Samplers / Sampling

Akai's MPC has been with us for 20 years now — an incredibly long time in music production. So is the latest addition to this venerable range, the MPC5000, a worthy bearer of its standard?

As they celebrate 20 years in the business, sample library pioneers EastWest are on the verge of relaunching LA's legendary United-Western studio complex. They've also developed an innovative sample-playback engine to power their next generation of virtual instruments.

Using someone else's recording in your music without permission can lead to disaster. We explain the ins and outs of copyright law, and guide you through the process of clearing your samples.

The world is not short of sampling sequencers at the moment, so what does the Roland SP555 have to make it worthy of your attention?

It's over five years since Native Instruments released the original version of their flagship soft sampler, and its third incarnation takes the Kontakt concept even further, with a streamlined user interface, a new waveform editor and a massive sample library.