyond volume (destinations) Cutoff, Decay, start position, etc...
• Full ADSR control.
• More filter types, the typical ones in any sampler. (the current filter is a DJ style filter, rotate left is low pass right is high pass)
• LFO of some kind with selectable destinations.
• Layering / Linking more than one sound so it can be triggered by pressing only one key.
• Reverse.
• Envelopes: Filter, Pitch, etc...
• Modulation Envelopes.
• Effects per sound (per chop, per cue point, idk what to call it.. lol)
• Looping.
• Some settings on Serato Sample are global and can't be applied to specific sounds (mono/poly, oneshot/play-till-end)
• Selectable Outputs to route to your DAW.

There's a lot more...

 

I see. But aren't most, if not all, of those features exist in the Samplers that are included with your DAW (e.g., Logic X's EXS24, Live's Simpler/Sampler, Reason's NNXT, etc)? They are definitely possible with an MPC. *Not saying these features wouldn't be great to have in Serato Sample.

 

Yes, these options are available in quite a few samplers, but your question was "what is Serato Sample lacking"

 

I did..which was just to clarify what Sample is lacking in your opinion.

So should Serato follow all other samplers to include those tools or stick to being a Cue Point oriented and very basic sampler?

 

In my opinion, they should do both.
I would keep the current Serato Sample kind of simple and have another version, maybe a Pro Version more feature rich. This way they keep the users who want something fast and simple and also gain new customers who need more complicated stuff, which relates to more money for the company.

They clearly had a ton of attention with a very simple sampler that is Dj-Inspired, all they had to do to shake the market was to bring real-time stretch/pitch shift and key detection.. technology that has been around for decades... now imagine if they did something more advanced.

If I worked there I would advise going HAM and making a full production suite software to compete with Native, Ableton, Akai, etc. Why not? Not only software but also a controller, something in between Maschine and Push and learn from mistakes made by both NI and Ableton and try to make something better. (Maybe an open-source controller... that would be a dream lol)
Drum-Machine evolution and development is super slow, maybe because of the lack of true competition, one more player in the park would be good for all of us users.

 

Now that would be something crazy right there!

 

Akai, NI, Ableton, and Arturia have all released similar products. If development is slow, how would one more company dropping another similar product speed things along?

 

By raising the bar a little more. The more competition the more value has to be added for a product to remain relevant in the market.
Akai for example clearly shifted their focus/resources to software development, and it shows, they have features Maschine users have been asking for years, not saying Akai is better since better is relative but they clearly were in a hurry to make themselves relevant again. This is good for us.
For example, Intel and Nvidia have dominated the market alone with no competition for a few years, now AMD is giving them a run for their money again and we already have started to see signs of it being beneficial for consumers, we already have much better price-to-performance CPU's and the battle just started... that's the point.

A common mistake I see here is people assuming the rest of the world is like this or other similar forums, well... it's not. Here people crack jokes about FL Studio and how it sucks but in the real world most music on the radio right now is made on FL Studio, that's the most used software in the world right now and if Image-Line decided to make a controller as long as it's a decent one it would most likely crush NI and Ableton in sales.

IMO Ableton (with Push) is miles ahead of everything else feature wise and currently doesn't even need to worry much about competition, they are the market leader.
Arturia has a niche market, I don't even consider it competition for Maschine, Push or MPCs.
Akai started to catch up with the new MPC's but honestly, the only people I hear really considering buying it are the old heads, (no offense to anyone im old too) so I doubt the stand-alone-approach is gonna bring the MPC reign back.

The other day just for curiosity sakes I decided to take note of some numbers... estimated sales and ranks, youtube presence and some other stuff.
These are researchable by anyone, not 100% accurate by any means so take it with a grain of salt but the numbers speak for themselves.

 

I am acquainted with the folks that are responsible for bringing the MPCs to the market. They don't really care what other companies are doing. Those numbers don't mean a thing. I was at NAMM this year. Akai sales reps were all smiles with their preorder numbers.

MPCs are not Akai's biggest sellers. Their other products (the ones we laugh about) are the ones that finance MPC development.

 

I believe you are and also that you might have been told that but i don't believe for a second that they don't care about what the competition does otherwise they wouldn't have added things like Clip Launching... where do you think the Clip idea came from? Their costumers complain about not having features present in other stuff just like "we" do here so they have no option.

Maybe they do, maybe they don't but they are indicative of something... IMO of market interest, especially the youtube count, but this is relative and depends on the point of view so no point in arguing.

That's most likely true, they have a pretty big small-controller lineup, those probably generate the bulk of the money, MPD's, APC's, etc..
Same for Native, I doubt Maschine is the big money maker. Traktor is the most used DJ interface in the world, people buy expansions like cupcakes and they are (probably) cheap to produce, then there's all the other software.


Either way... my point was that competition is good for costumers, that's just common sense in my eyes.

 

MPCs have been triggering loops for 3x decades..long before any of the products mentioned existed. The things that Ableton, NI, Serato, Roland etc are doing were heavily influenced by MPCs. CLIPS are just a natural progression to what an MPC has always done. CLIPS is the last reason why many people want to use an MPC today. When I see an MPC CLIP video...I laugh. If Akai considered Ableton a competitor, I don't believe they would have manufactured the first Push nor would they keep releasing controllers for Ableton Live.

The things that MPC users want are not features exclusive to any of the products mentioned. Frankly, I can't think of one feature exclusive to Machine, Push2, etc that MPC users demand. From my experience, features MPC X, Live, Ren, and Studio users want have existed in standalone MPCs long ago that were unceremoniously removed from newer MPC models.

I believe you will continue to see the MPC blaze it's own path.

 

Somehow a question about how more competition between brands is positive for consumers escalated in you becoming some sort of defense attorney for Akai... not sure how we got here. IMO Ableton is more feature rich, that does not mean its better, I barely use it, to be honest. Its not all about having the most features.
Im not here to bash Akai, I have nothing against it or MPC's generally, I am not sure why you are so devoted to defending the brand, sounds like you are a sales rep or something, relax... no offense. Do you like it? Has it all features you need? Then, by all means, use it and be happy. I am not here to convince you something else is better, better is highly subjective and depends on the user's needs. Whats better for me might not be for you and vice-versa.

Jesus Christ dude... it was an example. There's others features Maschine and Ableton had before Akai released 2.0.
I was talking about Clip launching in Session View style where loops are displayed in a grid and next stops the previous on the same vertical line... if you don't think that concept came from Ableton then I don't know what to tell you. All samplers in the world "have been triggering loops" and Akai didn't invent the sampler.

True and obvious. Did I say clips are a major selling point of an MPC? No, it was just an example of a brand following the current market expectations and trying to offer a feature present on other platforms. NI did the same with Jam/Session view.

I laugh too. I don't think clips are meant for 4x4 pads. However, if you can connect a small APC to an MPC it might be useful.

You realize most of the MPC users are now using Ableton or Maschine right?
When someone decides they are going to get a controller the most common question is "do i get a Maschine, Push or an MPC?" if that question is asked so often how are they not in competition with each other? It's the same market.
They sell controllers for Ableton because the user base is huge and it makes money, a lot more than selling MPCs.

If you can't think of one and care about it then, by all means, feel free to check the feature requests...
With the 2.0 software, many requests have been attended, a lot of those were present in other platforms wich goes back to the original point of competition being good for us.

I hope so. Although personally, i will most likely never own an MPC again (i had the 2500 a long time ago) i want Akai to prosper and remain in the sampler world for many years, cause you know... competition is good


Lets just agree to disagree on this one and move on, i have nothing else to add to this topic.

 

I don't give a hoot about these companies. I don't get paid a dime. Feel free to bash any company you choose as I won't lose any sleep.

I am just stating things I know while you made an assumption.

And to answer one of your questions directly...hell naw and I am not satisfied with the feature set of the current MPCs. There are dozens of features I would like to see..features that Maschine and Push can't accomplish....but a legacy MPC can do just fine.

You may want to shorten your responses if you want people to actually read it.

Peace.

 

I'm used to reading what people say on conversations, the same way I listen when people speak to me, as long as the conversation is polite I see no reason not too, especially from people with the same interests as me, I might learn something new...

Sorry if I wrote too much, I'll keep that in mind and not bother next time. Peace.

 

What were we talking about again?