Any portable (battery or USB-powered) samplers for keyboard players? I was looking at the SP-404 MkII but found out it only does “chromatic mode” on channel 16. So you just get one musical track, everything else is percussion. I want something that only does sampling, not a groovebox that’s going to bury the sampling aspect as an afterthought.
I already have an OXI One so I don’t need sequencing or any of that. I want to sample some of my bigger instruments like my Novation Summit and Behringer RD-9 and have them on the go.
Also what about an ios app? What’s the most feature-filled deep sampling app for keyboard players on ios? I have an iPad pro. (I have UVI Falcon on my desktop which is great).
I realize my user name is beat chef (I did it as a joke but now I regret it). I’m really more of an instrumentalist and like to program electronic percussion and do step sequencing for accompaniment. It’s a bit of a challenge to find gear for people that can actually play an instrument but also like to produce. Everything seems to be pretty much with the producer and beat maker in mind first.
Try looking at the wofi sampler or the mpc keys. Korg used to make a micro sampler with keys too, you could find it used. Sonicware liven lofi 12 is setup with a three octave button keyboard… there might be others I can’t think of too.
Jim Audio’s upcoming Groove Rider 2’s sampling abilities look to be pretty cool, you can make all 16 tracks sampler tracks, full slicing, chromatic playback of slices, sample warping, upto 5mins in length, resampling directly back into it, sounds pretty comprehensive.
For this I wouldn’t buy a separate sampler, but an iOS app (if you already own an iPad).
Personally I tend to find some hardware alternatives, especially the ones with touchscreen UIs, to offer more of the same value / experience.
From me also a big yes to Koala Sampler, even though it’s more of a sampling groove box app. For keyboard players I would also suggest to have a look at Bleass SampleWiz 2.
Found this video on how to load Multisamples on the Blackbox. Making an instrument looks straightforward. It automatically builds it based on the root notes in the wav files.
Looked into Wofi Sampler (hardware unit) and Bleass SampleWiz 2 (ios) and they both look like a lot of fun but are lacking multisampling. Seems to me if they could add all those bells and whistles, they could add multisampling. Not bad but so far Blackbox has them beat in that area.
Nanobox Tangerine appears to be exactly what I’m looking for, which is just a multisampler and nothing else. Loads from SD card. At 400, it fits my budget.
My understanding for the Roland SP404 Mk2 is that to play chromatic mode with an external keyboard you have to be on channel 16.
For everything else, you’d have to sample each note. In MIDI mode A, there’s 1+ octaves per bank/MIDI channel. In MIDI mode B, you have several octaves per channel but only get MIDI channel 1 and 2.
It’s possible to use as an instrument and build tracks and sequences externally, but not practical.
From Roland’s Web Site:
MIDI MODE A
In this mode, there are 10 MIDI channels - one for each bank of samples in the SP-404MK2. Bank A is controlled by MIDI channel 1, bank B is MIDI channel 2 and it continues like this until you reach bank J which is controlled midi channel 10. The notes within each channel are as follows:
Note
C2
C#2
D2
D#2
E2
F2
F#2
G2
G#2
A2
A#2
B2
C3
C#3
D3
D#3
PAD #
13
14
15
16
9
10
11
12
5
6
7
8
1
2
3
4
MIDI MODE B
This mode uses two MIDI channels: 1 and 2, each encompassing 5 banks in the SP-404MK2. MIDI channel one controls banks A though E and MIDI channel 2 controls banks F through J. The notes for MIDI channel 1 are as below, you can apply the same logic to MIDI channel two for banks F through J. NOTE you can offset these notes in the MIDI settings in the utility menu, if you’d like it to start and end on different notes.
Teenage Engineering KO2 takes batteries and I’ve been mostly just playing samples polyphonically and having a great time. Sampling is quick but storage is limited.
