End Point - Akai S950 Operator's Manual

Assuming you have edited the start point to your satisfaction (remember,
however, that it is not obligatory to change the start point - if the sample
sounds good, leave it alone), you can now move to the next page which will
reads
where ###,### is the maximum position to which the end point can be adjusted.
This is very much the same as page 6 except that here you can edit the end of
a sample. This can be useful in getting rid of any noise that may be present
at the end of a sample as well as being useful for saving memory. The 'Coarse'
field allows you to cutoff the end of the sample in large increments whilst
the 'Fine' field allows finer settings of this value.
To edit the end point, move the cursor to the 'Coarse' field and, playing
repented notes on the keyboard, try editing the end point and listen to the
results. You will hear the sample getting shorter and shorter as you decrease
the numeric value. Again, data entry can be via the CONTROL knob or the keypad.
For finer resolution of end point editing move the cursor to the 'Fine' field
and make your adjustments in the usual way using the CONTROL knob or the
keypad.
Before we move
intricacies of looping.
ABOUT LOOPING
Because any sample you take on the S950 only lasts a finite amount of time,
there will be occasions where you want to sustain that sound longer than the
actual sample - this is especially true if the sample is only a second or so I
ong as will often be the case. This is further compounded by the fact that a
one second sample played en octave up will only lest half a second and, an
octave up from that, It will only lest a quarter of a second. To get round this
problem, a sampler uses a process known as looping. This is a technique where
part of the sample is played over end over again for as long as you keep your
finger on the keyboard. For example, say you have a one second sample of a
flute. Using looping, you can instruct the S950 to play the sample through to
the end and then, while you keep your finger on the keyboard, It can repeatedly
play the last half second of the sample. In this way, you would get the breathy
attack of the flute followed by a smooth sustained tone. Well, that's the
theory - In practice, it can be more difficult.
You see, many sounds, especially acoustic sounds, can have quite varying
amplitude levels and these can be difficult to loop because the loop will be
,dumping abrubtly from one level to another giving rise to unpleasant clicks or
'glitches' as they are called in sampling terminology (see Fig. 1). The length
of this loop is set using, not surprisingly, a parameter called LOOP LENGTH.
>07

END POINT

(000,100-###,###)
to the next pages,
#Coarse #Fine
0,000
we must first
24
discuss some of the