I have three ‘external’ instruments (actually, MIDI hardware modules) that I would like to sample for safety concerns : all three of them are dating from the previous century and I am getting more and more nervous, even if they still work perfectly. Here they are :
Yamaha TX802
Roland D-110
Korg 05R/W
I have two samplers at my disposal to do so : HALion 7 and my good ol’ Emulator X3 but, as the title suggests it, I am wondering about the ‘how to’. The few attempts to sample them (with EMu X3) brought me nowhere : each time, the overall amount of audio data was huge and the use of it has been rather disappointing, when playing live the result. So, I am probably missing something in the process. I already looked at different threads more or less related to the problem, without seeing something truely useful for my case, so…
My main inquiry : is there an universal approach to sample such instruments, considering how different each sound/preset can be from any other one in the same unit ?
If not, and according to you all, what could be the best way to make an efficient sampling of a hardware instrument which has, say, 64 or 128 different sounds of all kinds available, while keeping the amount of audio data at a ‘reasonable’ size ?
Thanks in advance for any advice, tip or useful link.
Venus Theory has s few different videos where he’s made different sample instruments using Decent. Most of the ones I’ve seen are geared towards sound design so there’s a fair amount of processing involved, but that could work in your favor here even if your intent is retain fidelity.
Just seeing his approach may help you out - it’s pretty tedious work, so you may be able to glean some manner of process approach that works for you.
While somewhat general, here’s an example. Pretty sharp and talented dude:
Why sample the TX 802? The TX is a rack-mount version of the DX7II with 6 operators, I think. HALion FM Lab has everything you need to faithfully reproduce the sounds of the TX; the number of voices and configuration possibilities are numerous. I’ve already reproduced a few DX7 patches with FM Lab, and honestly, I don’t see the difference. Plus, with HALion, there’s no shortage of effects to enrich the sounds.
For the D-110, there’s the Zenology VST, which allows you to access almost all synthesizers and players produced by Roland, Sound Canvas, Jupiter 8, etc. Perhaps it could reproduce the latter.
There’s the D-50, which I believe could reproduce the sounds of the D-110. But I’m not sure they would sound identical.
I don’t know if it’s still available, but the website for Extreme Sample Converter is still up. See the “Hardware Conversion” feature. It’s been a long time since I used it, but it does work.
@Thor.HOG
Yep, he’s a talented dude and his approach is very interesting. Could be useful for any sampling acoustic instrument and I’m glad to see this video, as it could be useful one day or another. But right now, it’s MIDI hardware ones that I’m trying to sample.
@Rene_L
Completely forgot that there was the FM Lab option which I have at disposal, using HALion. Do you know if it accepts sysex bulk dumps from a hardware FM synth such as the TX802 ? I have to admit that I didn’t look more closely at it, since purchasing the Absolute bundle.
Beside this, I’m going to check the Zenology and D-50 solutions, hoping that at least one of them is able to receive bulk dumps from a D-110 without altering the sounds. Thanks for these.
@MrSoundman
I once had the licence, but I probably lost it, as it’s been a while. Never actually used it, as I purchased it long ago, just in case I would no longer be able to use Emulator at its 32 bits flavor. Fortunately, the X3 version solved the problem, as a 64 bits VST2.4 format. Since, I changed my setup, and I almost forgot its existence. Something to look at again, I guess, at least, for the ‘Hardware converter’ feature…
Yep. I’m going to check that as soon as I can and report back here.
Probably, but the problem is to find the software that will be able to play the sound : maybe the D-50 will be able to do that. If I remember well, the D-10 was a D-50 with less parameters, so…
