alright, i know ive mentioned hardware samplers on here before but its a difficult subject to convey if youre not already familiar with them. if you dont know what a sampler is, chances are you probably know or have at least heard of programs like ableton, fl studio, etc. those are obviously used for audio / sound production. in short, if you can imagine a radio dj playing sound effects then youre probably aware of the same idea by the name of "soundboard" - thats the same idea for a "sampler". PUSH BUTAN, RECEEV BACON. ANYWAY, long explanation aside which saves everyone a bit of googling...
hardware samplers are from a different era, they completely died off right when protools took off in the early 2000s. its actually surprising to think just how quickly computers managed to catch up to reel to reel. moores law was less "called it" and a really damn good educated guess. the eternal problem has always been storage, youre stuck with drives which spin and contain lots of moving parts like IDE, SCSI, DS/DD, DS/HD, you name it. even records - the primary source of samples - collect dust just as steel rots to rust. sure, a sampler is a computer but it uses parts which were EXTREMELY FUCKING EXPENSIVE and were simply out of reach from anyone outside of the radio industry, the music industry, and etc. can you imagine dropping the same amount of money on a shitty computer which stores ~30 seconds of sound as you would on a car, or a down payment on a house? exactly.
because of this alone, ive found hardware samplers to be the single most interesting computer to fuck with. ever. i have used some unbelievably
brilliant solutions which shouldnt work...yet do. genuine testament to reverse engineering a black box,
even if its one of those usb floppy drive emulators
