Ashville.Guru Posted January 17, 2014 Author Share Posted January 17, 2014 So you are saying something like, you can hook your source synth up to, dial up a patch, and you can get the program to automatically play and sample it at different notes and velocities (I'm guessing that if so, it would have to do it by generating its own midi messages of different note and velocity values to trigger the synth, and then sample the resulting audio) and help you turn that into a patch on a destination instrument? That does sound pretty amazing and useful. Yup. exactly... - Guru This is really what MIDI was originally about encouraging cooperation between companies that make the world a more creative place." - Dave Smith Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Tipping Posted January 17, 2014 Share Posted January 17, 2014 Interesting thread - am just about to take the plunge into multisampling. Put off years ago as it was too tedious and error prone, but recently decided to try writing a very basic prog for generating the notes (couldn't find any free s/w) - literally just finished this demo video ( ) if it's useful to anyone (PC based). My EMU Ultra sampler can't be fully automated so can't be left sampling unattended, but at least the tool reduces the button-pushing to a simple repetitive pattern... albeit times a few hundred so the hardest thing is staying awake Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J. Dan Posted January 17, 2014 Share Posted January 17, 2014 My guess is most folks here just don't know how easy it is, or that the technology is already available. The tech has arrived, but it hasn't 'caught on' among the community yet. I can only speak for myself, but the sampled instruments in my Kronos already suit my purposes, and for things like VA, I'd rather roll them in the VA engine than have a static sample. Even if I decided I wanted a better, say Wurlitzer, or something, I don't have anything in my possession better than the Kronos to sample. Dan Acoustic/Electric stringed instruments ranging from 4 to 230 strings, hammered, picked, fingered, slapped, and plucked. Analog and Digital Electronic instruments, reeds, and throat/mouth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theo Verelst Posted January 17, 2014 Share Posted January 17, 2014 Maybe "samples suck" makes some people want them more, but the suggestion in this thread is that the end-situation is a list of wav files, and that making that work on some engine is it, but musically speaking, mostly that isn't so. That's one possible triviality, which is some amount of work, but it's more the question *how* (or when) does that work good? That's a more to the point specialization of the question at hand, just like I understand easily it is usually preferable to have Physical Modeling over sampling. How do the samples play together when two or more notes sound ? How are (usually very serious) sampling issues dealt with ? What about the character that comes from the samples and sample-engine, people having made samples no that can be very important, even in like a sound canves. etc. Another sub-subject as usual is the sort of implicit threat that "samplers wil make musicians superfluous" or something.. Usually it isn't easy enough to get there. At all. T. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
synthizen2 Posted January 19, 2014 Share Posted January 19, 2014 I made my own AP and Rhodes multisamples and imported them into a flash card for my Alesis QS8 using the Soundbridge software... some 8 years ago. I still gig these sounds to this day. Not something I do often, but I put a lot of work into those 2 projects at the time, and glad I did. Did 3 sample layers for each sampled note... each note stretched/transposed to a 5 or 6 note range on the keyboard.... so for the 88 note range, about 15 sampled notes x 3 velocity layers = 45 total sampled notes... all carefully looped after the initial percussive attack, and pushed into 8MB of card memory. They sound great, very playable. The great thing about the flash ROM card is there's no HD, no streaming... it's instant plug-and-play! No waiting. Kurzweil PC3, Yamaha MOX8, Alesis Ion, Kawai K3M Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miden Posted January 25, 2014 Share Posted January 25, 2014 Sample all the time. With SampleRobot and the Kronos it's really very easy to bring you favorite software soundset into the K. I just set up SampleRobot to sample every note, however long I want it and however many velocity layers. I come back a few hours later and it's done in SF2 format. I then bring it into the Kronos where it converts it. I do few tweaks and it's ready to go. Streaming from SSD makes all the difference. I have few concerns about the size of the library as it's going to be manageable once you employ streaming. Yes there are some compromises that are necessary, but in general you can convert these libraries. Streaming is the only way to go. Everything else is a PITA. Busch. Busch, if I may ask, will Sample Robot work with VSTi's? There is no luck - luck is simply the confluence of circumstance and co-incidence... Time is the final arbiter for all things Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeffLearman Posted January 25, 2014 Share Posted January 25, 2014 Extreme Sample Converter also had by far the best sample loop editor of all the programs (when I did it, back in 2003-2005). The best part was the display, showing the waveform before and after the loop point, so you could easily see how smooth the joint was, and easily move the loop point, while auditioning, etc. Even when using an automated system, you have to set loop points unless you want to waste a lot of space. That is, you either have to let each note tail down to -50dB or lower (which takes surprisingly long for some instruments) or you set a loop at say -40dB (which can be about half as long as -50dB). If you're not at all worried about space, this isn't important, but even with memory today space is an issue. Furthermore, other than computer or Kronos, total sample memory is limited and you don't want to waste it. I doubt you'd want to sample chromatically, either. I wonder how much control these autosampling programs give you over the velocity layers. The best is to have more layers at the high velocities and fewer at lower ones. Finally, these would work well for instruments that decay immediately after striking, like piano, clav, and Rhodes, but not necessarily arbitrary patches like ones where you'd have a nonzero Sustain level and then a Release rate. Presumably they have tools to help you model this, though, but you'd definitely have to program loops, or else have a max note length. (You handle those the same way you do when building a patch on a synth, by setting up envelopes.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeffLearman Posted January 25, 2014 Share Posted January 25, 2014 Busch, if I may ask, will Sample Robot work with VSTi's? If memory serves me, it was originally written specifically to do that and then extended to handle external keyboards. Either that, or another one was. Brain cobwebs! Ack! The cool thing about a VSTi sampler is that it can run at max speed, faster than real time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ashville.Guru Posted January 25, 2014 Author Share Posted January 25, 2014 I wonder how much control these autosampling programs give you over the velocity layers. The best is to have more layers at the high velocities and fewer at lower ones. ESC lets you do this graphically with the zone editor; I seem to recall its easy to resize layers to achieve what you're describing. Presumably they have tools to help you model this, though, but you'd definitely have to program loops, or else have a max note length. (You handle those the same way you do when building a patch on a synth, by setting up envelopes.) Yes. I'd prefer to do this outside ESC, within SFZ. SFZ being a simple textfile, it's very easy to work with, with powerful envelope and loop options. Something that struck me while on the other thread - sampling pays off only in the long run. The first few times you fool around with sampling programs and sample editors, it seems tedious and painful. But the more time you spend with it, the more intuitive and quicker your workflow becomes. Nowadays, it's become second nature to me - if I'm auditioning a VST that doesnt have legato/tremolo release articulations, I find that I can quickly sample it, and add in the articulations, and an hour later I have exactly what I want. Didn't seem so easy when I started out... IMHO, it's a skill that owners of boards like Kronos/MOXF may want to keep honed. If you suddenly need to grab that particular sound for the next gig 2 days away, it may not be the best time to start learning...! - Guru This is really what MIDI was originally about encouraging cooperation between companies that make the world a more creative place." - Dave Smith Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miden Posted January 25, 2014 Share Posted January 25, 2014 Busch, if I may ask, will Sample Robot work with VSTi's? If memory serves me, it was originally written specifically to do that and then extended to handle external keyboards. Either that, or another one was. Brain cobwebs! Ack! The cool thing about a VSTi sampler is that it can run at max speed, faster than real time. Thanks LJ - I will look into this program a bit further. There is no luck - luck is simply the confluence of circumstance and co-incidence... Time is the final arbiter for all things Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miden Posted January 25, 2014 Share Posted January 25, 2014 I might give it another go then before I go spending money on more 3rd party samples for my MOXF. I do have the 1 gig Flash Ram card so there is plenty of space, and I only really want to capture three VSTi's I am quite happy with the other factory sounds on the MOXF. Just the AP decay times (as Another Scott wrote on the other thread..... [but I thought I'd mention that, to me, the bigger difference is generally not the total decay-to-zero time, but the shape of that decay, how abrupt the drop is from impact to even just a few seconds later....] as well as the EP ones are too short (imo only) for really expressive solo keys work. Which is the reason I am asking so much about it and why I asked whether the PX5s had longer decay times. Guru got me thinking about creating my own instead. There is no luck - luck is simply the confluence of circumstance and co-incidence... Time is the final arbiter for all things Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theo Verelst Posted January 26, 2014 Share Posted January 26, 2014 There would be some interesting things to learn about making samples. Like can you make a sample from an instrument, regardless of how the samples aligned up with the beginning of the attack? So for the sake of argument, you take a triangle instrument (sudden high frequency components), you make sure you somehow limit the frequencies you'll record in the sample to the Niquist rate (without letting filtering mess the phases of all the components up!), and you record a sample of some note. Now you look at the samples you made on some wave-viewer, you zoom in a lot (because of a triangle having high pitch), and you record another take, with exactly the same settings, and you compare the waves. And find out they differ! How to compare these samples of exactly the same instrument ?! Another thing is how to apply equalization for use in samples. I.e. can you apply equalisation, and not get trouble with it that when you play the samples in your sample player, the eq messes things up, or at least when you bend the samples, the eq will bend along, because it was part of the sample! The same with the sense of "size" in an instrument recording (and of course the making of an envelope that works a bit independent of the envelope of the sample), and even worse with reverb in a sample. Did you or are you planning on putting production effect into you samples ? Or why does Yamaha do Spectral Component Modeling and what does that do? Lot's of interesting questions, besides that often digital sucks somewhat, because the signal coming out of pretty much every normal Digital to Analog converter is far from the original analog signal you recorded. T. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burningbusch Posted January 26, 2014 Share Posted January 26, 2014 Busch, if I may ask, will Sample Robot work with VSTi's? Yes, but on the Mac at least it's roundabout. First the Mac version of SampleRobot is really a Windows program in a VINE wrapper. It looks and feels like a Windows program from 1995. But it works. To sample a VSTi, the VST needs to run either standalone or in a host where they output is to SoundFlower. SampleRobot inputs the SoundFlower audio. MIDI is sent to the VSTi using IAC. It works but the sampling must be done in realtime. As this is fully automated, it's not really a big deal once you get it going. Unfortunately, SampleRobot is the only one of these programs that is current. ESC, Samplit, and Redmatica are either no longer being updated or are discontinued. Busch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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