Back to work: Sampling with the Akai S2000

As soon as a create a schedule, I'm doomed to fall behind. Maybe that's for the best!

Anyway, I got some good get-to-know-you time with my Akai S2000 yesterday. Considering what I want to do, my goals in using a sampler, I've made some observations which I'll share here.

I decided for the sake of practice I'd create an additive waveform in Absynth and sample that directly to the Akai and do all the necessary edits on screen. Now, if you aren't familiar with the Akai S2000, you need to know that the only user interface is a tiny, 2-line LCD with that classic green glow. There is no graphic editing whatsoever, and this came as a complete shock after having used NN-XT for so many months now. Actually, the Casiotone side-project has been the first in-depth use of NN-XT for me. It's easy to set the zones, automap, and so on in NN-XT. Using the trackpad or my handy trackball mouse, fine-tuning is easy--on the head, on the eyes, and on the wrist!

Not so on the Akai. Anyone out there who takes the plunge and gets an Akai S2000, here's a little advice: My new eBay friend who sold it to me sent a disk with MESA, which is a graphic editor for the Akai S-series samplers. He told me I should pick up a Mac with SCSI running OS 9.22. Absolutely right! If you go the route of buying an old sampler like the S2000, you'll probably want a graphic editor. So go ahead and bid on an old Mac while you're at it.

I'm too poor, though. I'm going to stick with original plan and program this thing right from the face of the machine.

So I figured out how to record a sample. I'm not to the mapping phase yet, just doodling around. I also figured out how to loop that sample. The steps to do this aren't difficult. I sampled an additive sound from Absynth to start with. Here's the hard part: Akai has a "find" function that will find loop points for you, except they aren't really that accurate, at least not the way I'm working. I have to set the "loop at" point all the way at the end of the sample. Also, I found this works best (for me) if the entire length of a sample is 100 ms. The loop length is set at 0.

Here's where I unhappily discovered one of the most useless features of this sampler. The loop length apparently is in samples, but there are 3 decimal places after that. I'd like to know why! I adjusted that thing with the data wheel until I thought my thumb would fall off! Useless. So I went back to spinning around through samples until I found a proper loop point. Because I've practiced this in NN-XT without a graphic editor, it wasn't long before I found a perfect fit.

On to my next experiment: I created another wave in Absynth, loaded it into another oscillator, and detuned it for an inharmonic effect. I sampled it. Before I continue, let me just say that I've never been diagnosed an Aspie, but I think it's obvious that I am one. While I do enjoy the effects of my creative focus, some of the more harmful effects of the condition came out during this experiment. I must have spent hours trying to find a loop point! Now, if there are any more experienced sound designers out there reading this, you're probably laughing because you already know what I found out yesterday: inharmonic sines will never line up, which makes it impossible to find loop points in a few cycles. Mathematically I'm sure it can be done, but I'm no good with math.

Solution: Sample each Absynth oscillator separately and create a layered sample instrument in the same way as the Absynth patch. Even though this eats up just a little more memory, it's worth it. This will create some lovely bells and similar pad sounds. I also found that by re-detuning the second wave you can create different inharmonic effects. I'm talking here about complex waveforms, not generic chorusing that we normally do by detuning. Take this and run it through Mainstage to add chorusing or other effects, and you got quite a powerful little instrument!

I'm still fumbling around right now and I still have so much to learn. Time to put on a pot of coffee and get to work...