Life by XLN Audio

[joeyluck]

https://www.xlnaudio.com/products/life

Looks fun!

It's like they combined the concept of using Mimic / Dr. Octo Rex with something like Pattern Mutator or Beat Map into one device. I know some Reason users have been doing that, having a pattern player trigger slices, and combining features like that into one device is a great way to highlight that approach, which people otherwise might overlook.

[guitfnky]

that looks pretty damn cool. I’ve been wondering whether we’d see anything new from XLN lately—glad to see they’re still doing stuff—they make many of my favorite plugins (RC20 has been on literally every song I’ve released for the last few years). might have to check this one out, since I’m going to be trying to work some more electronic percussion and drums into my stuff.

[_andreypetr_]

Instantly bought it. It is really cool

[DaveyG]

They do make interesting software. XO is the best attempt I've seen that makes sense of the thousands of one-shot samples we all have lying around.

I might demo Life, although I'd wait for a sale if I decided to buy it. The closest I currently get to that functionality is Serato Sample set to random slices.

[_andreypetr_]

They do make interesting software. XO is the best attempt I've seen that makes sense of the thousands of one-shot samples we all have lying around.

I might demo Life, although I'd wait for a sale if I decided to buy it. The closest I currently get to that functionality is Serato Sample set to random slices.

But Life's workflow is the best I've seen

[joeyluck]

Yeah I'm looking forward to trying it out. Although I'm taking a break for now from any more shopping.

For the time being, I'll just be telling myself... "We've got Life at home"

Life at Home.jpg (418.65 KiB) Viewed 30105 times

In all seriousness though, I do recommend using Mimic and player devices like these. And speaking of, the Life player actually works well triggering slices in Mimic. Just record directly into Mimic, put it in slice mode, and throw a player on it, and adjust the slice sensitivity to taste. I always get great results.

[selig]

In all seriousness though, I do recommend using Mimic and player devices like these. And speaking of, the Life player actually works well triggering slices in Mimic. Just record directly into Mimic, put it in slice mode, and throw a player on it, and adjust the slice sensitivity to taste. I always get great results.

I need to dive deeper in Mimic - what advantages (besides a better workflow for slicing new samples) are there for using Mimic over Dr OctaRex for this as I normally would do?

[joeyluck]

In all seriousness though, I do recommend using Mimic and player devices like these. And speaking of, the Life player actually works well triggering slices in Mimic. Just record directly into Mimic, put it in slice mode, and throw a player on it, and adjust the slice sensitivity to taste. I always get great results.

I need to dive deeper in Mimic - what advantages (besides a better workflow for slicing new samples) are there for using Mimic over Dr OctaRex for this as I normally would do?

There might be more, but that's the primary reason for me—better workflow. Being able to just record into Mimic and adjust the slice sensitivity is really great and more enjoyable than recording into the sequencer, choosing to edit the clip, manually adjusting individual slice markers, bouncing to REX loop, and then dropping that into the rack to create a Dr. Octo Rex. And then if you want to adjust slice markers, it's back to the beginning.

Mimic lacks REX support though. So if you have something that exists already as a REX file, you can't import it into Mimic. You then also can't export your Mimic creation as a REX file. I'm hoping they update the SDK to allow for that. Mimic also lacks the ability to edit parameters of individual slices, such as pitch, pan, etc. That would also be nice to have. But then again, if it could export to REX, then in those situations where the user wants to take it another direction and load it into Dr. Octo Rex, that would make it easier. But for the purposes when using my own recordings to play around creating and triggering slices, I prefer Mimic.

[Bes]

mimic in multi-sample, can load up to 8 single slices of any REX
each with a full page of sculpting tools

before mimic i used to go the route of nurse rex in kong to play samples, if i was going to cut a sample today it seems cumbersome to think of making a REX

[guitfnky]

hot balls, this plugin is incredible. not the sort of thing I’d usually go for, but just awesome way to generate interesting new percussion parts to augment a song. and very, very fun. 🤯

[Popey]

hot balls, this plugin is incredible. not the sort of thing I’d usually go for, but just awesome way to generate interesting new percussion parts to augment a song. and very, very fun. 🤯

Yeah it's a very good idea and plugin. Only thing I don't like is the fact they can use what you create however they want.

[platzangst]

Yeah it's a very good idea and plugin. Only thing I don't like is the fact they can use what you create however they want.

How so?

[Popey]

Yeah it's a very good idea and plugin. Only thing I don't like is the fact they can use what you create however they want.

How so?

Their original terms of service (T. O. S) for life gave them carte blanche to use whatever you created how they like and also put any licensing issues on the user. Eg. If you uploaded content into life which incroached on copyright which they then use and get sued for, you would be liable.

However since I posted the comment you replied to xln audio have responded to negative comments about this and said they would only use your work to train ai and are changing/going to change the TOS

[DaveyG]

Is it compulsory to use their cloud thing or can this plugin work fully offline (once registered/unlocked)?

[dioxide]

Looks good. I always think that it would make sense to do an update where OctoREX and Redrum are split into Player / Instrument pairs so that you could add the sequencing section of these devices to any instrument. These Reason 1 devices (Matrix also) are so useful and I still prefer using them to the newer RS Players.

[guitfnky]

I don't use other 'creative samplers', so I could be off-base, but I think Life is very different than most of the RS tools in the space, due to whatever its 'AI' is doing to identify slices and put them into interesting patterns. I suspect the different RS Players and sampling REs work similarly to the Loopmix plugin compared here, more or less:

sure, you can get similar results with other tools, but for me (a guy with zero interest in the--IMO--very boring task of manually curating a bunch of samples, slice points, etc.), Life is in an altogether different use category. I love the fact that I can record bits and pieces of what's going on around me, and NOT have to spend any time picking out which bits I think will make a good set of musical samples, if I don't want to.

that's not a slight against these more 'traditional' tools and methods, of course. there's a lot of really great stuff that comes out of that way of working--it's just that I'm way too lazy for that, personally.

[joeyluck]

Yeah XLN's Life definitely looks more tailored for this approach with its features and use of AI. I'm looking forward to trying it out!

For me, when using a player RE and Mimic, what I like to do is just follow the player with Tonic Mint's AB Transpose player. Then I just choose or randomize a pattern in the first player (whether it's BeatMap, Pattern Mutator, Life, etc), and then adjust the slice Sensitivity knob on Mimic, and use AB Transpose to adjust what section is being triggered. I always have fun with that and get great results with anything.

So it's just those 3 things for me: browse/randomize pattern, adjust slice sensitivity, adjust transpose. It's pretty simple and not much manual editing that I'm doing. And those become kind of fun performance tools. It's too bad the slice Sensitivity can't be automated on Mimic... But anyways, I'm certainly not wanting to present it as a "You can already do that with Thor/Combinator" type suggestion lol, it's more a reminder of other ways some of the REs can be used and XLN Life looks really cool.