One last word to sum up the experience of my extensive testing of everything i could find:

The thing i'm looking for is basically a combination of ADSR Sample Manager's tagging and browsing system (including host bpm synced loop auditioning capability) and New Sonic Arts Vice's loop slicing and slice routing capabilities.

The browsing system of Vice is just absolutely horrible. Can't do no worse than that. There's just no way of keeping your loops organized this way. You can't even predefine any steady library paths, no tagging, no searching for keywords. So Vice really doesn't seem to be a 2023 solution in that regard, which to me is just a huge disadvantage. If they fix that and add the ability to timestretch the loop/slices to host tempo in reltime, this will become a super plugin everyone wants to have in their arsenal.

ADSR Sample Manager on the other hand, besides missing the slicing options completely, could also be improved in terms of auto-tagging and automatic recognition of tempo and key. It basically just tries to take what it can from file and folder names and lacks appropriate satisfying algorithms for detecting tempo and key, if the files/folders are not named right already.

A plugin that would combine these functionalities would be a gamechanger, imho.

In 2023 you should actually expect every professional DAW to deliver these functionalities nativley. But since that is not the case (with the exeption of Ableton Live), the need for such a plugin should be obvious. I really wonder why this just doesn't seem to be recognized by plugin developers. Still, i haven't given up hope completely yet. Maybe Eric Pesing baffles us with a stylus rmx upgrade, that allows for direct import of wav files and a way to slice them up manually. It will probably remain a dream...

Anyway, happy new year to everyone. Let's hope for a new good loop plugin this year.

 

Last edited: Jan 7, 2023

Spoiler: V6.[B]3.5[/B] MAC and WIN-NOT V6.[B]5.3[/B] installers

Link to incorrect ver removed

 

Last edited: Jan 2, 2023

Lifesaver!!! Thank you and have a happy new year!!

 

UR welcome. Thank you and you as well!!

 

Just installed, this is version 6.3.5, do you also have version 6.5.3?

 

I 'll claim dyslexia I think this is the last V6 I pulled, but will have a look when back later and will post if I do.

 

Hahaha! Thank you!

 

ADSR's Sample Manager I wouldn't recommend. I've used every version since the first beta up to v1.74. Great concept but lots of bugs. It will frustrate you. I spent many, many hours days weeks working with that one. I have a huge loop library and when it comes to batch processing, moving samples, importing a large number of files, that's where a lot of problems mostly come in. It has such great potential to be the perfect software for loops but believe me when I tell you don't waste your time on that one.... I opted for/ signed up for Loopcloud and it is hands down the best IMO

 

Have you tried Audio Moderns Loopmix yet? I supplied a copy to sister site recently that was made available by MOCHA.
You can load up to 6 loops in 1 instance, plays back to the tempo of your DAW, it automatically chops up the breaks or loops to each hit when you load it in, it has a lot of tweaking settings including pitch, density(glitch type effects), reverse, etc...
You can also choose between mono or poly, in Poly you can play any hit of any loop or even all loops at same time. in Mono it will be only 1 hit of any given loop at a time, making it easy to mix up several loops into 1 new loop.
I've only started using it so I know there's a lot I haven't even figured out yet but its basically what I have always been looking for in terms of easy loop manipulation. It even has a built in mixer so you can adjust the individual loop volumes inside the plug.
It also has export options to wav or midi so you could make a cool loop and then export to midi if you don't like some of the drum hits and swap it out. Or you can just export your new crazy .wav loop to your project and then further tweak or wtv.

Just want to point out that the browser at first might be a little confusing, it opens up by default to the "packs" that comes with it.
But just below Packs at the bottom left of the plugin you'll see "Samples". You click on that, click on "Add Folder +" and add all the folders you have your breaks in.
Now you can browse all your loops through the plugin, and quickly drag n drop to any of the 6 lanes.

Hope it helps bro

EDIT: Oh yeah and as with all of Audio Moderns stuff it has many randomizing parameters (just click the big red button for example) so if youre stuck you can always click that for new ideas.

This one and Chord Jam are my 2 favorites from the bundle.

 

Yes, i've just seen the post yesterday, i'll check that one out. Could be good indeed. Thank you. Does this offer to set the slices freely, not grid-related? Because i usually chop my loops according to their transients rather than to the grid.

 

Last edited: Jan 4, 2023

Yeah, that's what i've noted too. ADSR SM would indeed be a superb plugin, the search and tagging function and browser gui are really intuitive and great. They just need to fix their bugs and implement the ability to slice the loops up. Boy, this would be so freakin useful. But i'm probably not desperate enough to sign up to loopcloud yet...

 

Did some initial testing with maschine. The slice detection algorithm is probably the best i've seen so far. Unfortunately the browser and searching system isn't great at all and as far as i can see, the grouping of slices to diffrent outputs doesn't work easily either.

 

Well I guess it depends what kind of loops you are talking about. If you're talking about drum loops, yes its grid based but it is slicing on the transients, every 16th note as far as I can tell. IDK you would just have to try it out and see if its your thing or not.

Im not sure how to explain it better, it is grid based but it is also slicing on transients?

here's a demo

 

I'm sure its a great tool, the ability to load more than one loop and jam around like this is certainly cool and looks like a lot of fun. But it's not quite what i'm looking for. I want to slice drumloops on EVERY transient, whether its on grid or not. This way, they can be stretched better and you can mute out whatever slice you don't want afterwards.

 

Fair enough, just one question tho: What kind of drum loops do you have that are not on grid? Like assuming its recorded in 4/4 then everything is on a grid.
Unless you are using drumloops from some guy jamming on his bongo recorded on his phone in Africa then yeah maybe its not on grid, but most people play to a click, even real drummers when making a drumloop or recording any music they play to a click. And even with some swing or "human feel" its still on grid its just slightly notched over.
But I can understand if you are looking to do some more complex stretching of the individual hits, at that point I am a Ableton user and just drop drumloops as audio and do the crazy stretchin's.

Anyway I hope you find what you're looking for!

 

My favorite is this one. Just quick and clean and has a mac like intedrface https://icedaudio.com/site/

 

Depends on the music you want to make. If you do EDM you'll probably never use any off grid stuff ever. Everything is quantized to 1/64 or even 1/32. But when you want to use old drumloops recorded from 70s soul vinyl and stuff like that or drums that have been recorded over various bars with no click or metronome and you want to stretch them with as little loss in quality as possible, then you're in need of a good transient detection algorithm and some manual slicing skills. I just think it would be nice to be able to do this kind of stuff in a plugin that is a little bit more up to date than Propellerhead's Recycle, that combines the slicing functions with everything else you need to manage a big loop library in a smart and convenient way.

 

Seems similar to Sononym. The feature, which allows you to highlight a section of a sample and play it on your midi keyboard looks awsome, though.

 

Last edited: Jan 7, 2023

I love Audio Finder but Library in Bitwig is pretty comprehensive.