Tips for quickly making keygroup programs

Do any of you get into making multisample (keygroup) programs? I'm not talking about drums that are set up as a keygroup program, but rather real keygroup programs like pianos etc. that are pitched across the keys, use crossfade, etc. The reason I ask is that I'd really like to use the MPC4K more for this (because it's so convenient to have sample-based stuff in the same box as the sequencer, and because I just like the thing so much), BUT I find it to be very inconvenient and tedious to put together complicated multisamples / keygroup programs on it..

For example: I have a bunch of samples of a grand piano, and I've assigned an "original key" to each sample. I.e., the C3 sample is tagged as being C3, the F#4 sample as F#4, etc. I would have thought that there would be some easy way to set up a program in which C3 was mapped to the C3 sample and F#4 to the F#4 sample, etc. But it seems I have to do it all manually! Set up a keygroup for each sample, set the keyspan for the sample, etc. The killer is that if the sample names don't give an indication of what note number they correspond to, then it is a pain in the *** to figure it out. Altogether very tedious.

Am I doing something wrong? The sampler is so fast and convenient for drums, can it really be so tedious for pitched multisamples?

thx

-illiac

sorry, im pretty new to the KGs as well, so im not sure if theres an easier way, but its definitely a feature that appears a little complicated.

as i see it, once youve done it once, you can just save that program as a template to use in the future. sure you'll have to tweak it a little bit everytime depending on how your multisamples are setup, but once that work is done, imagine how nice its gonna sound.

for the sample name thing, sounds like you just gotta organize a little better, and with the midi controller hooked up, you can use the actual keys to set the keyspan instead of spinnin the wheel.

are you using aksys? might help the workflow a little bit.


.dope.

thanks for your reply!

I am willing to use ak.sys if that would help speed things up, but I haven't figured out how to work faster using it. You can set spans by mousing on the image of a keyboard, or as you say you can simply play notes on the MIDI controller. The latter is a lot faster for me.

I guess you're right about a template, in the sense that if you always use the same sample pitches (e.g., C0, F#0, C1, F#1, ...) then you could have one program with the right spans and crossfades and just drop samples into it... Hmm that's a good idea. I've got some multisamples (made by others) that are kind of random, pitches all over the place, so they're not easy to work with; but I could make a template for my home-grown multisamples.

Putting pitch names into the sample names, sigh, I guess there's no choice but it would be so easy for the OS to help out here. I mean sheesh when you add a sample to a keygroup program the sample is set to TRACK and spans the whole keyboard. This is a useless default behavior. It would be a lot more useful for it to set the span to be 1 key wide: the original key. You almost always want the span to include the original pitch but never want a pitch to span the entire 128 note range -- the MPC can only transpose pitches two octaves anyhow.

-illiac

if you use a template you still have to assign each individual sample..(which is the most work) or you dont if you name them all the same lik A0, B2.. but then you cant use the programs at the same time
.. If you build a full multi program you have to assign 76 x 4 samples .. one by one ...

tell me about it. grr. doing it now.

anyone else noticed this craziness, that sometimes when you are setting the SPAN for a keygroup, that the Low and Hi notes will move only in units of whole octaves!? in other words, if the span says E3 > E6, and if you move to the E5 and turn the jogwheel down, it goes to E4, E3, E2, .... instead of D#5, D5, C#5, etc. I'm trying to set an span of six notes and the controls move in units of octaves. good grief.

If you spin the jogwheel really fast or very smoothly then it sometimes moves by semitones. my jogwheel seems to work perfectly except for this menu so I don't think it's a case of broken hardware...

gonna blow a fuse.

>> if you name them all the same lik A0, B2.. but then you cant use the programs at the same time

Hmm? Do you mean that there is a way to set the span automatically from the name of the samples?

EDIT: oh, i just got it! make a template with one set of names, then substitute the samples out for other samples. good idea man! I think you can go in afterwards to ak.sys and do the "batch rename" on the samples and the names will be updated in the program automatically. so this way you could get around the "can't load more than one program at the same time" problem.

thanks,

-illiac

NEAT!!

>> NEAT!!
um, it was your idea dude.
-illiac

obviously I didnt know about the batch renamer in Aksys

Yeah, the batch renamer is one of my favorite ak.sys things. For those who haven't seen this, go to ak.sys and highlight a bunch of samples. right-click and pick "batch rename". give a prefix (the beginning of a name). ak.sys will rename all the samples as prefix-001, prefix-002, etc.

thanks

illiac wrote:Yeah, the batch renamer is one of my favorite ak.sys things. For those who haven't seen this, go to ak.sys and highlight a bunch of samples. right-click and pick "batch rename". give a prefix (the beginning of a name). ak.sys will rename all the samples as prefix-001, prefix-002, etc.

this is really handy for organising all the drums, basses and all inside a project..... Much thank yous!!

illiac wrote:Yeah, the batch renamer is one of my favorite ak.sys things. For those who haven't seen this, go to ak.sys and highlight a bunch of samples. right-click and pick "batch rename". give a prefix (the beginning of a name). ak.sys will rename all the samples as prefix-001, prefix-002, etc.

niceone illiac, after having overlooked this feature for at least 3 years i just tried it out and got a question: is there a way to ad a prefix whilst keeping the rest of the original names?

coz i m only able so far to raname a bunch of samples and at the end they r either all called the same (like say if sample 1 originally was called "808", sample 2 "909", and sample 3 "727" and i want them to have a prefix 01 they ll be called prefix "01" , name of 1st sample selected "808" and then extensi0n "-001" ... thus ... 01 808-001, 01 808-002, 01 808-003) or if you unselect the selected name they loose it totally and will be called, 01-001, 01-002, 01-003 .... ideally they should be named like this though imo: "01 808", "01 909", "01 727", .... anyway to achieve this?

nice1, indeed, on that batch rename function...i've just been doing it all manually on my lappy, since i do a lotta chopping and editing in soundforge already.

i got so much to learn, but its good to know im not alone.

i've been recording some live bass (upright and electric)...gonna mess around with setting up some KGs in aksys some more this weekend.


.dope.

if you do it manual, the mpc program will not recognize the sample anymore.

drumtrack wrote:if you do it manual, the mpc program will not recognize the sample anymore.

i know, i do it before i make the program.

thats what makes this find so necessary.

.dope.