Some concerns that I have relating to my current setup are that I've been too unprepared to work with real synthesizers, which is where this whole thing is going. I should have my Akai S2000 (thank you, eBay!!!) by the end of next week. Yes, I'm perfectly well aware of the limitations of a 32MB system. But that has made me all too aware of my own limitations as well. You see, back in the day I used Gigastudio v. 2.5. I'd wanted to use it live, but with all the clicks and pops in that cheap computer, this just wasn't meant to be. I've been absolutely amazed with EXS24 since I started using Logic. I've also been really impressed with the few instruments I have "powered by Kontakt" and have often wondered if I shouldn't invest in Kontakt. I thought perhaps of getting a new PC for the purpose of running Emulator, which I might still do one day. Now I'm totally addicted to NN-XT in Reason. I like the ease of use, the filters and envelopes, and the overall flexibility/versatility of NN-XT. So yes, that's certainly going to make it into my live setup with Mainstage.
What I've realized, though, is how fabulously spoiled I've become in using these software samplers. I think what I need is a new way of thinking. It's only a matter of days before the Akai gets here, so I think now is the time to get used to a whole different approach to sampling.
I think most of us would agree that the ideal when sampling is to sample as much of an instrument as possible. Take a piano, for instance. You're going to want to sample each note for as long as the note sounds. You want this pedal up, pedal down, upper string resonance, inside the piano, out in the concert hall, and each for at least 4 velocity layers, all at the highest sample rate and bit depth available. OK, so we're talking about an instrument that's going to take anywhere from 4 to 8 GB.
That's well and good if you absolutely CANNOT let that Bosendorfer get away! But it's perfectly unacceptable when dealing with a vintage 32 MB sampler.
So what exactly is Kyle Beckham up to now? Here's my goal for the next week: Sample the entire soundset of the Casio Casiotone MT-205. You might ask, "What's the big deal?" It's mostly sentimental, to be honest. When I was a little kid, my aunt had one of those in her piano room. I'm not exactly sure why she got it, but I do recall thinking the sounds were incredible. This was a tiny "toy" keyboard with a sound that could fill up a room! I always wanted that keyboard. Sentimental reasons aside, there is a nostalgia factor I think anyone can appreciate. It's a bit of a relic, preserving quite well the kinds of sounds that were really popular in the 80's.
My aunt had a nasty smoking habit. The last time (and it's been years) I played that thing it was already having some trouble. As both my aunt and uncle worsened in health, it became obvious that even if the thing still worked, I'd never get my hand on it. Thanks to the miracle of eBay, I found one in perfect condition and have played with it off and on over the last few years.
I've tried sampling it before, but it was the typical "make long samples, play the entire decay," and so on approach that's a killer on memory and processor resources. After completing the sound design course, I thought now would be a good time to return to it with a more sensible and relevant approach to sampling.
The point I'd like to make here is my change in thinking and general approach to sampling. Samplers can often be used as synthesizers in their own right. The S2000 is such a sampler with a wide range of envelopes, lfos, filters, and effects. Lets suppose, for instance, I want basic analog sounds. All I really need is a cycle or two of geometric waves and the S2000 can do the rest (lead, pad, classic synth sounds, etc.). Or if I want the kinds of sounds I get from Absynth, I can just use Absynth to create whatever waveform I want and let the S2000 do the rest. From that perspective, I could program all the instruments I would need for playing live from a single floppy disk.
32 MB begins to look like a lot of memory!
I'm trying to practice this. Just today I reconstructed the Casiotone MT-205 Vibraphone using NN-XT. The way I did that was to record both stereo channels separately. The next step was to create two mono vibraphone patches, one to represent its respective channel. I trimmed each sample so that each retained a strong attack transient and a little of the decay/sustain. When I imported these into NN-XT, I set loop start and end points at the very end of the sample and slowly pulled back on the start time until I had at least two cycles. While the ends of the loops may not exactly line up, there is one important advantage to this approach: The loop pop or click is always cyclical. So as you pull the loop start down towards the beginning of the cycle, the apparent pitch lowers and fades as you approach it. While there will always be some noise with this approach, it is masked by the pitch and timbre of the sampled waveform. By pulling this back to as many as 1 or 2 cycles, the quality of sound improves. You have to take care though, because this can create something that sounds like a sub-oscillator. If you like this pulse sound, of course, it can be shaped with filters to get completely different results than what you might have initially gone for. Personally, I choose to avoid this because it seems to defeat the purpose of sampling waveforms to begin with. So far the only instruments I've made this way are a MT-205 piano (for testing only, but will revisit) and the aforementioned vibraphone. I'm very pleased with the results!
The downside is that Casio seems to use its own reverb/chorus/vibrato for its programs, nothing I can manipulate for the keyboard. Making such a short loop destroys this effect, so I have to compensate by using my own chorus and reverb in addition to making the appropriate settings for vibrato or tremolo using NN-XT's LFOs. It's an unfortunate reality, but it beats searching for hours finding loops points that preserve the original effect! There is so much modulation going on in the vibraphone that it's a next to an impossible task. I'm trying very hard to minimize hard disk consumption during this process, so the good news is that the vibraphone samples occupy less than 2MB of memory. Looking ahead to the S2000 arrival, this means that keeping all single programs to 2MB or less will allow for a multi of 16 different instruments. That's a good thing since the S2000 is 16 parts multi-timbrel. And it will occupy close to the maximum 32 MB.
That's very exciting for me not only as a sound designer but also as a composer and electronic musician. I'll be expanding my setup with real synthesizers and samplers in addition to the virtual ones I keep with me; however, for live playing that's not really a portable option. I'm hoping by changing my approach to sampling and getting some practice in that area I'll be best prepared for developing road-ready instruments.
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