There are lots of elaborate samplers on the market, with Native Instruments’ Kontakt in particular providing a powerful platform for third‑party libraries in addition to the extensive NI portfolio of sounds. Kontakt has much to commend it, like its support for custom user interfaces, and it has some very capable onboard effects too, but it can sometimes seem like overkill for what you are actually trying to do. There are basic sample players around too, with relatively few controls, but sometimes those are just too basic! So what’s needed is something that falls into the Goldilocks zone, somewhere in between.
For me, as a longstanding Logic Pro user, it has to be Logic’s own Sampler (previously called EXS24). It doesn’t have effects built in, though Logic has no shortage of those if you need to process whatever samples you are using. But one big plus is that I can see what I’m doing with it (albeit with reading glasses these days), as the legend is nice and clear, plus you can resize the window if necessary. Sampler also hosts all the features you’d expect from a subtractive synth: a choice of filters, comprehensive envelope generators, a flexible but non‑intimidating modulation matrix, practical LFOs and so on. You can also set the number of voices and whether or not to use legato mode.
There are relatively few third‑party sample libraries for Sampler — in fact, the only one I can think of off-hand comes from sub51.co.uk — but that isn’t too much of a problem, as Logic comes with a huge library of samples covering all genres. And if that isn’t enough, Logic also makes it easy to create your own sample sets. You can drag and drop audio directly from Logic’s main window; you’ll see various options for turning those samples into a usable multisampled instrument, including automatic pitch recognition, which works fine as long as the sounds aren’t too weird. Logic Pro also comes with Autosampler, which can automate the creation of multisampled, multi‑velocity instruments from either software instruments (or instrument stacks) running within Logic Pro, or from externally connected hardware synths. Autosampler offers various options including one‑shot playback and a choice of automatic looping strategies so the user doesn’t need to do much more than check that the levels are OK and then hit go. The finished Sampler instrument is then stashed away in Logic’s library for when you next need it.
I like things to be as uncomplicated as possible — and Logic Pro’s Sampler fits the bill nicely.
Other benefits to working with Logic’s own samplers include the ability to save any used samples as part of a Logic song file, so when you send a copy of a project to a friend to continue working on, all the necessary samples are already there. What it boils down to is that I like things to be as uncomplicated as possible — and Logic Pro’s Sampler fits the bill nicely.