Sample parameters

The Sample parameter area is found below the screen. They allow you to adjust parameters for one or several selected zones. Adjusting a parameter with multiple zones selected, will set the parameter to the same value for all selected zones. Below follows a run-down of the various parameters:

Root Note and Tune

These parameters are described in “Setting Root Notes and Tuning”.

Sample Start and End

By turning the knobs you offset the start and end positions, so that they will play back more or less of a sample’s waveform. Typical examples of use for this would be:

•	Removing unwanted portions from samples.

This could be anything from noise to “dead air” at the beginning or end of a sample.

•	To create variations out of a single sample.

These controls can be used to pick out any section of a recording for use as a sample.

•	Together with velocity sample start control.

You can for example increase Sample Start and then apply negative velocity modulation to Sample Start. Then, the harder you play the more you will hear of the attack portion of the sound.

If you hold down [Shift] when adjusting these parameters, the adjustment is in single frames (samples).

Loop Start and End

A sample, unlike the cycles of an oscillator for example, is a finite quantity. There is a sample start and end. To get samples to play for as long as you press down the keys on your keyboard, they need to be looped. For this to work properly, you have to first set up two loop points which determine the part of the sample that will be looped.

The instrument samples in the sound banks included with Reason are already looped. The same will be true for most commercial sample libraries. However, if you need to, you can use these controls to adjust the looping.

•	The size and position of the loop – in the sample – is determined by two parameters, Loop Start (the beginning of the loop) and Loop End (the end point of the loop).

•	The NN-XT then keeps repeating the section between the Loop Start and Loop end until the sound has decayed to silence.

Play Mode

By using this knob you can select one of the following loop modes for each zone:

•

FW

The sample in the zone will play only once, without looping.

•

FW-LOOP

The sample will play from the sample start point to the loop end point, jump back to the loop start point and then loop infinitely between the start and end loop points. This is the most common loop mode.

•

FW - BW

The sample will play from the sample start point to the loop end point, then from the loop end point to the loop start point (backwards), and then loop infinitely forwards-backwards between the start and end loop points.

•

FW-SUS

This works like FW-LOOP with the exception that it will only loop as long as the key is held down. As you release the key, the sample will play to the absolute end of the sample, that is beyond the boundaries of the loop.

This means that the sound may have a short natural release even if the release parameter is raised to a high value (which is not true for “FW-LOOP”, where the release parameter always controls the length of the sound after the key is released).

•

BW

The sample will play only once - from the end to the beginning - without looping.

Lo Key and Hi Key

These parameters are described in “Setting up Key Ranges”.

Lo Vel and Hi Vel

These parameters are described in “About velocity ranges”.

Fade In and Fade Out

These parameters are described in “About Crossfading Between Zones”.

Alt

This parameter is described in “About the Alternate function”.

Out

The NN-XT features eight separate stereo output pairs (see “Audio Output”). For each zone, you can decide which of these output pairs to use. Thus, if you have created a key map consisting of eight zones, each of these can have a separate stereo output from NN-XT, and can then be routed to a separate mixer channel if you so wish.

To select which output a selected zone should be directed to, use the knob marked “Out” in the sample parameter area.

The output pairs are indicated above the button.

Note that you still have to route the outputs the way you want them on NN-XT’s back panel. If you assign a zone to an output pair other than 1-2 (which is the default) no connections or auto routing are made. You have to do that manually.

A Stereo example

One possible way of utilizing this would be to create a drum kit. In this case you could load up to eight different stereo drum samples, assign them to separate outputs, route each to a separate mixer channel and then use the mixer to set levels and pan, add send effects etc.

Using a stereo output as two mono outputs

If, on the other hand, you are using mono samples, you can use one stereo pair as a two separate outputs, effectively giving you a total of 16 separate outputs.

1.	Assign two zones to the same output.

2.	Us the Pan control to pan one of the zones hard left and the other hard right.

3.	Connect each of the two outputs in the stereo pair to a separate mixer channel.