# Make it Sound like an Old Sampler



## Kent (Nov 28, 2016)

We are recording some vocal fx samples for fun tomorrow at school, and I got it in my head that I'd like to make them sound vintage.

Does anybody know the signal processing chain of, for example, the Fairlight CMI IIx or the E-mu Emulator II? Obviously ITB manipulation won't be 100% accurate, but I'm pretty sure I could get 95% of the way there with some sort of combination of processing in a DAW and then manipulation in Kontakt.

Obviously I'm looking at using one or a very small number of samples, pitch-shifted across the keyboard, looped (perhaps noticeably) at a small time interval. 

My questions are a little more esoteric - at some point the samples should be converted to 8-bit sound, but not all 8-bit sounds are the same. Then they need to be expanded to...12? 16? At what frequencies are the roll-offs? How does the filter change up and down the keyboard? 

Are any of these questions making any sense?


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## EvilDragon (Nov 29, 2016)

TAL Sampler is what you want to try out.


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## Daniel James (Nov 29, 2016)

Decimorts Image Filter should do that for you.

http://d16.pl/decimort

-DJ


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## EvilDragon (Nov 29, 2016)

TAL Sampler will do better, it was made to emulate the samplers of the old


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## Polarity (Nov 29, 2016)

Agree with EvilDragon: TAL Sampler is best for now.
Sorry Daniel but... I tried the demo of Decimort but it wasn't so good for that, IMO.


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## Kent (Dec 1, 2016)

Checking out TAL Sampler now... this looks amazing! Thanks for the recommendation.


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## Kaan Guner (Dec 1, 2016)

Can anyone explain what does 'sounding like an old sampler' means?


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## synthpunk (Dec 1, 2016)

Make sure you try the Vintage emu sampler mode

Also there is a classic vintage free Hollow Sun sample library for the Tal that you can pick up on the TAL site. Thanks to Mario and his crew for making that free.



kmaster said:


> Checking out TAL Sampler now... this looks amazing! Thanks for the recommendation.


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## Kent (Dec 1, 2016)

Kaan Guner said:


> Can anyone explain what does 'sounding like an old sampler' means?


There are at least two things I meant by this:

1. Some patches, through high-profile use, have very distinctive sounds - e.g. Liquid Stacks, SARARR, Shakuhachi, Orch 5 - that, through their use or through the use of sound-alikes, evoke a certain era and sound world, implied or outright.

2. Samplers back then were much more limited than, say, Kontakt 5.6. Limited bitrates, small RAM, one sample or few samples mapped across a full keyboard, A/D and/or D/A converters, methods for dealing with aliasing, and many other technical details gave 80s samples a sound unfamiliar in today's hi-fi orchestral sample market.

Other people probably mean something similar, but perhaps their ideas are a little more exact than mine.


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## synthpunk (Dec 1, 2016)

I still have a couple Roland S760's in the closet if anyone wants 1 p.m. me  actually they were quite good sounding so it might not quite be that 12-bit vintage sound that you're looking for


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