Is the Cubase Sampler Track useless?

[Budawg]

Why do Steinberg introduce so many half-baked features in Cubase and then never improve upon them to a point where they are actually useful?

Take the Sampler Track. I suppose this feature is alright if you just need a quick way to slick up a loop. That is so long as you don’t need to add any of your own slice markers. Unless I’m missing something, it isn’t possible to do this manually. (And if it is, the process for doing so is not at all intuitive.)

This wouldn’t be so bad if the slice detection algorithm in Cubase (and HALiion) wasn’t so poor. But even with the Threshold level set to -96dB (which should detect every conceivable transient in an audio file,) Cubase fails to detect obvious transients. The 30-year-old Propellerheads ReCycle program detects these without fail.

And then there is the fact that you can’t “mute” a slice (as you can in Recycle). Why would you want to do this? Well, sometimes you want to add a marker near the end of a slice and then mute the enclosed slice. This way you won’t hear an audible “glitch” at the end of the preceding slice. Also, when exporting the MIDI file for a loop, these muted slices would be ignored as they are with REX files.

Of course, an even more elegant solution to this issue would be to simply allow you to adjust the end point of each slice irrespective of the start of the next slice.

One might be tempted to use the slice fade out feature for this purpose. Unfortunately, this applies to all slices and not to each individual slice as it optionally should. So in order to get rid of these glitches at the end of certain slices you need to enter a fade out value so large that it makes shorter slices sound cut off.

Regarding processing of individual slices, it should be possible to enter pitch and filter offsets per slice as well (which you can easily do by importing a ReCycle file into almost any sampler).

Finally, the thing that renders the Sampler Track almost completely useless (at least for sliced loops) is the inability to extend the length of slices . This has been possible in ReCycle since its inception. This is necessary so that you don’t hear audible gaps between slices when slowing down the tempo of a loop.

I realize that ReCylce is an older program. But has no one at Steinberg honestly ever used it? I guess I expect at least parity with (if not progress over) a 30-year-old program.

[Johnny_Moneto]

The sampler track in Cubase is currently not designed to be a full ReCycle replacement.
Instead you can do the slicing, muting and length editing directly in the project on an audio event (hitpoints, slice).

I agree the slice editing functionality in Sampler Track could be expanded and ReCycle surely is a good program to look at for inspiration.

This having said, would it be possible for you to change your topic title? While you might feel the Sampler Track could be better there are other use cases where it works perfectly fine. The word “useless” seems to be way over the top.
If you’d change your post from a ranting/venting style to a more “calmed down” style you could then add the feature-request tag to it. Your proposals are sound, would be a shame if they were ignored because of the ranting style of the message.

@Budawg

Finally, the thing that renders the Sampler Track almost completely useless (at least for sliced loops) is the inability to extend the length of slices

When working on an audio event with hitpoints you could use time-stretching.

[Budawg]

@Johnny_Moneto

This having said, would it be possible for you to change your topic title? While you might feel the Sampler Track could be better there are other use cases where it works perfectly fine. The word “useless” seems to be way over the top.

I would sincerely like to know any use for the Sampler Track that can’t be done more productively in any number of existing software samplers (and many hardware samplers). Even the affordable TAL Sampler does a better job of slicing loops (and provides cool “lo-fi” playback options as well as per slice pitch/filter/amp editing options).

It goes without saying that being able to trigger a sample from your MIDI keyboard and apply a filter and a couple of LFOs is hardly a compelling use case. In fact, if that’s the value proposition for the Sampler Track, then it is indeed not only useless but moreover just more ridiculous Cubase bloat.

Unless you can list anything musically useful that the Sampler Track does, I stand by my characterization of it as “useless.” I’m sorry if calling out Steinberg’s history of half-baked, bloat-filled features is what you consider a “rant.” My post seems like useful feedback for an often clueless, unresponsive company.

The least you could do is address even one of my critiques as opposed to patronizingly telling me I need to “calm down.” Perhaps try not to get so triggered by innocuous posts?

[Elien]

Your style of posting about your maybe reasonable feedback is a school-book example of “how not to achieve what you intend”. I will use it in my seminars as an outstanding example of “how not to give feed-back if you seriously want to be heard”.
BTW: I give coaching lessons for people who want to learn how to give feedback that has a chance to be listened to. Feel free to contact me if you are interrested in the pricing.

[GlennO]

After hanging out on this forum for a few weeks after being away for a while, there does seem to be pattern of over-the-top hyperbole in many posts. It might be a sign of growing frustration. Steinberg has a history of giving low priority to enhancing existing features which would help current customers in favor of adding new features to attract new customers. The ill-fated voting system only served to draw attention to that . That prioritization will inevitably lead to frustration that can lead people to express their criticism in provocative ways.

However, I think the bigger issue is language. English is the official language on this forum, but Cubase has always had a more diverse customer base than other DAWs. I think a big factor is English is not a native language for many people here and sometimes they use language in their messages that they might not realize is inflammatory. For example there was a post recently that called the Hub “disgusting”. That’s an inflammatory word, but also, that word simply wouldn’t make much sense to a native English speaker in that context.

Anyway, I use the Sampler track for quickly turning found audio into a pitched sample playback instrument, and I find it useful for that purpose. I don’t know that I’ve ever used it for loop slicing.

[Budawg]

@GlennO

For example there was a post recently that called the Hub “disgusting”. That’s an inflammatory word, but also, that word simply wouldn’t make much sense to a native English speaker in that context.

The fact that Steinberg consciously decided to subject Cubase users to disgusting (yes, disgusting) marketing pablum in my paid (!) DAW is revolting. I use the word “revolting” as a native English speaker, btw.

[Budawg]

But thank you Elien and GlennO for ruining this thread. Anyone who might have had something useful to say will now no doubt be turned off. Well done.

[GlennO]

I took the question in the Thread title to be sincere and I provided a use case where I find the Sampler track useful. If instead the thread title is just a rhetorical device and you really don’t want replies to that question you should probably say so.

[Budawg]

@GlennO

Anyway, I use the Sampler track for quickly turning found audio into a pitched sample playback instrument, and I find it useful for that purpose. I don’t know that I’ve ever used it for loop slicing.

I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were being serious when claiming that using the Sampler Track “for quickly turning found audio into a pitched sample playback instrument” is a compelling use case. Because if the raison d’ étre of the Sampler Track is to provide dumb pitched sample playback, then that is, well, dumb (and would make the current incarnation of the Sampler Track truly useless which proves my point).

Why not include a useful sampler by default instead, you know, the way Ableton, Apple, Presonus, et al do? That is, include something more useful than HALion SE or HALion Sonic without necessarily going as far as the full fledged HALion, although that would certainly make Cubase more competitive with Logic given the current price difference between the two programs. (Yeah, yeah. Apple “subsidizes” the lower cost of Logic via “exorbitantly-priced” Macs and all of those “outrageously expensive” iPhones. Whatever.)

[Johnny_Moneto]

@Budawg

The least you could do is address even one of my critiques

I did. Sorry if I wasn’t able to express myself clear enough for you.

@Budawg

I would sincerely like to know any use for the Sampler Track that can’t be done more productively in any number of existing software samplers

If you think that the Sampler Track is to rival existing software (and hardware) samplers, you’d be right in your conclusion to be disappointed. But it is not designed to do that (at least for now). It is rather the fast workflow integration for “a little bit of sampler work” that is the stand-out feature. As a sampler it is rather a “sampler light”.
As I mentioned before, I hope Steinberg expands on the concept of having a Sampler Track in Cubase by giving it added functionality in the future, including the things that you proposed.

However, I also pointed out that the traditional workflow of ReCycle can be done on audio events on an audio track directly, rather than going through a Sampler Track.

[GlennO]

The advantage to Sampler tracks over a proper sampler is it’s simpler. Thats the reason Simpler is popular in Live. The gripe you seem to have is that you prefer the loop slicing in Recycle. I would agree, but I don’t find that to be a significant drawback, since IMHO that’s not the primary use case for Sampler tracks.

[Elien]

Your thread title is just rhetorical. You start with a general rant about how Steinberg handles its product evolution and whenever someone takes your question literally and tries to provide their view, you step into an attempt to “prove” that YOUR view (i.e. “the cubase sammpler track is useless, and Steinberg product/feature decisions generally suck”) is just objectively correct.
This is for sure NOT the way to invite other forum members to step into a constructive worthy discussion.
You for sure need help with your frustration, but you just as for sure will never accept help other than chiming in your rants.
I just can repeat: Recommended Reading … (see earlier post).

[noise]

I kind of agree. It’s quite limited and not really a fully-fledged instrument like Halion or Kontact.

But I’m ok with that (as long as its clear to the user so one doesn’t waste time trying to get it to do something its not made for).

I’d prefer if SB would put time into fixing bugs and responding to the hundreds of great feature requests made in the forum.

[mkok]

It’s actually find it quite useful. I’ve used it many times. Ok only for simple stuff but without it I would have had to source something else. Certainly would want a hardware sampler. There is far too much emotive language on here about a bit of software.