/C
March 14, 2014 9:20 PMI am not that used to its operation. And after three days trying to
understand how it works, I'm a little wiser but far from all-seeing.
It's really a quirky little machine with lots of oddness going on.
>From my part, this is obviously partly a case of RTFM - but I honestly
cannot stand the manual. Craig Anderton might be a legend, but I
honestly cannot get my head around it.
1) Individual outputs vs mix outputs. The individual outputs are way
less noisy. My Babyface registers about 10 decibels less noise - which
might/might not be the entire ruth since the levels are different
between the individual and mix outputs. I've been listening to my ears
almost start to bleed, but I cannot hear any difference in sound quality
(noise level yes) between let's say output 8 and the mix. How about you
guys? What's your experience?
2) Replacing samples. Can it be done? Let's say I've got a 18s sample
(max memory) and I would like to do another one. Master + 4 erase memory
would be one way, but that nukes some of my settings, such as selection
of output connector. Is there any way to sample another 18s and still
keeping the settings? When erasing the machine, maybe I shouldn't say
yes when the Emax asks to make a new default setting? (just occurred to me).
3) Getting the samples on the right keys. I know I am going to sound
like I am stupid, but the root position of the samples I make are not
constant. Sometimes they land on G1 - sometimes on B1(!). Can someone
please please just write down step by step how you do it to sample
something on C1.
4) Setting the levels. Oh man what I've been banging my head on this
one. I send a sinewave (normalized to -0.05 db) to calibrate the input
level. I set the sampling level in the Emax to 0 and I always have to
back off on my sound card before sampling. I never go all the way to the
right, but I settle one or two pixels from the left/max. This causes the
Emax to distort - very slightly. I could clearly hear it and even see a
small part of the falling top slope of the sine wave being straight. The
solution was to back off a tiny bit more - and the distortion
disappeared. How do you guys set the levels? I assume setting the Emax
input level to 0 is the optimal (it even says so in the manual). But I
haven't had the time to experiment with it.
5) Ok. Now it's really RTFM time. Primary / Secondary samples - how are
you supposed to work with that? To me it sounds like you can sample one
sample that says AAAA and another sample that says OOOOO and have them
playing together like a normal two oscillator synth. Can you detune
them? Set the levels? Different envelopes?
/C