In my recent post I expressed my interest in the Traktor DJ app for iPad along with some doubts on its functionality. In the end I was unable to resist purchasing the app although at least one of the questions I pointed out has realized itself: Native Instruments is – compared to for example Steinberg and their Cubasis – painfully slow in updating their apps and fixing the bugs and errors in design.
However I enjoy using the Traktor DJ even more than I expected. In fact it made me think about some of the recent VST instrument releases from the viewpoint of usability.
Let’s take two examples from 8DIO, the high-end VST instrument vendor. Recently they put out the EDM Trap, which is labeled as a ‘production tool’ for DJs and other dance music aficionados. The library consists of over three gigabytes of trap sounds divided in several Kontakt instrument patches. For more details, please refer to the link attached in the beginning of this chapter.
But in the end, what is the fundamental difference between DJing an original song and using a sampled dance music library aimed at DJs? The library of course has more controls over the outcome, but still one cannot avoid the feeling that more than an instrument, EDM Trap library is about being a sample DJ: someone who tinkers with preprocessed sets of sounds just like a DJ does with songs.
The other 8DIO example is their latest wind instrument, the Clarinet Virtuoso, which is described as a ‘highly playable’ clarinet VST instrument.
As I’ve argued before, long gone are the days when the issue with instrument libraries were the quality of sound – the sampling today is more or less impeccable.
But the ‘highly playable’ side? Not so much. We’re still often limited to patches, keyswitches and clumsy menus. Thus regardless of ultra-deep sampling, one ends up being a sample DJ: repeating more than creating.
However I did notice a fresh take on this issue when Embertone released their new Friedlander Violin last month. The instrument includes the option to control the sound via custom-made Touch OSC app patch on iPad. Thus controlling for example the violin vibrato is in practise achieved by using one’s touchpad, which is indeed a major improvement compared to the all-too-familiar keyswitch jungle.
Whether it is EDM, a woodwind instrument, or a violin, the person playing it is after the feeling that he or she is doing more than DJing by repeating something made by other people. Going after just great sounds is not enough anymore. True freedom of expression is about dry sound and limitless options for molding it, not about making a VST clarinet divided in 25 instrument patches.
Missing Sample 