Recording - June 2012 - 50

BY DARWIN GROSSE

Samplers have come a long way in a relatively short time. It wasn’t long ago that samplers were hardware devices, with storage measured in Megabytes and sounds loaded from diskettes. Now, software-based sampling systems are almost limitless in terms of storage, memory use and complexity. There are several very strong players, and MOTU’s latest incarnation of the MachFive sampler system is that company’s attempt to jump to the head of the class. As such, they’ve attempted to create a system that surpasses the plug-in moniker, becoming an instrument that can fulfill a majority of your music-making needs. Were they successful? Let’s find out.

MOTU MachFive 3
Much more than a software sampler—a whole new approach to virtual instruments
The software MachFive 3, the newest version of MOTU’s sampler, is also their most feature-packed device ever. Beyond simple sample management and playback, MachFive includes an ultra-modern synthesis engine and a effects rack system similar to that which Digital Performer users have come to enjoy. This is all routed through a mixing system that will be comfortable to almost everyone, providing almost DAW-like routing of audio output. Much of the power of the MachFive system is tucked under its attractive skin. It offers the latest generation of the UVI sample playback engine, with a high-efficiency disk-streaming engine supporting ultra-large sample sets. It also contains time-stretching, pitch-shifting and granular technology on loan from IRCAM, the French music technology research institution. A builtin scripting engine add a whole new level of processing versatility—most visibly on display with the showcase of MachFive’s content: the Instruments. The library These Instruments are huge multi-sampled beasts that use scripting to do their magic. Each one takes up an entire DVD, requiring 1000 or more samples to be defined and mapped. They are heavily dependent on disk streaming (enough so that I had to pay close attention to performance characteristics on my Mac systems), but have features that I’ve not seen in any other sampler implementation. To me, the most spectacular instrument is Telematic, a guitarbased device that generates chords or single-string lines by watching your playing and adjusting its output to create guitaristic musical forms. The sample set is excellent, but it is this playback-management that makes the day; it allows you to work with your keyboard as expected, but end up with phrases that you would swear are coming from a guitarist’s hand. I can’t imagine a production scenario where you would want a guitar
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tone and couldn’t use Telematic’s playback scripting... and that’s speaking as a guitarist who also plays keyboards. Other instruments are equally impressive. The two bass instruments (J Bass and The Upright) provide a level of detail that surpass sample-based systems; the sound is detailed and present, and supports an up-front role for the low tones. The pianos (F Piano 278, a Fazioli grand, and Mark79, an Rhodes sample set) are amazingly sensitive, responding to every subtlety of the player. Both of these pianos feature over 2000 samples, with both tones and realistic instrument noises. I found that the F Piano 278 instrument quickly became my favorite piano tone, leap-frogging several other piano-specific plug-ins. Drums and percussion are also present with the Star Drums and Percussiv’ instruments. Again, these are built out of very large sample sets, and respond almost perfectly to the drum pads that I’m used to in the studio. These kits include several different MIDI mappings, so you can play them using General MIDI definitions, device-specific setups and even Roland V-Drum MIDI kits. I especially liked how these instruments worked with a light touch, responding to every nuance effectively. The functionality of the Instrument series comes at a price—these script-driven devices require a pretty heavy-duty computer system to run them. I initially tried using them with a two year-old Mac mini system and a USB hard drive; that system choked under the strain of the streaming audio engine, and sent me running to a bigger box. On a quad-core desktop, I was able to get better performance, and my recently purchased laptop was capable of handling it as well as long as I didn’t push the polyphony too hard. MOTU doesn’t shy away from this fact, requiring a multi-core processor, and suggesting 2 GHz or faster CPU (with 1.83 GHz at minimum). Anything less than that is going to be a disappointment.

Recording - June 2012

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