My LOVE/HATE relationship with Stlyus RMX

[dfusion]

When RMX first arrived I was so damn excited. Great sounding kits which can be very organic at times. Then the more I used it the more I realized everything is totally EQ'd, compressed, distressed, brickwalled, and very, very polished sounding. Even after you disable any of the AUX or Inserts inside RMX there is no hope for writing a track and NOT having someone say "Hey! That's Stylus RMX!". Anyway, is it just me or...?

Now I'm happy with just Impulse and using the WAV files from Native Instrument's Synthetic Drums Vol. 1, Vol. 2, and Studio Drums. Also, it's much more rewarding to DIY.

[nuperspective]

you can import your own kits into stylus as rex files.

[Machinate]

I feel the same way about it - and after discarding all the over-processed loops, then stylus is just an expensive rex player...

Actually, come to think of it, phatmatik pro is one hell of a little unit... I might have to start using that again. I even heard that dragging midi to the sequencer works in live now.

[supster]

yeah, stylus loops have a very distinct "spectrasonics" sound. very dense, liquid, polished sounding. but my beef with it right now is performance, i get bad lockups and it slows everything down to a crawl.

i wouldnt be too concerned wtih people recognizing anything though: 99 out of 100 people hear the big picture, even other musicians. theyre not analyzing to see where your sources came from, and normally in the arrangement people cant tell whether you're using specific loops or presets from whatever.

if they do, and you used it in an original way, the reaction is more like "oh cool i recognize that sound, cool the way they used it".

if they do recognize it and say something, send them an email and congratulate them, theyve got amazing ears
.

[nuperspective]

it doesnt run to bad on my pc - but you need a massive amount of ram. having said that i usually get the drum down dry. then record them as loops and start another session.

i would like to see more support for the sage format from other sample cd manufacturers. more single hits grooves and loops, just snares or hats would be great. i bought the liquid grooves expander, but grooves are to 'dense' and hard to use.

also, if trilogy was to use the sage groove engine for bass loops, that would be very powerful and a must have purchase.

i all its got some real promise and is very good and essential in my set up. but it could be awesome.

[nuperspective]

thats one thing i havent tried yet does live 5 allow the drag and drop of clips into the session view?

[supster]

it doesnt run to bad on my pc - but you need a massive amount of ram. having said that i usually get the drum down dry. then record them as loops and start another session.

yeah, i know its partially ram. i have a gig but guess its not enough for stylus

i usually audition loops with it then if i like them, bounce them down to audio and use them that way. its a big loop archive for me right now, is what it is ...
.

[polyslax]

I like it in kit mode when I find the loops too produced, just playing the hits in in your own patterns. Also, I like to layer it with other drums, RMIV, Microtonic. I find the edit groups, chaos, fx and Live clip envelopes help me further remove some of the production.

That said, I'm still looking at DrumCore as a means of bringing in more dry/acoustic loops and hits.

Also looking at Culture for ethnic stuff. Looks/sounds great, just don't know if I need 9GB of ethnic perc!

Edit: should mention also that now that drag n drop works in L5 it makes using RMX easier.

[john gordon]

i have it but im glad i didnt buy it

[Machinate]

From the get go I used rmx in kit mode, but the sound is really too dense, and thus quite constraining.

DrumCore: Great stuff - It's always nice to see some competition for DFH and BFD