Hi
It happens that I have a hardware synth but I'm not very fond of using it via MIDI; i was always interested also in creating a sampled library with sounds from it, using something like Samplerobot, for instance.
But how do these programs solve the problem of a synth not sounding exactly the same when you play it? Do the multisamples made from it sound natural? or do they sound too artificial? someone use samplerobot or similar for these purposes and may give me his opinion?
thanks
multisampling hardware synths question
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- KVRAF
- 1959 posts since 10 Aug, 2004 from Valencia, Spain.
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- KVRian
- 1327 posts since 8 Nov, 2003 from DC
What do you mean by a synth not sounding the same when you play it?
A sample is a snapshot of a sound at one time. The best way to sample synths is to do it as plainly as possible, to get the sound of the oscilatiors for use in your sampler's synth engine, eg filters, envelopes, etc. If you try to sample the dynamics of a patch you've created, a multisample is the equivilent of making a flip book: a bunch of sequential stills that you flip through to cretae the illusion of motion. The more or fewer pictures, the better or worse, respectively, the reproduction of motion.
When you sample dynamic motion and modulation, you need more samples to get the resolution you need to hear the sound as it is meant to be heard. Otherwise, the unintended consequenses and sonic artifacts can be very unmusical and literally, useless.
Take the case of a filter sweep. Remember that when you play back a sample, it rises and falls in pitch based on being played back faster or slowewr. Therefore, your filter sweep will sound longer and shorter up and down the range of the samplezone. With insufficient samples, you will hear the sweep out of sync with itself when you play a chord, and it won't be in time when you play a melody or bass line.
So, what you need is more samples to accurately get the motion of the sweep. The more complex the motion in your sound, the more samples you need to keep them in sync.
If you have something like a wavetable synth, and you have an lfo modulating the wave playback, you need more samples, and you will also have a signifigant loooping problem with that, to get the wave sweep to start and finish where it is supposed to. A solution is to make sure that the wavetable sweep, or your filter sweep as in the first example, are musically timed and synced, so you can get a sample of the full range of the modulation. That makes the looping easiest, you can just loop the whole thing, unless you've also sampled the amp attack time.
Detuning can also be problematic for looping, to get a loop point that is consistant and smooth with the beating.
Further difficulties with looping include the use of randomized modulation, and key follow as modulation. In the latter case, to cover the range of the modulation, you need more samples.
You can see that if what you're trying to do is capture your patch to play it back in the sampler, it gets very, very complicated. I've thrown out I don't know how many samples for all the reasons above, and not being able to get a musically useful result. You really are better off keeping it simple, and doing the synthesis in the sampler. But good hunting. What are you sampling?
A sample is a snapshot of a sound at one time. The best way to sample synths is to do it as plainly as possible, to get the sound of the oscilatiors for use in your sampler's synth engine, eg filters, envelopes, etc. If you try to sample the dynamics of a patch you've created, a multisample is the equivilent of making a flip book: a bunch of sequential stills that you flip through to cretae the illusion of motion. The more or fewer pictures, the better or worse, respectively, the reproduction of motion.
When you sample dynamic motion and modulation, you need more samples to get the resolution you need to hear the sound as it is meant to be heard. Otherwise, the unintended consequenses and sonic artifacts can be very unmusical and literally, useless.
Take the case of a filter sweep. Remember that when you play back a sample, it rises and falls in pitch based on being played back faster or slowewr. Therefore, your filter sweep will sound longer and shorter up and down the range of the samplezone. With insufficient samples, you will hear the sweep out of sync with itself when you play a chord, and it won't be in time when you play a melody or bass line.
So, what you need is more samples to accurately get the motion of the sweep. The more complex the motion in your sound, the more samples you need to keep them in sync.
If you have something like a wavetable synth, and you have an lfo modulating the wave playback, you need more samples, and you will also have a signifigant loooping problem with that, to get the wave sweep to start and finish where it is supposed to. A solution is to make sure that the wavetable sweep, or your filter sweep as in the first example, are musically timed and synced, so you can get a sample of the full range of the modulation. That makes the looping easiest, you can just loop the whole thing, unless you've also sampled the amp attack time.
Detuning can also be problematic for looping, to get a loop point that is consistant and smooth with the beating.
Further difficulties with looping include the use of randomized modulation, and key follow as modulation. In the latter case, to cover the range of the modulation, you need more samples.
You can see that if what you're trying to do is capture your patch to play it back in the sampler, it gets very, very complicated. I've thrown out I don't know how many samples for all the reasons above, and not being able to get a musically useful result. You really are better off keeping it simple, and doing the synthesis in the sampler. But good hunting. What are you sampling?
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 1959 posts since 10 Aug, 2004 from Valencia, Spain.
Thanks for all this explanation.
I own an Access Virus. I love its sound, but I'm not very fond really of working with MIDI, so I wanted to mulktisample some of its sounds. I had thought os something like Samplerobot for it, but I'm not sure if the results will be really good; I've tried Samplerobot's demo but it doesn't allow sampling sounds longer than 2.5 seconds; with shorter sounds the result has been quite good actually.
thanks for the info mate
I own an Access Virus. I love its sound, but I'm not very fond really of working with MIDI, so I wanted to mulktisample some of its sounds. I had thought os something like Samplerobot for it, but I'm not sure if the results will be really good; I've tried Samplerobot's demo but it doesn't allow sampling sounds longer than 2.5 seconds; with shorter sounds the result has been quite good actually.
thanks for the info mate
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- KVRian
- 1469 posts since 18 Sep, 2004 from Suffolk, UK
Why not just do it manually ? These "Sample Robots" cause more problems than they solve in my experience. You can't beat manual control 
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 1959 posts since 10 Aug, 2004 from Valencia, Spain.
well, time...
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Spaceman Sounds Spaceman Sounds https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=56830
- KVRian
- 580 posts since 3 Feb, 2005
Sample robot only records at 16 bit as well, which is a bit pointless in this day and age.
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 1959 posts since 10 Aug, 2004 from Valencia, Spain.
How would you multisample synths then? I was thinking of OneShotRecorder as an option. ideas welcome.
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- KVRian
- 1469 posts since 18 Sep, 2004 from Suffolk, UK
Tell you what, give me your synth and I'll sample it for you 
Use a program like Zero-X Seamless Looper to quickly find your loops and away you go
Use a program like Zero-X Seamless Looper to quickly find your loops and away you go
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- KVRian
- 1469 posts since 18 Sep, 2004 from Suffolk, UK
Spaceman Sounds wrote:Sample robot only records at 16 bit as well, which is a bit pointless in this day and age.
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- KVRian
- 1469 posts since 18 Sep, 2004 from Suffolk, UK
I feed my source into my Akai, hit record, play back all the notes I want to sample, open them up in Seamless Looper or use the built in tool in the Akai, normalise and I'm done. Takes about 5 minutes per multi-sample.origami wrote:How would you multisample synths then? I was thinking of OneShotRecorder as an option. ideas welcome.
And they're all done at 44.1KHz/16bit because regardless of what others say, it is totally worthwhile
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 1959 posts since 10 Aug, 2004 from Valencia, Spain.
yeah of course, write here your address and I'll send you my Virus right now; do not worry: a christmas present.
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 1959 posts since 10 Aug, 2004 from Valencia, Spain.
Then maybe OneShotRecorder is what I need. Record all the notes and then open them in DirectWave.
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- KVRAF
- 2582 posts since 24 Apr, 2003 from Canada
You can 'emulate' Samplerobot by:
-creating a midi track containing each note you want to sample, played in series. You'll need to turn down the release time of the patch (or turn on mono mode) so voices don't overlap. Leave a second or so between each note.
-then just record the track to .wav
-then you can use a variety of tools to split the .wav by silence. You'll get your multisamples, ready to be mapped in your favorite synth/sampler.
-re: looping. I've never had good results with auto-looping so I personally wouldn't use such a feature regardless.
-if you don't own any audio editor to do manual looping, just make the multisamples longer than you'd need.. ie. unless you record ambient or somesuch, pads sampled 10-15 seconds should be enough for 90% of situations. And you can always loop them later...
-creating a midi track containing each note you want to sample, played in series. You'll need to turn down the release time of the patch (or turn on mono mode) so voices don't overlap. Leave a second or so between each note.
-then just record the track to .wav
-then you can use a variety of tools to split the .wav by silence. You'll get your multisamples, ready to be mapped in your favorite synth/sampler.
-re: looping. I've never had good results with auto-looping so I personally wouldn't use such a feature regardless.
-if you don't own any audio editor to do manual looping, just make the multisamples longer than you'd need.. ie. unless you record ambient or somesuch, pads sampled 10-15 seconds should be enough for 90% of situations. And you can always loop them later...
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- KVRian
- 1469 posts since 18 Sep, 2004 from Suffolk, UK
Yes, if you don't have a sampler that samples, then feed your synth into your computer, use any wav recording software (Audacity is free) and record either individual wavs or one long wav with all the notes that you can split later. Normalise them and loop them and away you go.origami wrote:Then maybe OneShotRecorder is what I need. Record all the notes and then open them in DirectWave.
Of course, if you're really lazy, you could just record long notes to avoid looping, but that really is lazy
And I'll PM you my address
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experimental.crow experimental.crow https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=6258
- KVRAF
- 6895 posts since 9 Mar, 2003 from the bridge of sighs
what is it about this time consuming , and hard drive consumptive method , that would make it better than working w/ midi ?...
