Absolutely… and the workflow to doing it is killer… pick your kit layout type, play a pattern, get it to auto load all the slots… keep hitting a button to randomise all parts of the kit, then lock what you like the sound of, randomise again, lock, randomise… you can make kits so fast with it.
1 Like
Ah, mate, that sounds absolutely perfect! Looks like it might be worth me giving their free trial a go.
I think you want to look at it from another angle, is that really a syndrome or perhaps the concern should be the paralysis of choice and diminishing returns.
When you have a massive library Waves Cosmos becomes like a customized random sample generator which can use tags to narrow your search, pretty fun, more fun than folder digging
1 Like
I’m suffering from Sampler Aquisition Syndrome. Two years ago all I had is an old Yamaha A5000 that never gets used. Now I have a MPC Live, MPC Live ii, Force, Octatrack, Digitakt, Model Samples, BitBox MKii, Black Box, etc…
So now it is evolving to Sample Aquisition Syndrom. Last week I took advantage of the Native Instruments 9 Maschine expansion packs for $99 sale, twice. Bought about everything that was on sale at Akai, and keep checking Elektron.de to see if packs go on sale. I guess in truth I have SOSAS. Samples On Sale Aquisition Syndrom.
3 Likes
I’ve definitely found myself hoarding samples in the past, which lead to a real paralysis of choice every time I opened up my DAW. Working with dedicated hardware samplers seems to have gotten me out of that rut though. I have one of the auxiliary outputs on my interface plugged into the audio in of the Digitakt, that way whenever I’m listening to music and hear an interesting loop or one-shot I want to capture I can sample it really quickly and get on with my day.
I keep a loose file structure on my sampler (Kick/Snare/Hat/Perc/One-Shot/Loop/Vox), and after about a week or so of this process I had a svelt, one-of-a-kind library of samples I knew I liked, as opposed to gigabytes of stuff I’d probably never think to use.
I also have found it useful to stop worrying about drum samples and just stick to the classics. processing a 606/808/909 will usually get me 95% of what I’m looking for in a fraction of the time that it would take to find the “right” sample from my sample library – and if I’m really looking for something more esoteric I’ll just synthesize it.
1 Like
What I really want/need is sound effects and interesting one shots. Synth sounds that I would not think of myself.
I tend to only use mid-1980s to mid-1990s digital drum machine samples (or similar things like the Monomachine BBOX or PO-12) for a lot of reasons. This solves lots of problems for me.
I have a folder with 1000 subfolders, and many many samples.
sometimes I just want to find a good ‘woodblock’ and searching for it could take long without knowing sure that i have the best one.
which of the software programs you use would be best for this? atlas or xo?
…i got a certain amount of basic needs when it comes to samples…
apart from the fact that realtime synthesized drum and percussions sounds are way more versatile in many cases, u surely need some decent must haves…
the naked 808/909 kiks, in various decay and tuning variations…
same goes for snares and toms and hats…
u’ll need some jazzy accoustic kits…
and some rock accoustic kits…
ALL the rest of sonic variations and audible details is way better done along the way by all kinds fx processing…u need the truu frozen, baked in, naked basic fingerprints of ALL usual suspects…but ALL the rest ends really better, once it’s up to U and only U during ur creative process…anything else leads to timeconsuming/wasting scrolling through endless lists and drowning in options and ending up tempted to cheat and shortcut… instead of creating/writing/rpoducing…
and the same goes for any other overall sound category…
what u need are the naked signals…shaping and placing and playing all them is what U DO…
any daw, or a ot are living proof that u can end up anwhere with anything if u only give it a try…
ur sonic consistancy can only profit from ur work u put into it…
so yes…spent a few days to clean out ur sample closet… 
and never look back…it’s all in there, in a small and decent collection of sounds u can use and abuse again and again to achieve UR personal overall sonic fingerprint…
it’s such a relief if u dare to let go…
and ur sonic results will profit from it big time…
2 Likes
Not only this, but if you get good at sculpting samples on something like an Octatrack (or even a Model:Samples), even the crusty old things I mentioned become putty in your hands. The line between sample and synth can be very blurry.
1 Like
I have way too much stuff. Full rawcutz, all samples from mars, NI komplete, bunch of maschine expansions, 100s of drumbreaks.
A lot of awesome stuff though 
2 Likes
The Samples from Mars and Puremagnetik stuff is so easy to justify because I don’t have anything that can produce those sounds and sometimes a single tone from one of those packs can lead to an entire track
4 Likes
Prepping for No Sample New Year 2023…
7 Likes
At the moment I’d use XO for that, because you can search by name.
Apparently that’s coming to Atlas soon though too.
I gravitate more towards XO because I like it’s sequencer… with it being 8 tracks it reminds me of working on the Digitakt and Analog Rytm, and it’s simple enough to export the rendered samples and loops.
If I was kit building for Ableton or my MPC, I’d got to Atlas.
They both have their place.
Also, Atlas’ sequencer is good too, and it’ll work polyrhythmically too, which XO won’t.
1 Like
Joking aside, you’re not far off with this… I came at this sample organisation task from a ‘make use of what you’ve got’ mindset taken from NGNY. 
3 Likes
Absolutely - I think it’s no different at all! There are almost limitless opportunities to obsess over and acquire samples, just like gear 
1 Like
In lieu of buying gear, I seem to have become obsessed with organising everything music-related - samples definitely being part of that
2 Likes
I have tons of samples and packs I’ve collected over the years. The thing I’m seeing is that the quality of the samples improve over time. So I just archive older packs on an external hard drive and focus on the most recent packs I’ve got.
To deal with constantly buying packs, I have a Splice account. But I don’t buy one-off samples. I save up over the course of a few months and buy whole packs. So I get higher quality packs less often.
1 Like
Is it about the qualities of a sequencer if you’re building drum kits?
I use XO mainly for creating drum kits and working that way is really quick! …the sequences are just convenient to test the kit out without much creativity involved (I just try that kit with the preset patterns).
Then exporting and using a drum rack in Ableton or transfer it to one of my Elektron samplers.