Getting Started
The Sample Editor
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Producing high-quality music and sound playback requires high-quality Samples - and that's why the Beatnik Editor includes a basic Sample Editor. It's a workspace for doing clean-up work on your imported Samples, for use in Instruments for your exported RMF files.

Just a Simple Tool - While the Beatnik Editor's Sample Editor may help you learn how to edit sounds creatively, it's intended mainly as a convenience tool. -If you need to do extensive sample editing, you'll probably prefer to use a separate full-featured sample editor program - or, many people like to use cleanly prepared samples obtained from a professional source.

See also: The Sample Editor window section in the Window Reference, and the Editing Samples section in For Musicians.

Why Edit a Sample?

The Sample Editor gives you editing tools good for fixing several common problems that can make a Sample sound bad:
  • Dead Space - Samples should usually start at the first audible sound, and end as soon as the sound is completely over. Dead space at the start throws off timing, and dead space at the end wastes memory and download time.
  • Clicks - A sample should smoothly begin and end with silence, even if the initial fade-in and terminal fade-out are very short. Any sample that starts or ends away from the zero level will produce a click.
  • Low Level - A sample should usually be normalized - that is, the highest peak in the recording should take full advantage of the available range. Small signals produce weak sound.
Loops are another reason to use the Sample Editor. In order to be able to hold arbitrarily long notes, Instrument designs often require a section of a Sample to loop - that is, repeat over and over - for as long as the note is held. The Sample Editor gives you control over whether a Sample will loop, and where in the Sample the loop start and end bounds should be.

Getting Started  / The Sample Editor    top previous page next page