Thoughts on the STS5000

roy thinnes · Post by **roy thinnes** » Fri Apr 30, 2004 5:54 pm

Hi there!
As (I think) many other Pulsarians I recently bought the STS5000 and - was totally disappointed...It's not because of the GUI; I know the STS3000 since many years.No, the reason I wanted and bought it was this realtime timestreching and pitchshifting stuff.But, transposed samples (in this case:drumloops with melodic parts) sound totally crappy, "granular" and unnatural (Yes, I did let him calculate the algorithm).Compared to Kontakt or Acid it sounds really poor , even unusable.Don't know if I'm doing something wrong here because AFAIK nobody was complaining about this.What are your experiences with transposed loops in STS5k? Can you transpose this 2 or 3 semitones without becoming deaf.Sorry but I'm really p***d of at the moment.

Thalamus · Post by **Thalamus** » Fri Apr 30, 2004 6:50 pm

I don't wanna sound like I'm dizzing you, but I think sts5000 sound beyond anything I heard before, regarding realtime timestreching and pitchshifting, including hardware (that means ROLAND stuff). I find kontakt sounding really weak and artificial. Though, I have to say that I don't use sts5000 for streching drums (unless for fx stuff), I'll use my DAW (Nuendo), cause it will beat anything out there. If you want to sync beats, use plugins, acid or recycle. But for playing around with vocals, pads or whatever "NOT-SO-TIMERELEVANT", I find the sts5000 sound very superior to Kontakt.

I must say that I like the workflow and interface of kontakt better.

roy thinnes · Post by **roy thinnes** » Fri Apr 30, 2004 7:36 pm

to give you an idea what I'm talking about, I made four example drumloop waves -
one unpitched, the others pitch-transposed +2 semitones by Acid, Kontakt and STS5k. Guess what is sounding worst

(To hear it please go to the PulsarFiles/Preset and Tools Forum where I posted the files)

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: roy thinnes on 2004-04-30 20:45 ]</font>

gedas · Post by **gedas** » Sun May 02, 2004 5:41 am

Don't know about the drums, but whenever I need to do some critical timestretching (actually time-compressing most of the time) for some voiceover, commercials, I find STS5000 algorithm to be the best, period.

genoxcide · Post by **genoxcide** » Sun May 02, 2004 1:57 pm

i listened to your comparision waves... i must say the worst sound has kontakt tho... grainy and slightly choppy. acid did a fine job and also the STS5000 (not that good as ACID did). Just reming that the STS5000 is much more useable in loading instruments or vocals to pitch them with formant.. also don't forget to calculate the samplepitch (also trying different algos) before using pitchshift/formant/robot

Also CW mentioned in the manual that samples with multiple pitches inside (and your sample surely has multiple pitches.. remind the beat AND the melody plus vocals!) could be problematic to get analysed correctly. I had the problem too.. But wirh static pitched samples the STS is unbeatable imho.

For me the STS5000 is one of the best samplers so far: fast, accurate, lotsa mod possibilities, good pitch/formantshift, very low latency (most hardware samplers have more), DSP friendly and a fast and innovative GUI...
my 2 pence for that

Cheerz,
GenoX

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: genoxcide on 2004-05-02 15:02 ]</font>

roy thinnes · Post by **roy thinnes** » Mon May 03, 2004 10:29 pm

ok, this is a summary of the pros and cons of the STS5k I've seen so far:
on the pro side
-fast sample analysis for PitchTr mode
-good sound w/ "clean" samples
-good realtime control possibilities
-very low on dsp
-integrated not-so-bad sample editor
cons:
-grainy sound of pitched drumloops
-the "poor" env1 is hardcoded for amp modulation (why not the far more flexible env2/3?)
-lfos :no fade in, no phase control
-no multisegmEnv
-some minor bugs
conclusion:
what concerns drumloops the sts5000 is not the best choice.Better use a different soft like Acid and the STS only for finetuning and arranging.

valis · Post by **valis** » Tue May 04, 2004 12:33 am

I prefer to keep my percussion in my sequencer to keep it sample accurate (makes it much easier to layer drums across tracks/keygroups). Just thought I'd add my 2 cents.

genoxcide · Post by **genoxcide** » Tue May 04, 2004 8:46 am

The best solution is a mixture of different samplers imho.
Konktakt/Vsampler for the formats STS doesn't support.
Intakt or other rhythmbased samplers for drumloops.
STS5000 for instruments in supported formats (SF2, wav, etc...)
thats the way i work with samples...

Cheerz,
GenoX

braincell · Post by **braincell** » Wed May 12, 2004 4:19 pm

I didn't upgrade from the STS4000 because the newer version doesn't seem much better.

genoxcide · Post by **genoxcide** » Thu May 13, 2004 8:23 am

On 2004-05-12 17:19, braincell wrote:
I didn't upgrade from the STS4000 because the newer version doesn't seem much better.

I wouldn't say that. Its right comparing STS3k with STS4k. The difference between this samplers is not that huge.

The difference between the STS3k/4k and the STS5k is huge. You get many filters, also fx-filters, realtime timestretch/formantshifting and robotizing with the 5k the other samplers from the STS series cannot do.

cheerz,

GenoX

roxysound · Post by **roxysound** » Fri May 14, 2004 6:25 am

"Use different samplers for different sample-solutions", I agree, and go a little futher: drumloops and drumsounds are the best in the AKAI-MPC-samplers. No timing-problems at all.
Foremost my AKAI MPC4000 comes in my Scope-Mixer via 8x ADAT, next to the outputs of the STS-5000 sampler. Which I use most for voices and pads.

alfonso · Post by **alfonso** » Sun Jun 06, 2004 6:14 am

The task of stretching drums and the task of stretching voice are two very different things.
I have sts 5000 and what it does with voices is unsurpassed. Simply fantastic.