Article Preview - Magix Samplitude 10

What do you add to the DAW that has everything? In the case of Samplitude 10, a complex new mastering compressor and some excellent automation features are among the highlights.

Eric James

At the end of my review of the previous incarnation of Samplitude (version 9, SOS Janary 2007: ) I said: "I'm not really sure how you can go wrong with this new edition of Samplitude. As it is, in the box, and as it says on the box, it will enable you to record, edit and mix your music to a professional level." So how much more could be made possible in the newest version? What could be done to tempt new customers to Samplitude 10, and to persuade existing users to cough up £201 for the upgrade?

The answer seems to be to offer a number of enhancements to existing capabilities, including MIDI/VST(i) features, routing, hardware control and better 'smart' dithering options, plus a number of new functions in the 'useful but minor' category, and on top of that, two humdinger new elements: Samplitude 10 features excellent automation functions which make creative and professional results much easier to achieve, and benefits from one superb new mastering plug-in.

The Complete Suite

The philosophy behind these last two major additions would seem obviously to be to make Samplitude 10 as self-contained as possible, encompassing all processes from initial recording or programming to final mastering. Although plug-in automation has been available for quite a while in Samplitude, it only applied to third-party plug-ins. In this new version, automation capability has been added to Samplitude's own suite of high-quality processors, pretty much making the use of any but the very best offerings from other manufacturers quite unnecessary. The other addition, the forbiddingly complex Am-munition dynamics plug-in, has clearly been designed as a programme compressor/limiter, not fundamentally a track-level processor.

However, a couple of considerations made me pause to wonder what the Magix party line really is. Another notable offering among the new releases, placed second in the roll-call in the Samplitude manual, is a new Cleaning & Restoration Suite, which includes a De-clicker/De-crackler, a De-clipper, a De-noiser with Noise Print Wizard, and a Brilliance Enhancer to help "compensate for losses incurred during MP3 coding", all available as real-time effects. This is a desirable set of tools for work encountered by many mastering engineers, so you'd assume it would be included in the top-of-the-range Samplitude Pro. But it isn't — versions of the De-clipper and De-noiser are, but only off-line, and without the Wizard.

Although the new tools are available as standard in the £2000 Sequoia and in the £200 Samplitude Master, they are not available in the Pro version of Samplitude itself, except as an add-on for 99 Euros, and only direct from Magix. So what is Samplitude Master? It's a two-track version of Samplitude, cut to the bone, apparently to deal with finished mixes, and so doing without any MIDI tweaks, audio quantisation, optimised workflows and other such functions. At roughly a third of the price of the Pro version, and yet including the Cleaning & Restoration Suite, Samplitude Master would seem to be the way to go for mastering specialists who don't need MIDI or mixing capability — hence the name, or so you'd think. Except that one of the important deletions from Samplitude Master is the set of Magix plug-ins — including the brand-new, mastering-inclined Am-munition.

Maybe I'm being a bit dim here, but this arrangement seems to be the worst of both worlds. For mastering purposes only, there are certainly ways in which the Samplitude Pro feature set could be drastically pruned to cut costs, but the Magix plug-ins are so useful and of such a high quality you'd really want to keep those on board. Yet if you spring the extra £400 for the Pro version, to get them, you'll find the Cleaning & Restoration Suite missing. Here's my advice to Magix: don't mix us all up. If the Cleaning Suite is 'Pro' quality, include it in Samplitude Pro as standard.

New Features Round-up

As well as the automation, Am-munition and a new 'Universal HQ' resampling time-stretching/pitch-shifting algorithm (see box below), other notable improvements include new range-handling capabilities, side-chain routing for all VST and Magix plug-ins with more than two inputs, the Independence LE sample workstation (with a 4GB sound library), better mapping for hardware controllers, and a complete, successful makeover of the control-bar skins and general appearance.

The Overview, at the bottom of the screen, is an excellent aid to project navigation.

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