Powerhouse Samplers

Jun 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Geary Yelton

Native Instruments Kontakt 2.2 (Mac/Win)

Since its introduction in 2002, Kontakt has been Native Instruments' premier sampler. It is a semimodular instrument that runs standalone and as an AU, DirectX, RTAS, or VST instrument plug-in. In 2005, Kontakt 2 ($449) added some significant features, such as a new file format, convolution effects, 16-channel surround, and MIDI script processing. Kontakt is 64-part multitimbral and supports 32-bit sampling rates up to 192 kHz. It translates a dizzying variety of file formats, and its assortment of surround-enabled effects is quite impressive. Like other software from Native Instruments, Kontakt uses an automated online challenge-and-response copy-protection system.

Kontakt incorporates six methods of audio playback. The traditional Sampler mode loads data into RAM and changes duration when it shifts pitch. DFD mode is identical except that it streams data direct from disk and therefore cannot play samples in reverse. Tone Machine employs granular resynthesis to change pitch without affecting duration. Time Machine uses granular synthesis to shift pitch and stretch time. Time Machine II performs the same functions but is optimized for higher-quality transposition and time-stretching. Finally, Beat Machine specializes in creating and rearranging beat-sliced sampled instruments in the Loop Editor.

Kontakt appears onscreen as a rack of gear in a resizable window (see Fig. 7). It can fill your computer display or shrink to the size of a piano key. You can choose to show or hide its various editors, browser, keyboard, mixer, modulators, effects, and other portions of its GUI. On the left is the browser, which lets you view not only the contents of your sample library, but also every audio file on all your disks. The browser's database functions keep track of sample locations, and you can easily load programs or Multis into the main rack on the right. It can also load entire banks of programs and quickly switch between them in response to MIDI Program Changes. In addition, the browser displays effects and modulators you can drag-and-drop into the rack.

Kontakt's front panel doesn't display synthesis parameters like EGs, LFOs, and filters in the usual manner. Instead, it supplies modulators you can add as needed. Modulation sources range from six LFO types and three EG types to a step modulator that lets you draw custom controller curves. Envelopes are AHDSR, DBD (two sections with a center breakpoint, suitable for modulating pitch), and Flexible, which allows you to create repeatable 32-stage controller curves.

Filters are categorized as effects, and you can choose from 13 types, from 1-pole lowpass to a CPU-intensive multimode filter that combines 3 stereo 2-pole filters in diverse configurations. Other effects include saturation, chorus, reverb, stereo simulation, modeled tube and transistor distortion, and a rather flexible convolution processor.

Kontakt's Loop Editor allows you to graphically define as many as eight loops for each sample. Likewise, the Mapping Editor lets you assign samples to notes and Velocity ranges, and it offers a choice of techniques for creating and editing zones. You can leave either Editor window in the rack or detach it as a separate window. Working with both windows open is especially convenient, because selecting a zone in the Mapping Editor displays it in the Loop Editor.

One feature that expands Kontakt's programmability is the Kontakt Script Processor (KSP). Kontakt furnishes a collection of ready-to-use MIDI-processing routines and allows you to create your own. The Script Editor lets you access scripted control panels and, unless they're password protected, edit existing scripts. The Kontakt 2 Script Library offers functions such as MIDI echo, automatic harmonization, arpeggiation, harp glissandos, and much more.

Kontakt claims compatibility not only with software formats such as EXS, Giga, HALion, MachFive, NN-XT, REX, SampleCell, and Bitheadz Unity, but also with sound libraries for hardware samplers, including most Akai, E-mu, Kurzweil, and Roland samplers and even Ensoniq EPS and ASR-10. It comes standard with a well-rounded 15 GB sample library that covers a lot of territory. In addition to the usual guitar, bass, and drums, the Kontakt 2 Library furnishes surround-specific synths and organs, beat-sliced loops, and KSP-scripted instruments that possess unique capabilities. Half the sampled content comprises strings, brass, woodwinds, and percussion from Vienna Symphonic Library.

Propellerhead Reason NN-XT 3.0 (Mac/Win)

Just as EXS24 mkII is an integral part of Logic Pro, NN-XT is one of many instruments supplied by Propellerhead Reason ($499). Most Reason users don't look beyond NN-XT's functionality as a sophisticated sample player, but it's a very capable sampler that can load WAV and AIFF files and organize them into multisampled patches in its own SXT format. Another sampler in Reason is NN19, and rather than cover them both, I've chosen to write about the more powerful of the two. NN-XT can open patches in NN19's SMP format as well as REX files, which are native to yet another Reason instrument, Dr:Rex. It can also open presets and individual samples in SoundFont format.

When you open NN-XT, you see only the main panel containing three controller wheels, a few global controls, and an area for selecting patches. Alongside the pitch and mod wheels, a third wheel sends and responds to your choice of Aftertouch, Expression, and Breath Controller messages. The global controls furnish knobs for filter frequency and resonance, modulation decay, and amplitude attack, decay, and release.

Opening NN-XT's Remote Editor reveals all its additional parameters in a single panel, most of which is dominated by the Key Map display (see Fig. 8). In the display, a list of samples appears on the left with a graphic representation of their assigned zones on the right. Clicking on either a sample or a zone selects it and displays the sample's bit depth, sampling rate, and file size. You can also select a zone by playing a MIDI note, if you enable that function. If you Shift-click to select noncontiguous zones, any changes you make will be applied to all the selected zones.

A row of knobs below the display accesses 15 parameters for each zone, with values displayed just above the knobs. Right-clicking on a zone reveals a contextual menu for editing and sorting zones, creating Velocity crossfades, and performing other functions. An Alternate function determines the degree of randomness for selecting between two zones during playback.

NN-XT's multimode filter has three lowpass slopes and highpass, bandpass, and notch responses. One AHDSR generator controls amplitude, and another is available for modulating filter frequency and pitch. The Modulation section provides routings to control filter cutoff and resonance, LFO amount and rate, and modulation envelope depth and decay. One multiple-waveform LFO can modulate pitch, filter, and amplitude, and a simpler LFO modulates vibrato and pan position. On NN-XT's rear panel are inputs that allow you to modulate various parameters with other Reason instruments and devices such as Matrix and Redrum.

Most Reason data is in the form of ReFills, a compressed storage format containing patches, samples, REX files, SoundFonts, and demo songs. Reason 3.0 comes standard with two ReFills, Orkester and Factory Sound Bank, totaling about 1.25 GB. Exactly how much of that comprises NN-XT patches and samples is hard to determine, but it's enough to keep you busy with NN-XT for quite a while. You can purchase additional ReFills from Propellerhead and third-party soundware developers. Reason requires a serial number to run and occasionally requests that you insert your original installation discs as a copy-protection measure.

Steinberg HALion 3.22 (Mac/Win)

HALion ($399.99) has been around since late 2001, and many sample libraries are available in its native format. The current version is 256-voice polyphonic and 16-part multitimbral, and it runs standalone, as a ReWire slave, or as an instrument plug-in for AU, DirectX, or VST hosts. It can import a variety of file formats and supports 5.1 surround and sampling rates as high as 384 kHz.

Other than GigaStudio, HALion was only the second sampler that could play samples direct from disk; now you can even specify how much disk streaming occurs, with settings from Very Very Low to High. It was also the first to let you recover RAM from a multisampled instrument using a function called RAMSave. After you've loaded an instrument and used it in a sequence, RAMSave actually keeps track of which samples the sequence triggers and deletes any that aren't needed.

HALion's GUI lets you switch between seven main pages: Global, Keyzone, Loop, Sound, Browser, Options, and Macro (see Fig. 9). In any page other than Macro, the circular Pitch/Modulation Controller dominates the lower-right corner. You'll probably spend most of your time in Macro, however, which affords access to the controls you'll use most frequently. You can select programs, play an onscreen keyboard, and adjust parameters affecting the filter, amplifier, LFOs, envelopes, tuning, glide, and so on. In the Macro page's center, you can choose from five views: Quick Controls, for hands-on access to any eight user-specified parameters; Global, for selecting from 16 programs; Keyzone, for an overview of zone assignments; and Program and Send Effects, for assigning insert and global processors.

Also in the Macro page is HALion's resonant multimode filter, which has a dedicated ADSR and a choice of ten filter types, six of which model filters in classic Waldorf synthesizers. Another ADSR modulates the amplifier, and you have fine control over the tuning of each multisampled instrument. Two LFOs offer ten waveform types. You'll find more comprehensive control in the Sound page, which lets you graphically position and add envelope curve points, define a stepped modulation envelope, add saturation using the filter's Fatness knob, and so on.

In the Global page, you can load and select 16 programs and change their volume, panning, audio output, transposition, key and Velocity range, and Velocity curve, as well as route insert and global effects. The Keyzone page gives you complete graphical control of sample mapping, layering, and Velocity scaling. The Loop page furnishes a detailed waveform display in which you can define start and end points for a sustain loop and a release loop. Although the Loop page is specifically for editing individual samples, you can apply most editing operations in all pages either to selected samples or to all samples in a program.

The Options page contains global settings that affect file loading, memory usage, resampling quality, audio outputs, and MIDI controllers. In the Browser page, you can locate HALion content, organize directories, assign program categories, audition samples, copy contents from removable media, and import samples and programs from other file formats. HALion imports Akai, E-mu, EXS, Giga, Kontakt (version 1), Kurzweil, Roland, and SoundFont 2.0 samples, as well as groove files from Zero-X.

HALion 3 is bundled with 2.5 GB of original content and more than 1.5 GB of soundware demos from developers such as e-Lab and Scarbee. In addition to a nice collection of orchestral instruments, you'll find an ample number of drum kits, synths, pianos, guitars, chromatic percussion instruments, and more. HALion's copy protection is by means of a Syncrosoft-compatible USB dongle.

Tascam GigaStudio Orchestra 3.21 (Win)

Introduced in 2000, GigaStudio has been around longer than any other program surveyed here; its predecessor, GigaSampler, was first unveiled in 1998. Both programs were the first (and for years, the only) software instruments that could stream samples direct from disk in real time. They pioneered the concept of keyswitching, a practice that has become standard for instantly selecting different articulations of sampled instruments. Unlike most of the instruments surveyed here, GigaStudio is a true sampler in that it can record instruments directly, and its editing capabilities are quite deep. Thanks to GigaStudio's long-standing stature among audio professionals, a large selection of sample libraries in Giga format is available from third-party soundware developers.

The current version, GigaStudio Orchestra 3 ($599), has theoretically unlimited polyphony (limited only by hard-drive and processor speed) and 128-MIDI-channel reception. It can host VST effects plug-ins (in addition to its own NFX format) and can operate as a ReWire client. It plays and records 24-bit audio at rates up to 96 kHz, and it can record as many as 64 live audio inputs simultaneously. You can link GigaStudio to other programs on your computer — a sequencer, an audio waveform editor, and GigaStudio Instrument Editor — and open them with Quick Launch buttons in GigaStudio's toolbar. Also in the toolbar is the Audio Capture tool used for recording samples.

GigaStudio's GUI is divided into panes you can view, resize, or hide at will (see Fig. 10). The QuickSound Loader pane serves as a browser for locating, auditioning, and loading instruments, performances, samples, and impulse responses. The MIDI Mixer pane provides 16 slots, one for each MIDI channel. Port tabs at the bottom of MIDI Mixer let you select MIDI ports for 8 groups of 16 MIDI channels. You can assign multiple instruments to the same MIDI channel by clicking on the Stack Instruments On Active MIDI Channel button in QuickSound Loader.

Whereas GigaStudio Instrument Editor is a separate application for creating instruments and saving changes permanently, QuickEdit is for editing instruments nondestructively and saving them as part of an instrument or performance file. A button on each slot in MIDI Mixer opens the QuickEdit window, which comprises four sections: Keyboard, Articulation, Wave, and Dimensions. Pressing a note on the Keyboard selects the sample assigned to that note and highlights its key zone. The Articulation section lets you shape the selected sample by accessing GigaStudio's multimode filter (with a curve display), three EGs (a 2-stage and two 6-stage), and sine-wave LFO. The Wave section displays the selected sample's waveform and superimposes modulation curves such as EGs or LFOs, which you can modify graphically. Dimensions displays real-time control sources such as Velocity splits, sustain pedal, keyswitches, and so on.

When you open the DSP Station pane, it replaces MIDI Mixer and more closely resembles a real mixing console. It provides the means to mix, route, and process audio. Clicking at the top of a channel opens a Wide Channel view, in which you can assign insert effects and aux buses, set up dynamics and EQ, and control the stereo image.

Another feature I should mention is Intelligent MIDI (iMIDI). It applies performance algorithms that enhance realism by automatically alternating sounds during repetitive passages, allowing you to play more authentic legato lines and so on. You can assign iMIDI routines to instruments using the iMIDI Rules Manager, which allows you to add, initialize, and edit rules that control supplementary functions.

GigaPulse is Tascam's integrated convolution reverb processor. It uses impulse responses to model acoustic spaces, microphones, and instrument resonances. Operating as an NFX plug-in, it allows you to position mics within virtual space on a Placement Selection Grid. GigaPulse includes a large number of impulse responses, and the Pro version allows you to import your own. GigaStudio comes with four additional NFX plug-ins: reverb, chorus/flanger, tap delay/auto pan, and EQ.

GigaStudio comes with the GigaPulse Pro convolution reverb and a 17 GB sample library that includes orchestral samples from Vienna Symphonic Library and GigaPulse impulses from Notre Dame de Budapest. Giga Virtual Instrument (GVI) has effectively replaced two previous versions, GigaStudio Ensemble and Solo. On the horizon, Tascam plans to ship a major upgrade later this year; GigaStudio 4 will support Windows Vista 32, Vista 64, and XP64.