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In-depth Feature:  Emagic EXS24
Joe Bennett writes: .

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...continued

In Use
Once you've got your sample program on-screen (and added envelope shaping, filters, velocity/keyboard mapping etc) it behaves exactly like a MIDI track. You can play and record parts in real time, and change note choices or other MIDI parameters in any of Logic's edit modes. There's a slight latency on anything slower than a 400MHz Mac G3, but this is on keyboard input only - on playback, sample timing is laser-accurate, and sits fine with other MIDI instruments.

Editing


The control panel for the EXS24. Everything in one window. No menus, pages or increment buttons. Convenience for you, and commercial disaster for your optician.

Keyboard mapping is simply a case of drag-and-let-go.
If you *really* love numbers, you can have them...

The sexy-looking front panel screen (pictured) is the most enjoyable way of manipulating your samples, and the feel is very much like an analogue synth. You can tweak cutoff and resonance with four types of subtractive filter, or mess with ADSR envelopes assigned to filters *and* amplitude. Filter and envelope characteristics can be assigned to key velocity, helping the user to create natural-sounding real-instrument sample sets as well as expressive synth sounds.

There's also a powerful key-mapping section (just click on 'Edit' and you're there). Rather than fiddly menu operations ("I'll just map it C#3-D4... oh no, now it's playing back the bass drum *as well*...") all of this mode is graphic - you stretch each sample over a picture of a keyboard using the mouse. If you want velocity mapping, just drop a few more samples over the same zones. Although this is fairly similar to Akai's excellent MESA S2000 editing software, it has one important advantage; the EXS24 isn't sending information down a cable to a sampler - it *is* the sampler.

More Resources              Articles - full listing
  • Emagic homepage
  • MP3 demos of EXS24
  • Mail the author

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