Integrated phrase sampler?

[Starship Krupa]

Now that (full, not free) Sonar comes with integrated access to tens of thousands of excellent one shot samples, I'm feeling the DAW's lack of a native phrase sampler more acutely. It feels like having 5 gallons of ice cream in the freezer but no spoon to eat it with.

As of now, the only way Sonar gives you to use audio samples in songs is within audio tracks, each in its own clip. This is not practical for many common uses of one shot samples such as making drum tracks.

Typically, a phrase sampler lets you do such things as create your own drum kit by assigning samples to individual slots. The samples are then triggered by MIDI notes. Sonar has a sampler instrument, but it only has a single slot. You can't make a drum kit using only one sample. Maybe you can, but it won't be very interesting.

There are very few DAW's in the modern day that don't come with a multi-slot phrase sampler. At the moment, I can't think of a single one except Sonar.

XSampler has been a part of Sonar for some time now. It seems to be a port of the same instrument from Cakewalk Next. Could we get Next's X Pad Sampler too?

[Base 57]

10 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

As of now, the only way Sonar gives you to use audio samples in songs is within audio tracks, each in its own clip

You can also drag them from a track into a Matrix View cell. 

However, you can't drag them directly to the Matrix View. You must drag them to a track first so that Sonar can reformat them. Then after you move them to a cell you can delete them from the track.

I should add that the Matrix View has some limitations. I don't think it has ever been a fully baked feature.

But it is another way to play the samples.

Edited 21 hours ago by Base 57

[Base 57]

Also, I am not arguing against an integrated sampler. I think that would be great.

[Starship Krupa]

1 hour ago, Base 57 said:

Also, I am not arguing against an integrated sampler. I think that would be great.

It didn't occur to me that anyone might suggest Matrix View as a substitute for a phrase sampler and I didn't think you were.

Yes, Matrix View has some limitations. It feels like a feature that stopped about 3/4 of the way to the finish line.

Adding integrated samplers to Sonar is halfway there at the moment, it does have XSampler. Unfortunately, of Next's two sampler instruments, XSampler is the one that's less useful to me.

I want to trigger dialog samples and sound effects and make my own drum kits. Those are all jobs for a phrase/pad sampler.

Among the plethora of freeware audio plug-ins now available, phrase samplers are underrepresented. Sitala looked like it was shaping up before it went freeware-no-more.

[Base 57]

Yep ^ that 

[sjoens]

3 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

It feels like a feature that stopped about 3/4 of the way to the finish line.

Funny you mention that.  It's still the one I use but many features seem unfinished or unrepaired.  Kinda like driving on a nice wide paved road to the river only to find no bridge to cross it.