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Using Electro 6 to play samples?

Posted: 02 Jul 2020, 15:17
by Mook Tunes
I'm not very tech savvy so apologies if this seems obvious! I need to play samples probably about 6 or 7 in total when playing live. Usual things such as song intros, speech etc. Most stand alone samplers are way to expensive just to justify shelling out for one.

Can I do this on the E6 and would it have enough memory for 6 or 7 mp3 samples? I Guess I would assign each sample to a program in the synth section? I am really tech dumb.....

Thanks

MT

Re: Using Electro 6 to play samples?

Posted: 02 Jul 2020, 15:27
by Schorsch
Hi,

memory availability depends on how much you loaded into the sample area of your Electro 6. The Nord Sound Manager will tell you how much space is available right now, you may have to free up some space if it's not sufficient for the new samples you would like to load.

As for the samples you want to create yourself: you would first have to record the parts into a .wav file on your computer, then load them into Nord Sample Editor. If you want to "fire up" a song intro, speech etc. you can assign it to a specific key in Sample Editor (I usually assign these to the most upper or lower keys on the keyboard which are the ones less used when playing), means pressing this key will play the .wav file assigned to it. You can assign different .wav files to different keys in a single sample . After that you export the sample from Sample Editor, load it into your Elector with Sound Manager and then assign it to a program in the synth section.

Re: Using Electro 6 to play samples?

Posted: 02 Jul 2020, 15:33
by Mook Tunes
Fantastic thank you very much

Re: Using Electro 6 to play samples?

Posted: 02 Jul 2020, 19:33
by alex78
You should also have in mind that there are various factors that determine the size of your sample instrument. So if you use a single sample with just a few seconds of a recorded sound, the sample instrument will have very small size. If you assign various samples in different keys, and those samples have a long duration then the file will be larger. I suspect that loops also increase the file size but I can not confirm this.
To give you an example, for "born to be wild" I use a harley davidson motor sound that I have assigned in a single key, I play that for a few seconds before the band comes in. The nsmp is less than 1MB. For the final countdown a have assigned a lot of samples across the keyboard to cover almost everything except the synth brass (I play that with the wave) the nsmp is almost 10MB.

Re: Using Electro 6 to play samples?

Posted: 02 Jul 2020, 22:30
by Mook Tunes
Cheers guys

Re: Using Electro 6 to play samples?

Posted: 03 Jul 2020, 01:29
by pablomastodon
also keep in mind that when creating custom samples, if you choose to go mono instead of stereo your file size will be halved

bless, pablo

Re: Using Electro 6 to play samples?

Posted: 03 Jul 2020, 04:09
by anotherscott
alex78 wrote:I suspect that loops also increase the file size but I can not confirm this.
Actually, a big reason to use loops when possible is to DEcrease file size. 10 seconds of sound take 10x the space as 1 second of sound looped to play for 10 seconds. The loop point itself is probably nothing more than a couple of bytes of data.

Re: Using Electro 6 to play samples?

Posted: 03 Jul 2020, 15:25
by Mook Tunes
Thanks to all including the PMs.

One question I have that's probably more specific to the Electro 6, when I'm playing a longer sample I have to hold the key down for the duration. I know some Nord synths have a keyboard hold button which will play the sample without needing to hold the key down but the Electro 6 doesn't seem to have this function?

I am just holding the sustain pedal down which does the job but it would be nice to be able to play the entire sample by just pushing the trigger key once

Re: Using Electro 6 to play samples?

Posted: 03 Jul 2020, 21:15
by alex78
No, the electros don't have such feature, I use a sustain pedal as well. That would be a good addition when the E7 comes out!

Re: Using Electro 6 to play samples?

Posted: 03 Jul 2020, 21:22
by alex78
Actually, a big reason to use loops when possible is to DEcrease file size. 10 seconds of sound take 10x the space as 1 second of sound looped to play for 10 seconds.
I agree with that, the loop helps you make shorter samples. What I meant was if you use a sample of the same duration with or without loop may have as a result differences in size, but that difference may be just some bytes as you say.