Rapture

I have imported my own sounds into rapture and they work, but I cannot figure out how to make them a continuous note like the pads, I have been trying for ages to figure it out and I think it must be how I saved the Wave files. It must be very easy to do and I must be very stupid, but it someone could help Ill be very gratefull

Thanks for the quick reply

I lowered it to less than 3000 samples and it worked, the only problem is it losses the main sound that I wanted. I have recorded a cymbal but now I have lowered the samples its become more beepy sounding, I assume acidizing wav files would sort this out, I have heard of that before but have no idea as how to do it, if you could point me in the right direction.

oh BTW im using sonar 6, so if it could be done with that it would be alot easier.

Larry's right: this could get crazy, especially with a cymbal sound. It has a defined attack, that you want to keep, but the sustaining/release portion has a lot of complexity in the overtones. It going to be a real chore to pick looping points that sound realistic, and some of the same characteristics make it difficult to synthesize outright, from basic wavetables and ring modulation, for example.

I tried to search for something more current, but here's a quick explanation from [this page].

SAMPLE LOOP POINTS

Looping is a technique that lets a synthesizer sustain a note for longer than the original sample recording. Most percussion instruments are not looped; when you strike a drum or cymbal, the sound goes through a predictable cycle of attack followed immediately by a decay until it has faded out completely. But most pitched instruments require you to define the start and end loop points if they are to be played in a sampler.

Loop points let you establish how much of the sample's waveform is played initially, and what later portion of the same wave will be repeated continuously for the remainder of the note's duration. Thus, you hear the start of the sample when the note first sounds, and then the area within the loop boundaries is played repeatedly for as long as the note is held. This is shown in Figure 2. Without looping, every sample file you record would have to extend for at least as long as the longest note you intend to play later. Looping lets you record only the first few seconds of each note, and any notes that need to sustain longer will do so by continuously repeating a portion of the Wave file ...

Setting loop points is easy for simple waveforms such as an acoustic guitar or saxophone: You establish where the loop begins and ends, being careful that the splice makes a smooth transition back to the earlier part of the waveform. However, for complex waveforms, such as a string or horn section, or a vocal group singing "Aah," the waveform will not repeat predictably within a single cycle. And if the loop ending point does not segue smoothly back to the starting boundary, you'll hear a repeated thumping or buzzing sound each time the loop repeats.

SFZ editing has quite a bit of a learning curve, and you really should have an idea of where you want to go with a sample first. An audio editor is certainly the way to go with this. Audacity is free, and there's a lite version of Sound Forge (Audio Studio) that does a lot for the money. IIRC, there's a free or low-cost version of Sony Acid Studio that has some sample looping tools.

Edit: Are we getting this right? You have a full-length cymbal sample, but it doesn't sound long enough, and you'd like it to extend longer, like a pad? If that's the case, you might try following it with a aircraft carrier, canyon, chamber-type reverb (inline, or split to a buss), and follow the reverb with a high-ratio compressor/limiter. That might draw it out long enough for you before it disintegrates into the noise floor. In Rapture, set the KeyTrack to 0 in the Multisample editor, if you don't want it changing from the original pitch.

I think you've helped me with my problem but I am a bit of a begginer at this so I might not of understood you.

So far I have made a few finnished songs that I am very pleased with using the rapture presets, I want to start putting my own sounds into my music so I can play the sounds on my Midi Controller, the sounds are fine when I load them to rapture but when I press a key it plays it through once, I want to get the cymbal sound so it plays for infinty untill I release the note not just to extend it, like the pad presets and alot of the others.

Also while I have been messing around trying to do that I noticed that the .wav files they use in the presets like "000 - sine.wav" are 0 seconds long and make a clicking noise when you open them with widows media player but when you load it into rapture it is a constant note that gos on forever when you hold the note down, suggesting to me that it is how im saving the file that is the problem.

I hope that is more clearer now, I will have a look at audacity because that seems like what I need but correct if im wrong now that I have hopefully explained my problem better.

I have tried that at first it did not load the file but I messed around a bit and it did, I have it set like this:

<region> sample=cymbal.wav
Loop_start=5,000
loop_end=40,000

I think it might of just been that I didnt have .wav at the end.

It still plays once through tho and not in an infinte loop.

It finally worked, thanks for all the help I am really gratefull.

btw what I eventually put in the sfz was:

<region> sample=cymbal.wav
loop_mode=loop_continuous
loop_start=5000
loop_end=40000

Just in case anyone else has a similar problem.