Sampler (musical instrument)

Samples may comprise elements such as rhythm, melody, speech, sound effects or longer portions of music.

The samples can be played back by means of the sampler program itself, a MIDI keyboard, sequencer or another triggering device (e.g., electronic drums).

Often samplers offer filters, effects units, modulation via low frequency oscillation and other synthesizer-like processes that allow the original sound to be modified in many different ways.

The Mellotron was the most notable model, used by a number of groups in the late 1960s and the 1970s, but such systems were expensive and heavy due to the multiple tape mechanisms involved, and the range of the instrument was limited to three octaves at the most.

These had a pair of fast D/A and A/D converters,[1][2] 12,000 (12k) bytes of core memory (RAM), backed up by a hard drive of 32k and by tape storage (DecTape).

[10] It was created by engineer Kenji Murata for Japanese electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra, who used it for extensive sampling and looping in their 1981 album Technodelic.

[13] Sampling keyboards were notable for their high price which was out of reach for the majority of working musicians – with the early Fairlight starting at $30,000.

Akai pioneered many processing techniques, such as crossfade looping and "time stretch" to shorten or lengthen samples without affecting pitch and vice versa.

[14] That same year, the Ensoniq EPS – the successor to the Mirage – was launched and was the first sampling keyboard which was designed specifically for live performance rather being a purely studio based tool as most samplers had been hitherto.

The 2010s-era music workstation usually uses sampling, whether simple playback or complex editing that matches all but the most advanced dedicated samplers, and also includes features such as a sequencer.

If the next note (Bb2) is input the sampler will select the Violin B2 sample, playing it a semitone lower than its center pitch of B2.

Most samplers offer editing tools that allow the user to modify and process the audio and apply a wide range of effects.

Each keymap spans only a single key, requiring a large number of zones (61 on a five-octave keyboard), each with its own settings.

Samplers can be classified by several specifications; Computer Music Inc. was started in New Jersey United States in 1972 by Harry Mendell and Dan Coren.

This meant that the Melodian captured all frequency modulation effects, including those produced through the ARP's touch ribbon control.

It also could trigger off the ARPs keyboard, thus functioning somewhat as a hybrid of sampler and analog synthesizer and making the most of the technology available at the time.

First released in 1977, it proved to be highly influential among both music producers and electronic musicians, due to its versatility, its cutting-edge technology and distinctive sound.

Although this made it inaccessible for most musicians, it found widespread use among producers and professional recording studios, and it competed in this market with other high-end production systems, such as the Fairlight CMI.

Software allowed for editing, looping, and mixing of sounds which could then be played back via the keyboard or the software-based sequencer.

Fairlight later released the Series IIx, which increased the sampling rate to 32 kHz[19] and was the first to feature basic MIDI functionality.

Saying that he was "quite fascinated by Fairlight brass and all of those kind of things that Geoffrey and I had started messing around with before he went off to join Asia", the sampling techniques on Adventures would later be used for records Horn produced like Slave to the Rhythm by Grace Jones, Art of Noise's The Seduction of Claude Debussy and Frankie Goes To Hollywood's Welcome to the Pleasuredome.

The Emulator came in 2-, 4-, and 8-note polyphonic versions, the 2-note being dropped due to limited interest, and featured a maximum sampling rate of 27.7 kHz, a four-octave keyboard and 128 kB of memory.

E-mu Emulator II (1984) was designed to bridge the gap between the Fairlight CMI and Synclavier and the Ensoniq Mirage.

It featured 8 notes polyphony, 8-bit sampling, 512kb of RAM (1mb in the EII+ though only accessible as two independent 512kb banks), an 8-track sequencer, and analog filtering.

E-mu Emulator III (1987) was a 16-bit stereo digital sampler with 16-note polyphony, 44.1 kHz maximum sample rate and had up to 8 MB of memory.

The unit could accommodate up to 32 MB RAM, 32 note polyphony and sounds could be routed internally to one of four polyphonic outputs.

The operating system was software based and allowed for upgrades that had to be booted each time the sampler was switched on.

Although these machines are equipped with a wide range of built-in effects, a few lack pitch transposition and keyzone mapping that diminishes their utility significantly.

Modern (after 2000) samplers use solid-state memory cards (such as compact Flash or SmartMedia) for sample storage and transfer.

In the 1990s and 2000s, the increases in computer power and memory capacity have made it possible to develop software applications that provide the same capabilities as hardware-based units.