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Sample Design : Overview
Overview The introduction of sampling technology into electronic musical instruments in the early 1980's gave birth to a new breed of artist - the Sound Designer. In the past electronic music had been limited to controlling analog
synthesisers like the Prophet 5, or it was in the hands of a very few who had access to powerful computers in academia. Before 1980 popular synthesis was largely based on subtractive analog techniques, done in real time.
The
combination of affordable samplers from E-mu Systems and others, plus the low cost personal computer (specifically the Apple Mac in the US, and the Atari in Europe, and eventually the IBM PC) enabled the sound designer to craft a much
wider palette of sounds in a more precise manner. The frustrations of getting good sounding sample loops, and the need for waveform display/editing and sound storage, all made the computer a natural for accelerating sampling technology to
a new art form.
This section of the Emulator Archive provides information on sample editing software (both vintage and modern), as well as techniques for creating, improving and "burning" samples.
Vintage Sample Editors
Whilst the original software has long been out of production, the lack of support for vintage samplers in modern software means that the best of these vintage editors still have a place in the studio today. Tracking one down is hard work, and you will usually need an older Mac (pre-PowerMac/G3/G4), but Sound Designer II is not too difficult to find and it runs on some of the recent Mac's. more »
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Modern Sample Editors
The latest software is far richer in functionality than the early sample editors developed between 1985 - 1995. The increase in personal computing power (100 fold) has led to onboard DSP effects without the need for a dedicated DSP sound card. The core of these sample editors is stereo audio editing, with sampling as an extra feature. There are three main contenders for top sample editor, all of which are excellent, however support for vintage samplers is via generic SMDI or SCSI sample dump. more »
Sample File Conversion/Importing E-mu Systems have used a variety of sample file formats over 2 decades, and they are not very compatible! Add in sample formats from software editors, sound cards and other hardware samplers
(Roland, Akai) and there is quite a confusing picture. If you need some information to cut through the confusion, here is the right page.
Burning Sample CROM's The arrival of sampling technology was just a few years ahead of CDROM technology being introduced as a popular low cost storage media. The
Emulator II was the first sampler to be able to read CDROM's. Now they are an essential media for storing samples, and sample manufacturers have quickly adopted them. The arrival of low cost CD writers means that home users can also
burn CDROM's from a PC or Mac. Sample CDROM's can be burnt from a SCSI hard drive full of the samples, however there is a technique to achieving this.
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