Start point in in 1.7

Im wondering, in os <1.6 the start point in the program edit section goes back and forth only a few millisec in a sample. is that fixed in 1.7 so that you can go with the start point all the way trough the sample???

its ment for fine tuning not rinning through the whole sample. But if you want to do it that way you have to push on the active button move the fader then let go of the active botton move the fader bacto where it was and repeate until you get to the desired point

yep what the man said it's not meant to scroll though the whole sample.. its great as it is!

if u need to scroll a whole sample

hit >sample

make sure monitor is > Multi

and u can mess with the sample points as much as u want while the seq plays,..

I can think of a 10000 reasons why it would be cool to be able to use the start sample point in program edit.

well it's like that man,

you can apply all thouse 1000's reasons to: sample> monitor multi

if it was like that in program mode

"imagine throwing a little mod on the start point of a sample, u would need to be able to apply it in 0.00'os

you have your triming in sample and a fine tune/triming in program which is a usefull destination source for modulation

to do what you want is only one button press away "hit sample" and your there

I don't know what else to say really...

Q-LINK!!!!!

I hear ya loud and clear, mate

it would be amazingly cool to controle loop start points via qlinks.. experimetal reasons bound to make your music sound fresher..

but like I said: its set up like that due to "zone start" being such a important modulation destination

prehaps akai can eather implent a mod destination for "sample start" in the mod matrix or someklind of censitivity factor for zone start, something to request ,,,hmmm

.... so how about thouse other 999 reasons :)

Right, here's some gubbins about Zone Start -
I asked Akai's then UK support (Arbiter) about this last year -
they asked Akai for me and "a developer" came back with the replies below.

Arbiter formally asked me not to repost the info on public forums,
but since they've now fecked off and lost the franchise, I doubt it matters any more:
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From: David Davis
Sent: 20 June 2004 17:52

I have a query on the 'Zone' page in PROGRAM mode.

For each of the 4 zones, there is a parameter called "START", with a value from -9999 to +9999.

I understand the basic principle (that you can use this to change the start point of sample playback).

However I am a bit confused about the actual implementation.

Firstly, are the values +/- 9999 actual numbers of individual samples.
(ie in terms of sampling rate - a 44.1kHz sample has 44 100 component samples played out every second...
does a value of "+9999" mean start 9999 samples in from the beginning [ = 226 milliseconds @ 44.1kHz ] ?
Or is the +/- 9999 value simply an arbitrary scale?

(Sorry if that's confusing - unfortunately we use the word "Sample" both to denote a named chunk of sound, and also individual 16 or 24 bit slices of digital audio.....)


Secondly, I am confused by what is mean by a "relative adjustment of the start point of each zone" (eg page 90 of the MPC4000 user manual)

What is this "relative" to? Because surely an unmodulated sample simply plays back from its first "sample" (= first 16/24bit chunk of digital audio - ie, "from the beginning") ....
...so what does a negative relative offset mean? How can a sample play back from before its beginning? Does this mean there is a delay of silence before the start of playback?


Thirdly,
I am confused as to whether the "Start" parameter works on its own in the first instance, using the chosen value, or whether it is always just a scaling factor for external modulation.
I ask this because the Ak.Sys User Manual (page 58) seems to imply that the Note On Velocity is "hardwired" to this feature.
However page 221 of the MPC4000 Reference Manual is less clear here .... and the Program Modulation Matrix allows "Start" to be chosen as a destination of each of the 4 Zones, using any modulation source.

I'm a bit bewildered as to what the effect would be of +ve or -ve values of "Start" combined with +ve or -ve Depths of Zone Start modulation (especially considering, as I queried above, that a sample surely cannot be made to start before its own beginning?!)

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
AND THE REPLY>>>>>>>>>
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The Akai developers wrote:

This feature has a bit of a history behind it - I also always found it a bit confusing and not terribly intuitive. It originally stems from the fixed 'velocity-to-start' parameter which was done in the S3/5/6000. In these samplers the modulation of the sample start point was hard-wired to velocity.

The +/-9999 values do relate to the actual number of samples and the adjustment is relative to the sample start point as set up in the sample page. I think the 9999 is again historical, quite why the limit was chosen I have no idea.

The original meaning of the negative values was to invert the velocity modulation.

e.g. if an offset of +1000 was set up

velocity = 0 gives actual offset of 0 samples
velocity = 127 gives actual offset of 1000 samples

however if an offset of -1000 was set up

velocity = 0 gives actual offset of 1000 samples
velocity = 127 gives actual offset of 0 samples

(At least I think it was this way around!)

In the Z4/8 and MPC4000, the start modulation is no longer hard-wired to velocity and can be assigned in the mod matrix. However, I've taken a look through the code and from what I can see it doesn't appear to be working correctly. I will investigate this.

I need to check what the original spec was for this feature on the Z4/8/MPC4k. To me it would be preferable to do away with the negative values, remove the 9999 limit and use the mod matrix depth to invert the modulation.
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AND THERE WAS MORE!
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++



I was wrong about the zone start parameter.. I've checked it over and it is working.

The parameter works as follows:

1. The 'Start' amount of +/-9999 is a static offset to the sample trim start point, i.e. play offset = trim start + zone start

e.g. Sample A has trim start = 10,000 : zone 1 start offset = 1,000

so actual play offset = 11,000

Of course this is limited so that the offset will not go outside the limits of the sample. The zone start parameter has a modulation range of 9999 so if modulation is used then the actual play start offset can be determined as follows:

play offset = trim start + zone offset + (9999 * (mod value/127) * mod
depth/100)

using above example and velocity as mod source:

At velocity = 0, mod depth = 100:

play offset = 11,000 + (9999 * (0/127) * (100/100)) = 11,000

At velocity 127:

play offset = 11,000 + (9999 * (127/127) * (100/100) = 20,999

I hope this makes sense.