Is Waves trying to end XLN Audio? | CR8 & Cosmos free sample finder

[@Time4CakeAndSodomy]

It's no longer free, is it still worth it?

[@GourlieRecords]

That's annoying they changed their minds on it being free. It definitely is a powerful way to search your sample library. Anytime I'm searching for a sample I always use it unless I know exactly where the sample is I'm looking for and it's also just useful for exploring new ideas. $15 is still much cheaper than XLN's XO which does a similar thing. At that price you're also halfway to buying their CR8 sampler which includes Cosmos and integrates nicely with it so if you don't have a good sampler that would be the move. But if you already have a good sampler and just want an organizational tool then spending $15 to be able to save all the time hunting through tons of folders can be well worth it. I have over 30k samples in hundreds of different sub folders so I literally never even touched my sample library until I started using Cosmos because it was a waste of time. It's stupid how fast I can find what I'm looking for now.

[@Time4CakeAndSodomy]

@@GourlieRecords Thanks for the reply, it gave me something to think about and made me do a bit more research. I've come across AudioStellar which is open source and free but a bit more experimental and Atlas 2 which I think I like the idea of more for the better drum pad integration. Now I just got to trial them all out haha

[@GourlieRecords]

@@Time4CakeAndSodomy Nice! Let me know what you land on. Always curious what's out there that I've never seen.

[@chasingcolours6789]

Great share, great video - short and sweet and packed with the right info. Nice!

[@GourlieRecords]

Thanks, friend! 🙌

[@rowlexxflowz7825]

The only thing cosmos has that XO doesn't is the loop support, XO doesn't read loops at all, just one shots.

[@GourlieRecords]

And Cosmos only supports loops in the "Waveform/file" view. It doesn't work in the "star/cosmos" view. Probably because the buffer for loading loops in that view would be insane! I think XO skipped on this feature because they advertise with "a focus on making beats" hence all the sequencers. Maybe they'll add this in a future update given the Cosmos bombshell. I've seen people request it in forums pre-Cosmos.

[@profoundofficial4801]

I find XO alot smoother when dragging through samples I can hear every sound more clearly, Cosmos kind of cuts off sounds as you drags through. For free Cosmos is amazing but I still think XO is better quality and smoother. One thing I wish XO includes in future is key/pitch detection of any sample

[@GourlieRecords]

I think we'll definitely see updates from XO soon to fill the gaps that Cosmos filled. They'll almost have to to stay competitive. It is good to see all the comments about the pros and cons of each. I definitely still see advantages to XO, just not at the full retail price. I think during Black Friday it dropped to around $30-40.

[@kiillabytez]

XO only does drums. COSMOS does everything, including drums.

[@commonbeats]

Great video bro! Gutted I bought XO in Black Friday sale lol! :D

[@GourlieRecords]

Well it was only a quarter of the price then, right? 😬

[@beatsbydaku]

Man i don't get how cosmos is so fast and instant for everyone i watch on youtube but when i use it it's laggy and slow when searching/filtering and building the cosmos view, even with only the stock library. XO instead is super snappy. I reinstalled cosmos couple of times, added only a few samples etc. its always the same. Shouldn't be a probem with a maxed out macbook pro 2019.

[@GourlieRecords]

Strange indeed. Is it still scanning your folders? It’s very CPU intensive when it’s scanning. There’s progress icons on each folder. Every time you reinstall it you probably have to scan again. It took over half an hour for it scan 37000 samples on my iMac. Also if your samples are stored externally on a non solid state or not 3.0 USB device I would image that would impact performance. My money is on the scan. If it’s done scanning you can also load up your Mac Activity Monitor to see everything that’s sucking up your CPU.

[@RuffneckBizniz]

Same hear it’s completed scan yet it’s really slow and laggy! I do however have over 350k of samples, but I use Mac Mini M1 16gb RAM so….🤷🏼‍♂️

[@GourlieRecords]

@@RuffneckBizniz so many samples haha! Are the samples stored on the Mini or externally? And if you add in some filters to narrow down the samples does it speed up? Even with the lag it's still probably faster than manually running through folders of 350k samples I'd imagine 😝

[@RuffneckBizniz]

@@GourlieRecords They're all stored on an external Samsung T5 SSD, even when I turn all the locations off and just choose one location it takes over a minute and once its found the sample you want it then takes another minute to scroll down the list! , Hopefully future updates will sort the problem out

[@GourlieRecords]

@@RuffneckBizniz Interesting. I run off a similar SSD also and it's near instant. Are you plugged direct into your system via USB 3.0 with a 3.0 rated cable or are you running through a crowded hub? I've seen videos of speed test with SSDs through USB hubs and they can sometimes slow it down. It could just be because you have so many samples. I think the over 30,000 I have is already too much. 😝

[@Super-id7bq]

The BIG thing that they are missing a trick with sorting by transient and tone / sustain. An absolute game changer would be if it loaded all of my kick drums (for example) with attack from left to right and sustain top to bottom. Imagine how insanely quick you could filter your drums with that set up. It's a huge pain in the ass having to scrub through like a hundred heavy kicks when all I want is a nice soft low transient kick.

[@GourlieRecords]

Different ways of sorting the samples based on sonic content would be interesting. In the mean time, if your main goal is to find the perfect transient kick then using transient shaping plugins, noise gates, compressors, etc could be a faster way to dial in your sound vs riffling through samples. (I actually have a video script already written on this topic and will have a video on transients out really soon)

[@kiillabytez]

Ummm...., isn't that what the waveform is for?

[@weareparkerful]

XO will never die!!

[@GourlieRecords]

Haha! Probably not 😉

[@kiillabytez]

If it ever really lived to begin with. We'd call it a zombie, because of Cosmos, who killed it, and now XO is just a living dead thing.

[@dabizz1]

Can you automate the start and end points for the loop?

[@GourlieRecords]

I don't believe so 😕

[@dabizz1]

@@GourlieRecords Ah, that's a shame. Looks like a really creative sampler. Would have been so easy to add that in. I was hoping they did.

[@FluxNoise]

Doesn't seem to be free anymore... Waves homepage shows me a 30$ list price for it and 15$ on sale atm.

[@GourlieRecords]

Oh yeah look at that! That’s lame. It’s included with CR8 as well so you might as well get the whole package. Wonder what made them put a price on it.

do loops smooth transition with transient magnet on the far rigth side of the sampler, no need for faders it does a perfect stich every time :)

[@hirotokei7328]

great video! very helpful

[@GourlieRecords]

Glad to help, thanks for watching! 🙌

[@vdub4216]

Signed up to Waves, installed COSMOS and loaded 250k samples... worked ok but as soon as I rebooted it hung on the 'connecting to server screen' - uninstalled and am now trying Synonym which has strong AI tagging by sound not just by file name. XO for the one shots, Synonym for the loops.

[@kiillabytez]

Sononymn has an extremely clunky interface. It only tags files if you tag them yourself and THEN convert those files into "libraries," which take up additional space on your drive. No thank you.

[@QuantizStudioRecords]

I m stock at start...Cosmos can t find database...it search non stop and won t start.

[@GourlieRecords]

Is it giving you an error? It does take a while to scan. Took about half an hour to scan my 30,000 samples. You might have to contact Waves.

[@GourlieRecords]

Anyone else been ignoring their endless sample libraries?

[@treyhudson73]

This is something I can't wrap my head around. How many one shot hi-hats could anyone need when you can change every aspect of EACH? Curious to know what DAW you use? I ask b/c as I understand it, this is an app. So without the sampler, you'll have to drag over things into your DAW. Have you even seen or used ADSR Sample Manager?

[@GourlieRecords]

@@treyhudson73 As to how many one-shot samples one "needs" there isn't really a set amount. I suppose it depends on a producer's needs. I personally have just acquired a ton through bundle downloads that I've just thrown in a folder and ignored. I use Ableton Live Suite, which also comes with a huge sample library. With a sample manager you can load those folders as well. You are right that you can take a small sample of sounds then design and tweak those to get the sound you want. A lot of people might not have the know-how to do that and prefer to load up on sample packs as a shortcut. I have seen ADSR Sample Manager which is also free. If I'm not mistaken I believe the ADSR one loads into your DAW as a plugin so you don't have to launch the app externally, which some might like. I don't mind an external app because I can just keyboard shortcut flip back and forth real quick and I don't have to first find the track it's loaded on then search. It also doesn't have that "Cosmos" view which Waves ripped from XLN, which is an interface that I personally like. Either is a good choice though, just preference. Any amount of organization is better than none. At the end of the day it's about making it easier to create music and find inspiration.

[@treyhudson73]

@@GourlieRecords Geez man, could you take a little time and give some actual thought to your response!? Jokes aside, I appreciate your thoughts. I'm on Standard for now, which seems like an odd tier. At the end of the day, I'm pretty sure one can reproduce and/or achieve any results provided by plugins, but they make things more fun and that's what matters most! My biggest problem now is having too many tools and getting lost in if/when/hows. I waste so much time!!

[@GourlieRecords]

@@treyhudson73 I think the "too many tools" is a trap that many producers find themselves in but it can be good in that it expands your potential capabilities. I myself get really jazzed about the latest and greatest. As long as you're having fun, I don't consider it time wasted 😉 Knowing when enough is enough is the the line all of us artists dance on. One of my favorite quotes is by Da Vinci: "Art is never finished, only abandoned"

[@Italliving]

Noop Waves won't get rid of XO simply as XO has a bunch more and combined with your daw it is absolutely amazing especially when you split all your sends and then use all of your audio interfaces on top of each individually making it a perfect drum kit compare to many others

[@GourlieRecords]

It especially doesn't help now that Waves charges for Cosmos rather than make it free like they did the first few months it was launched.

[@kiillabytez]

Denial is also a river in Egypt.

[@Italliving]

rivers flow to the Sea @@kiillabytez

[@tonim.8016]

If Waves kicks out XLN Audio I will boycott them. Price is one thing but quality is another.

[@GourlieRecords]

I agree the quality of XLN products is amazing. Waves is definitely more budget friendly and still makes great products but in terms of comparing apples to apples for just quality alone, XLN makes some really nice stuff that's hard to beat! Waves knocking off XLN's XO and giving it away for free had to sting a bit though. Good news is you might see some sales on XO soon! 🙃

[@Byronic19134]

@@GourlieRecords Let's not forget that Atlast did it first.

[@GourlieRecords]

@@Byronic19134 I knew there was another big one out there and couldn't remember what it was called 😉

[@kiillabytez]

XLN as a whole kinda sucks. Always has.

[@ShyFx8]

Hello. no Cosmos is not free. It also costs money, possibly something extra has been added.

[@GourlieRecords]

Oh it used to be, that’s a bummer!

[@sternenherz]

Atlas 2.3.1 better than Cosmos and xo combined :)

[@GourlieRecords]

Hadn't heard of this, just looked it up. That's really cool Atlas lets you quickly layout your drums to match your hardware, that's super convenient!

[@sternenherz]

@@GourlieRecords i just recently discovered atlas (or any type of sample-manager of that type), and it's such a game changer for huge sample libaries! the only down-side to me is that it isnt built for Loops, only one shots. Not sure if XO is better there. I d love an automatic "chop into slices" tool for my Loop-Library.

[@chicago_beats]

Thats hot but kinda funny😂

[@treyhudson73]

Subscribed!

[@GourlieRecords]

I appreciate you! 🙏

[@kiillabytez]

XLN is always falling behind some developer that just makes better products. First Toontrack and now Waves. I'm sure they have their die-hard fans, but I don't see XLN's products remaining mainstream for long.

[@vadimmartynyuk]

XLN also ripped off Argonaut Atlas

[@matrixate]

XO is both an organizer and a super drum machine. Your title is completely misleading.