ben m
Joined: 15 Sep 2002
Posts: 337
Location: UK |
| Week 7 - Samplers 2 |
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Hi guys,
sorry for delay - ISP problems I'm afraid.
Ok, here are the first set of questions.
To avoid the problems Mike had last week with icons, I'll allocate your questions beforehand;
01-08 - Aidan
09 - 16 - Dani
17 - 24 - Mike
25 - 32 - Nancy
Ok, here you are;
01- What are the logistical disadvantages of multisampling?
02- What is the importance of 'zero crossing' with sampled material?
03 - What problems may there be with sampled material from vinyl in terms of pitch/tempo?
04 - What are the benefits of multisampling?
05 - What are the advantages of USB connectivity for a sampler?
06 - Why do some samplers offer SCSI connectivity?
07 - What is 'tracking'?
08 - Why might an LFO be used with a sample?
09 - What filters are commonly offered with contemporary samplers?
10 - How do 'soft samplers' such as Gigasampler store their samples?
11 - Why are Zip Drives used with some hardware samplers?
12 - How can a sampler be used to add a 'vinyl effect' to a song?
13 - What benefits do samplers with multiple physical outputs have?
14 - What are the benefits of working with mono samples over stereo samples?
15 - What MIDI control messages can a typical sampler read?
16 - How can an instrument with a long sustain be created from an instrument with a short sustain using a sampler?
17 - Would indivdual percussion samples be assigned to one key or to a keyzone typically?
18 - What is the importance of setting a root note with a sampler?
19 - Why were samplers so important in the dance music explosion of the late 80s/early 90s
20 - Why could the sampler be described as a post-modern instrument?
21 - How could a DJ implement a sampler into a live set?
22 - What is the most common RAM type used by samplers?
23 - Why is the Gigasampler piano patch so large in terms of MBs?
24 - Why do certain artists such as Fatboy Slim use older 12-bit samplers?
25 - Do any samplers offer solid state storage rather than traditional RAM based storage?
26 - What format are samples saved in on hardware samplers?
27 - What instruments may benfefit from velocity sensitive samples?
28 - Apart from High-Hats, what other samples may benefit from Mute-Groups?
29 - Will hardware samplers always have a studio niche? Why or Why not?
30 - What editing facilties will a typical hardware sampler offer?
31 - What is a fundamental legal issue associated with sampling?
32 - What effect on the timing of a sample will be caused by playing it an octave higher than the original sampled material?
The practical material will follow in another thread!
cheers,
ben m |
Mon Apr 14, 2003 11:16 pm |
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Dani
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Posts: 35
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09 - What filters are commonly offered with contemporary samplers?
Most samplers come with high pass and low pass filters. These alter the sound by taling out or modulating/distorting certain frequncies. Fliters can be assigned to an ADSR envelope to alter the sound over time as well as having the volume change.
10 - How do 'soft samplers' such as Gigasampler store their samples?
The samples are stored on a hard drive prior to use and then run from a computers RAM.
11 - Why are Zip Drives used with some hardware samplers?
Because of the shear size and numbers of samples that can be used today. It provides safe and efficient sample storage, with removable media. You can store up to 2GB of samples on a disk.
12 - How can a sampler be used to add a 'vinyl effect' to a song?
By sampling vinyl noise, looping it and then playing it in.
13 - What benefits do samplers with multiple physical outputs have?
Multiple outputs mean you can eq and add effects to individual samples reducing the need to commit to a track on the tape or DAW. For instance a sampled kit can be out put to different outs and different amounts og reverb can be added to each sound.
14 - What are the benefits of working with mono samples over stereo samples?
Mono samples take up much less room in memory. (half as much in fact). A stereo sample is actually two mono samples played back at the same time and panned.
15 - What MIDI control messages can a typical sampler read?
Most of them.
16 - How can an instrument with a long sustain be created from an instrument with a short sustain using a sampler?
By the use of a good loop point, and an elongated envelope. Or you could sample at a higher rate and slow the sample down. This would lengthen the sample but might be problematic. |
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Thu Apr 17, 2003 5:08 pm |
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resol69
Joined: 31 Dec 2002
Posts: 69
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| 25-32 |
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Some links:
http://www.midiguy.com/MQSampler%20/MQSampler.html#anchor370690
http://industryclick.com/magazinearticle.asp?magazineid=33&releaseid=8616&magazinearticleid=122298
http://history.acusd.edu/gen/recording/digital.html
http://tao7.tripod.com/midi.htm
http://www.united-trackers.org/resources/itidiot/4.htm
http://www.globalmusicresource.com/software/software4.html
25 - Do any samplers offer solid state storage rather than traditional RAM based storage?
Yes. SmartMedia or SSFDC (solid state floppy disk) is a storage medium for computers and digital cameras and other electronic devices. It comes in a variety of storage sizes from 8MB to 128MB. These cards are also referred to as "non-volatile" meaning that they do not require the constant presence of electric power in order to retain the contents of the memory. Flash memory is based on a storage principle of a charge stored in a transistor floating gate.
Samplers that offer this option include the Roland SP-505 Groove Sampling Workstation and the Akai CD3000X.
26 - What format are samples saved in on hardware samplers?
The format can vary based on the manufacturer. Some use MIDI, WAV or AIFF. Others, like Akai and Ensoniq, use their own formats. Samplers are usually built to recognize and load other formats. If they don’t you need to convert the sample into a file type your sampler can read. You can buy software that will do the conversion.
27 - What instruments may benefit from velocity sensitive samples?
Velocity range is useful when you have more than one sample in an instrument (multi-sampled). The idea is that you can recreate acoustic instruments by sampling them being played hard\soft and then setting the velocity range so that hard notes will only play when you hit the keyboard hard and vice versa. Instruments such as acoustic guitars, pianos, and upright basses would benefit from this.
28 - Apart from High-Hats, what other samples may benefit from Mute-Groups?
Mute groups (sometimes called Group-based polyphony) allow only one timbre in the group to sound at a time. So I guess we’re dealing with instruments that make two distinct sounds. Perhaps snares would benefit from this, to get a good sound between head shots and rim shots? Or an upright bass or violin, to distinguish between bowing and plucking? If you wanted a “clicky” sounding kick drum, this might work also. You could separate the attack of the beater from the resonance of the head, and then get rid of the latter part.
29 - Will hardware samplers always have a studio niche? Why or Why not?
I don’t know if I would say always, but there will certainly be with us for a while.
People like classic sounds. Older samplers have now become classic vintage samplers, even though they are far outclassed by the latest hardware (and software). The reason for this is the unique sounds they produce from 8 or 12 bit sampling, some times poor anti-aliasing, and their use of warm analog SSM filters. The sample loops are sometimes rather lumpy, and the noise levels are hardly pristine, but these samplers remain excellent sources of unique sounds and magic. Older machines are easier to get since they cheaper than new ones, sometimes they can be bought for next to nothing, often 10 times less than they retailed for.
Also, newer hardware samplers have been upgraded. The Akai Z4 and Z8 are the world's first 24-bit/96kHz dedicated hardware-based samplers. Designed for professional audio production at a reasonable cost, the Z Series samplers offer all of the advantages of dedicated hardware, plus the interface power of ak.Sys. PC/Mac Control and Networking Software.
30 - What editing facilities will a typical hardware sampler offer?
TRIM: enables you to set start and end points.
EDIT: offering 'Discard', 'Resample', 'Extract', 'Insert Sample to Start', 'Delete Section', 'Silence', 'Reverse', 'Pitch-Shift', 'Join A>B', 'Fade Up/Down', 'Merge', 'Normalise', 'Rescale', 'Time-stretch', 'Stereo to Mono', 'Mono to Stereo'.
Q-FX: resampling with effects.
LOOP: allows you to create sustained notes through looping, and includes an Auto-Loop function.
REGION: enables you to slice samples into a maximum of 32 regions.
BPM MATCH: offered with or without pitch-changing.
Stretching the graphical representation to make it easier to work with portions of the sound.
Highlight a length of the waveform in order to cut, copy or paste. Amplitude gain (to increase the volume level of the sound).
Basic signal processing like reversing the waveform
Equalizing increases some frequencies of the entire and reduces other frequencies.
Transposition or Pitch Shifting allows one to lower or raise the pitch of the sample.
Filtering the sound or waveform retains some parts and removes others.
Normalization which will make the various amplitude levels of the entire sample consistent.
31 - What is a fundamental legal issue associated with sampling?
If you sampled a song or used a sample someone else created, there are copyright issues involved. Since you are not the owner of the work, you would need permission to use it and most likely will have to pay the owner royalties to use the sample. This is something Vanilla Ice found out the hard way when Queen sued him for using a sample from “Under Pressure”. So, he had extra legal fees on top of paying royalties. Personally, I think it’s just so wrong that a classic Queen song got used in “Ice Ice Baby.” Really, what was Ice thinking?!?!?
32 - What effect on the timing of a sample will be caused by playing it an octave higher than the original sampled material?
Wavetables at least use one sample for each instrument. Using only one sample means that if it´s a C3 sample, playing a C4 (one octave higher) will cause the soundcard (or sampler) to play the sample at double speed. The pitch is one octave higher (good) and the length is half of the original length (bad). Instruments and voices have characteristic areas in their frequency spectrum (formants) which do not change (best example: male and female voice). These formants will be pitched up too, and so the sound will become unnatural.
The opposite is also true. If you play the note lower than the original sample, it will get slower. The problem is that the further away you get from original sample, the more distorted the notes can become.
To avoid the bad effects you can use multisamples and create an Instrument. This means that there is not only one sample. Different samples are used for different pitches. The more - the better. You play a scale but you hear the samples changing. To avoid this, one can use crossfades, means that there is no precise split point but a smooth fading between the samples |
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Thu Apr 17, 2003 5:55 pm |
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ben m
Joined: 15 Sep 2002
Posts: 337
Location: UK |
| Good Work |
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Excellent answers Nancy and Dani!
_________________
ben@audiocourses.com |
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Fri Apr 18, 2003 10:07 am |
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Aidan
Joined: 08 Jan 2003
Posts: 38
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What are the logistical disadvantages of sampling?
As some sampled sounds become unnatural when transposed far from the original pitch its necessary to take a number of samples at a couple of semitones either side of original pitch.Then you can use each sample over a limited part of the keyboard-this is known as multisampling.The disadvantages of this is that you have to use more memory as you are using more samples.Other disadvantages are that some sounds on instruments do not transpose well and will sound unnatural,eg.voices,piano and acoustic guitar.You also have to be careful where you use sounds that evolve as the waveform changes within the sample.
What is the importance of zero crossing with smpled material?
Its important to avoid clicks when looping samples.Unless the waveform shapes at the beginning andend of the lop match up in level,shape and phase you may end up with an audible click at the loop point.In order to minimise this you should loop at the zero crossing point-that is the point where the electrical signal crosses over from being positive to negtive or vice versa.
What problems may there be with sampled material from vinyl in terms of pitch/tempo?
Its possible that the pitch or tempo may vary due to inconsistent speed of record player drive.Opinions vary as to which type drive is best,motor or belt but tempo may vary in either case.More frequent is the problem of warped vinyl which gives rise to pitch variations as the needle moves up and down.
What are the benefits of multisampling?
Multisampling ensures that a natural sound is achieved.As some samples do not transpose well either up or down in pitch the taking of multisamples at various pitches and the setting up of them into keygroups gives a total tonal picture of that sample and ensures its more musical. |
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Sat Apr 19, 2003 10:03 am |
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Aidan
Joined: 08 Jan 2003
Posts: 38
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What are the advantages of USB connectivity for a sampler?
Ensuring that your sampler can connect to a large number of PCs,DAWs that support this connection.
Why do some samplers offer SCSI connectivity?
To enable you hook up CDRoms and Drives to load samples and to enable connection of a hard drive to get more memory capacity.
What is tracking?
Tracking is where samples are arranged in groups or patterns which are then broken down or chopped up into sections which can then be rearranged in any sequence you like,either random or planned depending on tracker system used.
Why might an LFO be used with a sample?
To affet its shape or envelope and thus varying the sound. |
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Sat Apr 19, 2003 4:30 pm |
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