Need Help Choosing a sampler

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XFingaz

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How's the EMU E5000 Ultra??? I need a fairly good one but still, only for home studio use.... how does it rank with the other samplers out there right now???

Does anybody have any words to say about this??? MANO?? hehe......sorry to pry.....but I'd really like to know how it fairs with the others in its class.
 
I called EMU in regards to that family of sampler and they told me it was lousy for hip hop(you cant audition samples at different pitches at the same time,which is how i make alot of my beats)I think this sampler is designed primarily for use with sampling cds as opposed to bangin out choppy hip hop samples.I didnt do much research past that,and i dont know what your intended use for it is,but i know it aint right for me.If I got anty sampler/workstation right now it would be an mpc4000.It doesn't look like it's gonna date any time soon.If u did want an emu rackmount sampler there was some at www.zzounds.com/a--2676837 remember for quite a discount......peep this though.....they have one "not factory sealed" for $879 on the EMU page.....but if you type emue5000 into the search on the screen you find one there....factory sealed for $899....I would buy the new one for only $20 more.....wouldn't you?......
 
Hey, thanks man.......I'm using it for drum & bass on a limited budget......do you think this'll do for me man??? You said it wasn't right for you because you do hip hop and need to audition in a bunch of different pitches.......will this affect me greatly?
 
if you look on the dogsonacid forum (www.dogsonacid.com) on the grid (the dnb production forum) and search for emu you'll find many many threads relating to it, because the emu e-series samplers come very very highly recommended from many dnb producers (partly due to the sound-mangling z-plane filters). i'd fackin love an e-5000.......oh well i'll have to make do with the esi-2000......sigh

your other choices would be the Akai MPC4000 (sampler, sequencer, drum pads...mmmmmmmmm) or the new Z4 or Z8 which both also look scrumptious.
 
If you're not worried about having 24 bit sound,I'd check out the s6000,s5000......They were pretty full featured for a year or 2 until everyone went bit-crazy.The s6000 even had a pull-off front panel so you can chop up samples in your lap while watching "friends"You could probably find one for cheap.
 
if you're going after loops,i'd peep the roland vp9000 it looks sick as hell....warning.... roland gear is iffy,some is good and easy,some is designed by sheep.It has a whole bunch of time stretchin goodies in it.If you want you can buy me one too,thanks in advance,
Phatbastard
 
i'd only go for a VP9000 as a second sampler due to it's specialist nature and 6-note polyphony. they're only about £500 now tho if you look around...
 
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That's true too.I actualy posted that somewhere on here too,I want one,but I can't find one to try anywhere,and I wouldnt buy anything by roland w/o trying it first....
 
Yeah, I've heard some bad things about Roland gear in the past.......with the exceptions of some of their synths. (ie, jp8000 and such)...

I actually did look into all those samplers you guys were talking about and I wasn't really interested in the price tag associated with AKAI products.....in additon, I looked at the yamaha samplers but this EMU thing came along and I thought I'd buy it.......which I did.....

anyways, I'm also looking into a used PC.....would a P3, 1.0 ghZ suit my needs??? RAM isn't a problem as I can probably invest in about 256 additional later on......but will the processor suffice???
 
I hope you're getting a good deal,because that computer would be pretty cheap to buy new nowadays.I paid the same for my 1.7 ghz athlon,as i did for my p2 533mhz about 2 years before.It all depends on how much you want to use it,if its mostly for sequencing and editing programs it would be fine,on the other hand if you want alot of effects and stuff I might get a dsp card.You should also check what the maximum amount of ram you can put in it is.Some pentium 3 boards would only support 256 or 512 megs.If you look around you can probably find a good one new for cheap
 
Yeah......I am getting a good deal.......a really good one actually.
I just wanted to get some input as to whether it would suit my needs.......
 
If you're on a limited budget and using a PC at all, you might consider (don't laugh) a Sound Blaster Live or Audigy (you should be able to get a Live for $50 or maybe even less). A lot of folks don't quite understand but the built-in Soundfont 2 technology (when combined with their freebie Soundfont editor Vienna) allows you to do moderately sophisticated sample editing, multi-sample layering, and wavetable bank building. (There are other non-SB soundcards out there with Soundfont compatability, as well.)

I'm not completely familiar with all the particulars of each model but the SB Live Value (basically the cheapest of the cheap) uses PC host system RAM (I have no ideas how or how well the SB Live for Mac works, sorry) to store the samples. With today's rock bottom system RAM prices (around here you can pretty much get 256 MB for $50 or less) that means you can probably devote anywhere from 32 to 256 or more megs of RAM to samples -- obviously a huge amount by keyboard sampler standards. And the Vienna editor is as well suited to creating drum/percussion and sound effects kits as it is to multi-samples.

In fact, I just spent an hour or so last night grabbing free Soundfont samples off the Creative Labs and Sonic Implant sites -- as well as a few others. The best scores were a bunch of really decent drum kits. If you know how crummy the basic drum kit samples sound in the SB you'll be amazed to find out what's out there for free. (And, of course, folks like Sonic Implants will be all too happy to sell you some of their sample sets for, well, typical sample set prices. Although they also sell small subsets of hits and loops in downloadable form for as little as $10 a subset.)

Even if you already have a 'pro' soundcard, you can still slap a SB in your machine (they can coexist nicely) to use for its Soundfont, MIDI i/o, game compabability, etc.

Another software answer for the PC (it will still require a soundcard of some kind of course) is the Gigasampler. I haven't used it but its generating a log of favorable comment and seems to have considerable momentum. (Another place where falling system RAM prices have opened a window of opportunity.)
 
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Well, here's my plan for my computer actually.....it'd be great if you could post a reply commenting on it.....I've budgeted for a PC, but have made no comprimises on what I'm equipping it with.....

I'm gonna use a Delta 44 soundcard, and a Midiman Midisport 8 X 8 usb interface....and I'm also gonna use Cubase and Reason........

here's the deal though....(remember, I'm on budget right now).....
should I invest in a hard drive for my EMU sampler.... (which would cost me about 300 canadian)....or can I just store the samples on my computer harddrive and input/output from that to my E5000 Ultra when I need to do some editing/sampling....
 
I don't know if this will help you,but i like to use zip drives,you can get one for your emu sampler,and one for your pc for less than 300 cdn. And that would allow you to transfer samples relatively easily.The have zips that can hold up to a gig now,but i just use the 100mb ones and thay work great.I dont know what your experience is with scsi,but you normally can't access a scsi drive from more devices than one,so it might mess up your plans..........peace
 
That's great.......but the thing is..... would I be able to go in and out with the Delta 44 ins and outs and just do that for now?
 
Do you already have the delta 44?Because the delta 66 has the digital ins and outs,which is a good clean way to bounce the tracks.Either one of those souncards sounds really good though.I used to do it that way before i got the zips.Ya youy would be able to do it that way,it just might make things a little weird with your parameter settings in the emu(having to do everything twice)
 
Yeah......that's true.....crap man....you're really helpful.... do you have an ICQ account or something....it's easier to chat there than on forums man
 
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