Sampling all the instruments from my Yamaha keyboard?

[Samulis]

(03-24-2018, 11:58 PM)Lee B. James Wrote: Samplit sounds great. Do you happen to know if it can automatically detect where the original samples are placed on the keyboard and how they're distributed - so that it ONLY retains the original samples rather than the modulated versions? (If that makes sense?)

The way it works is that it sends the MIDI signal to the keyboard of the note you want (say, Middle C, otherwise known as MIDI Note 60, or either C3 or C4 depending on manufacturer). While it does this, it records whatever comes into the audio input of your interface until it fades to a certain volume OR a time has elapsed (so you don't record a looped sound forever for no good reason). It knows the note it sent, so it maps it to that pitch inside the software. When you go to export the instruments, all the notes should be at the pitches they are supposed to be.

So no, you have to manually figure out where the original samples are. I don't think there's a software in the world that could reliably do that task to be honest. You can make a good guess, but there's no 'tag' to know unless you understand exactly how the sampler functions.

My recommendation is to 'over-sample', say, chromatically. You could then try to find the 'original' sample pattern (typically in the middle of a range of identical/repitched samples, but not always!), then delete the repitched notes and stretch out the original samples like the original keyboard, but, so long as you don't have tight RAM limitations, there's not really any downside to just leaving it over-sampled at wholetone (every other halfstep) or chromatic, especially if you're just recording one or two velocities for a few seconds each.

(03-24-2018, 11:58 PM)Lee B. James Wrote: This is interesting because latency is something I seriously do not want. Having used a variety of different VSTis now, I have found that some of them are so slow, they are unusable, sometimes it seems like they're as much as 100ms out of sync, which makes playing impossible.

However, other VSTIs seem far less laggy, with barely any perceptible delay. (Generally, the smaller and less RAM-intensive, the less delay there seems to be.)

So I'm not sure whether I have a latency problem or not. Yes, I do get delays with some instruments, but not with others, which surely suggests that my motherboard is handling things fine and it's the VSTis that are dodgy?

I'm likely going to get a cheap sound card anyway, for the sake of MIDI input/output. Will any sound card with ASIO solve all latency problems? Or is it the case that the more you spend the better the latency will be?

I tend to recommend the Focusrite Scarlett series, the 2i4 being the most minimal. They sound quite decent (I sampled instruments with 1st generation Scarlett interfaces for years) and are inexpensive in a market where you could easily spend north of $1,000. However, they are slightly more expensive than some competitors for the same I/O, but one might be able to argue they sound a little better than some of those as well.

If you want to shop around a bit, there are also similar I/O options in the same price range ($100-200) from Behringer (U-Phoria UMC204HD), Presonus (AudioBox iTwo & Studio 2|6 USB 2x4), Steinberg (UR22mkII), Tascam (US-2X2), Mackie (Onyx Producer 2-2), M-Audio (M-Track 2X2M), and probably half a dozen other models from various manufacturers.

At the end of the day, it's mostly subjective, but spending a little extra often means better internals, which equates to better sound capture and reproduction. Honestly, with what capturing an old keyboard, it's not like you're going to be pushing any of these cards very hard.

Even the cheapest of these 'entry level' professional devices is leagues better than the majority of consumer sound cards in terms of signal-to-noise ratios, linearity, clock accuracy, and preamp performance. While these don't matter as much recording from line signals, if you ever want to record yourself talking into a mic or playing an instrument live, any of these will make a significant difference over what's on your motherboard, not to mention let you use XLR-cable microphones, including powered condenser microphones.