Amiga Computing - Commodore Is Awesome

How
they
work
ow to
U effect depends on three things:
S
• I The quality of the sampler. It might
Nseem
an obvious point, but be careful
- G price isn't necessarily a good guide.
Check
y
the reviews in this issue.
o
•
u
The quality of the software. All
r
sampling software is not the same. By
upgrading your software, you could
s
drastically improve your samples.
a
Some software will work at extremely
m
high sample rates, which means users
p
with accelerator cards can sample in
lstereo
at rates of up to 56Khz. This is
ebetter
than most CD players, so the
r results will be stunning. (Note: CD
tplayers
operate at 16 bit resolution, so
at o the moment you can't sample better
b
11111& e
Here is a simple
explanation of how
samplers work, and
why different sample
rates make a difference
to the overall
quality of the sound.
For a more detailed
look at sampling in
general, you should
consult one of the
many text books
available. The bad
news is that most of
them are beyond A
Level, so prepare for
some nasty maths
•••••••••==-=.
than a CD. Pay attention though, for
the statement at the moment is likely
to change in the very near future.)
• The quality of the input signal. If
you record all your samples by yelling
into a cheap microphone, then you
can't expect them to be top notch. Best
samples come from CD players, as
usually the input levels are just right
and of course, you don't have any
pops or crackles to contend with.
What do I do now?
ONCE you have your sample captured
on disk, you can start to have some
fun.
When you get tired of making silly
The nice picture above is a
representation of a sound, in this case
a simple sine wave. Its the sort of
thing you would see if you connected
a microphone to an oscilloscope and
played a note on a flute. Believe me, it
is. It is a purely analogue - constantly
varying - waveform, and there is no
way that an Amiga could ever start to
make sense of it.
Before you can start to play with
this sound, you'll need to convert it
into a digital form. To do this, you
need a digitiser, otherwise known as a
sampler.
se them
voices, you can load them into a
sound processing package (such as
TEM on last month's cover disk) and
perfrom all sorts of nasty
transformations on them.
When the sample is exactly how you
want it to be, you can start to make use
of it. The easiest way is to load it into a
SoundTracker clone such as MED and
compose a few tunes with it.
The more adventurous amongst you
can incorporate the sound effects into
your own programs. Haven't you
always wanted to say "Game Over" at
the end of your own game?
Reviewers:
Andrew Banner - Budget samplers
Jason Holborn - Audio Engineer
Th
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