EXS 24 Logic Sampler Users Group

Arvid Solvang wrote:
> Have you worked in Cubase 5.1?

No, I only own 3.7r2 and Cubasis VST.
But yes, 5.1 seems to be a nice release.

> A friend in the next door studio is using it and i really envy him a lot
of
> what Cubase does.
> What do you mean by flawed?

Flawed in a way that musically natural operations take too much time,
especially in the arrangement.
To be more concrete, have you for example ever tried cutting a vocal track
into syllables in Cubase and then moving them by musically senseful amounts
such as quarters and bars? I tell you, it's a pain, but it's a technique I
often use. In Cubase you will find yourself fooling around with the snap
parameter a LOT while in Logic I never have to care about. Make fine cuts
with the help of ALT and move in 1/8s, 1/16s, bars, whatever. This is true
for all things using pickups and such, but of course with audio it gets more
important as you will find things such as breathings, slides and slurs very
often.

> > and, while it might be a bit
> > better for mixing in some aspects (even if it uses up more CPU power)
> Cubase 5.1 is AMD optimized and it really gave my friend a lot better
> performance.

I can't judge on that one, but Logic has that awsome feature of not using up
any CPU power as long as there's no signal running through your plugins.

> > it's
> > just no good for composing at all, IMO.
>
> ???!!!
> Try working on a drumgroove inside only EXS24 samplers in Logic.
> Cubase's drumeditor really beats Logic in a creative way...

I can't agree with that. Have you ever used mapped instruments together with
Hyperedit?
IMO this beats Cubase anytime.
Don't get me wrong, I would REALLY like to see a dedicated drumeditor in
Logic, but the one in Cubase certainly doesn't cut it for me. Even back then
when I was a (die-hard, for the record) Cubase user I hardly ever used the
drum editor.
In Logic, I use a combination of Matrix and Hyperedit.
IMO the most important thing when it comes to editing drums is dynamics. In
Matrix I allways have a velocity tool on my right mousebutton - this allows
changing velocities so quick, there's nothing in Cubase which could beat
that at all. Allways having to select a note and then going up to that tiny
info bar to find yourself right or leftclicking to in/decrease values in
Cubase is just 10 times slower.

> Huh!
> What can't you do inside HALion that you can do inside EXS24?
> You can copy/move/rename/edit/replace etc...

HALion has no sample management.
While this might not be SO bad when working it certainly becomse the worst
ever as soon as you need to backup your song, want to exchange HALion sets
with others or want to destructively edit a sample.
Imagine having a bunch of folders for your individual samples (I guess
especially for drums people use lots of different folders, I for example use
one for snares, one for kicks and so on, each containing various subfolders
too. Now I might do a HALion set using samples from all sorts of folders.
What if I wanted to backup that set?
HALion offers nothing to do that, so the only chance is doing it manually
for each and every sample, which could well need an hour once you have let's
say a highly complexed drumset. Actions required:
- looking into HALions zone editor
- looking at each sample's location
- looking into your explorer
- finding the location
- copying the sample
- opening the target folder
- pasting it there
- and in the end going back into HALion to update each zone's file reference
(in case you want to destructively edit your samples, as you don't want to
do that to your source sample)

Btw, the EXS file management also is pretty bad when it comes to destructive
edits as file references aren't updated on a "copy audiofiles", at least not
when doing this with existing instruments (for newly created and
"not-saved-yet" ones it works, something I learned a while ago).

Then, the next thing is searching for samples. When the EXS is missing a
sample it will search your drives. While this might take a pretty much more
or less long time, in the end it will most likely find the proper sample
(there's some flaws with that as well, but that's another story). With
HALion, there's no such option. You have to point it to the folder directly.
And hey, while you might expect a softsampler to be clever enough to search
in subfolders (so you would just point it to g:\samples\drums or whatever)
it doesn't do so! So you have to do it for each and every sample again! A
true pain. Just add another new HDD to your machine, place your samples
there and try to convince HALion finding the right ones - again you will
need hours and hours, especially assuming you're using the above mentioned
drum sample organisation approach a lot.

Both of the two should actually do it in a similar way FXpansions DR-008
does. You just say "copy samples and bank" and there you go. File references
are properly updated as well. This is the best way I've found so far,
especially nice for destructive editing. Save your set, load the copied
sample into any wave editor, fool around with it, save and reload the set,
bingo! Very very nice and well thought out (of course FXpansion had proper
beta testers complaining and whining long enough until this was properly
implemented ;-).

> Don't get me wring...
> I'm a die hard Logic user for years, but to me it seems like Cubase really
> have gotten things working good.

True, the latest Cubase version makes a nice impression from what I've seen
so far. I have to admit that even I was tempted to finally update my 3.7r2.

> Their new softsynths/plugins/ really kicks ass IMO.

Hm, yes, very nice gesture from Steinberg for a free update. You wouldn't
spend too much money for them though if you'd by them (or similar ones).

> And automating them is ten times better in Cubase.

Yes, agreed. But when it comes to automation I think that this will be
sorted out once and forever when Logic 5 hits the streets. And I think it's
gonna be way better than in Cubase then.

> And also:
> They can save mixer setting.

I must admit that this is a REALLY nice thing. I'd wish SO much to see that
implemented in Logic.

Btw, I don't want to start a new sequencer war here (have seen too much of
them in the past), it's just that I know both programs pretty well (have
been working with Cubase from 1.0/Atari to 3.7/PC), and therefor I certainly
know why I stick with Logic.
But, these days I must admit that there might be some reasons to go the
Cubase way, especially if you deal with audio and mixing a lot. But when it
comes to composing with MIDI and Audio IMO there's still nothing that beats
Logic at all.

Regards,
Sascha