Xpand!.... First impressions

[dj_grimmace]

Not to sound like a broken record, but I agree with most comments on this post. It's a great and easy to use tool for quick pieces of music, or maybe even a skeleton to be replaced by different patches later. Not even close to replacing Kontakt or Giga, but I don't think it was designed to either. Sound quality of the samples is fine for the most part. Gui stuff (minus long scrolling to find patches) is EASY. My largest wish is that it supported multiple outs. I would love to see mult. outs before I even saw an addition to the sample library, or any kind of key/velocity mapping (which digi may not even be developing in the first place.)

Regardless, can't argue with a over all really nice and FREE sampler!

Matt

[Ducky]

I think you will find more features in the upcoming Hybrid synth.
...But yes, free is a very good price in this case

[travista00]

digi, can i move the .dat file for xpand! somewhere else? i'd like to get it off my system drive. thanks.

[vudoo]

I was about to buy a Motif rack..how does Expand compare to hardware stuff like Motif...BTW, i only need it for studio not live. Thanks

[bad jitter]

Can you import your own samples to Xpand? Is it really a sample player like Soft SampleCell was?

Regardless, can't argue with a over all really nice and FREE sampler!

[aliengroover]

I was about to buy a Motif rack..how does Expand compare to hardware stuff like Motif...BTW, i only need it for studio not live. Thanks

IMO, as far as sound quality, it's really more comparable to hardware synths than it is software like Kontakt and even ST2. I'd more liken it to if something like the Triton were made into a VI, but with a bit better samples. It's nice and clean, and has a really cool, sit nicely in the track kinda sound. I'd say if you were a fan of the Motif "sound", and specifically wanted that, then you may be better off with the Motif rack. But really, try this out first. Provided you're not looking to load up samples or do heavy editing, it might really fill your need. It fits in nicely with my hardware and software synths. I'm very happy with it.
Peace

[spkguitar]

Can you import your own samples to Xpand?

No.

[Skyflash]

I got my copy Thursday and I'll say I'm VERY impressed!!!!
A lot of 'meat and potatoes' sounds to get you up and running
fast and the interface makes for some really easy tweeking
and instant layering of patches.

The quality of the samples is amazing considering they packed all of that
stuff onto a 700mb cd. The on board effects sound nice and are easy to
tweek as well. Like a lot of synths in general,hard and soft, there are
patches that are less usable. Those patches I should mention include
some really bad mellotron emulations. I'd say the sound creators should have
not even bothered with making these,unless they had some real tron samples
included in the .dat file.....but then again I'm a mellotron freak
so I'm obvisouly biased!!! ;-)

NICE WORK DIGI!!!!!!

[CME]

IMO it's way better than the sampletank version that came with my Mbox, but I also realize it's not the full version. I like most of the sounds and spent a couple of hours last night just checking out the presets, and I only got about half way through. However I'm also an amateur keyboardist so my opinions are worth what you pay for them.

[Ray Lyon]

Xpand! is an excellent "bread and butter" synth, easy to use with lots of good sounds, intuitive interface and easy on CPU resources. I can't say enough how good the $$$ value is... much better sound library than any of the 'light", "LE", or "L" versions of bundled synths that have been previously included in PT. (ie: Sampletank)

It's hard to critique a free product... would like to see an easier way of choosing sounds, and tempo sync with loops (LFO can be synced however) The Fender Rhodes sounds are a bit disappointing to my ears... other quibbles can be found... but who's to bother right now? An excellent addition to the toolkit.

Enjoy! (and thank you Digi!)