MOTUnation.com

Hi,

I've been searching for a usable VST sampler for longer than I can remember, and am a very frustrated owner of Kontakt 2 which I've been battling with for years. My biggest issue is that Kontakt 2 takes over 10 seconds to launch (on a brand new quad-core machine!) which is an absolute creativity killer that I can't put up with. I've tried the Kontakt 3 demo but it's so buggy as to be unusable. I've also tried numerous alternatives (DirectWave, Shortcircuit, HighLife, Halion, you name it) but none of them really work for me. I'm simply interested in general sample-mapping facilities, with built-in effects, and good REX/slicing support that is at least as good as Phatmatik Pro - which to my mind remains (after all these years) the only decent implementation of a loop slicing VSTi.

I'm therefore considering MachFive because from the specifications it seems to cover everything I need and looks like a great solution. But it's incredibly frustrating that there's no demo available (I have an iLok key, but Motu don't seem to provide a downloadable demo to trial) or even the manual to look at to get a feel for the nitty-gritty details of the program's operation. After wasting so much money on (all the) alternatives I'm loathe to sink yet more money into something that might be a huge disappointment just as Kontakt has been. So I would be very grateful if those that have been using MachFive v2 for a while could give me their opinion on the following, so I can try to make a call without being able to demo the software. My main questions are:

- On a PC running as a VST plugin, what is the startup time when instantiating a new instance of MachFive v2 onto a track? As I said, for Kontakt v2 it's around 10 seconds, whereas every other VSTi I possess launches in 1 or 2 seconds max. Likewise, are the shutdown times (when you delete a track or close a song) minimal? When I create a song in Cubase SX with 3 or 4 Kontakt instances loaded it can take 30-40 seconds to start up, and a similar delay to shut down. It's an absolute nightmare.

- How good is the loop-slicing capability? Specifically, when you load in a non-REX'd WAV file, do you get the ability to slice it up based on transients, and (I know this sounds petty but it's a real plus point for me) when you drag the 'slice sensitivity' slider does it react in real-time with slices appearing/disappearing as you drag the slider left-and-right to give you good feedback on what's being detected?

- When you've sliced a loop can you easily audition the individual slices, zooming in to clean up the slice points? Can you lock slices and delete slices?

- Can you then do some funky edits on the sliced loop - e.g. can you reverse individual slices? Can you silence some or tweak the volume per slice? Can you do other stuff like tweak filter settings per slice, or even add effects to individual slices (e.g. delay/reverb just to slices that are snare drums?). Can you route individual slices to different VSTi outputs perhaps?

Sorry for all the questions, but it really boils down to:
- Does it load/unload fast
- Does it do all the basics of what you want a sampler to do (multi-sample mapping, etc.) really nicely and intuitively
- Is the loop-slicing feature comprehensive or a bit of a disappointment?

Kontakt, on paper, does all of this, but it's only when you try it you find it's a nightmare. And Native Instruments support is non-existant, so I've given up (after years of waiting) for them to address any of the points that have been raised by myself and many others. I'm therefore hoping I can splash out one more wedge of cash on MachFive and finally find myself a sampler that can become the core of my workflow. Will I be pleasantly surprised or sorely disappointed?

Many thanks.

Well, since I'm on MachFive 1.2.3 I cannot answer some of your questions, but I can address your main 'problem.'

If 10 seconds of load time is a creativity breaker, I have a couple of suggestions:

1) Have your sequencer and sampler running and ready to go all the time. Seems like a simple solution.

2) Practice keeping things alive in your head longer. This is not as flippant as it seems. Many composers (past and present) do that as a matter of course. Mozart would create entire works in his head and simply notate them from memory when they were done.

Not many have those kinds of skills, but not being able to hold something in memory for 10 seconds seems a bit extreme. But again, if that is the case, then keep your sequencer running.

Besides, unless I missed something, MachFive doesn't record notes - it just plays them back, so you still have to have whatever your sequencer is - running and ready.

You might call MOTU sales to ask the other questions.

M5 2 seems to load faster than m5 1.2 (less than 10 secs for a new instance and similar for loading a saved file with M5 using 4 instruments, whereas M5 1.2 took close to 5 mins to load a file sometimes.

However, I'm using Live 5 and a Centrino 2.0 (not duo core) notebook, also the instruments are not that large. Loading a full sampled piano still will take time and also affect the saved file load times as well.

Am not interested in slicing so I cannot answer those qs.

Personally, when writing new music, I'll try and avoid samplers altogether if I can, as they take up too much of my PC resources, but M5 works well when I do need to use one.

ChrispyH wrote:How good is the loop-slicing capability? Specifically, when you load in a non-REX'd WAV file, do you get the ability to slice it up based on transients, and (I know this sounds petty but it's a real plus point for me) when you drag the 'slice sensitivity' slider does it react in real-time with slices appearing/disappearing as you drag the slider left-and-right to give you good feedback on what's being detected?

I find that the loop-slicing works well – I rarely need to manually create or delete slices. I suppose it depends on the source material, but it seems to calculate transients pretty well with the stuff I've used. And yes, the slices appear & disappear in realtime as you drag the sensitivity slider.

The only thing that I really ever need to tweak is the first slice; sometimes there's enough silence or noise at the beginning of the file to trick it into placing a slice at the beginning of the file and at the beginning of the audio. But it's quick & easy to zoom in and drag the sample start marker over to the appropriate slice marker (it snaps when you get close).

ChrispyH wrote:When you've sliced a loop can you easily audition the individual slices, zooming in to clean up the slice points?

Yes. Clicking on a slice in the waveform auditions it, and you can step through the slices sequentially with transport controls. You can click & drag on the ruler to zoom in & out, or use key commands. When you click on a slice it becomes selected and you can then use the Zoom to Selected key command (command-option-s on the Mac); command-option-left arrow zooms you back out.

ChrispyH wrote:Can you lock slices and delete slices?

Yes.

ChrispyH wrote:Can you then do some funky edits on the sliced loop - e.g. can you reverse individual slices? Can you silence some or tweak the volume per slice? Can you do other stuff like tweak filter settings per slice, or even add effects to individual slices (e.g. delay/reverb just to slices that are snare drums?). Can you route individual slices to different VSTi outputs perhaps?

You can make destructive edits on each slice, like fade in/out, reverse, gain, normalize, and apply DSP. Those changes will affect the actual sample file, so you might want to Save As if you're doing that sort of stuff.

One option is to convert the sliced loop into a "regular" MachFive preset – it will create new audio files for each slice and map them accordingly to the keyboard. (For an example, scroll down to "Use Loop Lab to create instrument presets within MachFive 2" on this page. The other MachFive pages at MOTU.com have some other decent videos & such.) When you do that, you can do all of the things you can with any keygroup in MachFive, differently for each slice: add non-destructive effects (either as an insert, or using a send to the aux FX section), change the filter settings, adjust envelopes, assign them to different outputs, etc.

carrythebanner wrote:

ChrispyH wrote:How good is the loop-slicing capability? Specifically, when you load in a non-REX'd WAV file, do you get the ability to slice it up based on transients, and (I know this sounds petty but it's a real plus point for me) when you drag the 'slice sensitivity' slider does it react in real-time with slices appearing/disappearing as you drag the slider left-and-right to give you good feedback on what's being detected?

I find that the loop-slicing works well – I rarely need to manually create or delete slices. I suppose it depends on the source material, but it seems to calculate transients pretty well with the stuff I've used. And yes, the slices appear & disappear in realtime as you drag the sensitivity slider.

The only thing that I really ever need to tweak is the first slice; sometimes there's enough silence or noise at the beginning of the file to trick it into placing a slice at the beginning of the file and at the beginning of the audio. But it's quick & easy to zoom in and drag the sample start marker over to the appropriate slice marker (it snaps when you get close).

ChrispyH wrote:When you've sliced a loop can you easily audition the individual slices, zooming in to clean up the slice points?

Yes. Clicking on a slice in the waveform auditions it, and you can step through the slices sequentially with transport controls. You can click & drag on the ruler to zoom in & out, or use key commands. When you click on a slice it becomes selected and you can then use the Zoom to Selected key command (command-option-s on the Mac); command-option-left arrow zooms you back out.

ChrispyH wrote:Can you lock slices and delete slices?

Yes.

ChrispyH wrote:Can you then do some funky edits on the sliced loop - e.g. can you reverse individual slices? Can you silence some or tweak the volume per slice? Can you do other stuff like tweak filter settings per slice, or even add effects to individual slices (e.g. delay/reverb just to slices that are snare drums?). Can you route individual slices to different VSTi outputs perhaps?

You can make destructive edits on each slice, like fade in/out, reverse, gain, normalize, and apply DSP. Those changes will affect the actual sample file, so you might want to Save As if you're doing that sort of stuff.

One option is to convert the sliced loop into a "regular" MachFive preset – it will create new audio files for each slice and map them accordingly to the keyboard. (For an example, scroll down to "Use Loop Lab to create instrument presets within MachFive 2" on this page. The other MachFive pages at MOTU.com have some other decent videos & such.) When you do that, you can do all of the things you can with any keygroup in MachFive, differently for each slice: add non-destructive effects (either as an insert, or using a send to the aux FX section), change the filter settings, adjust envelopes, assign them to different outputs, etc.

Excellent description,thanks for the detailed response.

One more question before Mach Five 2 arrives, while in the slice window/sample edit - are there functions such as forward looping/reverse looping ? Thanks..