Layers...”just” a rompler? Isn’t it?

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MrFigg
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28 Oct 2018

Uh...isn’t it? Is it?
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Oquasec
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28 Oct 2018

Mhm basically just nexus all over again.
Hydronexius & layers is just nexus
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tanni
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28 Oct 2018

yes they are "only" romplers in my eyes.
And they dont have much possibilities like a Korg Wavestation for example, which is also a "Rompler"

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MrFigg
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28 Oct 2018

Hmm. I’m starting to dislike romplers. (See my DNALabs thread)
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tanni
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28 Oct 2018

I like Romplers if they are made good and not only full with content nobody needs. Thinking on Korg Wavestation, Roland JD800, JV1080, XV5080 in the 90ies etc.
All they have a good choice of Waveforms (mostly not more than 8 MB !) in it and powerful edit parameters for making soundpatches.
Layering is a good concept, but today soft-Samplers or soft-Romplers like Kontakt etc. have mostly Gigabytes of content and kills your harddisk with content. Nobody today make clever economical sampling and looping and so on, because its too time consuming. Instead they are sampling every key long time without looping and fills your harddisk with a lot stuff you wont overview. Bigger is better is the motto today....what a waste.

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Oquasec
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28 Oct 2018

Romplers are basically refills. Still convenient but if you wanna do original stuff then of course don't romp lmao.
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joeyluck
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28 Oct 2018

MrFigg wrote:
28 Oct 2018
Hmm. I’m starting to dislike romplers. (See my DNALabs thread)
I wouldn't say they are just "romplers"...although I'm not really sure what defines that. There's some great design and users have flexibility to edit. They are sample based. But at the same time, aren't you a fan of bitley's refill?

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MrFigg
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28 Oct 2018

joeyluck wrote:
28 Oct 2018
MrFigg wrote:
28 Oct 2018
Hmm. I’m starting to dislike romplers. (See my DNALabs thread)
I wouldn't say they are just "romplers"...although I'm not really sure what defines that. There's some great design and users have flexibility to edit. They are sample based. But at the same time, aren't you a fan of bitley's refill?
Well yes. Yes I am. :)
Hmm...I’ve also got Layers ha ha.
I think I’m just pissed off at the Aquios and Hydronexius. I’ll probably feel better tomorrow :).
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Data_Shrine
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28 Oct 2018

What irks me with IDT are the effects, enveloppes and so on... are they all the same ? Basically, just pieces taken from PH stock pile ? If not, then I suppose romplers could be interesting.

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O1B
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28 Oct 2018

Propellerhead's A-List makes for some Good Rompling.
They - Props - are only RE Brand I have - now that I realize... A-List

Rompers can be More Efficient when Switching Bass, Guitar, and Drum flavors than w/Oscillation, Filtration, and Modulation.

They (Romplers) just have to sound Good... whatever that means to you.
MrFigg wrote:
28 Oct 2018
Hmm. I’m starting to dislike romplers. (See my DNALabs thread)

scratchnsnifff
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28 Oct 2018

The only romplerS Iv been using are the j Chris griffin saw-1 discovery and skrock poltergeist
(Edit)
Layers does have a few things going for it/them

The waves edition had a bunch of cool samples inside of it, and I like the sequencers. So I suppose the romplerS of today are growing and getting more unique.
The idt toolkit was updated and soon someone will make one with sample import, I’m definitely excited to see that get implemented. (As said from the gorilla idt guy in that one interview)
The saw-1 has a crazy good filter it’s one of my favorite sounding filter sweeps in a long time :)
Idk if it was built using the Re sdk or the idt sdk. But just so I understand this correctly
Does the idt toolkit present a set of filters to choose from and a set of effects? Or are they all done by each developer?

I know the sdk for Standard rack extensions are done per developer
For example do a filter sweep on a dubstep fm bass from predator and compare it to a sweep using expanse or Thor. The same 12db per octave filter will sound different

But could anyone shed some light on this topic? Asking for a friend :)
Mayor of plucktown :evil:

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Chizmata
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20 Jan 2020

gotta say im positively surprised! didnt expect more than an occasional fun dabble but layers is a serious pad beast.

djadalaide
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20 Jan 2020

If you could load your own samples into layers, now that would be fun.

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dvdrtldg
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22 Jan 2020

I like Layers if I'm feeling uninspired and want to get a sort of ballpark vintage sound, it's one of the few RE synths (imo) that has a lot of good presets and I can often quickly dial in a sound that sort-of-gets me where I want to be. Plus I really like the sequencer. Often I'll end up swapping it out for something else further down the track, but as a "placeholder" synth it can be very useful

loopeydoug
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22 Jan 2020

djadalaide wrote:
20 Jan 2020
If you could load your own samples into layers, now that would be fun.
I took a couple of days trying various builds with Layers and this was my frustrated conclusion.

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guitfnky
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22 Jan 2020

this whole “just a rompler” thing just kind of makes no sense to me. it’s like saying a Stratocaster is “just” a Stratocaster”. the implication (I guess?) is that it’s somehow less viable an instrument than a real...what? waveform? Stratocaster?

what are we saying here? that it’s a kazoo? not worth our time? yeesh, if it sounds good to you, USE IT. don’t second guess it because it was recorded before you used it.

if you want authentic, you’d better be sure never to touch another sample, either. and you can’t use a drum set for those sounds. it’s not real unless you made the kick drum yourself (preferably carved). but you didn’t grow the wood for the shell yourself, did you? ugh, strike. you did? but did you put the nutrients into the soil? strike. no, you did? oh, good. but are the molecules that fed the tree all handmade???

how ridiculous we get with this stuff, sometimes. 😆

quit it and go make some music!
I write good music for good people

https://slowrobot.bandcamp.com/

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xboix
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23 Jan 2020

Mellotron. Just a rompler. :mrgreen:

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MrFigg
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23 Jan 2020

guitfnky wrote:
22 Jan 2020
this whole “just a rompler” thing just kind of makes no sense to me. it’s like saying a Stratocaster is “just” a Stratocaster”. the implication (I guess?) is that it’s somehow less viable an instrument than a real...what? waveform? Stratocaster?

what are we saying here? that it’s a kazoo? not worth our time? yeesh, if it sounds good to you, USE IT. don’t second guess it because it was recorded before you used it.

if you want authentic, you’d better be sure never to touch another sample, either. and you can’t use a drum set for those sounds. it’s not real unless you made the kick drum yourself (preferably carved). but you didn’t grow the wood for the shell yourself, did you? ugh, strike. you did? but did you put the nutrients into the soil? strike. no, you did? oh, good. but are the molecules that fed the tree all handmade???

how ridiculous we get with this stuff, sometimes. 😆

quit it and go make some music!
Haha. It was a question. Not a statement. And anyway...Stratocaster? Never. I’d rather have a rompler. :)
Jazzmaster all the way (or a Jaguar actually :) )
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TritoneAddiction
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23 Jan 2020

I don't mind romplers if they sound good. Some do, some don't.

The Layers synths are somewhere in the middle for me. You can find some decent sounds here and there, but overall they sound pretty stale imo.

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guitfnky
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23 Jan 2020

MrFigg wrote:
23 Jan 2020
guitfnky wrote:
22 Jan 2020
this whole “just a rompler” thing just kind of makes no sense to me. it’s like saying a Stratocaster is “just” a Stratocaster”. the implication (I guess?) is that it’s somehow less viable an instrument than a real...what? waveform? Stratocaster?

what are we saying here? that it’s a kazoo? not worth our time? yeesh, if it sounds good to you, USE IT. don’t second guess it because it was recorded before you used it.

if you want authentic, you’d better be sure never to touch another sample, either. and you can’t use a drum set for those sounds. it’s not real unless you made the kick drum yourself (preferably carved). but you didn’t grow the wood for the shell yourself, did you? ugh, strike. you did? but did you put the nutrients into the soil? strike. no, you did? oh, good. but are the molecules that fed the tree all handmade???

how ridiculous we get with this stuff, sometimes. 😆

quit it and go make some music!
Haha. It was a question. Not a statement. And anyway...Stratocaster? Never. I’d rather have a rompler. :)
Jazzmaster all the way (or a Jaguar actually :) )
:lol: there are those who do think of it as a statement though—that’s the group I meant...the whole IDT Rack Extension discussion that was really common a year or two ago.

and I’m not a Strat guy either. I’m more of an LP-style fan, myself. still, I wouldn’t mind having one...but I’ve never played a Jaguar...maybe I need to buy one of each to correct that. 🤔 :lol:
I write good music for good people

https://slowrobot.bandcamp.com/

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MrFigg
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23 Jan 2020

guitfnky wrote:
23 Jan 2020
MrFigg wrote:
23 Jan 2020


Haha. It was a question. Not a statement. And anyway...Stratocaster? Never. I’d rather have a rompler. :)
Jazzmaster all the way (or a Jaguar actually :) )
:lol: there are those who do think of it as a statement though—that’s the group I meant...the whole IDT Rack Extension discussion that was really common a year or two ago.

and I’m not a Strat guy either. I’m more of an LP-style fan, myself. still, I wouldn’t mind having one...but I’ve never played a Jaguar...maybe I need to buy one of each to correct that. 🤔 :lol:
Never, ever, ever liked Les Pauls. Really, really would like a Jazzmaster but Swedish winters are not kind in guitars. The air is too dry. I lost a ‘74 SG to frostbite.
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botnotbot
Posts: 290
Joined: 26 Oct 2017

23 Jan 2020

Layers and Layers Wave (we are talking about the RS products, right?) have some quick and fun potential for dialing in evolving pads backed by a rhythmic sequence from a different legendary sound source. I don't open them often but when I do and I engage them on their own terms, I enjoy the results.

Perhaps worthwhile to note, the same is true of UVI products for me. I have Vintage Vault, rarely get it going, but when I do I accept that, yes, these are sample-backed instruments. But in the UVI and Layers cases, care has been taken to at least nail a good workflow and deliver on some uniqueness to their offerings beyond a 1:1 mapping of features (which is the kind of "retro" synth that I usually fire up).

In other words, Layers to me is more than a rompler. A rompler, to my tastes at least, is something more like ID8. Programming a rompler feels more like programming a combinator, where you have a small set of options. Once it gets bigger and more interesting, I don't generally think of sample-backed instruments as "romplers".

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demt
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23 Jan 2020

arrangers ,romplers with style
Reason 12 ,gear4 music sdp3 stage piano .nektar gxp 88,behringer umc1800 .line6 spider4 30
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mcatalao
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24 Jan 2020

They are romplers, but they are fully configurable, so you can get a nice pallette of sounds from them.

Of course if you could load other samples on to them they would be more versatile, but then again... I think with some fiddling you can create something with the same functionality with nn-xt's, mixers and other stuff.

I like them thh

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Chizmata
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24 Jan 2020

i think layers was designed without own samples in mind. i mean EVERY sample in it is basically a pad sound and thats what the synth is meant for. layers seems to me like a really quirky, obscure but cool pad synth idea. but of course custom samples wouldnt harm as theyre optional to use.

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