XLN Life

[m-ac]

Had a quick play with the demo. All in all it does its job well, congrats XLN.

Positives: First impressions are that it creates perc toplines brilliantly and the concept is original.

Minuses: It feels expensive and the included content of around 10 categories totalling 40 samples or so feels a little light. Paid for Life expansion packs incoming?

https://www.xlnaudio.com/products/life

[Double Tap]

Agree - it feels fun right now, I’ll see how it feels tomorrow.

[BeeDog]

Haven't looked into this in detail just yet, but on a conceptual level it's cool that XLN are trying to bring something new(-ish) to the market instead of regurgitating the same old stuff, so major kudos on that alone. Curious to see how this one will pan out, though.

[enCiphered]

Had a quick play with the demo. All in all it does its job well, congrats XLN.

Positives: First impressions are that it creates perc toplines brilliantly and the concept is original.

Minuses: It feels expensive and the included content of around 10 categories totalling 40 samples or so feels a little light. Paid for Life expansion packs incoming?

https://www.xlnaudio.com/products/life

Yes, it is very expensive for what it does.
And it is buggy. I also tried the demo for half an hour, dragging and dropping isn´t working properly. I have had to repeat dragging my own samples all the time until the app replaced the source material. I doubt that many people will use the live function to use the plugin as beat machine. And deleting all slices at once isn´t possible, you have to delete every single slice manually or I couldn´t find how to do it..
Oh and what I miss is a direct connection to XO. A way to export the beat together with the sound I just created as a XO kit.
And way more randomization options, especially in the edit screen. Asking that much for it? Nah, it falls way short but it is cool though

[m-ac]

Had a quick play with the demo. All in all it does its job well, congrats XLN.

Positives: First impressions are that it creates perc toplines brilliantly and the concept is original.

Minuses: It feels expensive and the included content of around 10 categories totalling 40 samples or so feels a little light. Paid for Life expansion packs incoming?

https://www.xlnaudio.com/products/life

Yes, it is very expensive for what it does.
And it is buggy. I also tried the demo for half an hour, dragging and dropping isn´t working properly. I have had to repeat dragging my own samples all the time until the app replaced the source material. I doubt that many people will use the live function to use the plugin as beat machine. And deleting all slices at once isn´t possible, you have to delete every single slice manually or I couldn´t find how to do it..

Is the source material supposed to be replaced when dragging in a new sample? I noticed that behaviour too and did think it was strange having to import and THEN select the new loop. Also, not a fan of the 'uploading' screen every time you import a loop. Uploading what, to where? I don't want or need to upload anything, and the 20 seconds or so it takes every time is does that is a workflow killer.

If you're reading this XLN audio, can you shed some light? In the meantime I'll email them to see what they say and report back.

[jens]

And still no AD3 in sight. They may get lost.

[gondii]

I just installed and tried out by hitting the table in different ways and I am actually kind of impressed by the results. This could be kind of fun. There should be an option to integrate the samples automatically into XO, but I guess you can simply drag the Life export folder to XO.

[kraster]

Tbh, it feels a bit gimmicky to me after playing around for an hour.

It's a cool concept initially but it kind of gets worryingly old pretty quickly.

[m-ac]

Am I blind or is there no way to keep a rhythm and settings and just swap out / audition different samples?

[burkek]

It's fun, but not $109 of fun, and even less when it goes back to full price. At the end of the day, if I may presume, it's probably using midi files (or proprietary equivalent) to manipulate the inputted audio into a rhythm, so after a while and after several new source files, it starts to feel "samey". Some bugs, yes. Can't hardly see the tiny audio/midi setup pill in the top-left of the stand alone version on a 32" 4K monitor. Dragging midi off the app results in the same filename each time, though dragging a beat saves the midi with the proper (unique) filename. I don't need this app to upload to the cloud - in fact, many musicians refuse to give their DAW internet access. I haven't read the Terms yet, but I'm sure XLN will allow themselves to use your uploaded source files in any way they see fit. Perhaps they will sell additional cloud storage and/or "beat packs". Sales is all about add-ons. The AI here _seems_ only used to assign clips to appropriate hits as determined from the loaded beat style (i.e. if it's found and using a hand clap and you turn the hand clap clip off, it finds another one in your audio if it can). Since there are a finite number of beat styles, and thus an inherent limitation with this app, I would have instead liked to see full AI control of creating beat styles instead of the pre-assigned ones. That way, more and endless surprises instead of predictable similarity given the same source audio. There are lots of other loop manglers out there, like Loopmix. I don't think that a smartphone app, as used with Life, would be a determining factor in choosing Life over other loop manglers. And again at $109US ($148 Canadian!!!) it's far, far from an impulse buy, nevermind full price. Should have been intro'd at $49US.

[burkek]

Am I blind or is there no way to keep a rhythm and settings and just swap out / audition different samples?

This is where Atlas 2 excels.

[burkek]

Is the source material supposed to be replaced when dragging in a new sample? I noticed that behaviour too and did think it was strange having to import and THEN select the new loop.

I thought that was extremely odd too. Seems like this was poorly executed, poorly tested and rushed to market.

[charlesalbert]

Tried for a little bit. It is a fun instrument but for lot less money, i will not spend for sure 109 euros on something like this.
Wish XLN good luck as I have and love all their apps, but is out of my price tag:-)

[m-ac]

Am I blind or is there no way to keep a rhythm and settings and just swap out / audition different samples?

This is where Atlas 2 excels.

Does Atlas 2 slice and extract from loops?

[Ploki]

A bit like Audiomodern Loopmix, no?