nowaysj wrote:What about the kaossilator pro? That thing has the ability to sample as well as play looped lines.
Two people's opinions I trust on IDMforums.com told me they sold their Kaossilator Pro within a month of having it. There are basically no design options, just presets. Maybe if you already have a boat load of gear and something to resample onto.
It says you can load your own .wavs onto the SD card, but there aren't really any FX on the unit so really all you could do is layer stuff with the preset sounds. But w/o an EQ or filter options this probably won't work that well. So at that point you are paying 399 (new) for a weak synth with very limited sampling capabilities. No audio in. Honestly, I think you'd get more out of combining two KP3s or possibly a KP3 and a Quad Pad.
For 400 dollars if you want a resampling beast I'd say ESX SD version all the way. It can't do unquantized stuff, but has swing and you can leave some air time at the beginning of samples to make things a bit wonky. Also, you can mimic wavetable synthesis with single cycle wave forms. Poor mans Octatrack--True story, I can't think of another live oriented sampling tool (maybe excepting Maschine) that will do what an ESX or better yet an Octatrack will. The only thing is some of the FX on the ESX are a bit poo and the units are somewhat noisy. The stock Electro Harmonix tubes are quite gritty, so you'd want to upgrade those (thankfully the secondary stereo out bypasses the tubes and FX, which is actually kinda nice IMO).
In an ideal world there would be an ESX right next to Maschine in my studio. If I get some things payed of (BillMeLater is a dirty, dirty whore who insults your penis and makes you pay extra if you are naughty) and don't have to sell my gear to avoid badness again this summer I might find a way to get one back in the setup. Right now I owe about 200 dollars on gear that I sold this summer and used the money to pay bills. Thankfully no interest and I'll get it payed off.
Problem is I'm selling myself hard on a Waldorf Pulse 2, but then I think for a mere 400 more dollars I could get a Prophet rack.
You should hear the tubes in in my ART mpa,