Sampler
Time line of the Sampler
1965 - Mellotron
- The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical, polyphonic tape replay keyboard originally developed and built in 1962. When a key is pressed on the Mellotron, it triggers a short tape strip to start playing, with a maximum length of eight seconds. Each key has a separate strip of tape. Each pitch was originally recorded separately by live musicians. Common sounds are stings, brass, flute and choir. To change a sound the bank of tape strips needs to be physically changed.
- Examples:
- The Beatles - 'Strawberry Fields Forever'.
- It features the Mellotron using a flute sound, which can be heard clearly in the introduction.
- Led Zeppelin - 'The Rain Song'.
- It features the Mellotron string sounds from 1.36 onwards. John Paul Jones played the Mellotron in this song to add to the orchestral effect:
- Original Mellotron Demonstration.
- Changing the Mellotron tapes.
- The Beatles - 'Strawberry Fields Forever'.
1969 - first digital sampler - the EMS Musys system
1976 - first commercially available sampling synthesizer - Computer Music Melodeon
1979 - first polyphonic digital sampling synthesiser - Fairlight CMI.
1981 – E-mu Emulator first affordable sample keyboard.
- The Emulator is the name that was given to a series of disk based sampling keyboards manufactured by E-MU Systems from 1981 until 1990. The E-MU Emulator, released in 1981, was not the first commercial sampler. It was among the first to find wide use among ordinary musicians. This was because it had a relatively low price and was not very big. This made it easier for live performances. It was innovative in its integration of computer technology with electronic keyboards.
- The initial units had very limited memory and low sample rates, resulting in grainy, low quality samples. The Emulator II was released in 1984, which is what brought sampling to the wider range of musicians due to its affordable price.
- Examples:
- E-MU Emulator - Choir Sounds
- E-MU Emulator II - Sound Library
- The Pet Shop Boys - 'Opportunities'
- E-MU Emulator II Demonstration by Alan Wilder, the keyboarder of Depeche Mode.
- Depeche Mode - 'Strangelove'
1984 – LINN 9000 first integrated drum machine/sequencer/sampler.
1987 - E-mu SP-1200 percussion sampler progressed Hip-Hop away from drum machines.
1988 - Akai S1000 first professional-quality 16-bit stereo sampler with splice, crossfade, trim, and loop functions 16-bit CD-quality - pioneered "time-stretch", a feature that allows the music's tempo to be adjusted without its pitch being altered.
1989 - BITHEADZ UNITY DS-1 First soft sampler offering many of the features of today’s plug-ins.
More Information
Understanding bit depth is essential when using DAW software. This post is a clear explanation and helpful overview of the topic from Mark Garrison’s book Encyclopedia of Home Recording.
“The Encyclopedia of Home Recording puts those answers at your fingertips quickly and easily by explaining the tools, techniques, and terminology of the home studio in an easy-to-understand manner.” This post is an extract from that book. If you enjoyed the post, you might like to consider purchasing the book.
Digital recording is achieved by converting analog audio signal into binary code. Binary code is a numerical made up of a series of ons and offs (or signal and no-signal) which are usually represented as ones and zeros. Each of these ones and zeros is referred to as a bit, and these bits form digital words. Bit depth refers to the length of each digital word.
Digital recordings consist of a series of static samples which are played back rapidly to create sound (see Fig. 12). This is very similar to the way motion pictures are made up of static photos shown fast enough to fool our eyes into thinking the picture is moving. A CD has a sample rate of 44.1 kHz which means that it has 44,100 digital samples for every second of audio.
The bit depth of a CD recording is 16-bit which means that each of those digital samples is made up of 16 ones and zeros (see Fig. 13). This means that for every second of audio, a CD has 705,600 ones and zeros (44,100 × 16) for each channel (left and right). That’s a grand total of 1,411,200 bits (ones and zeros) per second of audio.
DVD audio uses a sample rate of 96 kHz at a bit depth of 24-bits. So, a string of code for DVD audio has a 24-bit word 96,000 times per second per channel (a total of 2,304,000 ones and zeros per second per channel, and a combined total of 4,608,000 bits for every second of audio).
The Practical Results of Bit Depth
There are two practical benefits of higher bit depth. First, the longer digital word allows for a more precise measurement of the amplitude of the signal at the time of the sample. This means a more accurate recording.
The second reason is that any errors that occur during recording or playback will be less significant. If there is an error resulting in two of the bits in a 16- bit recording being completely lost then 1/8 of the sample is missing. In a 24- bit recording, losing two bits would only be 1/12 of the sample. Fewer errors effectively means less noise in a recording.
The downside of using a higher bit depth is greatly increased file size. As hard drives and other digital storage mediums get cheaper, however, this becomes less and less of an issue.
Most engineers will choose to record using the highest bit depth and sample rate available even if the recording is eventually going to be released on a medium that does not support it. This allows them to somewhat “future-proof” their recordings so they can take advantage of more advanced mediums down the road.