XO by XLN Audio

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guitfnky
Posts: 4408
Joined: 19 Jan 2015

26 Oct 2020

Billy wrote:
26 Oct 2020
guitfnky wrote:
26 Oct 2020


yep, I've tried a ton of different sequencing options for drums, and so far, XO is the only one that comes close to being what I need--aside from the deal breaking lack of support for different meters, of course.

Drum Sequencer is decent, and definitely handles odd meters, but just doesn't provide great groove and humanizing options (although the probability feature is great). the need to manually set velocity for each step is cumbersome, and the swing options are still very robotic sounding to my ear.

XO has a really easy humanization settings with the Accentuator and Groove engines. I'm not a huge fan of the Groove feature, since its similar to Reason's, which offers no visual feedback about what its doing--but it still beats having a multi-step process like I'd need for using Drum Sequencer.

the best tool I've found so far is Rayzoon's Jamstix--which, of course is not great in Reason because it still doesn't support VST MIDI. 🤦🏻‍♂️
Well I know it's abit long winded but after you have created the sequence you want, you could explode the midi to multiple channels and use the regroove mixer on the channels
yep, and that's exactly what I want to avoid. I need something that approximates a true human feel in as few steps as possible--otherwise I may as well keep playing everything via keyboard myself.
I write good music for good people

https://slowrobot.bandcamp.com/

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aeox
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Posts: 3222
Joined: 23 Feb 2017
Location: Oregon

26 Oct 2020

This seems really useful but I don't have any sample libraries to actually use it with. My personally made samples are pretty limited at the moment but I may trial this when I have more accumulated in the coming years. I'm going to make it a goal of mine to start saving sounds that I've created as audio files rather than just as combinator patches.

Though, I do have Reasons factory sounds. Maybe I could get them in there and explore!

Very innovative, I'd say.

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guitfnky
Posts: 4408
Joined: 19 Jan 2015

26 Oct 2020

aeox wrote:
26 Oct 2020
This seems really useful but I don't have any sample libraries to actually use it with. My personally made samples are pretty limited at the moment but I may trial this when I have more accumulated in the coming years. I'm going to make it a goal of mine to start saving sounds that I've created as audio files rather than just as combinator patches.

Though, I do have Reasons factory sounds. Maybe I could get them in there and explore!

Very innovative, I'd say.
I'm not sure whether the Reason sounds are picked up by XO, but I believe XO does come with either 2,000 (light version) or 8,000 samples (full). I was surprised to see how many samples were in the 'cloud' for me in the demo version because I'm in the same boat as you from a sample library perspective.
I write good music for good people

https://slowrobot.bandcamp.com/

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Billy+
Posts: 4157
Joined: 09 Dec 2016

26 Oct 2020

Unfortunately XO won't read refills, but you could save the samples you want/like into a folder then add them for analysis by XO, but the amount of samples included should see you alright for awhile. And if you have standard wav file based sample packs then your laughing.

It's a fairly good bit of software and as you can add effect to the samples then export with or without the effects applied individually or as a master stem it's not going to take you long to start getting a nice selection of your own curated loops or kits, the only thing I would like to see is being able to drag the midi out of reason to save as a complete kit. That being said you can save it all within XO so I guess it's what you want from it.

I love the fact that you can process hits and drag them into native drum machines, it really does give you a lot of creativity and choice about what you do.

groggy1
Posts: 466
Joined: 10 Jun 2015

26 Oct 2020

I like XO, but I've been using it less lately for 2 reasons:
1) If you have a lot of samples (20GB+), the XO window can hang for a couple seconds when you first load the plugin. This is not a blocker, but is annoying
2) I went back to using Umf RE more, because my samples are already organized into folders - so I found I was able to find something useful right in reason's browser faster

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Billy+
Posts: 4157
Joined: 09 Dec 2016

26 Oct 2020

This feature
IMG_2224.JPG
IMG_2224.JPG (60.08 KiB) Viewed 665 times
should be in all drum machines
The only annoying bit is the names cannot be changed
IMG_2226.JPG
IMG_2226.JPG (40.03 KiB) Viewed 663 times

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miscend
Posts: 1955
Joined: 09 Feb 2015

29 Oct 2020

I've recently been demoing this sample manager https://www.sononym.net/ It works with other types of sounds too and not just drums.

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