"Hardware GigaSampler"

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spoimala
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Post by spoimala »

Now that I have digged into GigaSamples (The great Free Maestro Grand piano) I am dreaming of a HW sampler that I could take live. Are there any that could load more than one CD at a time?

(The pianos of whatever synthesizer sound so boring compared to these giga-beasts :smile: )

Of course I could search the net myself, my today I'm lazy. (And am sure that some of you know without searching :wink: )
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Zer
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Post by Zer »

just have a look at the nemesys website. they are selling indeed a hardware giga for app. 20000 bucks.
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astroman
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Post by astroman »

imho you can go with whatever Windows box if you use it for nothing but Giga, preferably if it fit's in a rack mount case.
I've recently seen a used PIII/800 in a 19" case sold for 170€, add one of the Gigastation cards with 8 20-bit outs plus Gigapiano and the GM lib for 120€ and off you go, even on Win98.
I don't think that Gigastudio offers a big advantage for live purpose, but even a P4 in those portable 'barebone' all-in-one systems is less than 500€ today afaik.
On the weekend I found a bunch of small Compaq destop systems here in a shop, PII/350 with BX chipset, passively cooled, death silent for 79€ each :lol: even that is enough for a live system if it's not supposed to do anything else but sample playback.

my 2 cents, Tom
spoimala
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Post by spoimala »

Err... I had "-marks around hardware GigaSampler, because I'm not looking for a real GigaSampler and definately nothing that has anything to do with Windows :smile:

I want a real Hardware sampler, like AKAI S-series, or EMU Ultra or things like that. But AFAIK they don't eat thousands of megabytes of samples, or am I wrong? Can I "upload" a gigasample to internal HD of a sampler and then play that back?

I guess sample playback is enough, and I don't need digital outputs, or multiple analog outs... just a bit of gear that happily plays my huge samples when I'm performing.
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astroman
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Post by astroman »

hi Spoimala,

unfortunately several companies use those " - marks to promote exactly the opposite of what you intended :wink:
They call it Hardware Gigasampler, but it's of course just a PeCe.
Gigasamples can only be played under some flavour of Windows OS :sad: due to the 'coding' of attack signals in memory, decay streaming from disk. That's programmed very close to the OS. Since Tascam bought the technology they might offer a unit someday, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that.
If you'd convert large Gigas to even more large Akais, you wouldn't gain any reliability. I'm pretty shure you can reboot a current machine with Giga 3 times before you've loaded such complex (if you get them converted) programs in a hardware sampler.
I consider Giga reliable in a simple stand alone setup (as already mentioned) and you may of course use whatever sound hardware that fits your needs, but I don't see a different way of using those samples.

cheers, Tom
spoimala
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Post by spoimala »

Thanks Tom.
Okay, I have to be happy with lower quality samples. It's a live performance anyway :smile:
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