Sampler advice

[Mark Everson]

Hi

 

I am looking to purchase a sampler that can help us produce instant sound effects through our PA for our annual Xmas panto. We want to be able to dowonload sound effect files (midi, wav mp3 etc) and upload these to the sampler and then connect the sampler to our PA and program it so that when one of the pad son the sampler is pressed, the relevant sound effect plays through the speakers. We are looking at the Akai MPC500 whichs seems to suggest it can do this, but I can't find out for sure.

Can anyone confirm that this sampler can do what we need, or suggest an alternative piece of kit?

 

Many thanks.

 

Mark everson

[obrown81]

http://www.360systems.com/

 

The instant replay is designed to do just this...

 

Or you could use any midi trigger pad (or use the space bar!) with something like QLAB... or SFX/CSC etc.

 

Not sure about how long the samples can be in the MPC so may it work I think the memory is 5MB (can be upgraded to 128MB) but thats still not much audio...

 

My personal preference would be to use QLAB (could rent the license to save money...)

 

Hope this is helpful,

 

Oliver

[BlueShift]

Both Tascam and Denon now make Solid State players with instant play remotes that are significantly cheaper than a 360 Systems instant replay. Worth a look...

[dbuckley]

I used to play sound effects from a sampler (a Roland S-760, which I still have!), but that (and frankly, for theatrical use, the Instant Replay) are just so last century.

 

Pretty much any of the modern computer playback tools can assign sounds to keys. Some can even allow you to have control of those mappings (or the enablement of sounds) from the cuelist, which is really handy as then you cant hit the wrong sound effect at the wrong time, a useful safety precaution. And when I say "keys", then a MIDI keypad of some sort is also an option, I use a Frontier Alphatrack which fits nicely on ones desk, has enough buttons (remembering I can reassign them as the show proceeds), and feels good to the touch. You also don't need to look at it which is handy when you're watching the action.

[Bobbsy]

I used to use an Akai S6000 for this but, like DBuckley, years ago I changed to computer playback.

 

Frankly, for Panto, I tend to forsake the clever dedicated software and simply use SOUNDPLANT which is freeware and which I find perfect for the chaotic, ad lib nature of the pantos I've worked on. It allowed me to make each key on a computer keyboard a different instant start effect. By using the mode keys which control whether a next keypush kills or stops the previous cue, it's actually pretty powerful. However, the previous version only worked on .wav. If you need more, maybe the paid for version of SCS? However, when grabbing the above link, I notice there's finally a new version which I'll be downloading and playing with tonight. It may or may not do more!

 

Bob

[organised confusion]

I've just come on here to ask a similar question, but a software version, I'll give that sound plant a go (cheers bobbsy).

 

can't fault the instant replay for a hardware solution, used it many times but I can't always guarantee it will be on the gig.

 

the only down side is it uses third party networking software to load on samples which can be a bit of an arse to connect, however you can just record straight in, in real time.

[SoLiEn]

When I have all the sound effects, when I was on a tight budget I used to use Chris Moyles Sound Machine, assigns a different instant sfx to each key on your computer keyboard, and you can customise your own playlists and what is on which key etc.

 

Very good freebie!

[Mark Everson]

Many thanks for all the advice so far - this is a very helpful forum!

 

I'm going to investigate the options, I just took a look at the Instant Replay unit in the first link and it seems ideal but is way out of our budget at £2k. I shoul dhave mentioned this, we want to spend around £300-400 max.

Some of the pc software options sound good but then we would need to purchase a laptop as noone in the team seems to have one and we want to have a permanent setup anyway.

 

Any more advice is very welcome - my audio knowledge is basic at best, but I'm getting better! I will pop to my local sound shop for further advice before making any decisions.

 

Best wishes

 

Mark

[Bobbsy]

Well, something to consider is that, for basic playback, you don't need a high spec computer. For a good many years, my "panto playback" machine was an old second hand tower PC (Pentium 2 I believe) that I cleaned out and did a fresh re-install of Windows on. I put in a cheap EMU PCI two channel sound card and a basic HDD (there was a CD drive already). The total spend for the second hand tower, sound card and HDD was under £200.

 

The only software I installed was Soundplant, EAC for ripping CDs and my old copy of Cool Edit 2000 for rough editing (nowadays it'll probably be Audacity). It was how amazing how stable and reliable a computer without extraneous software is.

 

For a permanent install, something like this would be fine--though I'd probably add the basic version of SCS for shows more structured than a panto.

 

Bob

[pritch]

I'd second what Bobbsy's said; I'm not sure what our laptop is, it was a freebie - but there is plenty of cheap or reasonably priced software out there. I really don't know how I could go back to the bad old days of running off external playback devices now - the ability to rip things off CD, and edit clips in Audacity is something I wouldn't be without.

[Mark Everson]

Thanks again guys. It just so happens that my company has just upgraded some of the office laptops so there may be option of acquiring a cheap second hand one. Is the soundcard quality important or will any old soundcard do? I'm not concerned about the quality of the sound, but more the volume? Will a bog standard laptop soundcard produce a signal that will give us adequate volume through our PA in the hall, so that the sound effect is easily audible?

A laptop is preferable to a desktop as we can fit it on a sliding shelf in our 19" rack flight case cabinet.

 

Thanks

 

Mark

[Mr_Jules]

Mark, I'm sure that many Blue-room members will agree with your choice. We've covered laptop sound cards, correct connection to desks and appropriate software options on this forum multiple times in the past, so try the search option, and I'm sure every addition question you have will be more than thoroughly answered.

[Bobbsy]

Is the soundcard quality important or will any old soundcard do? I'm not concerned about the quality of the sound, but more the volume? Will a bog standard laptop soundcard produce a signal that will give us adequate volume through our PA in the hall, so that the sound effect is easily audible?

 

Yes, the soundcard quality is important and the inbuilt ones in any laptop tend to be appallingly bad. The good news is that decent USB2 ones are not expensive anymore. Actually "volume" isn't generally an issue--more of a problem is that you'd be limited to a headphone out on most laptops, meaning a flimsy, unbalanced 1/8" stereo socket that's easy to dislodge--and bumping the headphone volume control messes up your levels. As has been said, there are lots of BR topics on laptop sound cards so a search on those terms will find you lots of reading.

 

The other thing that's important in a second hand computer is to re-format the disk and reinstall the operating system to get rid of all the old junk. Also, get rid of things like system sounds and screen savers, otherwise they come back to bite you. Doing this, you should have a very reliable playback system.

 

Bob

[dbuckley]

Echoing everything Bob said; my playback machine was a 1.2GHz pentium machine, external USB interface (Eidirol UA-1A), and it works reliably. Its a clean install, has no updates, no AV, never connects to the internet. I'm now upgraded to the son's "old" machine, which is a bit quicker, but still well away from current state of the art.

 

Pick your software first, and take that out of your budget, then try and find a USB audio device with balanced outputs (and I'm assuming your mixer has balanced line inputs) and connect with balanced cables, and you wont start out having the hums, buzzes, farts and clicks which plague many first time computer playbackists.

[Mark Everson]

Thanks guys. I've been researching, as suggested, your soundcard options via the search function.

 

Our mixer, Dbuckley, is a Yamaha EMX88S combined mixer and amp.

http://www.cravenaudio.com/images/EMX88S.jpg

As you can see there are several inputs, '2TR IN' which we use for the cd player, Aux in, and channels 7 and 8. Would these suffice?