MASCHINE! Native Instruments' Maschine is great, as drum machine, great step sequencer for playing live, making music, and integrates in with your DAW.

 

old, sampleplayer... sp-1200 comes to mind.
affordable, daw integration, that would be arturia spark.

old, simple, affordable, daw integration, sample based - impossible to have it all in one machine.

 

This topic spiked my interest as ive owned /used oh so so many over the years i9thought id weigh in.....
Well i see some suggestions for the ol e5000 ultra and its a serious piece of sampling technology even to this day....It was the fourth id owned back in around 2000 and Of course there are the mpc series of drum samplers which id probably have gone for also.....In my opinion i prefer the emus and if youre ever considering buying one second hand they can be ridiculously cheap wheras the akais even say the old ass s950 and s1000 can sety you back £250 plus ...But the emus are really cheap by comparision i got the 5000 ultra expanded with 16 outs and a multi fx exp and for £135 sterling uk....And whilst i no longer have it,i wish i did and it was me needing as much cash as i could get quickly which was why i got rid of it and a heap of other hardware for stupid money too....arrgghhh.......sorry i digress...
....Well although the software sampler is from a t4echnical viewpoint is the superior,i would still always prefer to be running one of the emu e series "yes even the old old old ass Esynth Or e4xt non ultra versions with the ol white lcd screen if anyone remembers them...Awsome awsome samplers...The akais too but i myself prefer the emus..............

 

Last edited: Feb 19, 2016

Sorry last thing..."There is a reason why when buying library, it will proudly state what sampler was used Know what i mean..

 

I am but it depends what for.......Thats not coz theyre not worth it at all its coz of financial bs

 

I play and record real drums, but if I did much MIDI drum work, I would probably go with ToonTack software.

 

Go for an Akai MPC,the 2000 or the XL.
Very affordable and they're standalones.
The Maschine always comes up but for the price,you can get 2 MPCs and actually have a standalone unit,not just a controller.
And someone mentioned the SP1200 being affordable..........$4000 for a sampler isn't affordable in my book.
That's enough for MPCs,computer,monitors,D.A.W and midi controller.

You might luck up and run into a 3000 or 4000 for cheap but if you can,definitely go with one of them.

The XL is rock solid though,and can be easily modded,and for cheap.

Peace

 

If you're referring to me (?), read again.

 

I bought a Spark from Arturia used for 100 bucks. It is just Ok, but for the price I paid, fantastic. Touch sensitive and very tweakable plus effects. The only caveat is that you need to run the software with it as it is not a stand alone unit, no outputs for the sound.

 

Maschine

 

If that was you,you'll have to clarify.Because i'm not familiar with a SP-1200 sampleplayer.
And also this is about hardware.The OP asked about hardware but people keep posting software recommendations.
Which i don't understand either.

 

Spark and Maschine are both hybrid solutions that won't do anything without the software.
Although both are very nice solutions, if you want great standalone hardware, I can also recommend Korg Electribe SX (ESX1).
It's one of the very few that will keep all samples in flash memory even after power-off, so if creativity strikes you, you can start hacking beats instantly. For me this is *very* important and one of the big advantages of hardware.
The ESX has a great control panel, no comparison to the newer plastic electribe that is full of ugly nested menus.
Another option is Korg Microsampler, it also has a lot of flash memory and a sequencer, but it's more optimized for melodic/chord sequencing and does not have the nice 16 step-LEDs and flashing instrument buttons.
Korg ESX would still be my choice for a standalone hardware sampling drum machine, although I now prefer the Korg EMX (great, usable synthesis features) combined with a Roland SP-404. Very fast to work with, although of course the ESX is more powerful than the SP-404.

 

Akai MPC

 

Yeah personally I would use a laptop or something with Superior Drummer or BFD before even considering any sort of hardware based approach.

 

Jynx. $200 and you can have it. E5000 Ultra loaded with hard drive. I have a SCSI to USB adapter that works for it somewhere as well and the latest firmware. I really have no use for it anymore.

 

The EMU samplers have a sound that just can't be compared to Arturia Spark, or Superior Drummer. You can't get that sound out of digital right now, it just doesn't sound the same. I really used the E5000 for the Z-plane filters onboard which were a staple in drum n bass because those morphing filters, EMU later added them to the Emulator X software range, but they didn't work or sound as good.

Just my opinion.

 

Yup i agree mann ,i havnt found one piece of software in terms of a sampling drum machine/sampling workstations that i myself can sit back and be completely content with,Simply coz im a hardware junkie and to be fair its only in the past few years that daws have gotten so damn powerfull that finally to a large degree you can do it all in the box with some choice badass vsts.....
Sure theres many elements about the software route that surpasses hardware but theres something i truly love about having a knob and a button for each function as opposed to a bloody mouse!!!
Its about the sound it creates after all,i myself have sampled loads of material from various sources over the years and still to this day although youve way way more scope in terms of certain types of editing on software,But harware for me just does the job with so much more warmth and charachter"even in terms of the fx availiable to each sampling unit, which were largely the same but some great afterthoughts were conjoured up like the ol beat munger huh"!!......

Anywayz so im assuning that as youve put $$$$$ and not ££££££ that your in the states yes??
Well yeah id defo be interested my friend.......but what exactly do you have with it?
It may be a little optermistic of me but i dont suppose youre including a cdrom and a scsi or a HD with it are you??
That works out to round a £100 uk but then theres the cost of gettin it over here so i hope it wont be too much for shipping is all.....
Unless im reading too much into the dollor signs he he!!
Btw disregard the bit bout if youve a scsi drive blah blah coz i didnt see the end of the text in your msg till now......
Greets..
Jynxy

 

Last edited: Feb 26, 2016

Basically, i have the EMU Ultra E5000 with a hard drive installed with all of the EMU cds pre-loaded, so you don't need the CDS anymore. I have those cds somewhere.

I will look into how much it cost to ship it, i know your far away and such a pain in the ass. I ordered some stuff from Editor Keys recently and it took about 2 in half weeks total from the UK.

 

Ok so the only aftermaeket add on is the internal hd right?....Meaning its standard in all other respects like no output or fx card expantion..
Which is still fine,I think ive still got some of the old library on cd rom somewhere but i didnt use the standard library when i first got it but sure its nice to have it on the hd...........My missus works for a courier company but im unsure about overseas deleviry/collections but i will ask her when she gets home in a few hours...

j

 

I have a Roland MV-8800 with 512MB RAM. It has a full color screen (note that the older model MV-8000 does not), CD burner, SATA hard drive, and connections for a monitor and mouse (MV-8000 doesn't have this). I've never burned a CD with it or used an external monitor/mouse. It sounds fantastic and does everything you could ask of a drum sampler. They were about $2800 when new. I bought mine lightly used for about $650. No, I'm not selling mine.