Cheap sampler..?

[mward69]

Hey guys, I'm shopping for a cheap rack mount sampler to add to my rack, basically to play intro to certain songs, like more human than human, Cowboys from hell....something I can reach over hit a button, let it play, come in with it, then reach over and hit stop
{I run lights too from my side of the stage} so I have to be able to use a "dummy proof" setup.....any sugg?

[bongomania]

Check out the ancient Akai S612. It's 2RU of the simplest, most dummy-proof sampler I've ever seen. Pop in a sample, press the play button, it plays the sample. Sounds great too. The chief limitation is that it has no memory, it can only play one sample at a time, recorded on little nonstandard floppy discs. So the discs are a major PITA to find and it's a hassle having to swap them every time, but OTOH it fits your purpose perfectly and they sell for hella cheap.

If you want something that will hold more samples in memory, yet remain dummy-resistant, I'd actually recommend a Boss or Yamaha "groove box" desktop sampler instead of a rackmount unit. After the S612, every other rackmount sampler at every price point just got super complicated to where you can't just press a button to play the sample you want, you have to use an external keyboard and have your MIDI all carefully mapped out etc. Whereas with the groove boxes they have nice big buttons that light up, one sample per button. They can go for cheapish used as well.

[Swimming Bird]

Dunno about rack mount samplers, but in general samplers are not cheap. The easiest way to go is to use a laptop if you have one available. Otherwise, if you're willing to forgo the rack unit, get a Korg Kaoss Pad 3 -- very easy to use, has a lot of features, sampling is expandable by 2 GB, has a USB connection for easy computer use AND is cheaper than any standalone sampler I've come across.

[mward69]

Thanks for the response...I may go with the laptop deal. There are 4 songs on our set list that really need the intros ran.