But a sampler can be used in the same way as a subtractive synthesizer with an open ended sound source. Feed it some raw analog looped waveforms for instance and you can have a huge potential of 'oscillators'. It just becomes a VA synth really if you think about it.steevio wrote:i find that sampling/recording synths then manipulating them as audio files defeats the object of a synthesizer.
im not saying that you can't come up with interesting things doing that, but i think you lose the flow and evolving nature of the synth, and ive found i'm less likely to really try to come up with complex patches and push the synth to its limits and use all of its potential, because i know i'm going to be able to do that later and i get lazy.
if you want the best out of a synth use it for what it was designed for, and learn how to use it properly.
once ive got a nice synth patch doing interesting things, the last thing i want to do is sample it.
its just two different ways of doing things, my preference is to squeeze every last drop out of a synth, and then let it do its thing through the track.
its a much more organic way of working, and the flow and continuity work well on the dance floor and in peoples heads.
just saying what i personally prefer
Some of my synths don't have a really fast attack ( apart from the SH101 ) and I quite like plucky bass sounds. Combine say a pluck from a bass guitar and a waveform from a synth and you can sculpt a nice rounded bass.
Ok just a very small example but the potential for sound design is infinite, I see the sampler as an extension of a synth where you can combine different filter types in the same patch, totally different textures and sounds to create totally unique sounds.
That's not to say I don't like synths either, I just think it's a matter of a production decision as to what the source will be, like you say if you want the synth to do the work and the texture to evolve over time or whatever, obviously the synth is the better choice as you'd lose the character of the filters etc etc.
Another synth of mine - the Super Bass Station rack has a nasty habit of altering its pulse width when I make bass sounds. I don't know why this is but it loses punch to my ears, so there's this patch I made and I just sample it off as I know it's going to remain the same then. Even something as simple as that doesn't have to be totally static, you can set a slow LFO for example to modulate the sample start time, this gives you a different character throughout the riff. But you can still create evolving sounds with samplers.
Many people might just load up say a chord or something - obviously there's a limit to the key range with such a static sound but with stuff like looped waveforms and various looped noise types, you are effectively using the sampler as a synth.
Each to their own I guess.
