I have no big hopes for a new Cake sampler simply because they missed the buss years ago. When Dimension and then Dim Pro came out just about everyone who bought it hoped for some kind of graphical SFZ editor to use with SFZ samples (SFZ being incredibly powerful). But text-editing a sample/sampler editor reminded me of pulling FM teeth with line coding way back in the last century.
Cake could have put together a simple stereo editor and graphical SFZ when SFZ had a chance to be a new standard for sample editing. Various synths other than Cake's including SFZ edited files - including Alchemy. Despite many individuals doing good work on SFZ, it never reached a sustained level to become an easy way to control samples. Which is why I don't think Cake is willing to put in the resources to make it so. That horse has more or less left the barn.
Beatscape was going to be Cake's ubersynth. It had an easy to understand interface and a great collection of samples. And failed spectacularly. There were problems with reliability and sync, but most people couldn't get it to play easily, which is the key to mass success. No body, in the heat of the creative moment, wants to stop to line-edit a sample (or most of us, anyway). It seemed to morph into the Matrix.
So, how bout a fly out panel for each matrix cell for editing the included sample/loop? Not just loop on/off etc., but the sample itself, length and beat matching? And SFZ EQ etc. for each cell sample so you can tweak it that way (visually, of course). And further Scratchpad like control over each pad. There are plenty of ways to make the matrix an alternative to Live!, it is all there.
And I'm sure Cake would love to accommodate all our wishes, but they have limited resources and it is all a crap shoot. Like Beatscape, you can sink a lot of time into a product and not produce a winner. Even if it ain't a dog, it just might not match the music zeitgeist and you have a great product that few want. That is why I have no great hope for a new, integrated sampler from Cake. They've been there and done that and Beatscape burned Cake's fingers. I imagine a much improved scoring app would come before a sampler - that is something that haven't done and many users ask for.
One needs to remember the core users and Cake seems, to me anyway, to be aimed primarily at guitarists who have a PC at home and want to record. Not beat artists. Not classically trained notation musicians. Not to say they don't cater to such folk, but the emphasis has always been on the, if not singer songwriter, then the pop/rock idiom. Look at where they have put their money and/or development - amp sims and soft drum machines and mixing tools.
I would love a sampler, even a simple built-in one. I'd love a stereo editor, even a simple built-in one. I'd love a better Matrix designed more for live performance than as an arrangement tool. But I still love what you can do with SONAR these days and the actual tools it does have. As mentioned above, it sure beats razor blades and tape and, even if it doesn't do everything I want how I want it to work, I can do most everything I need, even if I don't play guitar. ;-)
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