• Views 0
• Likes 0
• Rating 12345

It’s been a while since there has been some good, healthy competition in the sampler arena. Since the fall of Gigastudio, Native Instruments Kontakt has pretty much had the lion’s share of the top of the mountain. Wait, let me take that back. They have OWNED the mountain itself.

But while Kontakt continues to evolve, a couple of serious contenders have seen vast updates lately. MOTU MachFive 3 and Halion 4 are here, and they intend to knock on the door of the current king of the sampling world. But can they stand up?

Over the course of several articles, we’re going to be putting all three of these samplers to the test as we pit them against each other in some important areas. Each area will be it’s own unique article, and we’ll break it all down. The areas currently planned for this series are as follows(feel free to suggest others):

Library- We’ll take a look at the quality, quantity and creative expanses of each library to see who give the most in terms of sound “out of the box”.

Third Party Support- How does the industry currently see each offering? What kinds of libraries are available for each sampler?

Performance Tools- Scripting and other modules are very important to help sampled instruments shine. We’ll find what’s on tap to help you perform easier.

Interface- How do you get around? What can you customize? How easy is it to make edits, route audio and apply effects?

Effects- All three samplers come with a large offering of built-in effects. We’ll see how they stack up to one another.

We’ll possibly/probably add more as we go along, but that’s the plan as we get started. In the meantime, we want to hear from YOU if you are an owner or TWO OR MORE of these samplers. How do they compare for you? Get in touch via our contact page to let us know!

Now, keep in mind that we can’t possibly judge what sampler is best FOR YOU. This will all be purely based on the opinions of the writer. This series is not intended to determine what is best. Instead, we hope to help you make a better decision when choosing a sampler.

Also, there is no way we can cover EVERY feature of all three samplers. Just assume that we’ll probably miss a tiny feature here and there. But we’ll cover the brunt of it all, and then open up the conversation so you can find out more if you wish!

Finally, for those who will feel inclined to write and ask why we didn’t include other samplers, it’s simple; we can’t include everyone. So we included the three top contenders as we see them. We also won’t be covering sample players from various developers such as Play, Vienna Instruments and others. Don’t worry, we’ll have plenty of coverage of these in the future.

So stay tuned, and the first article will be on it’s way!

• Share Post
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Google +1
• Email