Originally posted by Tor
So if you assign a sample to A1-G1 for example, does each key play the sample at a different pitch?
Yes. So you can make Barry White sound like a chipmunk. It kind of works like this. You sample something (let's say C3 from a piano) and tell your sampler - the original pitch for that is C3. Then you assign that sample to a particular keyzone (as I described before) - almost certainly the notes around C3 in this case. Then when you play a D3 the sampler plays back the sample, but pitched up 1 whole tone (as opposed to a semitone). However it also plays back the sample faster in order to do this, which is how you can Barry White to sound like a chipmunk as he gets higher
and faster. {Note that this explanation does not apply to
the Roland VP9000 which supposedly automatically applies timestretching and formant altering to samples to allow them to be accurately mapped accross a whole keyboard range - that's what they reckon anyway}
Originally posted by Tor
What if you dont have a midi controller?
I presume that you are talking about a controller keyboard and not something that sends out continuous controller information like
a phatboy or a controlfreak. To be honest the same theory applies, in your sequencer you draw on the notes, which is analagous to playing them on a keyboard - albeit very slowly. You still need to set your keyzones and so on just as I described before.
Originally posted by Tor
for example the sampler in reason, would you trigger the sounds using the computer keyboard?
To be honest I know nothing about Reason so I wouldn't even want to hazard a guess as to whether you can use your computer keyboard to trigger notes or not (I guess you're asking whether you can use your computer keyboard to 'play' the samples in real time like you would if you had a hardware sampler and a midi keyboard) someone else can probably help out though.
Originally posted by Tor
Do samplers come with sequencers, so you could draw the samples in?
Some do, like my E-mu E5000, but I've never used it so I've no idea how good/easy to use it is. I use Cubase for all my sequencing. The MPC from Akai and the Yamaha Rs7000 are sequencers with samplers built in - but again, I don't know what either of them are like. I'm sure if you use the search function on this site you'll come up with about 500 posts on them though
Originally posted by Tor
What other things can you do with it?
With a good sampler the world is your oyster. They can do so much it's scary. For instance all that filter disco stuff - my e-mu can do that (beautiful filters). All those romplers that make everything from Orchestra sounds to drumkits to techno keyboard noises - my e-mu can do that. Mashed up sonic Big Beat, Fatboy Slim craziness - my e-mu can do that. d&b loops, just chop 'em up and play them back. I like samplers, if you can't tell. I don't want to get into a 'hardware vs software' debate, personally I prefer hardware but plenny people have made the move over to software.
Originally posted by Tor
for example when you hear a sample all chopped up in a track, how is that done within a sampler?
Well there's the easy way which is to get hold of a granular synthesis program (I think there's one called granulator) and play around with that until you get something you like. Or the hard way which is to chop up your sample into loads of bits by hand (which is pretty easy but takes a while) and then put all those new bits onto different notes on your sequencer and play around until you get something you like. Sounds like you want to get hold of a sampler and just get going.
KasioRoks