COMMENTS ON KEYMAP
2008-08-04 by Tom McLaughlin
Message posted by Tom McLaughlin <tommclaughlin75@...>: KEYMAP COMMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS Tom McLaughlin Keymap is an important software suite. It is based around creating sample sets (instruments) for Logic\ufffds EXS24 sampler. There are many algorithms and concepts within Keymap that are unique to the world of sample editing and Redmatica are to be applauded for its creativity, thoughtfulness and innovation. What follows are some of my observations and comments after having Keymap for several months and editing and looping thousands of samples with it, simple and complex. Some of the problems I\ufffdve encountered may be a result of \ufffduser error\ufffd or not being able to extract proper usage information from the manual. Keymap is an excellent piece of software and anyone serious about sample and sound design should consider buying it no matter what sampler they use. ____________________________________________________ When typing values into a numeric field I expect to be able to hit the ENTER key and have that data entered. I recently found, through much trial and error, that typing the \ufffdENTER\ufffd and then the \ufffdESCAPE\ufffd key enters typed data. In my experience with computers typing \ufffdENTER\ufffd is the norm. A friend of mine who is a Logic instructor for Apple said he has never heard of such a thing. Is there a reason for this variance from the norm? When editing samples I expect a sample to play from the beginning to the end of a selected (highlighted) area. When I select ALL I expect the sample to play from the beginning until the end (or loop) when I hit the space bar. The Slider on the Sample Editor page is innovative and visually attractive and works well with individual samples, but it is difficult to use with multisample recordings as, with so much information to cram into the time line, the resolution for individual notes / samples is small. SAMPLE PLAY FROM START button on SAMPLE EDITOR page is at the very bottom of the page, far away from the loop screen. This requires much going back-and-forth with the mouse when editing loops and auditioning . Likewise, HARMONIC RESYNTHESIS parameters on the SAMPLE EDIT page are at the bottom of the field. Could these be raised to the upper most portion of the fields? My mouse is getting tired. EDITING OUT PORTIONS OF SAMPLES When selecting an unwanted portion of audio, other editors allow being able to choose a cross-fade length and curve, select CUT or DELETE and have that data removed leaving a smooth crossfade through the join point. This sample editing feature is important when looping samples to get rid of out-of-tune portions, clicks, pops, unwanted noises and performance artifacts. It is also important when merging the attack portion to a looped portion of a sample, cutting out all but the attack and the loop to save storage space or get \ufffdstraight to the point\ufffd of the sound being designed if the loop is the focal point. (Sometimes you have to crossfade through a lot of material to get the loop you want.) An \ufffdOPTIMIZE SLICE CROSSFADE\ufffd option would be very helpful in this respect to keep the data phase-coherent. And \ufffdSNAP TO ZERO CROSSING\ufffd would help too. I am getting used to doing this on the SLICES page, but simply selecting and highlighting an area displayed audio to be deleted and crossfaded through the remainder is more intuitive through past experience with other sample editors and looping software. Is it possible for SLICE VOLUME to be able to increase volume in addition to reducing volume as it does now? And maybe even NORMALIZE SLICE? The Slice XFade In and Out Length could be longer ... as much as the data within a \ufffdsub-sample\ufffd of a multisample recording will permit without encroaching upon a loop. I know many people will use the SLICES page for rhythm and performance loops (which is not my forte\ufffd, but I do look into exploring this) but for creating sustain loops in pitched samples all this would really be of help. dB markers at start and end of sample BLOCK THE VIEW OF SAMPLE DATA. I find it hard to believe that sample editing software would block important attack transients from view. Loops with crossfades through very end of sample render with audible click. Can samples be rendered and saved individually without having to create an EXS instrument. Rendering samples SEQUENTIALLY seems to number samples randomly with no relation to their placement on the virtual keyboard. This has happened so many times that I\ufffdve ruled out \ufffduser error\ufffd. I expect samples in a multi-sample to be numbered sequentially, from low to high as mapped out on the virtual keyboard. Also, sequentially numbered samples are always in 1,000\ufffds. Software should analyze the number of samples to be rendered and then use the lowest number of digits needed to execute that sequence of samples ... to save on characters. Also, a series of samples I rendered (97 samples C1 - C8) to be numbered sequentially AND with note names rendered all samples with the prefix 0001. This required me to manually rename each rendered sample with its proper number, a process that took considerable time. When undoing a \ufffdslice remove\ufffd, it would be convenient to have the sample zoom out automatically to the original magnification. Selecting Render at -6db does not seem to increase sample level by +6db after rendering. Sample sets I have rendered at -6db remain at -6db. Loop View Display shows a bad loop join ... until loop join is examined under a higher magnification. Not that the loop join is actually bad, it just looks that way in the display. Hitting green dot on Instrument Page should center page on computer vdu screen as it does with other pages. When playing sample while looping on instrument page and going to move loop point or crossfade point, if you aren\ufffdt careful to direct the mouse EXACTLY onto cursor points the sample is triggered to open in looping page! Ordinarily this requires a double-click. To my experience, cursor \ufffdnodes\ufffd could be a little bigger. I rendered a chromatic set of velocity switching samples - soft, medium, loud. 255 samples. The soft set came out with a suffix of \ufffd1\ufffd, medium \ufffd0\ufffd, and loud \ufffd2\ufffd !!?? What happened? It would have been more convenient to have them numbered 1, 2, 3 or 3, 2, 1. Is this possible? Actually ... it would be most convenient to have each velocity set delivered to its own Folder. Is this possible? This would make porting velocity switching samples to other samplers, like Reason, easier. Is there a way to have the data after a loop discarded when rendering loops? MANUAL New users want to be able to use software as quickly as possible without reading any more of a manual than necessary. Not just Keymap, any piece of software. I found it very frustrating that I had to sit down and thoroughly read the manual (and sometime re-read sections a number of times) before I could make use of the software. I have had Keymap for months now and am just getting to grips with using it somewhat effectively. In the current version of the manual it is often necessary to read through a lengthy explanation of the benefits of a process or parameter, often mentioned more than once, before the reader finds information on how to actually use it. There are several facilities in Keymap that to date I cannot locate in the manual how to use, and I\ufffdve had to find out how to use others by trial and error. FIX: briefly mention the process or parameter, explain HOW to use it, point out keyboard shortcuts, then go into a more thorough explanation of the benefits and applications. A good model is the Logic manual. The index really does want to be expanded to include specifics rather than only page numbers on which a topic appears. I estimate that about 1/5 - 1/4 of the manual could be edited out for clarity. An American or British Editor could help make the language used in the Manual easier to read in English. Having done audio engineering and sound design professionally, I found Logic instantly useable. With Keymap I feel like I\ufffdve had to learn another language. ____________________________________________________ wish list: Loop Crossfade continuously variable between linear and equal power. Individual notch filters for cutting out annoying harmonics that are reinforced in group samples such as strings and choirs. Better yet, a HARMONIC COMPRESSOR or LIMITER to level out these annoying harmonics. This would be a combination of a tight band equalizer and a compressor / limiter. Make the High Pass Filter sharper - as it is it sounds like a 6db or 12db per octave filter. A filter for removing 50/60 Hz mains hum with their respective harmonics would be nice. LOOP BLEND - similar to the facility in the old INFINITY looping software, which put the data contained in a loop through the equivalent of a blender (liquidizer in UK) thus homogenizing it and crossfading the result through the attack portion of the sample by a specified amount. CROSSFADE LOOP THROUGH ATTACK PORTION OF SOUND. CROSSFADE LOOP THROUGH RELEASE PORTION OF SOUND for samplers that can deal with \ufffdRelease Loops\ufffd. Non-destructive editing is fine ... up to a point. Creating multisample recordings with adequate space between adjacent samples so as not to have the reverb tail from the previous note spill over to the following note eats up disk space. (Using a noise gate is not an answer. Reverb tails can often be useful data to crossfade through.) An algorithm to delete the blank space between notes and re-save the data as a new file would be helpful. I have quite a number of sample sets in progress and they are eating up my hard drive space. Peak Level Meter Auto-Phase All or Selected Samples Loudness Arc Superimpose over Keyboard Position Copy Loudness Curve and Superimpose over Sample Copy Pitch Curve and Superimpose over Sample Tighten up several harmonic resynthesis algorithms for better accuracy ... namely Polyphonate and HR Pitch correction adjust. I am disappointed with Polyphonate, a tool I had hoped would be of more use. Its transposition range is much narrower than I had expected and it produces glitches at the upper extreme of its narrow range. HIGH PASS FILTER FREQUENCY ROOT NOTE TRACK - For eliminating low frequency garbage, for creative sound design. As there is a root note analysis algorithm present in the system it should be relatively simple to incorporate an algorithm to set the High Pass Filter Frequency to track the frequency of the root note of pitched samples. Could \ufffdSave\ufffd be transparent, like Logic? Now hitting the \ufffdsave\ufffd key stops the \ufffdplay\ufffd function, which then resumes once save has been completed. Disable play on instrument page when changing to loop edit page - or - transfer play from previous page until stopped by user. Now when a sample is played by hitting the \ufffdspace bar\ufffd on the Instrument page and that sample is opened in the Loop Edit page, the sample remains playing from the Instrument page and if space bar is hit again BOTH the sample on the Instrument page AND the sample on the Loop Edit page will play simultaneously. Now it requires closing the Loop Edit page, returning to the Instrument page and stopping \ufffdplay\ufffd before being able to return to editing on the Loop Edit page. Harmonic Resynthesis ought to calculate max amplitude of sample to be rendered if over 100% and recalculate rendering to 0db or db set by user (say -0.1db) to prevent clipping. View ENTIRE WAVEFORM - an area where the entire waveform of a multisample can be viewed would be of help. ____________________________________________________________________ The Zone Audio FX page contains some of my favorite facilities. They are simple, but very useful in sound design. The Saturator 1 and 2, Stereo Width, Low Pass Filter and High Pass Filter are a welcome set of tools. Used in moderation the Saturators can add focus to samples, a bit more adds grit to polite samples, and pushed harder offer a range of distortion colors any metalhead would find useful. In practice, I rarely push Saturator 1 higher than 0.04 and Saturator 2 higher than 0.5. I\ufffdve used Stereo Width to narrow the stereo spread of a number of sample sets that, after auditioning by mapping and playing from a keyboard through Keymap, were a bit too wide to my taste. Although I\ufffdve used the High Pass Filter to get rid of low frequency \ufffdgrunge\ufffd and reverb \ufffdboom\ufffd, I find it most useful in minimizing the fundamental of synth sounds where it is too prominent - something that I only find out when playing sample sets on Keymap with a music track. As mentioned above, having a facility for this filter to automatically track the fundamental harmonic of notes in a multisample would be a great help ... I\ufffdve had to look up the fundamental frequency of each note on the handy chart provided at the end of the Manual and type that into the numeric field of the filter ... this can take a LOT of time with multisamples containing dozens of samples. I use the Zone HR Amp/Dynamics page all the time. Especially the HR Normalization Amount - it helps even out levels of samples that, for one reason or another, ended up lower than the rest of a set. And the HR Freeze Decay is invaluable in helping to find loops in the decay portion of percussive samples such as pianos and bells. Keymap\ufffds pitch detection is great. It has problems from time to time with octaves but it is far better than Reason\ufffds pitch detection, which consistently calculates pitches sharper the higher the note ... C-6 invariably comes out 35-36 cents sharp with Reason. LOOPS: The main reason I bought Keymap was for its looping facilities. Its mapping and layering facilities are an added bonus for me and a genuine help. Like Dino, I\ufffdve been using samplers since the 8 bit days, long before the advent of the visual display of audio data - when looping samples was accomplished solely by ear and much trial and error. There was a time when in the time it took a sampler to calculate a loop crossfade you could go off and make a cup of tea or coffee. We\ufffdve come a long way since then and Keymap elevates sample editing and looping to a whole new level. Although Keymap can automate locating loop points in a variety of ways, rarely have I used loops as calculated. Many of these loops would be OK for many users and could be fine when used in a track. But I\ufffdm a bit particular when it comes to sample loops. What Keymap does provide me with, and it is invaluable in this respect, are excellent starting points for manually looping sounds aided by some excellent looping tools. More often than not, High or Low Res Autoloop finds a loop that is too short to my taste and the Double Loop Length, Shift Loop Left / Right and Optimize Loop Crossfade are great helps in finding the best loop length and position. When all else fails in creating a loop that is pleasing to my ears, I turn to Add Optimized Crossfades To Loops - in the Loop sub-menu in the Zones main menu. All of this said, Keymap has some wonderful attributes and facilities. It still crashes from time to time, but I work it very hard. Keymap\ufffds scope is truly awesome and there are some facilities I haven\ufffdt gotten into yet. I wasn\ufffdt a great fan of Logic\ufffds EXS-24 sampler, but thanks to Keymap I\ufffdm warming up to it. I feel Keymap is far too important a sample editor, looper and mapper to limit itself to just the EXS24. Maybe introducing an additional \ufffdUNIVERSAL MODE\ufffd could be the answer. Many loops rendered using Keymap exhibit a \ufffdsymphony of harmonics\ufffd, something I\ufffdve never encountered with any other software before. And you may quote me on that. This is something you must hear to experience. I thank Redmatica for it\ufffds forward vision and, undoubtedly, countless hours of calculating and programming. Be assured that Keymap may just change the way the world makes samples. copyright Tom McLaughlin July 2008