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Somewhat basic question about sampling with a workstation (Motif)


Calumet

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I have purchased a used Motif and am excited for it to arrive. I am a neophyte when it comes to sampling technology and I have a question.

 

For a lot of live gigs, I use a laptop with the Native Instruments B4.

 

My question is this...is it possible to sample the B4 into the Motif and map it across the keyboard and use it in a gig situation? For instance...it would be nice to have a back-up of sorts if the computer took a crap or something.

 

Is this a remote possibility? (Like I said...a basic question.)

 

Thanks!

 

Mitch

My band Thousand Houses: www.thousandhouses.com
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To the best of my knowledge the B4 relys on proprietary software to create it's sounds, not easily accessed samples. You can still accomplish it but you would need to multisample each B4 preset you want to be able to use. For example, say you really like a certain Deep Purple sounding patch, you would record the sound of it played at various points on the keyboard and then create a keymap using those samples. Then you would be able to use them as a program in your synth....but sample memory does not stay on power down usually, you will have to reload everything each time you power up. Another thing to think about is the amount of sample ram you have installed, to get a very good reproduction of one of the B4 presets you would need quite a few samples..I would suggest taking them at intervals at just under an octave.

 

The long and short of it is you can, but it will take a lot of work on your part, how about using some premade samples instead, might be easier for you. There's some great commercial sample CD's out there of the B3, but if you want to save money you can even find some really decent free ones posted on the net. I think findsounds.com(or something like that ;) ) would be a good place to start :)

 

Good luck, hope this didn't confuse you too much ;)

 

Darkon the Incandescent

http://www.billheins.com/

 

 

 

Hail Vibrania!

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Thanks!

 

It just occured to me why my idea wouldn't really work - the percussion on the Hammond organ doesn't retrigger if a note is being held. There wouldn't be an easy way to duplicate this by sampling the B4. The percussion would be in the sample and would trigger everytime.

 

Thanks anyway!

 

Mitch

My band Thousand Houses: www.thousandhouses.com
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When you get your Motif you'll notice that some of the organ patches get around the issue of the legato percussion triggering (a trick with the LFO). So it can be done. Some of the more difficult issues with sampling the B3 have to do with modulation, either chorus or Leslie. If you try to sample either/both of these you have challenges. For example, if you sample a B3 with C-3 active and then map it so that one sample is stretched across several notes (a common technique to save on RAM) you find that the chorus rate speeds up or slows down depending on where it was mapped. Even if you sample every note, you still have an issue as the start time of the chorus is linked to the sample, so if you arpeggiate three notes and hold them you essentially have three choruses running. There are other issues such as looping. Organ notes can go on indefinitely, so you will need to find loop points in the sample that don't click. Not all that easy.

 

The Motif comes with samples of each drawbar plus percussion, click, grunge, etc. Find a B3 patch that sounds pretty good and then look under the nood to see which samples they used and then experiment. You might find some acceptable solutions. Also, you might try sampling you favorite setting off the B4. Just do for an octave or two to see how well it translates.

 

BTW, I'm now using the B4 on a laptop live. It's working great. The Yamahas (s90/Motif) can make working with soft synths very seemless. I can explain later if you like, after you've had the Motif for a bit.

 

Busch.

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