Advanced Applications - Akai S950 Operator's Manual

ADVANCED APPLICATIONS

We have now covered the basic operation procedures on the 5950 but there is
so much more that we can do with samples and programs once they are in the
instrument. This section will take you through some of the more advanced
possibilities available on the 5950. In EDIT PROGRAM you can create all
sorts of keyboard splits and layering effects and the various processing
possibilities allow the creation of chorus and other effects.
CREATING A SPLIT KEYBOARD
Sometimes it is desirable to have two separate sounds on the keyboard where,
for example, you have a bass guitar sample on the bottom two octaves and a
piano sound on the top three octaves. This is easy to achieve and is simply
an extension of the mufti-sampling procedure where you have anumber of
samples assigned to different key ranges in keygroups.
To create this split keyboard, create a program with, say, 7 keygroups in
it. Move to Page 05 and set the keygroups thus:
KG1 - Bass sample - low key CO 24, hi key B2 62
KG2 - Piano C3
KG3 - Piano G3
KG4 - Piano C4
KG5 - Piano G4
KG6 - Piano C5
KG7 - Piano C6
You can see that the bass sample covers the bottom octaves to B2 and the
multi-sampled piano takes over at C3 up through the top octaves of the
keyboard. (This, of course, is only an example - your samples may be
different and require different keygroup assignments.)
Another application of this technique is to layer the bass sample over the
bottom octaves of the piano. To do this, make a copy of your piano program
and simply create another keygroup !n Page 03 and assign that from CO to B2
as above. The only difference here is that the original piano bass notes will
sound with the bass guitar sample creating a more forceful bass end.
This keyboard split technique can be extended to include a three way keyboard
split with perhaps a bass synth on the bottom two octaves, a string sound
over the next two octaves with a lead line sound or some orchestral hits on
the top octaves - you could even have a few drums on a few notes (i.e. bass
drum on C1, snare on D1, hihat on El and a cymbal on Fi) with the bass guitar
spanning G1 to B2 - the possibilities are almost unlimited.
LAYERING SOUNDS
It is easy to layer samples on top of each other within the 5950 to create
rich chorus effects or composite effects.
All you have to do is to make exact copies of keygroups and then, in Page 06,
detune them slightly using fine tune.
- low key C3 60, hi key E3
- low key F3 65, hi key Ax3 70
- low key B3 71, hi key E4
- low key F4 77, h! key A#4 82
- low key 84 83, hi key E5
- low key F5 89, hi key G8 127
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