Akai S950 Operator's Manual page 82

For example, say you have a sample but the loop is not that good and,
despite your attempts to improve it, you still can't get rid of a slight
glitch or tremolo effect, you can use the LFO to disguise the effects of
this loop by adding some vibrato to that sample. You will probably want to
set the LFO so that it is having effect constantly so you will want to set
the LFO Depth to around 3 or 4 for a hint of continuous vibrato. The actual
LFO rate can be set according to the circumstances and you are advised to
experiment. You may find that the action of the LFO masks the slight
glitching very effectively. To further disguise en awkward loop, you can
layer the sample
restricted polyphony is not a problem, of course) and add this slight
vibrato effect.
The LFO can also be used when layering sounds to create interesting chorus
effects. If you have tried out any of the layering ideas given above, you
will have noticed how using the fine tune on Page 06 for a detune effect
thickens the sound. This can be further enhanced by setting the LFO depth of
just the one keygroup in the layer to a value of around 3 or 4 and leaving
the other keygroup in the layer free of any LFO modulation. What you now have
is two keygroups layered on top of each other with some slight detune and the
one keygroup's pitch is varying ever so slightly to give an 'animated' chorus
effect. To further extend this idea, you could give the other keygroup a
different vibrato with a slightly slower or faster LFO rate. In this example,
you would have the keygroups' pitch shifting against each other creating a
rich, warm ensemble sound. This can be even further enhanced by switching
DESYNC to ON so that all the LFO's are out of phase with each other.
Using Page 14, you can extend these chorusing effects to be under the control
of the MOD WHEEL. By setting just one of the keygroups in a layer to respond
to the modulation wheel, you could introduce a chorus effect with the
modulation wheel. Of course, aftertouch could also be used for the same
effect.
USING THE ENVELOPE GENERATORS
The basic use of the envelope generators is to shape the sound and so restore
the natural envelope characteristics of the sampled sound. They can also be
used to add unusual envelopes to sounds and one example may be to add a
bowing effect to any sound. To do this, set the KG field to ALL and increase
the attack time of the envelope generator in Page 10. By setting an instant
decay with no sustain level (i.e. sustain at 00>, you can create a curious
reversed type sound that is subtly different from actually reversing the
sample in Page 05 of EDIT SAMPLE.
The fact that there are envelope generators for every keygroup (and hence
sample) in a mufti-sample program means that you can set the decay and
release times for every sample. It is common for many acoustic instruments to
become more percussive the higher up in pitch they go. This is especially
true of piano sounds where bass notes can last several seconds whilst high
pitched notes die away almost instantly. You can set the decay and release
times of each keygroup across the keyboard range to simulate this effect with
bass notes having longer decay/release times than higher pitched sounds. You
could, of course, set the opposite for special effects.
The same is true of attack times, especially on stringed instruments where a
'cellos attack is longer than that of a high violin note. By scaling the
attack times of a group of samples in this way, you can create more realistic
string envelopes.
on top of itself as described above
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(providing the