Akai Force Forum: Everything relating to the Akai Force, the new 64 pad, clip-based standalone sampler/groovebox from Akai. While not an MPC, it shares many similar software features to the MPC X/MPC Live including the same underlying code-base.
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By DannyMcO Fri Jul 16, 2021 7:52 pm
I recently picked up a bunch of Mellotron wav files and want to convert them to a single or multiple usable instruments (for example, either a single Mellotron instrument with things like violin, piano, & chorus built in, or as the individual component instruments).

The wav files are grouped by instrument, but with individual wavs for each note of that instrument (A#2, B2, C2, C#2 etc...).

Do I need a particular MPC software package to do this? How do I go about creating either one all-encompassing Mellotron, or individual Mellotron instruments?

n00b here. Please go easy on me.
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By NearTao Fri Jul 16, 2021 8:38 pm
Are you trying to do this on the force or in software? Explanation will be a *bit* different.

Regardless of which, assuming you want to live in the Akai ecosystem.

Assuming you want to live in the Akai ecosystem (and not somewhere like Ableton Live)...
* You'll want to load up all of your samples for the one mellotron sound, such as String
* Create a key group with as many groups as you have samples
* Assign each unique sample to a group in the key group, to keep your sanity, probably do ascending order
* Then you want to set the root note for each sound in the key group to the root note listed in the sample name
* Finally you'll want to set it up so you assign the note range in the key group so that each note extends up and/or down (I usually get up, less artifacts added), but end before you overlap other groups/sampled notes in the key group.

If you follow all that, you can definitely do it. With practice it's probably a 10-15 minute job per sample set max to load samples, assign them, adjust the parameters and test to make sure it all works/sounds right.

Hope that helps!
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By DannyMcO Sat Jul 17, 2021 2:19 am
NearTao wrote:Are you trying to do this on the force or in software? Explanation will be a *bit* different.

Regardless of which, assuming you want to live in the Akai ecosystem.

Assuming you want to live in the Akai ecosystem (and not somewhere like Ableton Live)...
* You'll want to load up all of your samples for the one mellotron sound, such as String
* Create a key group with as many groups as you have samples
* Assign each unique sample to a group in the key group, to keep your sanity, probably do ascending order
* Then you want to set the root note for each sound in the key group to the root note listed in the sample name
* Finally you'll want to set it up so you assign the note range in the key group so that each note extends up and/or down (I usually get up, less artifacts added), but end before you overlap other groups/sampled notes in the key group.

If you follow all that, you can definitely do it. With practice it's probably a 10-15 minute job per sample set max to load samples, assign them, adjust the parameters and test to make sure it all works/sounds right.

Hope that helps!


Thanks for the insight - I have the WAVs on my computer, but want to create a useable instrument for the Force in a stand-alone sense.
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By Koekepan Sat Jul 17, 2021 3:11 pm
The basics are exactly what NearTao described.

Grab the WAV from your computer, slap it onto an SDcard or thumbdrive, stick it in the Force. Boot up the Force, create a keygroup, and put the samples in the definition.

You don't have to involve the computer at all beyond your initial loading of the files onto removable storage.