Korg Forums

[thuggy_bear]

No zero detection? Really?

Let me think... How many times do I want to start playback of a sample somewhere other than a crossover point? How about never. Never ever. Never ever ever.

How about letting me expand the editor window so I can actually see what the hell I am doing? Being able to see the in and out points might be nice, too.

And just FYI- I, for one, NEVER EVER EVER want pops on my loops. Crossfades. Pick some up at the supermarket.


[edit]

For instance- I'm trying to make a nice patch out of my Elka Organ. I have sampled a nice 3 second long piece of it and I am trying to loop it in the sample editor. I set the in point and the outpoint (very carefully- because you can't zoom in enough to actually see what you are doing) at what seem to be zero crossings, but even though I send a half an hour auditioning different zero-crossing-esque points, the best I can do is to get it down to a mild pop.

This is frustrating, since I had little or no problem doing the same thing from samples I took from my ancient Acetone- though the Acetone is almost perfectly sinusoidal, so very short loops work out just fine.

So, I bring the sample into Reaper. I find a zero crossing, and split the audio clip. I then push the first piece behind (time-wise) the second piece, and move the second piece forward to the beginning of the timeline. I then line up the samples so that the phase is correct, and crossfade, and render to AIF. What this does is give a perfect in and out for the sample loop since the very first sample of the newly rendered clip was the sample that was previously following what is now the last sample.

Import into editor. Play loop. Pops. Zoom in to look at loop, and realize that there is a flat area at the beginning of the sample, and the end of the sample looks like it has been clipped.

Import to Reaper. Sample loops fine in Reaper. Curse. Waste 30 minutes trying to figure out what is wrong.

Finally rerender file looped on itself once. Import in to practically useless POS Korg Editor. Take number of samples, divide by 4. Use this number as starting sample. Subtract product from total number of samples.

Sample now loops. Total time to make a stupid loop? About 3 hours.

Now all I have to do is the same thing, for every other key, because when you stretch one sample out in keyboard mode, the speed of the vibrato with each re-pitching.

Thanks Korg. Really awesome stuff you have here. I know it must be hard to make a 2 second sample loop without popping. Maybe next time.

[MartinHines]

OK. Write a better software editor.

Come back in a month and show it to us.

[thuggy_bear]

When I sell Korg the microThuggy and it doesn't do the job that is the single, express purpose of the device, I will rewrite the software.

[shabby]

i personally like the editor, by zooming in i fully i manage to get out clicks and pops most of the time.. only thing i miss is (again) remote ability als othe fact u cannot hear the changes in pithc and tune etc. directly.. but the fx u do hear in relatime changing..

so maybye it is not finished yet?

[jbl]

I agree with thuggy bear! Whenever I try to make a short looped sound so as to make an instrumental sound the same thing happens to me. If I import a sound then it should be that exact sound NOT an altered sound (even if it's only slightly different).

[thuggy_bear]

"I agree with thuggy bear! Whenever I try to make a short looped sound so as to make an instrumental sound the same thing happens to me. If I import a sound then it should be that exact sound NOT an altered sound (even if it's only slightly different)."

Well, short samples (depending on what your definition of short is) can cause all kinds of crazy (and awesome) artifacts.

The sample loops I am making start out about 3 seconds long, and are edited down to 2 seconds.

Maybe I didn't explain this very well. I'll try to be more precise.


The loops I have made:

1) begin and end on a zero crossing.

2)begin and end on a contiguous curve, the very last sample of the loop is the formerly preceding sample of the beginning of the loop.

in other words, if this is the original sample:

0123456789


I have chopped the sample in half where the wave crosses the zero:

01234 56789


and flipped them:

56789 01234

and then crossfaded from one to the other:

56xxx34


I would suspect that, when looped, the playback would be (assuming there is no pop in the crossfade.:

56xxx3456xxx3456xxx3456xxx3456xxx3456xxx3456xxx3456xxx34.....


In reaper, when I reimport this new, looped wav, it loops without popping. This could be, though, that Reaper is an intelligently made piece of software that assumes that when you loop something, most people prefer not to have a stupid, annoying pop at the loop point. Call them psychic.


Does make it clearer? Where the edit happens shouldn't matter, because the beginning and ending of the loop are contiguous samples. I did, however, take great care in making sure all loops started on a zero crossing.

Is there some simple, blatantly obvious thing that I am missing here? Please- don't worry about my feelings- I am used to feeling stupid.

[shabby]

the comment about writing if u now it better is pretty lame.. reminds me of kindergaten.. buyers expect KORG to be more grown up with comment.. maybye u will one day learn as a company u can end this not by jumping on the bandwagon, but neing keen on your development.. in stead of this one of s**t all these companies are pulling since the can produce so ultra cheap..

[lloydsmith]

We all want the Microsampler to be better. Plenty of good things about how it - and the software editor work though.

KORG UK are listening to points made - and gathering information to present to KORG for an OS update.

That doesn't appear to be enough for some people.

Insulting language is not the way to communicate effectively - it is just immature.

[laikenf]

I'm not sure he works for Korg though, but it was a rude response regardless
Let's try to be respectful guys, we're all here to help each other after all.
_________________
http://www.youtube.com/user/laikenf?feature=mhee

[thuggy_bear]

[lloydsmith]

Not being condescending - just tired of the juvenile wingeing on here by people who seem to think abuse is hip.

Oh & I appreciate what frustration is - I am currently locked out of my DAW by ongoing technical issues- but I don't go shouting the odds at Steinberg (given their track record they probably wouldn't respond anyway).

On the flipside - actually the Microthuggy sounds pretty cool..

[thuggy_bear]

[lloydsmith]

LOL at title change.. Well - we do all basically agree that this product suffers from the usual modern commercial practice of being released in a Beta state.

Unlike a knife which either cuts or doesn't, there is a degree of subjectivity in viewing a complex piece of hardware such as the Microsampler as a satisfactory product. I am hoping it will be improved in time - as it stands it's got some good things going for it so I am making the best of those.

It's a mixed bag as a studio sampler - apart from the performance issues - ergonomically it's way too fiddly for a smooth workflow - those dials desperately need clickstops on the next version.

I keep secondguessing just where KORG has chosen to position it within their product range and the marketplace. Someone suggested a pro-version - or a new Electribe series should be launched - maybe KORG don't know where they are going with this idea themselves or are testing the water, given software's domination over the last few years.

Of course these are difficult times for businesses & consumers alike so we should cut them some slack but equally if I spend my hard earned money I want products to reward my loyalty.

As a Swiss army knife type of sampler - it makes a poor screwdriver, and you wouldn't carve the Thanksgiving roast with it.

I do wonder whether some users expect too much of it but then again -I do think artifacts and looping issues potentially limit its usefulness - seemingly unnecessarily & are a basic function. To have to chain products together to get a simple task done properly is frustrating for sure.

Toyota are learning the hard way about getting too big for themselves so maybe KORG should be more consumer responsive while they still have a good rep. Don't all the major people have strange things though - I won't buy Nord because of the holes in their featureset - get the feeling they want you to buy 3 boards to augment each other or something.

[Daz]

[thuggy_bear]

i think I may have found the work around.

When I trim the loop (as described above) I extend the end of the last edit, so that 56xxx34 becomes 56xxx345.

I then trim off the extra 5 at the end, and it worked.

for one sample. We'll see how it goes for the others.

[edit]

Slow going, ridiculously time consuming, but it seems to work.

[edit]

Actually- I'd advice making your samples end like this:

56xxx3456, then trim to 6xxx345, so that you do not get pops when you initially hit the key.