Our friend Larry Nelson from Emu/Ensoniq sends us this handy tip on one of the hippest features of the new Emu samplers:
Many of you have purchased your Emu Ultra sampler from Sweetwater Sound by now and have no doubt enjoyed the auto-looping, tempo calculating swing editing, and real-time time compression/expansion of Beat Munging. If you haven’t tried Beat Munging yet, your Ultra sampler (e6400 Ultra, ESynth Ultra and E4XT Ultra) will analyze a rhythmic passage, figure out it’s tempo, loop the sample and allow you to dial in your new tempo while it’s playing back in Real Time! You can also adjust swing and remove 1/8th notes, creating (for example) a 7/8 groove with no kick on beat 1 out of a 4/4 groove! Beat Munging saves you a ton of time producing effective loops that are in tempo with your music. No metronome required.
Most of you have used it primarily for drum loops, but please, don’t stop there! Try what I did: I broke out my trusty pre-MIDI Korg PolySix, fired up the arpeggiator and started a sampling session. I sampled many different arpeggiations and used Beat Munging to do my looping and tempo calculations. I matched them all to drum loops at 140bpm. I then dusted off the Micro Moog and did the same thing using the Sample and Hold feature of that piece. I ended up, after only 45 minutes of sampling with twenty-something usable loops, all at the same tempo, perfect for my new project.
If you haven’t tried Beat Munging yet, do this:Load “Lily Loves Ultra” from your Demos folder on your E4 Production Set CD ROM.Press “Sample Edit” The first sample that appears will be a loop.Press “Tools 4”.Press “BeatM” and the E4 will do the dirty work.On The Beat Munge page, press “Play,” highlight the tempo, turn the data wheel and the tempo will change. Also experiment with adding or subtracting swing, making the loop length longer as well as removing beats (those “x”s).
Beat Munging is not only a fun tool; it’s a useful tool. Experiment. It works quickly so you can get the interesting results you need and try it on something else. It was designed with drum loops in mind, but that can’t stop us from trying whatever we want, can it? Have fun.