Finally, thank you.
Always wanted to try it, but always online was putting me off, until now
Gear4Music have this at ~50% off, I might have to try it out. Sounds pretty intriguing!
I actually emailed XLN to complain about that cloud sync thing when it first came out. Nice original concept for a plugin, but annoying to have to use their cloud thingy. If I can just drag+drop straight from my sample library straight in there, it might be a good one for bringing old drum sample packs back to life.
Perhaps time for a second look at the demo, especially if it’s on sale!
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Yeah I passed on it last time but with offline mode it’s back on the table. Initially they didn’t do a big sale since it was new, but it was getting more reasonable last BF. Might be one for XLN’s sales later in the year.
It seemed that the main premise of Life was using your phone as the (field) recorder, and this is why the cloud approach made sense; but then they got the real world push back.
I still think the cloud intention was/is good when using the phone app to catch source material…
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It’s actually quite inspiring for me and motivates me to capture things in the real world that I otherwise would sleep on. It helps me skip the part of the process where you have to remember to bring material in.
As long asI can just remember to capture in the field, I’m surprised to learn later that I got a really cool sound from a museum or a walk down the street that I’d forgotten all about. It’s a really fun way for me to work.
I always struggle with the administrative side of sampling and field recording. This helps me get rid of this step of the process that I suck at.
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Does ‘Life’ run standalone ? I have no interest in DAWs but I might be interested in Life as a generator for starting points on Digitakt. Particularly if the slices/chops it makes can be exported.
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Yes
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Just had a chance to update and do a quick 15 minute test before leaving for work this morning. I’m impressed!
I fed it some tonal stuff…synth chord progressions. The stuff it was spitting out was much more interesting and ‘musical’ than before IMO
Just had time for a quick play but so far, two thumbs up from me for whatever the new and improved algorithm is doing!
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Rando by Monkey C Audio + Life is my laptop based Octatrack. Toss in a good multi-fx plugin like Serato Hex FX and you can get lost for days.
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…met the developers last year at superbooth…and we had a great time…great dudes…and i can assure u all, the only reason why oo why it had this cloud connection in first place, was the great give away addition of it’s for free phone app field recorder thingie…all the rest of the backlash, i was also part of, was only because of the particular wording in the license agreement, which was a bit unlucky first attempt of their laywers in their very first draft…
no one at xln was after our samples ever…
…and NOW…with this first real update…come on…it’s just WOW…
nothing left to complain about…aaaaall quite the opposite…
LIFE and it’s hand in hand mobile catch on the fly app is nothing but a modern masterpeice of a sonic tool…
THE all in one audio slicer/mangler/reshaper/remixer/reshuffler/regroover/discover and polish ur hidden pearls/get ur sonic juices boiling - piece of code…
and i didn’t even mention the new onboard offline master recorder, that makes ur daw remember even the lost 'n forgotten things …
…while, well, bitwig does that now, too…
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Interesting, what’s your preferred workflow for using Rando with Life? I don’t have Rando yet but I am curious about it’s usefulness. Are you just like, finding random groups of samples with Rando, and then recording them into Life and let it go nuts?
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I set Rando to filter for loops, turn hold mode on and then start combining them until I find something that I like. The pitch and time stretching are top notch. After that, I drag the individual samples that I want to slice into Life. Mangle the patterns and create variations and then export them as audio clips or as midi clips and one shots which get dropped into a drum rack in Ableton.
Rinse and repeat.
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I think it’s an impressive plugin but what I want is for it to work on the phone app as well, not just use the phone for recording, but record snippets on the phone and process them on the phone as well as the desktop plugin…
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are there any links to clips of rando doing this, I haven’t been able to find any?
This vid shows the basics:
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gonna check this out thanks
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ok I see what you mean, that’s interesting. I’ve had a difficult time since rando was released seeing how I would use it, if I had it I’d probably go the route you’re going with it… its nice to see how receptive the developer is
Scaler 2 and 3 Standalone are great with Life. Make quick progressions in any vibe, expression, genre, sounds and have Life get choppy wit em. 
Export the chops to DT2 or Logic Beat breaker and get extra funky wit em.
This has triggered a lot of interest in Rando for me. I have lots of questions. I wonder if a dedicated Rando (or Monkey C audio) thread is warranted ? (I can’t find one.)