Please Help A New Member With Sample CDs.

[S.Wallis]

This is my first post on this site, so, hi!

Anyway, i just recieved a sample cd for x-mas, and was wondering if someone could help me out...

How do i convert single notes into samples? I have a midi keyboard. The samples on the CD are in audio format. If i convert them into midi i should be able to use my midi keyboard with them to create a melody shouldn't i?

What program do i need to do this? I have Cakewalk Music Maker 4. I can't see how to upload the samples into this program to create a melody. I can import the individual samples, but they are just one note samples. Is there a software that allows you to take a single note and create a melody with it, using different pitches, etc...?

This post is probabaly very long winded, but i'm new to all of this and wanted to cover everything.

Many thanks in advance for any help offered!

[The Green Hornet]

Yo Wallis:

An easy way to "help" out your situation is to use a FREE call to a techie at Sweetwater Sound. Sweetwater offers this free service to assist in your assistance.

You can also call a Service Rep and a FREE call. He might refer you to the "Techie" service @ Sweetwater.

An easy way to get your foot in the right gym shoe.

Green Hornet

[Toddskins]

What was just asked here may be a common problem among first-timers.

A few points about what you are getting into, that might be helpful:

1) A sample CD contains sounds. Pre-Recorded pieces of audio, just like the old days when a person recorded audio onto tape. Now, it is recorded digitally and called a sample.

2) The audio from the CD gets loaded into memory (RAM) in your computer, or into the RAM on your synthesizer (if it is a sample playback synth). The sound samples now reside in RAM memory, ready to be used.

3) Your MIDI keyboard will then trigger the sample (make it playback) so you can hear it. Lower notes on the keyboard cause the sample to playback at slower speeds, thus sounding lower pitched. Higher notes on the keyboard cause the sample to playback at faster speeds, hence higher pitched.

4) A MIDI Map (if your equipment or software has this feature) can playback different sample sounds on different keys and key ranges. This allows you to playback various sounds on different parts of your keyboard all at the same time.

Hope this helps you in getting started.

[S.Wallis]

Thank you for the reply Todd. I've found what i was looking for now. What i needed was a a 'sampler' sounds obvious, right? But what threw me off was i have a (basic) program that has a sampler but it wouldn't allow me to do what i wanted to do (create different sounds from a single sample)

But your reply helped a lot, so thank you.