Poppin? Poppin Fresh Doh...lol

Well...there's quite a few options here!!

One: Reason...great drum machine..sample player..synth modules..all out balls to the wall beat machine!! Now, you cant record into it..you can use your loops in wav format with the ReDrum machine or you could get Recycle as well and make your loops into Rex files and play them with the DrRex player and add other shit to it!!

Two: HALion from Steinberg..you can sample..play..pitch shift in real time..whatever your heart so desires..but heed this, HALion is a pretty processor intensive app..will require a lot of extra system oomph when used in conjunction with Cubase/Nuendo or any other app.

Three: Reaktor from Native Instruments..I think that's more MIDI and is definately very indepth into the creation of sounds and so forth.

I think there's more but I cant remember them off the bat...others will chime in with their votes soon I'm sure!!
Good topic..cant wait to hear what others are saying
Opus

Howdy!

I've been asking the same question of forums all over and to many, many, many folks in music stores, and I've even looked for and read as many magazine articles and product reveiws as well. And you know what??? Nobody seems to have a clue or even close to a definitive answer to this question.

Basicly, I've come to the same conclusion some time ago and all I want is an intuitive, simple to use, powerhouse soft synth that will allow me to build a huge library of sounds and make use of as many sources(korg, akai, Kurzweil, Yamahahaha, Roland.... the works!!! All without having an aniorism trying to work out just how to make a simple change in sample choices....

You probably won't get many responces to your querie as has happened to me. But I sure as hell would like to know without spending $300 to $700 first just to find out that it won't cut it.

Good luck AdrenalinBoy!

Don't sleep on the Emagic EXS24. It can be gotten cheap and is the bomb. I used to use strictly hardware samplers: an Akai S3200xl, Kurzweil K2VX, and an old Akai S900. I don't miss any of them really. Reason is an incredible piece of software and I agree that you should give it a try, but My EXS on a G4 Mac running Logic Audio Platinum is a winner for what I do(making my own sounds or warping other peoples', then writing music with them and live stuff on top.)
Lots of stores let you try em out in their little midi booth or whatever. See what they feel like to you and if they fit your way of working. For an example: I know lots of folks dig Cubase, but my work on it was much slower than with Logic. I guess it all comes down to style. The EXS sounds excellent, comes with a nice little library, and has mind warping DSP capabilities. Any sound can be made into millions of sounds. Tons of fun! Good luck deciding.