Samplers

Just got a question from a friend of mine... What's the state of the art
in sampler technologies these days? Are there keyboard samplers, or PC
board samplers, that can manipulate samples on the computer and/or accept
WAV or other file formats for download or playing or via floppy?

Anyone out there use samplers for microtonal stuff? How about re-tuning
with Accutune...?

Thanks for any info,
Rick

Rick,

Very first important point, since I asked relatively the same question a while back: is this intended for recording, or live performance? If only the former, then you can probably include software based samplers in the survey; if the latter, unless you have a completely reliable and beefy laptop or rackmount, I wouldn't (right now) trust a software based sampler for live performance.

Seems many of the creative types, esp with regard to microtonal music, do at least *some* work on the computer to process/prepare samples.

{you wrote...}
>Anyone out there use samplers for microtonal stuff?

Both Jacky Ligon and Mary Beth Ackerly leap to mind, so I'll let them answer. You might also want to check out Bill Sethares recent mp3 uploads to see what he has done in the software realm for microtuning of samples...

I'll do a search in my archives for the initial msg I posted about samplers a couple months ago, and you can read the archives...

Cheers,
Jon

Rick!
It is my understanding that there is a large corporation that is planning to
take DNA samples of famous artists which will then be able to perform for
you. So it you want a Tony Williams Drum part , you take a DNA chip taken
from Tony and slip it into your sampler and sit and listen back. They are
also working on blending and mixing where one can combine DNA as well as
having one fade out and another fade in. They have found though that some
mixtures result in a complete lack of DNA reconciliation and fail to produce
anything by internal overheating

Rick McGowan wrote:

> Just got a question from a friend of mine... What's the state of the art
> in sampler technologies these days? Are there keyboard samplers, or PC
> board samplers, that can manipulate samples on the computer and/or accept
> WAV or other file formats for download or playing or via floppy?
>
> Anyone out there use samplers for microtonal stuff? How about re-tuning
> with Accutune...?

-- Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria island
http://www.anaphoria.com

The Wandering Medicine Show
Wed. 8-9 KXLU 88.9 fm

Rick,

Try my web site for information on microtonal samplers.

http://home.att.net/~microtonal

I've used Ensoniq's EPS, EPS-16 Plus and Kurzweil's K2500R. The Ensoniq
samplers are no longer in production but you can find them used for good
prices. The ASR-10 is the best sampling keyboard for microtonal scales
without any limitation in the number of notes per octave.

I prefer the power of the Kurzweil K2x00 series (1000 programs, deep
programming, great sound quality), but some people find the 12 note per
octave scales limiting. The K2600R is the most recent version.

For computers, Gigasampler seems to be getting pretty popular, but it
does not have microtonal support yet.

For MAC or PC, Unity DS-1 supports microtuning of up to 128 notes, per
program.

All of these except the Ensoniq should support WAV files. It's easy
enough to get a sample editing program to convert the wave files to
Ensoniq format if needed.

John Loffink
microtonal@...

-----Original Message-----
From: Rick McGowan [mailto:rick@...]
Sent: Monday, December 10, 2001 8:39 PM
To: makemicromusic@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [MMM] Samplers

Just got a question from a friend of mine... What's the state of the art

in sampler technologies these days? Are there keyboard samplers, or PC

board samplers, that can manipulate samples on the computer and/or
accept
WAV or other file formats for download or playing or via floppy?

Anyone out there use samplers for microtonal stuff? How about re-tuning

with Accutune...?

Thanks for any info,
Rick

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

John,

Whoa!

{you wrote...}
>I prefer the power of the Kurzweil K2x00 series (1000 programs, deep
>programming, great sound quality), but some people find the 12 note per
>octave scales limiting. The K2600R is the most recent version.

I might have been smoking something, but during my investigation a while back I was under the *distinct* impression that the Kurzweil K2*00 series supported at least one 'global' retuning that would map the entire keyboard in a non-12-per manner. And I guess I've certainly gotten this impression from Mary Beth's musical examples. Maybe I'm wrong but I hope this could be confirmed - I've been putting away a little bit at a time for a 2600XS!

Cheers,
Jon

--- In MakeMicroMusic@y..., Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@a...> wrote:
> Rick!
> It is my understanding that there is a large corporation that is
planning to
> take DNA samples of famous artists which will then be able to
perform for
> you. So it you want a Tony Williams Drum part , you take a DNA chip
taken
> from Tony and slip it into your sampler and sit and listen back.
They are
> also working on blending and mixing where one can combine DNA as
well as
> having one fade out and another fade in. They have found though
that some
> mixtures result in a complete lack of DNA reconciliation and fail
to produce
> anything by internal overheating

Nicely said, Kraig!

Kraig Grady wrote:

> ... DNA samples of famous artists which will then be able to perform for
> you. So it you want a Tony Williams Drum part , you take a DNA chip ...

Hmmm... OK. At the risk of being labelled dense, I wonder if you are
mis-interpreting my question. I don't sample other people's recordings.
My friend doesn't sample other people's recordings. My friend wants to
stick a microphone up to some instruments and sundry objects that happen to
be lying around the house so that those sounds can be used with MIDI file
performances. That's all. The question is simply, what's the best
software and/or hardware thing to use for doing that?

Rick

Actually equal tempered scales are easy to do on K2x00. I have a page
at my web site explaining how. While you can technically use keymaps in
any sampler to map microtonal scales, I consider this too painful and
time consuming to be considered "microtonal support." There is no
intonation table for the entire keyboard.

John Loffink
microtonal@...

-----Original Message-----
From: Jonathan M. Szanto [mailto:JSZANTO@...]
Sent: Monday, December 10, 2001 10:22 PM
To: MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [MMM] Samplers

John,

Whoa!

{you wrote...}
>I prefer the power of the Kurzweil K2x00 series (1000 programs, deep
>programming, great sound quality), but some people find the 12 note per
>octave scales limiting. The K2600R is the most recent version.

I might have been smoking something, but during my investigation a while

back I was under the *distinct* impression that the Kurzweil K2*00
series
supported at least one 'global' retuning that would map the entire
keyboard
in a non-12-per manner. And I guess I've certainly gotten this
impression
from Mary Beth's musical examples. Maybe I'm wrong but I hope this could
be
confirmed - I've been putting away a little bit at a time for a 2600XS!

Cheers,
Jon

--- In MakeMicroMusic@y..., Rick McGowan <rick@u...> wrote:
> Hmmm... OK. At the risk of being labelled dense, I wonder if you
are
> mis-interpreting my question.
> The question is simply, what's the best
> software and/or hardware thing to use for doing that?
>
> Rick

I use Csound to create sample based instruments. I haven't tried it
with live music. I create input files that are processed by Csound to
create a wave file that I listen to after the fact. Csound is by far
the most flexible and powerful way to use samples. You have complete
control over the pitches, with no artificial limitations on how many
different instruments you use, or how many tones per octave. You can
also manipulate pitch, sample, envelope, velocity, glissando,
location, and any of a dozen other parameters for each and every note
individually.

That said, Csound is a bear to learn. Take a look at my web page for
a dozen pieces I have made using samples and Csound. Some recent ones
use samples I made myself from some instruments I built. See Home
Page: http://home.attbi.com/~prodgers13/

Prent Rodgers
Mercer Island, WA
New home page and email address, thanks AT&T & @home

New Email address: PrentRodgers - at - attbi.com
Home Page: http://home.attbi.com/~prodgers13/
MP3 Examples: http://www.mp3.com/PrentRodgers

"It's cold, but it's a damp cold."

Thanks to everyone who responded to me about samplers! Lots of great info
that I'll pass along.

Cheers,
Rick