Emu XL-7 & MP-7 User's Group

Is there still no way to reverse a sample? 

Being able to turn looping on/off as seen on the UltraProteus (looped 
drum samples make great buzzing noises for filtering) would be cool 
too, but reverse is more important, for backwards cymbals, 
percussion, piano and so forth.

Also noticed that there is a Sample Loop (SLoop) patchcord 
destination, but the manual doesn't say whether it changes the loop 
length or offsets the loop points. Not sure how useful either of 
these would be...moving the loop points might make for some funky 
waveforms.

There are some other things still missing from the wishlist, like 
fractional tempos, arpeggiator Triggers, realtime (groove) quantize, 
etc., but I was very happy to see Direct Pattern Access (which will 
not surprise anyone who remembers me carping on about it) and XMIX 
(which is more immediate than MegaMix), so it looks like it may 
finally be time for me to start saving up for an XL-7...

--- robotchas <robotchas@...> wrote:
> Is there still no way to reverse a sample?

Nope, and unfortunately, never will in realtime (in the samplers you
can do this as an offline process).  This was the hardware tradeoff
E-mu made in giving you 128 voices.

> Also noticed that there is a Sample Loop (SLoop) patchcord 
> destination, but the manual doesn't say whether it changes the loop 
> length or offsets the loop points. Not sure how useful either of 
> these would be...moving the loop points might make for some funky 
> waveforms.

SLoop offsets the loop points.  The loop length stays the same. 
Interestingly, with the Gain4x cord, you can actually push the loop
points *into the next sample* making for VERY weird and somtimes cool
sounds.

-Aaron

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sample reverse is most def. possible.  there's a karma in my studio, and you just check the little box in the edit menu, and it will reverse and of it's waveforms.  

so bull-honkey dude!  
:)

-Wesley D.

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--- Wesley D <Serfiss@...> wrote:
> sample reverse is most def. possible.  there's a karma in my studio,
> and you just check the little box in the edit menu, and it will
> reverse and of it's waveforms.  
> 
> so bull-honkey dude!  

Since when does E-mu make the Karma?  And since when does the Karma
have 128 voices?  =)

-Aaron

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You had implied that one would need to use software, or a sampler to reverse a rom on a synth.  I was just letting it be known that there are synths out there that can reverse roms, no prob.

Why would having more voice capacity make it impossible to have the reverse feature?  
My computer has more than 64 voices and it has no problem reversing samples.....

=WEsley D.
www.evolbeats.com

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--- In xl7@yahoogroups.com, Aaron Eppolito <synthesis77@y...> wrote:
> Nope, and unfortunately, never will in realtime (in the samplers you
> can do this as an offline process).  This was the hardware tradeoff
> E-mu made in giving you 128 voices.

That's too bad - I would have been happy with 64 (or fewer) voices - 
but I guess I can deal. Do you know if the forthcoming drum ROM will 
at least have a good assortment of reversed samples?

What about loop on/off? I'm guessing that the ROM doesn't have loops 
for the drum samples...understandable but too bad because it's a good 
way to maximize the usefulness of the sample ROM.


> SLoop offsets the loop points.  The loop length stays the same. 
> Interestingly, with the Gain4x cord, you can actually push the loop
> points *into the next sample* making for VERY weird and somtimes 
cool
> sounds.

Cool. That's the more useful of the two possibilities (the UltraPro 
and Morpheus allow you to put the loop points anywhere within the 
sample ROM).

Anyone know the answer to my multiset question?

--- Wesley D <Serfiss@...> wrote:
> You had implied that one would need to use software, or a sampler to
> reverse a rom on a synth.

I just said that no current E-mu hardware synth with 128 voices will be
able to play samples reversed in realtime.

> Why would having more voice capacity make it impossible to have the
> reverse feature?  My computer has more than 64 voices and it has no
> problem reversing samples.....

Pitch-shifting sample playback is complicated.  E-mu uses a very high
quality pitch shifting technique that invloves the use of many input
samples to generate a single output sample.

The short story is that to perform these conversions, lots of memory
bandwidth is needed.  The more voices you play, the more memory
bandwidth you need.  At 128 voices, the available memory simply wasn't
fast enough to keep up.  The patented solution to that problem
unfortunately precluded reversing samples in realtime.

E-mu doesn't hype the quality of their pitch shifting very much these
days, but they're probably the best in the business.

-Aaron

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--- robotchas <robotchas@...> wrote:
> That's too bad - I would have been happy with 64 (or fewer) voices - 

You could always buy an UltraProteus or Morpheus...  =)

> but I guess I can deal. Do you know if the forthcoming drum ROM will 
> at least have a good assortment of reversed samples?

Dunno.  I think the new ROM is pretty acoustic, so it's hard to tell.

> What about loop on/off? I'm guessing that the ROM doesn't have loops 
> for the drum samples...understandable but too bad because it's a good
> way to maximize the usefulness of the sample ROM.

You might be in luck on this one.  The XL-7 ROM has many "looped
percussion" instruments, so maybe there will be in the new one as well.

> Cool. That's the more useful of the two possibilities (the UltraPro 
> and Morpheus allow you to put the loop points anywhere within the 
> sample ROM).

Yeah, you can do some pretty cool wavetable-like stuff with the
Morpheus.  I had an old dev unit with the wrong instrument table,
meaning that the sample pointers were all incorrect.  The sounds that
came out of that box ranged from exceedingly ugly to exceedingly cool.

> Anyone know the answer to my multiset question?

Yes, you can load a multisetup while playing.  Of course, any parameter
that's different in the multisetup will get loaded, namely presets, FX,
volume, pan, etc...

-Aaron

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--- In xl7@yahoogroups.com, Aaron Eppolito <synthesis77@y...> wrote:
> You could always buy an UltraProteus or Morpheus...  =)

I have the latter...I was kinda hoping to be able to leave it at home 
but oh well :-)


> You might be in luck on this one.  The XL-7 ROM has many "looped
> percussion" instruments, so maybe there will be in the new one as 
well.

More specifically, I was hoping to be able to use a short (single-
cycle) loop across a percussion sample to get a buzzy wave with lots 
of overtones for filtering. Again, I can always turn to the Morpheus 
for this.


> Yeah, you can do some pretty cool wavetable-like stuff with the
> Morpheus.  I had an old dev unit with the wrong instrument table,
> meaning that the sample pointers were all incorrect.  The sounds 
that
> came out of that box ranged from exceedingly ugly to exceedingly 
cool.

Heh. It's a funky little box even with the correct loop pointers. 
Unfortunately it bogs down under moderately heavy input, and there's 
nothing in the way of MIDI sync, something the Audity and its 
children have greatly improved on. Rothwell has (had?) a UP as well...


> Yes, you can load a multisetup while playing.  Of course, any 
parameter
> that's different in the multisetup will get loaded, namely presets, 
FX,
> volume, pan, etc...

That's fine as long as it doesn't interrupt the sequencer.

Thanks.

I just noticed the Hybrid drumkit on my XL7 has several reversed drum sounds...

robotchas <robotchas@...> wrote:--- In xl7@yahoogroups.com, Aaron Eppolito <synthesis77@y...> wrote:
> Nope, and unfortunately, never will in realtime (in the samplers you
> can do this as an offline process).  This was the hardware tradeoff
> E-mu made in giving you 128 voices.

That's too bad - I would have been happy with 64 (or fewer) voices - 
but I guess I can deal. Do you know if the forthcoming drum ROM will 
at least have a good assortment of reversed samples?

What about loop on/off? I'm guessing that the ROM doesn't have loops 
for the drum samples...understandable but too bad because it's a good 
way to maximize the usefulness of the sample ROM.


> SLoop offsets the loop points.  The loop length stays the same. 
> Interestingly, with the Gain4x cord, you can actually push the loop
> points *into the next sample* making for VERY weird and somtimes 
cool
> sounds.

Cool. That's the more useful of the two possibilities (the UltraPro 
and Morpheus allow you to put the loop points anywhere within the 
sample ROM).

Anyone know the answer to my multiset question?


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> E-mu doesn't hype the quality of their pitch shifting very much these
> days, but they're probably the best in the business.

What do you mean by pitch-shifting? I presume you mean (conceptually)
variable-rate playback (which any sample player has to do), rather
than the FFT process (like a Lexicon, an Oasys, etc. etc.).

I agree that E-mu's playback transposition is probably the best I've
come across.

-- 

  nick rothwell -- composition, systems, performance -- http://www.cassiel.com

> Cool. That's the more useful of the two possibilities (the UltraPro 
> and Morpheus allow you to put the loop points anywhere within the 
> sample ROM).

I used this a lot in the UltraProteus, and was really sad to discover
that the Audity/XL-7 didn't have it.

-- 

  nick rothwell -- composition, systems, performance -- http://www.cassiel.com

> Interestingly, with the Gain4x cord, you can actually push the loop
> points *into the next sample* making for VERY weird and somtimes cool
> sounds.

Ah - I missed the significance of this the first time I read it. So, I
*can* do this kind of stuff on the XL-7? Not as general as the
UltraPro/Morpheus, but certainly better than nothing.

-- 

  nick rothwell -- composition, systems, performance -- http://www.cassiel.com

> Rothwell has (had?) a UP as well...

Still have it.

It worked fine for a year or two, and then broke - voices would
occasionally play the wrong samples. I shipped it to E-mu in the UK -
they couldn't find the problem. I shipped it to E-mu in Europe - they
couldn't find the problem. I shipped it to E-mu in the US - they found
the problem when they first turned it on, and it never happened
again. They shipped the unit back, I had to pay import duty (again),
and it was still faulty.

So, the UltraProteus is sitting in my garage. Anyone want it?

-- 

  nick rothwell -- composition, systems, performance -- http://www.cassiel.com

Exactly how would the routing work out for this 'sample pushing' to get these weird noises? I'm guessing gain 4x > sample start?

Just trying to figure out if i'm on the same page here.  My Emu is not in my house, it resides in my studio, so I don't get a chance to try these suggestions out while I'm checking my email.

Thanks, WEsley D.
www.evolbeats.com

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--- Wesley D <Serfiss@...> wrote:
> Exactly how would the routing work out for this 'sample pushing' to
> get these weird noises? I'm guessing gain 4x > sample start?

Not sample start, sloop.

MidiX  -> Gain4x 100%
Gain4x -> SLoop  100%

-Aaron

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On 4/28/03 4:57 PM, "Aaron Eppolito"
<synthesis77@...> wrote:

>> Exactly how would the routing work out for this
>> 'sample pushing' to get these weird noises?
>> I'm guessing gain 4x > sample start?

> Not sample start, sloop.
>
> MidiX  -> Gain4x 100%
> Gain4x -> SLoop  100%

I have done this kind of cording on my XL-7 and
tried it on every wave in the XL-ROM and the
TSCY ROM...it is interesting how some waves do
not change much at all, how some sound unpleasant
and how some give some true digital glitch at its
finest. ;)


cheers,
aeon

On 4/28/03 5:48 AM, "Nick Rothwell"
<nick@...> wrote:

>> E-mu doesn't hype the quality of their pitch shifting very much these
>> days, but they're probably the best in the business.
> 
> What do you mean by pitch-shifting? I presume you mean (conceptually)
> variable-rate playback (which any sample player has to do), rather
> than the FFT process (like a Lexicon, an Oasys, etc. etc.).

Sample-players haven't used variable-rate playback for well over a decade at
this point. E-mu, among others, uses a fixed clock with sample interpolation
in order to shift the pitch of the sample in question.

That said, E-mu truly does it better than anyone else in the business, bar
none! :)

Also, Lexicon uses a splice-based interpolated pitch-shift method with
crossfades, not any FFT technique. The Korg OASYS PCI also uses a fixed
clock with sample interpolation in order to pitch-shift its samples, with
the majority of the PCM-based instruments using linear interpolation and a
few using something more sweet-sounding. In fact, I am glad the OASYS uses
linear interpolation for many of its PCM modules...that isn't something you
get the option to use on most modern sample-based instruments, and sometimes
I love the admittedly artifact-laden sound it can produce.

Offhand, the only hardware-based device I know of that does FFT-based
pitch-shifting in realtime is the Symbolic Sound Kyma5/Capybara320 system.
Eventide may do something similar in their formant-aware UltraShifter
module, but they don¹t discuss the method by which they achieve many of
their effects. ;)


cheers,
aeon

> Sample-players haven't used variable-rate playback for well over a
> decade at this point. E-mu, among others, uses a fixed clock with
> sample interpolation in order to shift the pitch of the sample in
> question.

I think there's a confusion of terminology here. If a sample played
back at a higher frequency is shorter, then I was calling it
variable-rate playback (even if the clock frequency is fixed). I was
using the term "pitch-shifting" to refer to transformation of the
pitch without affecting the (apparent) playback rate.

I suppose we're getting to the stage where the two techniques are
starting to overlap...

-- 

  nick rothwell -- composition, systems, performance -- http://www.cassiel.com