EXS 24 Logic Sampler Users Group

> I picked up Translator mainly for converting my Emu library to 
EXS24 format. Now here I am 
> with the cellophane just off of Skippy's Noizbox and Stark 
Raving Beats and I'm thinking:  
> should I use Translator to convert these Akai CD-ROMS  to 
EXS format?  Or is the EXS's 
> internal conversion just fine.
> 
> Thanks,
> Andy

Hello to you all - 

My name is John "Skippy" Lehmkuhl. I am the creator of both 
Skippy's Big Bad Beats and Skippy's Noizbox. I wanted to reply to 
this question and point you guys to further information on these 
libraries as well as information on Stark Raving Beats (this 
library was created by a close friend of mine, Chris O'Brian and 
follows similar layout features with Skippy's Noizbox).

If you play the Akai version of the above libraries on an Akai 
sampler, the program has the filter cutoff wide open with the 
Modulation wheel making it darker as you increase the 
Modulation wheel's values. This ability is not currently possible 
with the EXS sampler's parameters. You can make a sound
start out sounding dark (low FC setting as default) and use 
Modulation wheel to make it bright, but not the other way around.

Every Akai CD that Ilio sells and/or produces is thoroughly tested 
with the EXS conversion to make sure that the conversion is 
flawless. Furthermore, since Noizbox is 4 CD ROMS of data 
(plus that fact that I made the library in Logic), I have included 
bonus material on the DATA CDROM that comes with Noizbox for 
Logic users (similar bonus material is on Stark Raving beats,
but not Big Bad Beats). When you convert all 4 CDROMS into 
EXS format, you will end up with 4 separate folders in your EXS 
pull down patch menu list - I combined all 4 folders into 1 master 
folder, renamed and organized ALL of the loops/drum 
hits/groove menus so that using the library is much easier
and included this folder on the DATA CD of Noizbox.

A few people have asked if Noizbox is good.  =)  Keyboard 
magazine gave it a Key Buy, people are telling me they really dig 
it. I'm very proud of it. It took over 18 months to create. Why ? 
Because not only do you get cool loops, but you get EVERY 
element as a separate audio loop/Groove Control file for
even more control than if it was just one loop. Many of the 32 
"Grooves" have well over 10 separate elements that make up the 
loop(2 kicks, 2 snares, hihats, real tambourine, real shaker, 
mutated DDL synth shaker and 3 mutated/processed/vocoded 
loops is common for a single groove). So if you just want the 
mangled Filtered/LFO/DDL Synth Shaker sound for your song,
it's available! Very few libraries are like this, they'll give you 700 
drum loops but none of the elements that were used to make the 
loops. Both Stark Raving beats and Noizbox give you every 
element as a separate loop and as a separate groove control 
file.

So, lets say you want to use the 12 elements in Groove Control™ 
format for one of the grooves in a song you want to write - that 
means you have to call up 12 EXS instruments, assign each one 
to the correct groove control EXS file and load the correct MIDI file 
into the arrange window so that it will play all of the EXS 
instruments correctly. This takes a lot of work (trust me!). So I did 
all this work for you and you can download Logic songs for all 32 
grooves from the Ilio web site right now:

http://www.ilio.com/ilio/noizbox/update.html

I'm not sure if libraries that were converted with Translator will be
compatible with these Logic song files - the reason is that EXS 
looks for files with a specific name and I have not had a chance 
to test the Translator for Mac conversion to see if the names are 
the same as the EXS converted names. In fact, I recommend 
highly using the DATA CDROM "Sampler Instruments" folder I 
mentioned earlier if you want to use the Logic/EXS songs.

I you want to know more about the styles found in Noizbox, I've 
written a number of demo sequences in MP3 format you can 
listen to here:

http://www.ilio.com/ilio/noizbox/index.html

Start Raving Beats is a library with more separated elements of 
a real drum kit for all of the grooves (Noizbox doesn't do this with 
drum loops, they would only be a stereo loop) with real 
percussion and Wavedrum elements added. Like Noizbox all 
elements are separated out for maximum flexibility (even the 
room ambience of the drum kits is a separate element) !! I wrote 
a number of demos you can listen to in MP3 format here:

http://www.ilio.com/ilio/srbeats/index.html

I don't mean to SPAM the list - I just want to clear up the good 
questions that were asked and make sure that anybody who 
wants info on my libraries knows where to go to get the 
information. If anybody has any other Noizbox
related questions, please send them to me personally at
realkuhl@... - I'm happy to try to answer any 
questions. I don't work for Ilio as an employee, Ilio simply 
distributes the noizes I make.

Thanks for your time and sorry for the long post.

Best,
John Lehmkuhl

PS - I don't own Translator, but in my opinion, it's strengths are in 
it's ability to convert library formats that EXS can't covert (Roland 
and Emu are at the top of this list). Ilio used Translator PC for 
some of the work on Noizbox (from Roland to Akai) - Thanks 
Garth !!