4. “Sampling” Feature
While the Rack Extensions SDK does not support sampling or sample loading directly,
your RZ-i can playback your own custom samples at the rate and bit depth of the original
RZ-1 drum machine: 20KHz / 8bit mono. Behind this feature is the Quadelectra Audio to
String Interchange Conversion technology from the acronym of which (QASIC) this device
takes half of its name, being the first to employ it.
Quadelectra ASIC packs one or more sounds to a plain Rack Extension patch file, which
can be saved or loaded from the device itself, much like any other patch. However since
as we've said before there is no direct way to record, add or remove samples in Rack
Extensions, a third party application must be used to collect and pack all the needed
samples.
Quadelectra provides you this application, called QASIC RZ-i Sample Importer, free of
charge, and you can download it from our website. In this manual we won't examine the
importer application – it has its own manual too, but we'll examine how the sampling
memory is used.
Following its hardware counterpart, the RZ-i supports four banks, each 4096 bytes. At
8bit mono and 20KHz sampling frequency each bank translates roughly to 205ms of
audio. They are called -as you'd expect- SAMPLE1, SAMPLE2, SAMPLE3 and SAMPLE4.
Another original feature that the original device had and its passed to QASIC RZ-i is the
ability to change the bank configuraton, and merge banks in order to increase the
available sample length, in the cost of the number of available samples. The bank
configuration cannot be done directly from the device, but rather from the Sample
Importer application.
There are 5 different bank configurations:
•
All Split: All banks split. You get 4 samples, 4096 bytes / 205ms each.
•
1-2 Joined: Banks 1 & 2 are merged: You get 3 samples. Samples 1 & 2 are
merged thus you get one sample with 8192 bytes / 410ms each, and samples 3 &
4 are split with properties same as in “All Split”.
•
3-4 Joined: The same as “1-2 Joined” but in this configuration Samples 3 & 4 are
merged.
•
Pairs Joined: Both sample pairs are merged: Samples 1 with 2, and 3 with 4. This
gives you 2 samples, 8192 bytes / 410ms each.
•
All Joined: All banks are joined. This gives you 1 sample with a total of 16384
bytes / 820ms.
Note that joined samples play the same sound from start. So for example one big sample
from an “All Joined” configuration will cause SAMPLE1, 2, 3 & 4 to play the same 820ms
long sample.
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