Any pedals that give you that old school, crunchy sampler flavour?
Sonicware lofi 12 
is all i need
Ensoniq EPS-16+
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Another cool one: Roland JS-30 8-Bit Sampler with 8 polyphony (able to play chords and stuff)
Sonicware Lofi12 is nice, very reminiscent of old samplers but with some nice modern features and a good sequencer. Operation is a bit esoteric but not too bad and it has polyphonic and glide playback, fx are quite good too.
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16-bit, no? Hence the name, I guess. The EPS classic was 13-bit though.
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Thanks. I’m just looking for something to crunch up and maybe add some FX to samples that I then feed in to the DT or EP-133 for sequencing. Is the this the right thing for that?
Yes, of course you´re right but the lower samplerates really do sound nice.
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The Meris Ottobit Jr can do both bit rate reduction and sample rate reduction. It usually sounds cleaner and strangely still very “hi-fi” even after the reduction, but I’ve found some sweet spots using both the SRR and BRR knobs that can approximate the old Akai/E-Mu sound. The low-pass filter is pretty sweet too, but there isn’t resonance control, only cutoff frequency.
There are more steps involved, but it’s possible to get closer to the real thing by recording with the source material pitched up and then pitching down for playback.
Maybe there are other pedals that get closer to the sound of the actual samplers, but I dig the results with the Ottobit
Yeah, Chiastic Slide by Autechre is a pretty great showcase for the EPS 16+ and what you can get out of it.
I’ve debated getting an old Ensoniq so many times but the reliability aspect puts me off and they’re now mostly not cheap enough to want to take the chance either…
The only gripe with the lofi is the transfer process, it uses sysex
Doesn’t DT already have sample rate reduction since the last update?
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My sp202 (while technically 16 bit) has a totally different sonic quality than what is produced by modern sampler or pedal bit reduction / sample rate reduction. I can only think the effect is the sum of it’s parts, as opposed to the simple act of reducing the rate.
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202 is legit. The only cheap sampler I’ve heard that adds legit grime to a sample is the original KO. That’s a great sampler if you want to dirty up your sounds first.
Also don’t forget to pitch the sounds down in that sampler. That adds a lot of magic. Good way to test out the quality too. I use an akais900. It’s incredible for processing samples before hitting the daw…etc.
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There’s only a certain range which the pitch knob covers (speaking of the sp202) but it’s so smooth and organic, that’s part of what I mean when I say “the sum of it’s parts” in that you can’t necessarily judge on bit or sample rate alone.
That said, the s900 is incredible for that raspy dusty sound and having watched some workflow videos, you have to be both diligent and really dedicated to get what you want from it, because it’s a lot of work processing sounds with it.
But in addition to it’s history with jungle and other electronic genres, even people like dj premier and other hip hop producers were curating samples in s900 and s950’s before putting them on mpc or other sequencing pad samplers.
If there’s a pedal that does all that, point me in that direction and I’ll take the shortcut with you.
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Yeah I haven’t found one yet. I have it to a science with the 900. I know the frequencies I want kicks and hats at and where to drive the input. So then once it’s in I auto trim the start and put a little filter on it. I can do it all in 1 min or less per sound. Then I just play the keyword and enjoy the pitched down sounds. I usually grab like 5 or so in one take. Then in the daw I can just bracket the pitch I want.
For stabs it is also great. They hit hard in mono. And the pitch down is magical.
I did a similar thing with the 202.
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I downsample things all the time on the MPC 1000 and it sounds great. I see 1000’s for sale between $250-$500 all the time.
Plus you can find any part you need to repair or customize them from the mpcstuff website.
So you’d say the KO is worth it just for that?