I have a question for the samplists out there regarding which tools you use, and more importantly why you use them.
It seems that the majority of folks are using one, or some of the following; EXS24, Kontakt & DS.
I don’t have any of them at the moment, but I do have Live suite, with the sampler that is included with it.
I wondered what the advantage is in using one of the aforementioned holy-trinity? For my purposes, I highly doubt I would be sampling much by way of instruments, but am looking more at processing and then mapping field recordings and found sounds, with a view to trying to extract some cool sounds from them.
I’d be ever so grateful for any insight on why you choose what you’re using, and if there is any real need for me to move from Live’s sampler?
I think if the sampler you’re using works for you for the purposes for which you need it, then there’s no advantage to making a change.
My perception is that the “trinity” are popular at the moment largely for a group of overlapping reasons, some of which are historical. ESX24 because it’s bundled with Logic, Kontakt because of its scripting and customisability and its integrated shop back-end (with rights management), and Decent Sampler because of wide cross-OS support and the low, low price of free, meaning a very low barrier to entry.
And there’s a positive feedback loop involved - because these are popular tools, there’s more community support available for them, so new samplists are more likely to start with them - and consequently, there are bigger pools of potential customers for those who want to share (or sell) their samples.
If these things aren’t a consideration for you, then stick with the sampler you’re already using.
The only other reason you might need to switch samplers is because of functionality - if you find you want tools that the Live sampler doesn’t support. This is speculation - I’ve never used the Live sampler so I don’t know its capabilities.
(forgive me if this is all stating the obvious)