hahahh earwolf
jay i'm gonna take this one at a time.
so this process is kind of like doing a more versatile patched phrase by hand right? - except with added flavor because of the delay....
yes, kind of like what a patched phrase could/should be like. the decay acts as delay, or as reverb - whichever you want to think of it as. i wouldn't use it to REPLACE reverb by ANY means (comparatively it sounds chaotic and even NASTY).
i was messing with your program nym, im sort of confused by the sample program, each pad had 4 samples assigned to it, but i could only get one to play - i know they were all assigned to trigger at different velocities, but i kept only hearing one of the samples when i tried lighter touches.
yup. see, velocity layers have 2 functions attached to them - 1, VELOCITY. 2, QLINK. all my drum programs utilize number 1, all my sample programs utilize number 2. in number 1, softer hits yield lower layers. in number 2, the position of the qlink slider (i think i saved it as qlink2 in my demo project) determines playback layer. ie, if you have q2 all the way up at 127, the highest layer will play.
what we have with my sample is 4 repetitions of a similar musical phrase. each pad corresponds to 1 note in each of those 4 repetitions. ie, pad 01 = the first note played in each phrase. i use the qlink to alternate between "takes" of this sample. hence, if you solo my lute sample and listen to it, you'll notice that it changes subtly throughout - starts off hard and loud and goes to more mellow, chiller sounding notes.
finally:
and what does adjusting the duration do in grid edit mode? -i mean how does this effect the sample? does it stretch it?
it doesn't necessarily stretch it. instead, it may or may not activate the ALTERNATE LOOP - but ONLY if you extend the duration past the end point of the actual sample in trim mode! at that point, the alt loop kicks in and the sample reverses, thus "smudging" what would otherwise be a clumsy, clunky, aggravating sounding gap in between the 2 notes.
to get a better idea of it, turn the tempo down to something like 120, then turn alternate loop off of LUISSTART-01 or whatever is the highest layer on pad A01. you'll hear the gap. then turn alt loop back on - you'll hear when altloop kicks in!
pretty cool, huh? this is the shit that gets me all worked up