Cheap samplers?

MirageBass · #1 09-20-2007, 02:57 PM

Well, I'm stuck in college on the other side of the country as my old drummer. He's attending a university, but he's writing music - we're looking to play together in the summer. Problem is, some of the stuff we want to do means that we would need some live samplers. What's a poor collegiate to do?

Are there any cheap sampler pedals I could activate onstage a la Geddy Lee, or might it be better to do prerecorded tracks with lots of "blank time" using a laptop or somesuch?

speak_onion · #2 09-20-2007, 05:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MirageBass

Well, I'm stuck in college on the other side of the country as my old drummer. He's attending a university, but he's writing music - we're looking to play together in the summer. Problem is, some of the stuff we want to do means that we would need some live samplers. What's a poor collegiate to do?

Are there any cheap sampler pedals I could activate onstage a la Geddy Lee, or might it be better to do prerecorded tracks with lots of "blank time" using a laptop or somesuch?

I'm not sure if I understand what you're trying to do? Do you want to trigger one-shot samples at a moment's notice? Do you want to play along with loops for a preset amount of time? Do you want to jam along with loops for an undetermined amount of time?

CHILDISHGAMBINO · #3 09-20-2007, 06:18 PM

If you want to do one shots and loops and want to do this on the cheap you could probably use a Boss RC2. If you have a digital recorder or 1/4" outputs on your computer you can record samples and then play them back through the RC2 as a one shot or a loop. There's also an input you can plug a mp3 player into(1/8" maybe?). I don't know if this would be cheaper than just getting a sampler(it probably is cheaper though)but I had a digital 4 track when I bought my RC2 and it works pretty well. I run it through my amp usually but I want to try sending to the PA so it's easier to control the volume differences from sample to sample. Hope this helped.

Swimming Bird · #4 09-21-2007, 07:59 AM

Well, a Korg Kaoss Pad is very versatile and is a very good sampler. I know you only have access to four samples at a time, but it lets you load a bunch through a USB connection and an SD card, so you should have access to more.

http://www.korg.com/gear/info.asp?A_PROD_NO=KP3

Any case, these are the cheapest samplers I know of with the newest, shiniest Kaoss Pad retailing for $400 (you should be able to talk them down to $325). There are a few other models, including a mini, which are all cheaper and they should all be good samplers.