DIY samples

TelePaul

J to the R O C
I have a great book on home recording which encourages you to record your own samples....only, how can i load an audio sample of a real audio phrase (e.g snare drum) via midi?? Is this even possible? The book seems to suggest that it is.
 
most sequencers would jsut let you choose an audio file to play when you prgram it.
Jusdgin by your setup, record the clip in cubase and edit it so it is just the hit you want, save it and trigger it. I have only really played around with fruity loops, but there you jsut tell it to "laod audio file" select the file and then prgram like it was a stock file,.

Daav
 
TelePaul said:
how can i load an audio sample of a real audio phrase (e.g snare drum) via midi?? Is this even possible?
Well, most audio editors (ReCycle, WaveLab, SoundForge, Peak, etc), support sample dumps through MIDI to hardware samplers. Many of them support this bidirectionally, in other words you can load a sample from a sampler onto the computer, edit it, and then dump it back. Many of the old AKAI, E-Mu, and some Roland, Yamaha and Kurzweil samplers are supported this way. SMDI standard supports SCSI dumps to and from hardware samplers. This requires both MIDI and SCSI connections, and is much faster than the MIDI alone connection.

Note that this is strictly for sample editing purposes. MIDI by itself doesn't transfer audio data, just instructions, so if you want to record the sound coming out of your sampler into a DAW you still need to connect the audio outputs of your hardware to your DAW audio interface.
 
cool, I kinda know what i need now...but what would you guys recommend as a sampler?? A free one mind! I take it the sound quality varies between the recorded WAV and the triggered Midi file?
 
TelePaul said:
I take it the sound quality varies between the recorded WAV and the triggered Midi file?
The wav file is what is played. A (software) sampler just plays the wave file every time you hit a certain midi note.

Midi is a language, it doesn't have a sound. It just tells something, that does have sounds, what sample to play when and for how long. (slight over-simplification)


The only way to lose sound quality is with a cheap hardware sequecer.
 
Well, actually there are some differences between all the samplers (hard and soft alike). Usually with soft-samplers as long as you play back the sample at the original pitch there is no difference, but once you start pitching it, some samplers seem to have better antialiasing/interpolation algorithms than others.

With hardware samplers, they all have their own character, mainly due to their AD/DA converters, and in the case of the E-mus certainly their filters are perhaps the most powerful and characterful of all the samplers out there.
 
telepaul, when you press a key, button, turn a knob, etc. on a midi controller, such as midi keyboard, your mechanical action is converted into an electrical signal. the electrical signal is converted into a midi note (instruction). the midi note is sent out of the controller and instructs the receiving device, such as a sampler, to perform an action, such as playback a .wav file.

midi notes are instructions. midi can be used to control many things, even things outside of music. the two most common midi receiving devices in the music world would probably be a sampler and a synthesizer. a synth electronically/mathmatically creates sound. a sampler reproduces prerecorded sound and usually has features to allow the user to alter the prerecorded samples in some way (pitch, time stretch, etc.). to get a certain key to trigger a certain sample, you have to map out the samples in your sampler.

if your recording software supports vst plugins, you can find some free sampler plugins at www.kvraudio.com.

you should check out sound fonts too. it's a sample format that i think was originally created by creative audio for use with their sound cards but some soft samplers support the format and there's a free plugin called synthfont that was written just for using sound fonts. basically, a sound font is a collection of samples contained within a file that is premapped for the end user. all you have to do is load it and start playing. there are a ton of free sound fonts available on the net, most of which were created by regular people. there is a sound font editor called vienna that can be used to create your own sound fonts but i think you have to have a creative card to use it.

also, some samplers support multiple layers. with this feature you can "layer" samples to a single key on a keyboard. a different sample can be played back depending on the velocity that you strike the key. things like snare drums sound very different when you hit it soft compared to hitting it hard. with multi layering, you can record a soft hit of a snare and assign it to a velocity range of a key or to a single velocity and do the same for harder hits and other velocity ranges. there are i think 127 velocity levels per key on a keyboard. multi layering adds alot to the realism of sampling real instruments. you can also assign multiple samples to the entire velocity range of a key. for example, you could have a kick drum and a bass guitar note both assigned to the same key.
 
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yeah ive been checking out KVR but there seems to be a large discrepancy between samplers. For example, some can load more than others, and running the sampler as VST in mutliple midi tracks is just cumbersome. Also, as was eluded to above, some have 'better' filter applications, or certainly more variety when it comes to these. Im kinda looking for the definitive freebie! Thnks a million guys you've been great
 
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