synthvibrations.com

The drum processing for the live performance on the last Depeche Mode tour.
The main tool used is Ableton used like a rack instrument platform with various plug ins processing the drum elements.

During the late 90’s started the phrase sampler commercial boom.
All the big brand had their “groove sampler” for the “groove musician”.
Boss started their SP-serie , Korg marketed the ES-1 , Akai had the Remix16 (mid 90’s) then the s-20, Yamaha presented their SU-serie.
Zoom came out with the ST-224 Sampletrack in 1999, a cheap alternative to the Korg Es-1 and Boss SP-303.

The Zoom can store up to 32 samples in memory and has a 3 bank kit with 24 samples in use max (8 samples x 3 kit= 24 samples).
There are 3 sample grades: Hi-fi 32 kHz , Standard 16kHz , Lo-fi 8kHz with 18 bit DAC.
The effect bank is really useful for creative manipulation of the recorded material but even to process audio in signals.
This machine is quite basic but has some really interesting features.

• It can play samples with different samplerates in the same kit
• resampling from the main out (it means you can resample a pattern with effects)
• a bunch of interesting and useful effects that can be used even on “audio in” material, not only on samples
• A great PITCH function (+/- 36 semitones)
• pitch scaling (to play a sample chromatically on the pads).

Compared to other samplers of that period the zoom lacked a real sequencer and had no envelope for amplitude modulation.
On the other hand the pitch function is the best found on this kind of sampler, and the sound is really grainy (in lo-fi mode) to be up there with the old ones like the Akai mpc60 and Emu SP1200.
The Sampletrack was targeted to loops sampling/play this is the reason why the sequencer has only 8 songs and only realtime recording.
The good point is that the quantize and shuffle functions are really effective on one shot samples, making the sampletrack a really good beatbox.
The resampling capabilities of resample its own patterns with the sequencer running (not possible on the others loop samplers) together with the effects make the zoom stand up.

There is an application (for Windows users) that can be really handy , ZMF Producer, that let you edit and program all the parameters and samples stored on the smartmedia card and to load .wav and .aiff files on the machine.

This is an all in one great beatbox for hip hop / trip hop production, give it a try!

Here ’s an interesting Photek interview during the “Modus Operandi ” period.

Despite todays “standards” the studio is simple room without any acoustic treatment.
The set up is really limited to a couple of Emu E4 serie (5000 and 64) , a Roland JV1080, an old Atari computer running Cubase and a master keyboard.
The main source of samples are old jazz LPs, the samples are chopped into a sampler and then rearranged and resampled as a loop in the second sampler.
The old way of sample treatment that lead to that great sound!

Just to keep you tuned about my eurorack modular system, this is my actual configuration:

• Cwejman VCO2RM
• MFB OSC 02 Triple VCO
• Doepfer A138 mixer
• Analogue Solutions SY02 Multimode filter
• Doepfer A120 lowpass filter
• STG Soundlabs “Post-lawsuit” LPF
• Doepfer A145 LFO
• Livewire Vulcan Modulator
• PlanB Model 10 Polyphonic Envelope
• MFB Dual ADSR
• Doepfer A132-3 dual VCA
• Analog Systems RS500E EMS Synthi filter

Usually people look at the  ATC-1 as a stripped down SE-1 , in fact looking at the specs the SE1 seems a top featured synth with 3 VCO, 2 filters , 4 envelopes, 3 lfo, ringmod, noise etc… while ATC-1 with its 2 VCO, 3 ENV , 2 LFO and a coloured push-membrane panel with one only knob does not look handy and full featured as its brother.
Comparing the two Studio Electronics side by side let’s get a totally different opinion.

The first thing to notice is the different “sound”, while the SE1 has a kind of boomin’ majesty the ATC1 sounds really snappy and more aggressive with a more “vintage” feel.
The VCOs  have different carachters, in the SE1 are regular and full of harmonics on the bass range, the ATC1 VCOs are more angular and grittier on the high frequencies.

Talking about the filters, testing both the SE1 and ATC1 with the MOOG FILTER, the SE-1 has a boomin’rounder sound, very powerful in the sub range, the ATC-1 has a more punchy percussive behaviour and a slightly bigger  response in the frequency cut off min-max gap, like if the filter could reach higher frequencies/ get more open.

The ENVELOPE section is the part that more influences the sound together with the VCA.
The SE-1 has booming env , not really fast but really effective to get the presence and power on the bass frequencies range for basses and percussions and to get the smooth leads that are a part of the carachter of this synth.
The VCA on the SE1 is really warm and smooth, resulting in a really dinamic but always warm and clean sound.
On the ATC-1 the ENVELOPEs are really snappy and fast, and make the synth really percussive sounding, with an awesome power on punchy basses, not as deep as the SE1, but really kicking.
The ATC1 VCA is more raw and vintage sounding, it’s less smooth than the SE-1 but it results in some way more organic and alive.

The big difference in the synthetizing capabilities is the CROSS-MOD present on the ATC-1 and absent on the SE-1.
This particular function that let the vco2 modulate the vco1 and/or the filter cutoff frequency let shine the ATC-1 in modular-type sounds, and is the main reason that make us understand that the ATC-1 is not the little brother of the SE1 but a totally weird machine with a target towards classic analog sounds but also for experimental stuff, while the SE1 is more on the classic and “safe” side of monophonic type of sounds.

I don’t mean that the SE1 is a machine good only for simple sounds like basses or leads, it can get on experimental sounds too, but the cross mod on the ATC1 is far more effective and open to experimental sound creation.

Jel is without any doubt one of the best “MPC player” around and his playing technique is awesome.
The song is played completely LIVE, no sequencing!
He uses the Akai MPC2000XL for the “played parts” and the Boss SP-303 for a couple of loops.

An amazing performance , a real jam session on Akai MPCs.
Dj Shadow on the MPC3000LE, DJ Chemist & DJ Numark on MPC2000.

How to use MUTE GROUPS, for loops and for ONE SHOT samples.

AKAI MPC500 MUTE GROUP TUTORIAL from Soundsforsamplers on Vimeo.

A great video about finger drumming on an Akai MPC 2500.
This technique can be useful with all the MPC models and with pad controllers.

How to do mpc pad finger drumming from Brandon Murphy on Vimeo.

Using the Akai MPC 500 I noticed that the downfall of the “baby-MPC” are :

• the pads are a little hard to play
• the volume of the machine is low compared to the big bros.
• the filter does not always behave correctly

The first problem , which may seem quite hard to face, for me became not so limiting.
The air-space between the internal of the pad and the sensor is quite far, more than 1,5 mm, so you have to hit hard to make the rubber  to touch the sensor.
When you use the machine intensively the rubber of the pad bank tend to behave in a more soft way because of the use , so the pads beaten more often get more “easy to manage” with velocity on and react better to the thump of the fingers.

The second point is the volume.
Reading the manual you can see that the 500 has 12dB less of output volume than the 1000 and 2500, this is quite a lot of volume!
The only way to get it play louder is to use an external preamp or pump up the gain in your mixer.
The  problem is caused by the fact that at akai have studied the amp section for a battery powered use, so there are no special settings to get better results.
The one thing to avoid is to pump up the volume of the pads, and get the headroom under -6dB.
Setting the sample volume to 100 will lend for sure to a highly annoing overdive of high frequencies and the total lost of fidelity of the sample played.
My advice is to get the master volume knob to max, headroom to -6dB, and sample volume between 70/90.
In this way you will have a godd result and no overdriven frequencies, then using the gain in your mixer you will get the right volume to fit the 500 in the mix with the other instruments .

The third and quite absurd downfall of the 500 is the strange behaviour of the filters.
I noticed that the LP filter (used as preset in every program) is the main reason that leads to lower volume and distorted sounds.
Sampling a closed hat , the sample sounded good in the “preview” (pushing “play”) while had a different “fidelity and a total loss of high frequencies and a lot of  distortion in the program.
Switching the filter from LP(lowpass) to “–” (that means bypass) the sample sounded good again as in the preview.
So the filter was the cause of that awful sound!

I don’t mean that every sample sounds bad with the filter on , but I noticed that quite all the samples gained a little volume and a cleaner definition bypassing the filter, and however some samples sounds very bad with the LP filter on, especially the ones that are rich of high frequencies as hats, cymbals, etc..