But having the option to Slice is a wonderful thing. 
Sometimes i crop to a particular Slice just to play that note or portion in a piece. Not having to worry about it is what i enjoy.
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I don’t mind people who want slicing. I’m just tired of people pretending they got scammed because they bought a sampler that doesn’t do it.
Of all the conversations I have seen on the music-making internet, the only people who got angrier than slicing-advocates are bedroom producers who are personnally offended to see anyone interested in using hardware.
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Slices can be used creatively with the Slice Grid and that makes sense on Samples, that have a lot of Movement inside. Chopping it up and randomly (or evenly) triggering the bits and pieces of it can create very interesting Sounds that can be extremely useful.
However - i agree with the OP in terms of precise Slice Editing. For Drum Loops its way too tedious unless where is an automatic Slice Creation Process, that aligns them perfectly to the Zero Crossings and is more or less error free. That way you just throw the Drum Loop in and its automatically sliced up. And if you wish, you could edit it. But you must not edit these Start and End Points if you dont want to. That would be necessary to be useful on Drum Loops and other rhythmic Material.
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With the Tonverk’s subtracks, it seems ideal for some sort of chop function to automatically map the samples to the 8 keys and maybe allow the octave buttons to select different banks for more chops. In conjunction with the arpeggiator, I see this fitting into the Tonverk’s “philosophy.”
I agree with you though—all this talk about Tonverk’s “philosophy” is dumb when anyone can make claims as to what this “philosophy” is. I think the Tonverk will eventually get slicing because it makes no sense to deprive it of this function. People who have issues with this function can just choose not to use it.
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For me the reasons are:
- I like the styles of music that typically involve in depth sampling and chopping (breakbeats and “flipping” samples, essentially)
- For me, as a busy person trying to juggle life, music as a hobby, etc., every time I have to connect an extra thing together to make music is like an exponential decrease in productivity. Yes I can connect two machines together if one supports slicing and one does not, but if I need to do this before I can be creative it’s a drag on the process. Even though it’s entirely possible and even trivial! Being able to do everything on one box is a big boost for me.
- Same with computer usage. It’s awesome and even more trivial to prepare chops and chains on a computer, but the extra friction is a big deal (for me).
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As with the OPxy and Digitakt2 and slicing this too shall come to pass.
Glad i got the [III] when i did. I am not looking back nor am i waiting for anything else in a single box.
Whatever updates happen on the [III] will just be gravy and bonus imho.
This is finally my anything box.
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Am I stupid, what is the [III] ??
Judging by @echo_opera’s latest responses on this forum, looks like it means MPC Live III
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This 
Thats exactly what drove me to work ItB and was the Reason why i chose the Elektron Boxes in the first place - because they allow you to do exactly that! Loads of gear is slowing down the creative Process. The less i have, the more creative i can become.
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How the machine is meant to be used to make music. If everything needs to be utilised as an all-in-one machine to make music the same way as you can on another all-in-one machine; then what would be the point of most of them; and; if everything encourages you to make music the same way, how do we get new and interesting music?
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Nothing against Tonverk, I’m genuinely interested in it and will most likely buy one soon.
Slicing has been a foundational part of sampling for decades, but the Truth is Tonverk doesn’t have slicing because otherwise Digitakt and Octatrack would lose part of their appeal.
There’s no higher creative purpose behind that choice.
Having a basic feature in an instrument doesn’t push you to make the same music over and over.
New ways of making music — beyond how artists use the tools themselves — come from implementing those foundational features in fresh ways, from different angles, and in relation to the rest of the machine’s functions, or by rethinking them altogether. Not by removing them.
I use sliced samples on my octatrack all the time.
Useful as fuck. Why do I need them? Makes things easy, transcends slot list limits, saves time, space, and brain power.
Dont have a tonverk, never will, dont give a shit about what it can or cant do.
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Right. Thus the risk of just releasing the same thing again being that you use this new machine to make the same kind of music that’s decades old and you can already do.
I completely disagree with this. I agree they don’t want it to overlap with the Digitakt and Octatrack, but that’s a consequence of trying to make something new, rather than some sinister boardroom concoction.
New ways of making music — beyond how artists use the tools themselves — come from implementing those foundational features in fresh ways, from different angles, and in relation to the rest of the machine’s functions, or by rethinking them altogether.
That explains the slow cancellation of music we’ve been experiencing over the last 15 or so years.
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Ok, we can disagree on the “basic feature” part.
All I wanted to say is that there’s no need to bring creativity into it to justify a choice that’s purely driven by the market.
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That’s exactly what people said about the Digitakt’s lack of slices—until it got slices.
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Except these are creative instruments designed for creativity and creativity is often bred by limitation. I understand there are hobbyists and collectors as well, but these are designed with the idea that you’re meant to make music with them (especially creative and exciting music). It’s why every instrument needs a philosophy and if it doesn’t have one, then why are you making it? If it was purely about market share, then wouldn’t every box be an all-in-one box? Wouldn’t you just spend your money on a laptop?
It’s probably too off-topic to elaborate too much on, but the shift in musical instrumentation from innovation to replication is a big driver in the slow cancellation of the future.
At some point, external competition started to matter more than internal competition.
How does having the ability to slice samples in a sampler magically turn it into an all-in-one box?
I mean, I could be wrong, and maybe it’s just a matter of time before it gets implemented, or before they figure out a way to do sample slicing that actually fits the philosophy of the instrument. But going from that to saying that not having slicing somehow makes you more creative is a bit of a leap.
And exactly because, as you rightly say, these are tools for making music, not collector pieces, having one more tool available doesn’t take anything away from you. No one is forced to use it if it ever gets added, and people asking for slicing aren’t asking for a DAW in a box. I really don’t see how adding slicing would suddenly remove those limitations that are supposed to spark creativity.
I get your point of view, and I partly agree with it, but it feels like we’re circling around a pretty simple fact.
Innovation means coming up with new ways of doing things. If you invent a new way to manipulate samples or to slice them, that’s innovation. Just not offering any way to slice samples at all isn’t innovating, it’s simply removing a feature that people who actually work with samples often use
But why stop at the thing you want and can already do? Why not what anyone else wants and can already do?
I mean, I could be wrong, and maybe it’s just a matter of time before it gets implemented
Almost certainly, and like I said, there’s ways slicing would assist with what the Tonverk’s philosophy seems to be, but the hope would be enough people have figured out what it can do without old crutches that it wouldn’t hinder the evolution of the box.
This is a really out of left field comparison - but I think of it like the sword breaking in Breath of the Wild. Couldn’t they have just made the weapons not break like the previous games? Obviously, but then players wouldn’t engage with what the game is trying to be and just revert to playing it like any other Zelda. It forces you to play in a different way.
That’s sort of what the philosophy of an instrument is; how it gets you to play it. And that’s what leads to innovation and new ideas. But when slicing inevitably gets added; that would be the commercial consideration.