samplers, modules and midi sH*@!!!!

  • Thread starter Thread starter ALLY
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ALLY

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Evry time I go to the music store and plead my situation I get a different answer on what will be best for me, samplers, no, you need a groove box, no wait a triton, no better yet a sound module and midi controller. AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!! WHAT!!!!

somebody please just answer yes or no ( well maybe with a little explanation). Is it an accurate assumption that I can get some sort of sampler say s2000 or s3000 by akai, and load drum sounds into it and use a midi controller or a sequencer in a software program (lets say cubase or cakewalk) and use this as a drum machine? also can I load other sounds and control them from my midi controller to add extra sounds to my guitar tracks. I'm not worried about live performance just in the studio. or is it better to go with drum and sound modules controlled by software sequencer or midi controller. (am i making any sense at all?)

every time I ask I seem to get different answers and am starting to think I'm more confused now then when I started thinking about adding midi to my music,maybe i'll just stick to strummin, that gets so, old though. thanks.
 
YES, you can use an S2000/3000 like you suggested, assuming that you had a computer or hardware sequencer.

Rev E
 
That was the simple answer. Let me add something else. You will have to buy a SCSI CD-ROM to go with your sampler, because you will need a way to load the sample CD-ROMs into your proposed sampler. Just so you know. Plus, you will likely need more RAM (unless you get a used one with a lot of RAM). You will probably need at least 16 to 32 MB to do anything worth doing, because a brand new S2000 comes with 4 MB of RAM (if memory serves me right; I think S3000's come with either 8 or 16 MB of RAM).

Rev E
 
Ok, heres the deal with the Akai S2000/3000 suggestion.

They take standard 72 pin SIMM's, non parity, EDO, yada, yada, yada. These SIMM's can be found for about $10.00 for a 16 Meg type at your local used electronics store. I bought my Akai S2800 for $380, ram for $20, and cdrom for $30 used at a local electronics store, and the SCSI interface for $130.

$430.00 later, I have a maxed out S2800, 32X cdrom and tons of samples. One of the things I use my sampler for is, if I hear a bass sample on a song I like, I record part of the song, tansfer it to Cubase, use the effects and cut out the high frequencies - thus which leaves the bass freq's.

Cut out the crap of the wave leaving just a bass note. Then save it, open it up in Recycle, then transfer it to my 2800. So once again, not a bad deal for $430.00.

PS, forgetting to mention Kidnepro, East West, and tons of other companies that make realistic, clean samples

Later,
Mike
 
Annpilot,
Do you use your Akai to sample.... say....a string, loop a portion, and scale the sound down the keyboard so it can be played like an instrument? Also....anybody else, is the ASR-10 good for doing what I described above?

Thanx!!!!!!!!!!
 
Unfortunately, I dont use my Akai to sample anymore. I record what I want to sample into the computer, use wave lab to make my Start/Stop loop points, then use Recycle to transmit it to the s2800. I find that using this method versus using the Akai directly is MUCH BETTER. And not to mention that 10 times better than using a litle blue screen.

Later,
Mike
 
Ally,

Yes, that sampler thing will work with either a sequencer or a MIDI controller. The beauty of using a sampler for your drum sounds, as opposed to a drum machine is that there really is no limit to the type of sounds you can have. Don't let the CD Rom thing someone else mentioned scare you. That isn't really neccesary for basic sampling. I'm not sure about the Akais but an AUDIO sample CD has the sounds as audio, you just record them into the sampler through the audio input.

The thing is, you can sample anything into it and use it. Have access to a basketball? Sample it, edit it and use it as a tom sound. Play it lower on the keyboard and get a bass drum. Have a friend with drums? Sample them, you'll have all kinds of cool sounds, record as much as you want, hit them hard, soft, in the center or on the rim. Then you have them to play back from your MIDI controller. Want some timbales or tympani, gongs or a Peruvian goat hide tambourine? Easy with a sampler. You get the idea. Plus it'll be available to play other, musical, non-drum sounds like pianos, organs, zithers or whatever. The limit is your imagination, really.
 
thanks, so I can do the drums that way huh, just wondering, how do you go about getting start points for the samples.(how do I know that when i need the sample it will play as soon as I hit the key or whatever). also, if you were to store like a piano sample the pitch would correspond to what note I was playing on my midi keyboard right? thanks.
 
Well, yeah. Sort of. First the drum stuff...

In a sampler you will have an edit menu in which you can perform a number of editing functions. This is where you set up your start point. Then, when you hit the key, the sample will play back from that point. Usually, you'll just chop any silent portion of the sample right out so it doesn't use up memory. From the edit menu you can also set it up to play backwards if you wanted (backwards cymbals for instance), loop the sound etc. So, yeah, in the case of your drum sounds, set the start point right up where you first hear the attack of the sample sound. The moment you hit the controller key, the sample will sound.

The piano example...

In this case, yes, to a point. If you sample in a C note, for example, you'll then have to assign that to a corresponding Midi note that's the right C. It's very easy and you can even fine tune it if it's off a bit. Then - there will be a feature that is called.. well, I can't recall exactly, it's like "note Follow" or something. If this is off, then the same C note will play no matter what Midi controller key you hit. Set it to "ON' and then when you hit a D note it will play a D pitch, a G will play a G etc. A good sampled piano will have many different samples, since spreading one sample across the keyboard range will sound lousy as you get further away from the original note. So you might sample a C and assign it to the notes immediately around C (Bflat, B, C, C sharp, D) . Then maybe you sample the next highest F note and assign it to the notes around F (D sharp, E, F, F sharp, G) etc.

It's all very intuitive, and you'll end up with a whole range of sounds available. In the case of some sounds, they can be transposed over a wide range and sound great for something they weren't originally designed to be. A flute sample for instance sounds pretty cool as a low register bass tone. You can fine tune a Tom sample so that you have a ton of different Tom Tom pitches, all with just one sample. You can take it as far or keep it as basic as you want.
 
Bill Wright said:
Ally,

Don't let the CD Rom thing someone else mentioned scare you. That isn't really neccesary for basic sampling. I'm not sure about the Akais but an AUDIO sample CD has the sounds as audio, you just record them into the sampler through the audio input.

The thing is, you can sample anything into it and use it.
Click to expand...

Bill,

I think that you missed my point. I wasn't trying to scare Ally into anything. I was simply trying to let him/her know exacty what they're getting into with a sampler. Sure, you can sample anything into a sampler. What exacty do you STORE it to???? The answer... either an internal or external SCSI hard drive or zip drive. Sure one can sample something INTO the sampler and make a program of it to play it, but how would that sample load the program if it didn't have any RAM? Most samplers come with a limited amount of RAM and no hard drive or zip drive.

My POInt was simply to inform that the purchase of a hardware sampler requires some extra purchases... Nothing to be scared about, just a dose of reality so that you don't get home with your new S2000 with all of 4 MBs of RAM and wonder why you're not able to just PLay a zillion sounds, like with a synth or module.

Custom samples are great. I have a large collection of my own that I use for various projects, but it takes a lot of time to make programs for custom samples, this is ESpecially true with Hardware samplers. Nothing to fear, just the reality. Gigasampler makes a lot of that easy, but whatever floats your boat (hardware or software). For most avaiable sounds (instruments) it's usually wiser to simply start with commercial samples (THus you would need a SCSI CD-ROM hooked to your sampler in order to play the samples). I'm not sure that your read my post clearly and saw my intent. Most everyone who posts regularly on this board realizes that "scaring" folks is not my style. But giving COMplete information so that one can make an INformed purchase IS the way that I roll.

Peace,
Rev E

[Edited by Rev E on 01-18-2001 at 12:00]
 
Hey no problem, Rev, that's cool. I was sorta joking, really. I agree with you.

I don't really know how the Akais work. My samplers load via 3.5" discs. I suppose I could SCSI it up, I just haven't yet, because I really haven't had a need. The discs do fine. It WOULD be nice to have some sort of mass storage thing like that, but it's not like I can't function without it. Since Ally basically was talking about drum sounds, you can really squeeze alot of those into a fairly small memory space. So my point was, it isn't absolutely neccesary to have that SCSI option.
 
True enough Bill. You can have a lot of drum sounds with 4 MBs. But for the life of me, I don't know why anyone would go through that tourture. If you check Radio Shack or a budget computer store, you can get some SCSI CD-ROM drives for under $60 or $70.

Rev E
 
Yeah, laziness probably. Those are some tempting prices, though. Now, obviously, those will allow me to load sounds since it's a CD ROM. Can I also back up my own samples by burning a CD to the CD drive via SCSI?
 
If the CD drive is also a CD Recorder, you can backup on that. If not, you have to either same it on your hard drive or if you have another CD burner on your computer you could record your audio through your soundcard (hopefully you have a digital output on your sampler and digital input on the soundcard) and just do it the "old-fashioned" way.

Rev E
 
Thanks, Rev! I'll have to get that going if it's possible.
 
dude this has been the most helpful thread iv'e ever been a part of! I appreciate all the help and advice.

I have 13 gigs on my 8 track and 40 on my pc, Is there anyway to use one of these for a backup? I know my 8 track has a scsi out but I think that is for backup, so Im guessing that you probably can't. also I see scsi everywhere in recording and wonder why its used so much as appossed to like ide or somethin? I couldn't use the cd burner on my pc for loading samples and backing up? sorry for the lack of knowledge, the music store where I'm at only carries 2 samplers (in my price range, around 600-800 dollars) they are the akai and and an emu for like 6 or 7 hundred. iv'e tried to mess with them, and no offense to the sales man but he told me all this cool stuff that you can do with them and what they are capable of but said nothing about how to get it done and what extras I would need. once again I appreciate all the advice and knowledge. (funny I'm startin to learn that reading the conversations of the people that know what there doing is almost more helpful than asking alot of stupid questions) ADYOS!
 
Originally posted by ALLY I have 13 gigs on my 8 track and 40 on my pc, Is there anyway to use one of these for a backup?
Click to expand...


Ally,

Double-check in your manual to see if the SCSI port on your 8-track can accept info into the recorder via the SCSI line. If so, you may be able to use it as a backup (although, your would lose that disk space for your audio recording). BTW, what's the make and model of your 8-track recorder?

On the PC side, I don't know of a way to backup data to an IDE drive from a SCSI port. So, I don't think you can do this.

Originally posted by ALLY also I see scsi everywhere in recording and wonder why its used so much as appossed to like ide or somethin? I couldn't use the cd burner on my pc for loading samples and backing up?
Click to expand...

Again, I don't personally know of a way to do this from an IDE CD ROM drive.

It seems like the two samplers than you're talking about are the Akai S2000 and the Emu ESI 2000. Right? While you can do a lot with these, you will have to buy the multieffects board for both of these to get the most out of it. Plus some RAM. Emu adds a nice touch to this one by giving you 10 free CD-ROMs with samples. But you will have to buy a SCSI CD-ROM to use it.

Rev E
 
thanks rev, i use a fostex digital 8track vr800. your right the ones I ws looking at were the emu and akai cheaper models.I would like to have the emu e5000 or akai s 5000 but that would take another few months to save up for. the problem is this, I can only get "bigger" purchases once in a while from musicians freind cause its the only place I have a credit card so i can pay monthly rather than all at once, ya see. the problem with my system is I have no beats and no way to add and release sounds to add flavour, and need a new sound card for my pc, ya see? I thought about drum machines and software based stuff and want to make sure i get somethin useful for my money. Do you think I should hold out a couple more months sos I can afford a better sampler or should I start with the beginner models? thanks again, ally
 
Ally,

If you intend on using a sampler in a big way in the future, I think that it would be worth your while to wait until you get the one that you REAlly want. In my experience, you'll be much happier this way in the long run. So if the more advanced Emu or Akai is what you're really after, wait for it. Because a premature purchase will only drive you up the wall in frustration and make you lose money when you try to sell it to get the one you really want.

Rev E
 
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