Advice please re Groovebox/Sampler/Sequencer.

hollywoodrox

I always lust after those Yamaha QY 10 / 20 etc  from the 90s , they fit in a case the size of a vhs cassette ,are satisfyingly retro & there are videos on YouTube on how to use one or the other 

https://youtu.be/d5i66uPOe8g

jimkehoe

hollywoodrox said:

I always lust after those Yamaha QY 10 / 20 etc  from the 90s , they fit in a case the size of a vhs cassette ,are satisfyingly retro & there are videos on YouTube on how to use one or the other 

https://youtu.be/d5i66uPOe8g

Bit too retro for me.

andy_k

jimkehoe said:

andy_k said:

I'm recently getting a lot of my stuff consolidated / upgraded to a new ( to me ) laptop based studio, I am no pro, but have been tinkering for a fair few years.
IMO, we don't really need hardware these days - nice if we have the space, but not required to make music.
I know that is a bold statement, but hear me out.
I'm using Reaper, having tried PT, Logic and a few others, Reaper just seems to fit all the brief for me, there is nothing that can't be done with it.
I use a plugin called Unify, by Pluginguru, which has been developed over the last 3 years? maybe, it hosts any VST based plugin on your system, along with it's own built in sampler / midi sequencer / synth / FX, and it allows any mix to be saved as pre sets, including embedded instances of itself.
Quite hard to explain how fully featuered it is, but basically it is a single plugin that can play an entire composition via a single keyboard by having mapped areas and latched keys - pretty amazing really.
It actually allows embedded VSTs to perform better than if they were directly inserted on a track, something to do with multi thread performance.
So with Reaper, and Unify I have an entire studio within 2 pieces of software, and I use this to build up a track and the idea is that I can then do guitar recording as an overdub, I usually record an effected sound-either an amp recording or a pedal chain, along with a DI, and I have the Slate subscription which includes Overloud amp sims, I don't really exploit the subscription as much as I should because it relies on Ilok, but I do tend to build up tracks from audio stems, so once they are bounced I can use Fabfilter stuff for eq  and compression on any machine.
Last couple of weeks have been a bit of an eye opener really, how little stuff I use, but how powerful it all is, I'm getting great results with an i5 laptop and a Korg nanokontrol, and am just upgrading that to a nanostudio for the extra knobs and faders ( all very useful in both Reaper and Unify )
A good set of headphones, or a simple Focusrite IO is all that I need on top of all that, plus a few free vsts like Spitfire LABS and BBCSO, and there's not much I can't do ( I am no pro though )
But mixing audio to a professional standard, and making new ideas is a breeze.

Thanks Andy - Sounds great - I'll do some research.
I was just coming round to the conclusion that an Akai Force may be the ticket - But maybe not

I just received a notification for the saturday night Unify livestream, ( he does one every saturday ) I think it is around 8pm our time, he is going to be demoing new features coming soon in v1.9, and showing off some stuff for a new library of pre-sets.
Well worth a look to see what Unify is capable of, it is a very deep piece of software.
The software itself costs around $79, and libraries are coming in at around $30-$40, but there are free Unified libraries available for many of the free software synths, the paid for Unify libraries are worth the money for the drum samples and pre-sets alone.

monquixote

Totally agree that hardware is completely unnecessary these days, but it's really fun and creative to play with.

The copy of Bitwig I have is basically an infinitely configurable studio and synth you could use just that and make pretty much anything.

personalnadir

Have a look at Koala Sampler. Runs on iOS or Android. 

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/koala-sampler/id1449584007

This won’t be to most peoples taste, but here a track I did just laying on the couch using Koala and sampling myself.
https://on.soundcloud.com/a7uMxzBXFC2pz2y26

(Probably ran it through some plugins after the fact)

I when I want better audio quality I connect an iPad to my interface and use that. Again, not the world’s greatest track, but this is all from a Gameboy sampled via the Interface 
https://on.soundcloud.com/aNPp37WQnhaCDUpc6

Apparently Koala sampler is inspired by the Boss Dr Sample SP‑303, so if you like the workflow and want to go down the hardware route that might be a place to start, likewise if you’ll know what to avoid if you don’t.

jimkehoe

personalnadir said:

Have a look at Koala Sampler. Runs on iOS or Android. 

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/koala-sampler/id1449584007

This won’t be to most peoples taste, but here a track I did just laying on the couch using Koala and sampling myself.
https://on.soundcloud.com/a7uMxzBXFC2pz2y26

(Probably ran it through some plugins after the fact)

I when I want better audio quality I connect an iPad to my interface and use that. Again, not the world’s greatest track, but this is all from a Gameboy sampled via the Interface 
https://on.soundcloud.com/aNPp37WQnhaCDUpc6

Apparently Koala sampler is inspired by the Boss Dr Sample SP‑303, so if you like the workflow and want to go down the hardware route that might be a place to start, likewise if you’ll know what to avoid if you don’t.

Great advice- Thanks.