Sample Volume Trim Mode / Program

Why are samples in trim mode always at normal volume, but when assigned to a program, they are more quiet?
And yes, full level is on..

peace..

Make sure in the mixer screen that the pad volume is turned up, also if a previous sound was assigned to that pad make sure you change all the settings back to normal.

MARCODANE79 wrote:Make sure in the mixer screen that the pad volume is turned up, also if a previous sound was assigned to that pad make sure you change all the settings back to normal.

yep

Sure, volume is fully up in the mixer, settings are set back to normal.
But the sound is always louder in trim mode than in "normal" mode.

At your MPCs, these levels are exactly the same (in trim and main screen)?

I mean when I sample for example too loud, i can hear it too loud in trim mode, but when assigned to a pad, in main screen, its quieter and sounds like kind of more "normalized" without turning down the mixer.

peace..

In program mode your sample's level is set to 70 by default.

Is that it?

But at the mixer it is at maximum and when i go -> open window... there is "Volume:100".

and at trim mode it is always louder..

i can't believe that the mpc (2kxl anyway) doesn't have a way to alter the volume of the waveform itself in the trim/edit...

and all of the volume & velocity parameters in the system seem to just be used to calculate final sample-volume to send to the sampler engine, which seems to only yield 0->100%.

Trim screen -> Parameters -> Level (adjustable up to "200)

@krux:

it doesn't appear to do anything except for add into the calculation to send the volume to the samplerengine as it plays.

so a volume of 200 in sample params is similar to 200% velocity in a Track - it causes it to appear as "full level" all the time.

from what i can tell anyway - i am going to recheck this though since you brought it up, but i did try this one once.

benjamin9999 wrote:@krux:

it doesn't appear to do anything except for add into the calculation to send the volume to the samplerengine as it plays.

Yep, from 0 to 100 you hear differences, but from 100 to 200 there is nothing changed.

What´s on your MPCs? Sample Volume in Trim Mode exactly the same as on a Pad in Main Screen with Volume:100?

@foobar:

i just spend some time with the XL trying to reverse engineer the volume calculation but i still don't quite understand what is going on.

while in the sample PARAM screen, you can adjust between 0 and 200, and it certainly doesn't appear to make any difference with values >100 - UNLESS, you set it to a >100 value, then return to the MAIN screen, or play a sequence with that sample, and you can certainly notice that it is louder.

and it does -not- appear to work like track velocity which was what i first thought. with vel=127 and vel=64, and the sample-volume @ 200, you can still tell that the two notes are played differently. with my original theory, they would both play as if vel=127 @ vol100 - but this is not so.

so perhaps there is a bug in the PARAM screen relating to previewing volume >100 - because it does seem to make a difference after you set the value and return to playing.

but 200 is a strange value - it would imply 200% - but a loud sample doesn't get any clipping.

so a new assumption is...

that even though this is a 16-bit sampler, the sampleengine's mixing stage is in 24 or 32 bits. sample volume is in %, and the multiply is done as the sample is added to the (24/32) bits mixing accumulator.

so 100% is full volume, "full quality"

the value goes to 200% so that you understand that you get more volume, but that the data is now being altered.

PLUS, with too many 200% samples playing, the mixing accumulator may clip.

NOW for the last part.

200% means you can make any sample 2x as loud. but any quiet sample might need 3, 6, 12... 24db even to bring it up, so it's not going to help at all for this.

the MPC4000 has Normalizing after sampling - why doesn't the XL?
( does anyone know if 1000 or 2500 have it? )

my guess is that there is no way to alter the amplitude of a waveform after sampling because Akai doesn't want people to use it and then complain that the quality of the sound is bad...

WHEN I PLAY SOUNDS IN TRIM MODE THEY ARE A BIT LOUDER!!!!

Check it:

I have a snare set at 100 in TRIM and at 127 MIDI volume (FULL LEVEL) and the track at 100% volume. If I move the track volume above 100% it wont affect the volume (because it's already at 127, and the track volume% only affects the MIDI info (0-127) and not the sample).
BUT...

If I go to TRIM and adjust the PARAMS to 200 and then play back the beat, the snare is louder. I dunno if it's exactly twice as loud, but it is louder.

This seems wierd, 'cause if I tune a sound in TRIM to -120 (the lowest setting) then adjust the pad that it's asigned to's PARAMS, any tuning adjustments made below -120 won't affect the sample, as the MPC can only tune a total of 240 either way. (I may have those exact numbers wrong a li'l, or flip-flopped, but you get the idea)

im sure you probably did but check the "full level" velocity sensitive is it green if its not and you dont hit the pad hard enough. Also that the Filter is at 100.

I have noticed what you are talking about I think when you listen to it in the trim screen its just the sample. when its assigned to a pad it enables all those paramaters:Filter,attack, decay, resonance, the mixer itself, the EB16 effects for some. where even when "full level" is on the mixer is turned up all the way and the filter is at 100, reso 0, effects off, etc etc it sounds almost unnoticably quieter. But hey who cares about a fraction of nano decible unless you have supersonic hearing you cant even tell.
all of your samples are played from the pads not from the trim screen, use the mixer or in Trim Param's to adjust compared with the other samples.

Plus when your playing your track through a bombin sound system it should sound exactly how you produced it even with master out at default 0 it should be as loud as you want to turn it up. right

Krux wrote:In program mode your sample's level is set to 70 by default.

Is that it?

^^^I went through the whole manual twice and can not find this. Is he talking about the midi volume in program/drum?



My problem is everything i play back in the main screen is lower in volume. it does not equal the source volume or the playback volume in sample mode.

I initialized everything. trim/parameter = 100, track volume = 100%, and full level on. am i missing something?

is this a feature on the XL? Is the mpc2000xl suppose to be like this to reserve head room? or is there something wrong with my XL?

i remember my mpc3000 would just play back what i sample perfectly, no adjustments needed.

thanks in advance