EXS24 vs Sampler: any major differences?

For fellow EXS users who can't live without its name: it appears you can (as I thought) rename Sampler to EXS24 in the 'Plug-In Manager' window. It felt greatly reassuring to see the EXS24 name again :D.

1) Go to 'preferences' => 'plugin manager'
2) type in Sampler in the 'search' window
3) type 'EXS24' in the 'custom name' window and press enter.
4) press 'done' and see how peace is once again restored in the EXS24 kingdom :D

- regarding the ability to search for the factory EXS sounds and your own instruments and folders within EXS24: you can now find these back at the top of the Sampler plugin if you click in the 'User Default' tab at the top. All your sounds and the factory sounds will be there

What I didn't get up to now is how the new file management works.

The original EXS had
1st - the edit menu (the sample part where mapping, round robin, articulations and all that stuff that was done and saved) and
2nd - the GUI part where envelopes, filter and mod matrix was edited and saved. And then
3rd - there were patches saved with the song or in channel strips where GUI-on-the-fly editing was done to fast adapt an instrument to the song.

The on-the-fly edited settings were temporary (only saved with the song) or could be saved in the sub menu of the EXS as the default setting for this instrument. There it was also possible to copy this patch settings and paste it into other EXS instruments. Very handy to make a set of instruments with the same playability but different samples (like multiple pads but all of them with a filter on mod wheel). This is the part where I didn't find a counterpart in the new Sampler.

How is this now done? For example: How do I copy the mod matrix settings from one Sampler to another?


*EDIT*

Meanwhile I found it!

If someone is interested: The little cog wheel in the right upper corner of the "New EXS" Logic Sampler has all the needed tasks in a little drop down menu:

- Initialize Synth Parameters
- Copy Synth Parameters without Mapping
- Paste Synth Parameters without Mapping
- Import Synth Parameters without Mapping
- New Mapping
- Import Mapping without Synth Parameters

So all synth parameters can be copied from one instrument to another.

haha, I was just about to answer your question: anyway, as you already found out indeed this is the way to go: using "Copy synth parameters without mapping" just copies the patch settings so you can paste them on another Sampler instrument. I had just made a screenshot, so I'll go ahead and post it anyway

Regarding the layout of Sampler: @Saxer

what was originally visible on the GUI part of EXS24 as you opened it up can now be found in the "synth section" (with "details" section opened up), "mod matrix" and "modulators" are basically the old GUI of EXS24

the edit menu of EXS24 is now found in the "mapping" and "zone" section.

hope that helps

@charlieclouser do you have any extra discoveries concerning the new Sampler vs the old EXS24?

With the old EXS24, I could

1. Create a new instrument, a drum kit.
2. Record the kick drum on track 1.
3. Duplicate the track and record the snare on track 2, referencing the same EXS file.
4. If I decided the change the drum samples, I could edit the the EXS file and the changes would be applied to both tracks 1 and 2, and any other tracks that referenced the same EXS file.

In other words, there was a clear separation between the GUI and mapping parts of an EXS track which seems to have changed in new version. The above workflow no longer works.

I'm not upset by this - it was always a pain making sure the EXS file was saved either in the project or separately and I've found a drum designer workflow I prefer. But something has changed in the underlying workflow/file structure. Unless I'm missing something?

A3D2 said:

@charlieclouser do you have any extra discoveries concerning the new Sampler vs the old EXS24?

Click to expand...

Believe it or not I've only spent about ten minutes fiddling with the new Sampler; other stuff going on at the moment.

However.... I can't remember if I've already posted this elsewhere, but it appears that the old "Crossfade" parameters that used to be in the front panel at the lower left, and were thus non-destructive "Settings", are now per-Zone / per-Group parameters that are saved inside the Key Map. This has some advantages obviously - you can now have different crossfade settings for different Zones / Groups - but it is a change.

I have been going back and forth between v10.4.8 and v10.5 and so far it appears that Sampler Instruments, even with all their new parameters, can be read by EXS without anything exploding.

I'll make the switch full time once I finish a bit of work on a project that's in v10.4.8.

Since we all enjoy the new-old Sampler that was EXS24, today I got into my first serious sampling session on its new-and-improved interface. I need to have some facts checked and/or corrected, please. This is all about the Mapping/Groups/Zones handling

1. To get a decent amount of Zones and their parameters shown, you'd think you just enlarge the Sampler window to the right and to the bottom. Not so, it seems. All it does is increase all the GUI elements to ridiculous sizes, as if these weren't obnoxiously large already, and in full view you can't reduce the size of the Groups list anymore:



Surely this is not what I had in mind when using a 27"screen. How can I display an amount of parameter data that's large enough to make me appreciate my large screen ?

2. Also, pulling the lower right corner or the right border both also move the bottom border, so in order to not push this off the screen, I first need to pull up the bottom border, then pull right the right border (and with it the bottom border), then pull down the bottom border so it stays on screen. Not sure what the ergonomic advantages of this are. How can I quickly fit the window to the screen, as does option-click on the green dot on a regular window ?

3. It seems I can look at the Key Mapping, or the Zone Parameter List, but not both.



This is not nice but workable with, say, 1-15 samples. But in an instrument with 50+ or 100s of samples, it's plain ridiculous. How can I display both Key Mapping and Zone Parameter List at the same time ?

4. To make matters worse, clicking on a Zone in Key Mapping display will reveal the Zone name ( which will be something mindnumbingly smart like Zone#123 or Zone 25 copy copy), but not the sample name, which would be highly desirable. How can I see the sample name of a Zone in the Key Mapping view ?

5. If there are several Zones layered on one key with the same velocity range, I can't see all but one Zone in Key Mapping View. This now only shows more Zones if they differ in velocity range. Not good. How can I display all layered samples in Key Mapping view, regardless of their velocity ranges ?

Here is a comparison:

Sampler:





The very same instrument in EXS24:



I get less information on twice the screen space with Sampler. This can't be right.

6. Instead of re-entering all Zone parameters for each new sample/Zone, I usually duplicate an existing Zone with all its Zone parameters, including which Group it belongs to, then just replace the sample and change the key range. This has worked perfectly fine in the past.

Copy-Paste of a Zone now puts the duplicated Zone alone into a duplicated Group. Eh? If I push the duplicated Zone back into its original Group, it overwrites the original Zone. WTF?

I can duplicate the Zone which will put it into a duplicated Group, then go into that duplicated Group, then edit the duplicated Zone, then push it back into the original Group, then select the duplicated Group and delete it. This cannot be the intended workflow. How do I keep the duplicated Zone, ready to be edited, in its original Group and not create a duplicated Group ?

If someone knows how to efficiently navigate this (to me) trainwreck of a GUI, I'm all ears.

If not, I'd like to have my EXS24 back. I'm serious.

Thanks

christianobermaier said:

5. If there are several Zones layered on one key with the same velocity range, I can't see all but one Zone in Key Mapping View. This now only shows more Zones if they differ in velocity range. Not good. How can I display all layered samples in Key Mapping view, regardless of their velocity ranges ?

6. Instead of re-entering all Zone parameters for each new sample/Zone, I usually duplicate an existing Zone with all its Zone parameters, including which Group it belongs to, then just replace the sample and change the key range. This has worked perfectly fine in the past.

Copy-Paste of a Zone now puts the duplicated Zone alone into a duplicated Group. Eh? If I push the duplicated Zone back into its original Group, it overwrites the original Zone. WTF?

Click to expand...

Most of what you're talking about in the two points above is related to the fact that, in Sampler, no Zones within a single Group can overlap in velocity or key range. Any newly-created Zones that overlap are pushed to a new Group. Any EXS Instruments that contain overlapping Zones will be un-wound and new Groups created to hold the overlapping Zones. This is not ideal for sure, but I can only assume it was done out of a desire to reduce the possibility of confusion on the part of noob users. At least the un-wind-on-import procedure is seamless and appears not to wreck anything to the point where imported EXS Instruments sound any different, but it definitely makes a lot of familiar workflows more cumbersome.

Thanks for your reply.

it was done out of a desire to reduce the possibility of confusion on the part of noob users

Click to expand...

I see. Frankly, I'd rather have the noobs confused by the old behaviour (because they are noobs), than me confused by the new behaviour *and* the noobs confused (because they are noobs). That's less confusion in total.

I've always preferred to use as few Groups as possible, even if it means that the graphic display of Zones is messy. I've always just sighed and used the spreadsheet-looking numerical editor since graphically dragging Zones around was always so cumbersome anyway, and when you're doing it that way it doesn't matter so much that Zones overlap and things look ugly. That's just a personal preference.

But I guess the Apple way is to use tons of Groups to separate each velocity range and overlapping set of samples. Whatever, I can make it work.

However, the awkwardness of the current editor is definitely there - not being able to resize the dividing line between the Groups list on the left and the Zones list on the right is a glaring error and I hope they resolve that soon.

I had a workflow with the EXS24 where I would use autosampler to sample an instrument, then take the files and transfer them to an old computer where I was running an older version of Logic and Kontakt. I would use older version go Kontakt to import the EXS24 instruments, and I would have a new Kontakt library. Does anyone know if the new Sampler format can be brought into the old EXS24 instrument? If that's the case, then we conversion workflow is still good.

Oops - I forgot the the autos ampler is in MainStage, not Logic, so I think that I will be OK.

ScarletJerry said:

Oops - I forgot the the autos ampler is in MainStage, not Logic, so I think that I will be OK.

Click to expand...

Since 10.5 the Autosampler is part of Logic too.

Saxer said:

Since 10.5 the Autosampler is part of Logic too.

Click to expand...

Yes, I forgot about that! My biggest issue is that I can't get the autosampler to work. I autosamples over a dozen instruments a few months ago, and now I configured everything the same way, and I can't hear the sound or have any indication that the connection works (except that I can see the option to choose "iPad" as an input). I'll figure it out eventually.

@ScarletJerry I'm still using Kontakt 5 on macos Mojave and I always use Kontakt 5 to convert my EXS24 instruments to Kontakt instruments as well. I think it still works with "Sampler" instruments, but I'll check it out and let you know. Autosampler works really well in Logic X though: are you sampling hardware devices or software instruments?

@ScarletJerry I just imported a newly made Sampler instrument in Kontakt 5.8.1 (with the older conversion file in this kontakt version) and was able to make a new kontakt instrument from it without any issues whatsoever.

A3D2 said:

@ScarletJerry I just imported a newly made Sampler instrument in Kontakt 5.8.1 (with the older conversion file in this kontakt version) and was able to make a new kontakt instrument from it without any issues whatsoever.

Click to expand...

Thanks @A3D2 That‘s great news. I was able to get the auto sampler to work and sampled some iPad sounds. I use an older computer with an older version of Kontakt for the conversion. I forget the name of the file that allows you to do the conversion. If it works on my newer iMac, that would save me the step of transferring the files to my old computer. What is it called again?

@ScarletJerry You can find the Kontakt conversion file you need for Kontakt here:
https://www.vi-control.net/community/threads/importing-exs-into-kontakt-a-fix.75187/