Samplers and Sample libraries

[Jack Hammer]

this is a question for which the time has come. I have N EMU E6400 Ultra which has served me quite well for the most part. However, nowadays, there are some truly wonderful orchestral offerings in sample libraries. Most of them, though, seem to be geared towards Gigastudio, the defacto standard in software samplers.

So, he big question is, do I get a dedicated PC to run the program. PCs are quite cheap these days which means that for less that two grand, one could have an extremely powerful sampler that could, I suppose, andle some other VST instruments or stand alone instruments.

Either way one looks at it, the question remains, is it time to go Gigastudio or what and, if so, what would be the best possible approach?

[max67]

From the info I have gathered, you should get a dedicated pc for Gigastudio. Also Giga studio version 3 should be on the way....

Also, you may want to check out Kontakt (Native Instruments)

Regards, Max.

[klytus]

You could check out Kontakt (Native Instruments) and Halion (Steinberg) as alternatives to GS - these wont require a dedicated PC as they can run as VST instruments in Cubase/Nuendo/Logic etc. This is great with a fast PC as you can use all your directX/VST plugins to manipulate the sampler's outputs giving you massive possibilites.

There are some differences to read up on, chiefly the size of the samples that can be streamed (I think), and I'm not sure which formats are compatible with which packages, but I think both these progs can import from the extensive Akai libraries which is a major strength. They may be able to import giga sounds as well but don't quote me on that.

[acidrock]

Gigastudio DOES NOT need a dedicated computer.
I run it with Sonar flawlessly on one computer.
Now if you want to use huge samples and lots of instruments and plugs it might be aq good idea to get a dedicated rig.
If you can get your hands on a cheap computer for just GIGA it would be a rockin' setup though.