Drum program & Key Group program questions

greetings

i have been going through the manual to the mpc4k so i can see what this baby really does before i make a decision whether to upgrade from my mpc2k.

i just have 3 things i need clarification on:

1. in the Drum Programs section, the manual talks about 2 samples being assigned to a pad number and crossfaded by velocity. Does the first sound crossfade into the second the longer and harder you press the pad down? I am aware of switching sounds by velocity but how does corssfaded by velocity work?

2. In the Key Group programs section, the manual shows an example using two key groups, each with their own key span and how the 2 key groups are cross-faded by pitch. What does 2 key groups crossfaded by pitch mean?

3. In the Key Group programs section, the manual shows two key groups, each with four zones and how the two key groups are crossfaded instead of switched by pitch. I understand what switched by pitch means but again, I do not understand what is meant by the 2 key groups are crossfaded.

Anyone's help would be really appreciated. But please try and keep your explanations as simple and as jargon free as possible.

peace

kid

Hi Kid

1) Zone xfade by velocity

If you overlap the velocity range of two samples in a zone, the amplitude (=loudness) of the samples will be the crossfaded to mask the switch a bit. You can use this to make a smooth transition between the two samples so it will sound more like you are playing one note on one instrument instead of triggering two individual samples.

2) keygroup xfade by pitch

The same principal counts for the keygroup crossfade.

The amplitude of the samples assigned to the two overlapping keygroups are crossfaded when you play a note within the overlapping keyzone. This means that you will hear both samples, but the higher the note you play the more you hear from the top keygroup. The lower the note you play, the more you will hear from the lower keygroup. This way you can build one instrument from more than one sample and mask the overlap a bit so you won't here the switching between two different samples/keygroups too much.

Basically this implies that both crossfade functions are used to optimize the expressivity and the credibility of you instrument in both the dynamic range (xfade by velocity) and the frequency/timbre range (xfade by pitch).

Cheers!

many many thanks man. i understand what you are saying.

instead of having to create these programs, are there sample CDs with programs already set up so that you just load the sounds and programs into the mpc4k and have everything spanned, keygrouped with swtiching and so on?