EXS 24 Logic Sampler Users Group

On a fine day, 29-07-2004, Mac Duff wrote:

>On 7/29/04 12:18 PM, "Julie Larson" <julielarson@...> wrote:
>
>>  Hey Mac,
>
>>  I have a question here though.  Is it standard for an
>>  instrument that has multiple layers for....say keyswitching, to use
>>  polyphony for all layers even though only one layer is playing?
>
>>   I play one note and the polyphony use is 4.  Is there something I'm
>>  missing?
>
>According to the "Used" indicator on my EXS24's interface, no. I have a
>big-ass bass instrument with finger, slap, acoustic and distorted samples,
>all key switched. When I play one note, however, that event only consumes
>one note of polyphony. So, I don't know what's happening there... Unless
>maybe the stereo sample is actually two mono samples panned and therefore
>two voices??!

The answer to Julie's question is: it depends.  If you have multiple 
layers and switch between them using velocity (the usual way of 
layer-switching), only the currently triggered layer is played (or 
more if you've applied x-fading).  This is all common sense of course.

However, if you've set e.g. Controller 1 to determine "Sample Select" 
instead of velocity, so that the mod-wheel cycles through the layers, 
_then_ all layers are played at all times, no matter how many 
actually sound.  If you think about it a bit, this makes sense as 
well: when using the mod-wheel, you can access a layer at all times 
and there's no way for the EXS to know when that will happen, so the 
best it can do is trigger all layers at note-on.
Besides, if the EXS only triggered a layer when it's really needed, 
you would always hear the attack-phase of all layers as soon as 
they're accessed.  In the mod-wheel-triggering situation this 
generally is not what you want -- you want to move smoothly between 
layers, and for that it's (again) necessary for all layers to be 
triggered at note-on time.

I'm not 100% sure about key-switched layers but it's easy enough to 
try out for yourself: make a 4-layer instrument and set up 
key-switching for all layers. Play one note and watch the polyphony 
indicator on the EXS: does it say 1 or 4 (probably the latter)?  I 
think I remember that using _anything but velocity_ for Sample Select 
causes the EXS to trigger all layers at all times, so there you go...

-- 
Hendrik Jan Veenstra   h @ k n o w a r e . n l
Omega Art: http://www.omega-art.com/