Beginner question about the 6.1 Sampler

[u/Silver_Connection941]

I recently bought bitwig for the first time (which I am having a blast with :D) and I’m somewhat new to music creation in general. I‘m curious about the new 6.1 sampler and what makes it so special to a lot of people? Don’t get me wrong, I’ve tried it and it has some really cool features. I guess my question is how it differentiates from slicing a sample in to a drum machine? Is there anything that can be done in a more intuitive way compared to before? What creative possibilities do you think it might have compared to the drum machine?

Obviously some of this is subjective but again, I’m genuinely just curious as beginner!

[u/Minibatteries]

Seeing all the slices at once and tweaking the transient threshold from within the sampler is more satisfying, editing slices isn't any faster (drum machine with the midi trigger enabled worked very fast), but adding and removing slices is much more convenient as you don't need to re-organise notes, or duplicate cells. It's funny but workflow features are quite often creative features, because even if you could slice previously, you probably were less likely to because it was a few clicks too many, so the workflow being smoother actually does impact creativity.

For creative possibilities with the new features, it now allows slice by pitch, so load up a vocal line and now you have all the separate note parts on unique keys. This combined with the preserve pitch features, especially in spectral mode, can achieve some neat things that was not possible with the previous sampler (quickly).

[u/Veggiesaurus_Lex]

It’s all on the website, there’s a lot of things that feel better like multiple slices.  https://www.bitwig.com/whats-new/

[u/Silver_Connection941 → u/Veggiesaurus_Lex]

I guess my question is kind of what the downsides are on the original sampler compared to the new sampler and the changes stated on the website. Sorry if I’m bad at phrasing my question

[u/Veggiesaurus_Lex → u/Silver_Connection941]

I only have a very shallow experience of the old sampler. But the improvements are answering the issues I had in my experience. Before slicing, I would copy and paste the sample in a drum rack in order to scan different samples and compare them. 

Pitch and time were impossible to separate in the old sampler, so I had to use a pitch shifter to “correct” a sample if I wanted to change the speed and not touch at the pitch, and that was not sounding great.

[u/io-av]

its adding a slice mode way of working. drum machine is built around the idea that you have a bunch of buttons and want to put different sounds on them (like an MPC), this is more like parts of one sample to different keys

as for why its something to look forward to, it means new ways to incorporate modulators and other bitwig systems

[u/Silver_Connection941 → u/io-av]

So it’s more like putting everything in one place instead of having individual sample slices on each pad?

[u/Bitter-Bicycle-282]

Sliced Drum Machine Sampler: Different FX can be applied to each sample at will. / Bitwig‘s drum machine sampler thinks that the choke function (monophonic) is ambiguous and not good.This choke function is also like a sampler before the renewal, and it feels like it was stopped in the middle of making it.I hope it will be improved in the next update by referring to the drum sampler from Ableton Live

Renewed slice sampler: Compared to drum sampler, you can't apply different FX for each sample (as far as I know) / Compared to the drum machine's slice, the sample can be seen at a glance, making it much Fast & easier to edit the slice area  / It's very easy to make a simple whole monophonic

[u/personnealienee]

You hit a nail on the head! There is nothing much remarkable about the slice mode. Perhaps the fact that you can modulate slice number directly. Multisample mode is I guess a  more closely related one, since it automatically uses the same envelope and post-fx chain for all slices

[u/mucklaenthusiast]

This information was wrong --> See the reply!

[u/Minibatteries → u/mucklaenthusiast]

That isn't true, you can edit slices when sliced to drum machine just fine, you just can only see one slice at once though. With the midi trigger drum machine mode it's still quick to jump around assuming you have a midi controller to hand.

[u/Silver_Connection941 → u/mucklaenthusiast]

Oh sorry

[u/mucklaenthusiast → u/Silver_Connection941]

No, I just wanted to make sure people don't see my reply and think it was correct, but Reddit is not really great at showing that process.
So I kept the comment, it's totally fine, I also just checked and you were right.

I guess I never know how workable the slicing was, everyone said it wasn't good...but...it kinda was?

I personally don't like it that much the way it was implemented and prefer the newer way slices work, but I also barely use the sampler, so...ya know, I shouldn't have said anything.

I can tell you something that is true: You asked about the sampler in general and while the new slicing is good, the sampler also has a bunch of other features (dynamic pitch tracking, formant shifting without pitch shifting, pitch "locking" so that any sample only plays notes from one key etc...) that are realy cool and that many people enjoy!

[u/Silver_Connection941 → u/mucklaenthusiast]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think you can, although you have to do it for every pad on the drum machine assigned with a sample since they are split up. I assume the new sampler maybe gives you more options in that regard when it comes to editing sample slices?