Misplaced Pages

#223776

126-495: A sampler is an electronic musical instrument that records and plays back samples (portions of sound recordings ). Samples may comprise elements such as rhythm, melody, speech, sound effects or longer portions of music. The mid-20th century saw the introduction of keyboard instruments that played sounds recorded on tape, such as the Mellotron . As technology improved, cheaper standalone samplers with more memory emerged, such as

252-670: A ROM with four megabytes of 16-bit PCM tones — a large amount at the time — including instruments that had not been used extensively in mainstream music. The sounds include sampled attack transients , loops , sustained waveforms and percussive samples. The timbres include piano, strings, acoustic guitar, woodwinds, sitar, kalimba, wind chimes and drums. Fact described the sounds as "wonderfully, endearingly wonky ... each one managed to sound simultaneously realistic and synthetic all at once". The M1 also features effects, including reverb , delay , chorus , tremolo , EQ , distortion , and Leslie simulation, an innovative inclusion at

378-424: A bank approach, each instrument is assigned to a different MIDI channel and multiple banks can be stored to reconfigure the sampler. A different and more powerful approach is to associate each instrument with a patch number or ID so that each MIDI channel can be configured separately by sending controller information on the individual channel. Many samplers work as described above: the keymapping system "spread out"

504-492: A bone flute to signal the start of a hunt does so without thought of the modern notion of "making music". Musical instruments are constructed in a broad array of styles and shapes, using many different materials. Early musical instruments were made from "found objects" such as shells and plant parts. As instruments evolved, so did the selection and quality of materials. Virtually every material in nature has been used by at least one culture to make musical instruments. One plays

630-481: A whole-tone scale . These excavations, carried out by Leonard Woolley in the 1920s, uncovered non-degradable fragments of instruments and the voids left by the degraded segments that, together, have been used to reconstruct them. The graves these instruments were buried in have been carbon dated to between 2600 and 2500 BC, providing evidence that these instruments were used in Sumeria by this time. Archaeologists in

756-435: A "loop crossfade" is indicated, allowing less obvious transitions at the loop point by fading the end of the loop out while fading its beginning in. Keymaps are arranged into instruments . At this level parameters may be added to define how the keymaps are played. Filters can be applied to change the sound-color while low frequency oscillators and envelope generators can shape the amplitude, pitch, filter or other parameters of

882-423: A better historical picture. Until the 19th century AD, European-written music histories began with mythological accounts mingled with scripture of how musical instruments were invented. Such accounts included Jubal , descendant of Cain and "father of all such as handle the harp and the organ" ( Genesis 4:21) Pan , inventor of the pan pipes , and Mercury , who is said to have made a dried tortoise shell into

1008-451: A challenge. Despite even the efforts of two organized international summits attended by noted composers like Hector Berlioz , no standard could be agreed upon. The evolution of traditional musical instruments slowed beginning in the 20th century. Instruments such as the violin, flute, french horn, and harp are largely the same as those manufactured throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Gradual iterations do emerge; for example,

1134-523: A digital filter (18 dB/octave), an LFO, and two ADSR envelope generators (for amplitude and filtering). The S1000 also offered up to 8 different loop points. Additional functions included Autolooping, Crossfade Looping, Loop in Release (which cycles through the loop as the sound decays), Loop Until Release (which cycles through the loop until the note begins its decay), Reverse and Time Stretch (version 1.3 and higher). Other samplers released by AKAI include

1260-435: A drastic increase in the number and variety of musical instruments. However, identifying and classifying the instruments remains a challenge due to the lack of artistic interpretations. For example, stringed instruments of uncertain design called nevals and asors existed, but neither archaeology nor etymology can clearly define them. In her book A Survey of Musical Instruments , American musicologist Sibyl Marcuse proposes that

1386-813: A fiddle would; both were prominent folk instruments in the Middle Ages. Southern Europeans played short and long lutes whose pegs extended to the sides, unlike the rear-facing pegs of Central and Northern European instruments. Idiophones such as bells and clappers served various practical purposes, such as warning of the approach of a leper . The ninth century revealed the first bagpipes , which spread throughout Europe and had many uses from folk instruments to military instruments. The construction of pneumatic organs evolved in Europe starting in fifth-century Spain , spreading to England in about 700. The resulting instruments varied in size and use from portable organs worn around

SECTION 10

#1732855590224

1512-430: A frequency range up to 40 kHz and up to 750 kB of memory that allowed for just under 12 seconds at the best sampling rate. It could store a maximum of 32 samples in memory. The operating system was software based and allowed for upgrades that had to be booted each time the sampler was switched on. The Akai MPC60 Digital Sampler/Drum Machine and MIDI Sequencer (1988) was the first non-rack mounted model released. It

1638-540: A great relief of Amenhotep III , and are of particular interest because similar designs have been found in far-reaching places such as Tbilisi , Georgia and among the Native American Yaqui tribe. The people of Mesopotamia preferred stringed instruments , as evidenced by their proliferation in Mesopotamian figurines, plaques, and seals. Innumerable varieties of harps are depicted, as well as lyres and lutes,

1764-732: A long violent period of war and destruction. This period saw the Kassites destroy the Babylonian empire in Mesopotamia and the Hyksos destroy the Middle Kingdom of Egypt . When the Pharaohs of Egypt conquered Southwest Asia in around 1500 BC, the cultural ties to Mesopotamia were renewed and Egypt's musical instruments also reflected heavy influence from Asiatic cultures. Under their new cultural influences,

1890-557: A maximum sampling rate of 27.7 kHz, a four-octave keyboard and 128 kB of memory. E-mu Emulator II (1984) was designed to bridge the gap between the Fairlight CMI and Synclavier and the Ensoniq Mirage . It featured 8 notes polyphony, 8-bit sampling, 512kb of RAM (1mb in the EII+ though only accessible as two independent 512kb banks), an 8-track sequencer, and analog filtering. With

2016-460: A melody. In contrast, pre-Columbian South American civilizations in areas such as modern-day Peru , Colombia , Ecuador , Bolivia , and Chile were less advanced culturally but more advanced musically. South American cultures of the time used pan-pipes as well as varieties of flutes, idiophones, drums, and shell or wood trumpets. An instrument that can be attested to the Iron Age Celts

2142-466: A mixture of timbres, a development needed for the complexity of music of the time. Trumpets evolved into their modern form to improve portability, and players used mutes to properly blend into chamber music . Beginning in the seventeenth century, composers began writing works to a higher emotional degree. They felt that polyphony better suited the emotional style they were aiming for and began writing musical parts for instruments that would complement

2268-632: A musical instrument by interacting with it in some way — for example, by plucking the strings on a string instrument , striking the surface of a drum , or blowing into an animal horn. Researchers have discovered archaeological evidence of musical instruments in many parts of the world. One disputed artifact (the Divje Babe flute ) has been dated to 67,000 years old, but consensus solidifies around artifacts dated back to around 37,000 years old and later. Artifacts made from durable materials, or constructed using durable methods, have been found to survive. As such,

2394-433: A pianist playing a piano note or an organist playing a pipe organ ), a sample could be any sound, including "non-musical" sounds such as a typewriter clacking or a dog barking. A reference center pitch indicates the actual frequency of the recorded note. Samples may also be "looped" by defining points at which a repeated section of the sample starts and ends, allowing a relatively short sample to play endlessly. In some cases,

2520-507: A pitched instrument over several keymaps, the transition from one to another may be too noticeable for realistic imitation of the instrument – the art is to make transitions as smooth as possible. Some phrase samplers are more optimised for triggering single "one-shot" sounds such as drum hits. Each keymap spans only a single key, requiring a large number of zones (61 on a five-octave keyboard), each with its own settings. "Phrase sampling" aims to simplify this, particularly on interfaces such as

2646-470: A resolution of 8 bits per sample, at a rate of 24 kHz, and used two 8-bit Motorola 6800 processors (later upgraded to the more powerful 16/32-bit Motorola 68000 ). It was equipped with two six-octave keyboards, an alphanumeric keyboard, and an interactive video display unit (VDU) where soundwaves could be edited or even drawn from scratch using a light pen . Software allowed for editing, looping, and mixing of sounds which could then be played back via

SECTION 20

#1732855590224

2772-418: A sample over a certain range of keys. This has side-effects that may be desirable in some contexts, such as speeding up or slowing down drum loops. However, the higher and lower-pitched parts of such a keymap may sound unnatural. For example, if a harpsichord is sampled in its lower register and then the samples are moved up to very high pitches, the high notes may not sound natural and authentic. When arranging

2898-513: A single sample has been assigned is often called a "keyzone", and the resultant set of zones is called a keymap . For example, in Fig 1, a keymap has been created with four different samples. Each sample, if pitched, should be associated with a particular center pitch. The first sample (Violin G#2) is distributed across three different notes, G2, G#2, and A2. If the note G#2 is received the sampler will play back

3024-608: A unique system of classifying their musical instruments according to their material makeup. In Vietnam, an archaeological discovery of a 2,000-year old stringed instrument gives important insights on early chordophones in Southeast Asia. Idiophones were extremely important in Chinese music, hence the majority of early instruments were idiophones. Poetry of the Shang dynasty mentions bells, chimes, drums, and globular flutes carved from bone,

3150-666: A wider variety of expression. Large orchestras rose in popularity and, in parallel, the composers determined to produce entire orchestral scores that made use of the expressive abilities of modern instruments. Since instruments were involved in collaborations of a much larger scale, their designs had to evolve to accommodate the demands of the orchestra. Some instruments also had to become louder to fill larger halls and be heard over sizable orchestras. Flutes and bowed instruments underwent many modifications and design changes—most of them unsuccessful—in efforts to increase volume. Other instruments were changed just so they could play their parts in

3276-565: Is also not reliable, as it cannot always be determined when and how cultures contacted one another and shared knowledge. Sachs proposed that a geographical chronology until approximately 1400 is preferable, however, due to its limited subjectivity. Beyond 1400, one can follow the overall development of musical instruments over time. The science of marking the order of musical instrument development relies on archaeological artifacts, artistic depictions, and literary references. Since data in one research path can be inconclusive, all three paths provide

3402-563: Is also the first time a sampler with touch sensitive trigger pads was produced by AKAI, giving birth to the popular MPC series of sampler sequencers. The Akai S950 (1988) was an improved version of the S900, with a maximum sample frequency of 48 kHz and some of the editing features of the contemporary S1000. The Akai S1000 (1988) was possibly the most popular 16-bit 44.1 kHz stereo sampler of its time. It featured 16-voices, up to 32 MB of memory, and 24-bit internal processing, including

3528-635: Is among many indications that the Indus Valley and Sumerian cultures maintained cultural contact. Subsequent developments in musical instruments in India occurred with the Rigveda , or hymns. These songs used various drums, shell trumpets, harps, and flutes. Other prominent instruments in use during the early centuries AD were the snake charmer's double clarinet , bagpipes , barrel drums, cross flutes, and short lutes. In all, India had no unique musical instruments until

3654-435: Is misleading to arrange the development of musical instruments by workmanship, since cultures advance at different rates and have access to different raw materials. For example, contemporary anthropologists comparing musical instruments from two cultures that existed at the same time but differed in organization, culture, and handicraft cannot determine which instruments are more "primitive" . Ordering instruments by geography

3780-401: Is misleading, since advancements in musical instruments have sometimes reduced complexity. For example, construction of early slit drums involved felling and hollowing out large trees; later slit drums were made by opening bamboo stalks, a much simpler task. German musicologist Curt Sachs , one of the most prominent musicologists and musical ethnologists in modern times, argues that it

3906-529: Is one of the bestselling synthesizers in history, selling an estimated 250,000 units. Korg's chief engineer, Junichi Ikeuchi, led the hardware engineering design of the M1. Whereas previous synthesizers had shipped with sounds chosen for different markets, the Korg chairman, Tsutomu Kato, and his son Seiki decided that their synthesizers should use the same sounds internationally. Korg assembled an international team to develop

Sampler (musical instrument) - Misplaced Pages Continue

4032-424: Is the carnyx , which is dated to c. 300 BC. The end of the bell, which was crafted from bronze, was into the shape of a screaming animal head which was held high above their heads. When blown into, the carnyx would emit a deep, harsh sound; the head also had a tongue which clicked when vibrated. It is believed the intention of the instrument was to use it on the battleground to intimidate their opponents. During

4158-572: Is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person who plays a musical instrument is known as an instrumentalist . The history of musical instruments dates to the beginnings of human culture. Early musical instruments may have been used for rituals, such as a horn to signal success on the hunt, or a drum in a religious ceremony. Cultures eventually developed composition and performance of melodies for entertainment. Musical instruments evolved in step with changing applications and technologies. The exact date and specific origin of

4284-475: Is used to make musical sounds . Once humans moved from making sounds with their bodies — for example, by clapping—to using objects to create music from sounds, musical instruments were born. Primitive instruments were probably designed to emulate natural sounds , and their purpose was ritual rather than entertainment. The concept of melody and the artistic pursuit of musical composition were probably unknown to early players of musical instruments. A person sounding

4410-547: The Alboka (from Arab, al-buq or "horn") nowadays only alive in Basque Country . It must be played using the technique of the circular breathing. Southeast Asian musical innovations include those during a period of Indian influence that ended around 920 AD. Balinese and Javanese music made use of xylophones and metallophones , bronze versions of the former. The most prominent and important musical instrument of Southeast Asia

4536-572: The Bible and the Talmud . The Hebrew texts mention two prominent instruments associated with Jubal : the ugab (pipes) and kinnor (lyre). Other instruments of the period included the tof ( frame drum ), pa'amon (small bells or jingles), shofar , and the trumpet-like hasosra . The introduction of a monarchy in Israel during the 11th century BC produced the first professional musicians and with them

4662-570: The Chukchi people of the Russian Far East , the indigenous people of Melanesia , and many cultures of Africa . In fact, drums were pervasive throughout every African culture. One East African tribe, the Wahinda , believed it was so holy that seeing a drum would be fatal to any person other than the sultan. Humans eventually developed the concept of using musical instruments to produce melody , which

4788-677: The E-mu Emulator , Akai S950 and Akai MPC . Samples may be loaded or recorded by the user or by a manufacturer. The samples can be played back by means of the sampler program itself, a MIDI keyboard , sequencer or another triggering device (e.g., electronic drums ). Because these samples are usually stored in digital memory, the information can be quickly accessed. A single sample may be pitch-shifted to different pitches to produce musical scales and chords . Often samplers offer filters , effects units , modulation via low frequency oscillation and other synthesizer-like processes that allow

4914-569: The Groove Sampler concept. These devices are renowned for their ease of use, but a few lack the pitch transposition and keyzone mapping capabilities that most samplers have. Some have limits to rendering loops or sound effects samples that are played back at the same pitch they were recorded. Although these machines are equipped with a wide range of built-in effects, a few lack pitch transposition and keyzone mapping that diminishes their utility significantly. The Roland Groove Sampler line includes

5040-524: The Han dynasty . Although civilizations in Central America attained a relatively high level of sophistication by the eleventh century AD, they lagged behind other civilizations in the development of musical instruments. For example, they had no stringed instruments; all of their instruments were idiophones, drums, and wind instruments such as flutes and trumpets. Of these, only the flute was capable of producing

5166-487: The Jiahu site of central Henan province of China have found flutes made of bones that date back 7,000 to 9,000 years, representing some of the "earliest complete, playable, tightly-dated, multinote musical instruments" ever found. Scholars agree that there are no completely reliable methods of determining the exact chronology of musical instruments across cultures. Comparing and organizing instruments based on their complexity

Sampler (musical instrument) - Misplaced Pages Continue

5292-615: The Royal Cemetery in the Sumerian city of Ur . These instruments, one of the first ensembles of instruments yet discovered, include nine lyres (the Lyres of Ur ), two harps , a silver double flute , a sistrum and cymbals . A set of reed-sounded silver pipes discovered in Ur was the likely predecessor of modern bagpipes . The cylindrical pipes feature three side holes that allowed players to produce

5418-480: The ground harp , ground zither , musical bow , and jaw harp . Recent research into usage wear and acoustics of stone artefacts has revealed a possible new class of prehistoric musical instrument, known as lithophones . Images of musical instruments begin to appear in Mesopotamian artifacts in 2800 BC or earlier. Beginning around 2000 BC, Sumerian and Babylonian cultures began delineating two distinct classes of musical instruments due to division of labor and

5544-545: The post-classical era . Musical instruments such as zithers appeared in Chinese writings around 12th century BC and earlier. Early Chinese philosophers such as Confucius (551–479 BC), Mencius (372–289 BC), and Laozi shaped the development of musical instruments in China, adopting an attitude toward music similar to that of the Greeks. The Chinese believed that music was an essential part of character and community, and developed

5670-441: The theremin . Musical instrument classification is a discipline in its own right, and many systems of classification have been used over the years. Instruments can be classified by their effective range, material composition, size, role, etc. However, the most common academic method, Hornbostel–Sachs , uses the means by which they produce sound. The academic study of musical instruments is called organology . A musical instrument

5796-468: The urghun ( organ ), shilyani (probably a type of harp or lyre ), salandj (probably a bagpipe ) and the lyra . The Byzantine lyra, a bowed string instrument, is an ancestor of most European bowed instruments, including the violin . The monochord served as a precise measure of the notes of a musical scale, allowing more accurate musical arrangements. Mechanical hurdy-gurdies allowed single musicians to play more complicated arrangements than

5922-498: The "New Violin Family" began in 1964 to provide differently sized violins to expand the range of available sounds. The slowdown in development was a practical response to the concurrent slowdown in orchestra and venue size. Despite this trend in traditional instruments, the development of new musical instruments exploded in the twentieth century, and the variety of instruments developed overshadows any prior period. Korg M1 The M1

6048-619: The "father" was the bigger or more energetic instrument, while the "mother" was the smaller or duller instrument. Musical instruments existed in this form for thousands of years before patterns of three or more tones would evolve in the form of the earliest xylophone . Xylophones originated in the mainland and archipelago of Southeast Asia , eventually spreading to Africa, the Americas, and Europe. Along with xylophones, which ranged from simple sets of three "leg bars" to carefully tuned sets of parallel bars, various cultures developed instruments such as

6174-454: The 16 pads on the Akai MPC series: the fact that each pad is actually a note is hidden from the user. The sampling engine does not re-pitch samples, it only plays them back. The user interface is simplified. Phrase samplers often have a groovebox format, which makes them lightweight, easy to operate and light to carry. Samplers can be classified by several specifications; Computer Music Inc.

6300-579: The 1980s, hybrid synthesizers began to utilize short samples (such as the attack phase of an instrument) along with digital synthesis to create more realistic imitations of instruments than had previously been possible. Examples are the Korg M1 , Roland U-110 , Yamaha's SY series, and the Kawai K series of instruments. Limiting factors at the time were the cost of physical memory ( RAM ) and the limitations of external data storage devices, and this approach made best use of

6426-562: The 1980s, users on Home computers invented Trackers . Sequencers are software samplers as the real-time resampling is a required capability for the Tracker concept. Since the 1980s, Trackers were able to perform 4-channel resampling in realtime under usage of the Paula Chip on the Amiga . Since the early 1990s Trackers performed on PCs multi-track resampling in realtime as pure software solution. This

SECTION 50

#1732855590224

6552-528: The Fairlight CMI include Peter Gabriel , Herbie Hancock , Trevor Horn , Art of Noise , Yello , Pet Shop Boys , Jean Michel Jarre , Duran Duran and Kate Bush . Horn, considered the "Man who invented the eighties", first used his well-known sampling techniques on the album Adventures in Modern Recording , the second studio album released under the name of his project The Buggles . Saying that he

6678-541: The Japanese/Singaporean Akai Corporation to create samplers similar to the ones created at Linn's own company, Linn Electronics . With this came the first in a series of affordable samplers, the S612, a 12 bit digital sampler module. The S612 was superseded in 1986 by the S900. The Akai S900 (1986) was the first truly affordable digital sampler. It was 8-note polyphonic and featured 12-bit sampling with

6804-776: The Melodian captured all frequency modulation effects, including those produced through the ARP's touch ribbon control. It also could trigger off the ARPs keyboard, thus functioning somewhat as a hybrid of sampler and analog synthesizer and making the most of the technology available at the time. The Synclavier System was an early digital synthesizer and sampler, manufactured by New England Digital. First released in 1977, it proved to be highly influential among both music producers and electronic musicians, due to its versatility, its cutting-edge technology and distinctive sound. Synclavier Systems were expensive –

6930-557: The Middles Ages came from Asia. The lyre is the only musical instrument that may have been invented in Europe until this period. Stringed instruments were prominent in Middle Age Europe. The central and northern regions used mainly lutes, stringed instruments with necks , while the southern region used lyres, which featured a two-armed body and a crossbar. Various harps served Central and Northern Europe as far north as Ireland, where

7056-699: The N-series in 1996. The 01/W built upon the M1’s AI synthesis with the enhanced AI2 system, which introduced additional effects and digital waveshaping . Rack-mountable versions of the M1 include the M1R and the more affordable M3R. Additionally, Korg released the M1EX and the M1REX rackmount, both featuring sounds from the T-series. Korg released a software version of the M1 in 2006 as part of

7182-463: The S01, S20, S700, S2000, S2800, S3000, S3000XL, S3200, S5000, S6000, MPC 500, MPC1000, MPC2000, MPC2000XL, MPC2500, MPC3000, MPC3000XL, MPC3000LE, MPC4000, MPC5000, Z4 and Z8. Roland Corporation manufactured the S series. These were true samplers that provide all of the features described above, including sampling, sample editing, pitch transposition, and keyzone mapping: More recently, Roland introduced

7308-533: The Violin G#2 sample at its original pitch. If the note received is G2 the sampler will shift the sample down a semitone while the note A2 will play it back a semitone tone higher. If the next note (Bb2) is input the sampler will select the Violin B2 sample, playing it a semitone lower than its center pitch of B2. In general, samplers can play back any kind of recorded audio. Most samplers offer editing tools that allow

7434-490: The addition of the hard disk option, the Emulator II was comparable to samplers released 5 years later. E-mu SP-12 (1986) was a forerunner of E-mu SP-1200 . E-mu Emulator III (1987) was a 16-bit stereo digital sampler with 16-note polyphony, 44.1 kHz maximum sample rate and had up to 8 MB of memory. It featured a 16 channel sequencer, SMPTE and a 40 MB hard disk. E-mu SP-1200 (1987) was, and still is, one of

7560-624: The area. Rather, the history of musical instruments in the area begins with the Indus Valley civilization that emerged around 3000 BC. Various rattles and whistles found among excavated artifacts are the only physical evidence of musical instruments. A clay statuette indicates the use of drums, and examination of the Indus script has also revealed representations of vertical arched harps identical in design to those depicted in Sumerian artifacts. This discovery

7686-505: The changes to timbre and volume was a shift in the typical pitch used to tune instruments. Instruments meant to play together, as in an orchestra, must be tuned to the same standard lest they produce audibly different sounds while playing the same notes. Beginning in 1762, the average concert pitch began rising from a low of 377 vibrations to a high of 457 in 1880 Vienna. Different regions, countries, and even instrument manufacturers preferred different standards, making orchestral collaboration

SECTION 60

#1732855590224

7812-560: The cultural contacts seem to have dissipated; the lyre, a prominent ceremonial instrument in Sumer, did not appear in Egypt for another 800 years. Clappers and concussion sticks appear on Egyptian vases as early as 3000 BC. The civilization also made use of sistra, vertical flutes , double clarinets , arched and angular harps, and various drums. Little history is available in the period between 2700 BC and 1500 BC, as Egypt (and indeed, Babylon) entered

7938-496: The evolving class system. Popular instruments, simple and playable by anyone, evolved differently from professional instruments whose development focused on effectiveness and skill. Despite this development, very few musical instruments have been recovered in Mesopotamia . Scholars must rely on artifacts and cuneiform texts written in Sumerian or Akkadian to reconstruct the early history of musical instruments in Mesopotamia. Even

8064-484: The first bowed zithers appeared in China in the 9th or 10th century, influenced by Mongolian culture. India experienced similar development to China in the post-classical era; however, stringed instruments developed differently as they accommodated different styles of music. While stringed instruments of China were designed to produce precise tones capable of matching the tones of chimes, stringed instruments of India were considerably more flexible. This flexibility suited

8190-464: The first lyre . Modern histories have replaced such mythology with anthropological speculation, occasionally informed by archeological evidence. Scholars agree that there was no definitive "invention" of the musical instrument since the term "musical instrument" is subjective and hard to define. Among the first devices external to the human body that are considered instruments are rattles , stampers, and various drums . These instruments evolved due to

8316-804: The first device considered a musical instrument, is widely disputed. The oldest object identified by scholars as a musical instrument, is a simple flute , dated back 50,000–60,000 years. Many scholars date early flutes to about 40,000 years ago. Many historians believe that determining the specific date of musical instrument invention is impossible, as the majority of early musical instruments were constructed of animal skins, bone, wood, and other non-durable, bio-degradable materials. Additionally, some have proposed that lithophones , or stones used to make musical sounds—like those found at Sankarjang in India—are examples of prehistoric musical instruments. Musical instruments developed independently in many populated regions of

8442-454: The first such book was Sebastian Virdung 's 1511 treatise Musica getuscht und ausgezogen ('Music Germanized and Abstracted'). Virdung's work is noted as being particularly thorough for including descriptions of "irregular" instruments such as hunters' horns and cow bells, though Virdung is critical of the same. Other books followed, including Arnolt Schlick 's Spiegel der Orgelmacher und Organisten ('Mirror of Organ Makers and Organ Players')

8568-526: The following year, a treatise on organ building and organ playing. Of the instructional books and references published in the Renaissance era, one is noted for its detailed description and depiction of all wind and stringed instruments, including their relative sizes. This book, the Syntagma musicum by Michael Praetorius , is now considered an authoritative reference of sixteenth-century musical instruments. In

8694-667: The following: Being a division of the Roland Corporation, Boss also contributed to the Groove Sampler/Groove Box concept with several samplers. Most older samplers use SCSI as the protocol for getting sample data in and out of the machine. SCSI interfaces were either standard on the sampler or offered as an option. SCSI provides the ability to move large quantities of data in and out of a sampler in reasonable times. Hard drives, CD-ROM drives, Zip drives and removable cartridge drives such as Syquest and Iomega Jaz drives are

8820-457: The forerunner of modern stringed instruments such as the violin . Musical instruments used by the Egyptian culture before 2700 BC bore striking similarity to those of Mesopotamia, leading historians to conclude that the civilizations must have been in contact with one another. Sachs notes that Egypt did not possess any instruments that the Sumerian culture did not also possess. However, by 2700 BC

8946-543: The forerunners in the 1970s mentioned above, have been used. The first PCM digital sampler for musical production in Japan may be Toshiba 's LMD-649 , created in 1981 by engineer Kenji Murata for Japanese electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra , who used it for extensive sampling and looping in their 1981 album Technodelic . The LMD-649 played and recorded PCM samples at 12-bit audio depth and 50 kHz sampling rate , stored in 128 KB of dynamic RAM . The LMD-649

9072-402: The gods. Greeks played a variety of wind instruments they classified as aulos (reeds) or syrinx (flutes); Greek writing from that time reflects a serious study of reed production and playing technique. Romans played reed instruments named tibia , featuring side-holes that could be opened or closed, allowing for greater flexibility in playing modes. Other instruments in common use in

9198-480: The harp eventually became a national symbol. Lyres propagated through the same areas, as far east as Estonia . European music between 800 and 1100 became more sophisticated, more frequently requiring instruments capable of polyphony . The 9th-century Persian geographer Ibn Khordadbeh mentioned in his lexicographical discussion of music instruments that, in the Byzantine Empire , typical instruments included

9324-505: The highest price ever paid for one was about $ 500,000, although average systems were closer to about $ 200,000 – $ 300,000. Although this made it inaccessible for most musicians, it found widespread use among producers and professional recording studios, and it competed in this market with other high-end production systems, such as the Fairlight CMI . Though scarce, the Synclavier remains in use in many studios to this day. Fairlight Instruments

9450-630: The human motor impulse to add sound to emotional movements such as dancing. Eventually, some cultures assigned ritual functions to their musical instruments, using them for hunting and various ceremonies. Those cultures developed more complex percussion instruments and other instruments such as ribbon reeds, flutes, and trumpets. Some of these labels carry far different connotations from those used in modern day; early flutes and trumpets are so-labeled for their basic operation and function rather than resemblance to modern instruments. Among early cultures for whom drums developed ritual, even sacred importance are

9576-539: The keyboard or the software-based sequencer. It retailed for around US$ 25,000. Fairlight later released the Series IIx, which increased the sampling rate to 32 kHz and was the first to feature basic MIDI functionality. In 1985, the Series III was released with two significant upgrades: bit rate and sampling rate were increased to CD quality (16 bit/44.1 kHz) and SMPTE time code was now supported. Notable users of

9702-574: The latter half of the sixteenth century, orchestration came into common practice as a method of writing music for a variety of instruments. Composers now specified orchestration where individual performers once applied their own discretion. The polyphonic style dominated popular music, and the instrument makers responded accordingly. Beginning in about 1400, the rate of development of musical instruments increased in earnest as compositions demanded more dynamic sounds. People also began writing books about creating, playing, and cataloging musical instruments;

9828-443: The latter of which has been excavated and preserved by archaeologists. The Zhou dynasty saw percussion instruments such as clappers , troughs, wooden fish , and yǔ (wooden tiger). Wind instruments such as flute, pan-pipes , pitch-pipes , and mouth organs also appeared in this time period. The xiao (an end-blown flute ) and various other instruments that spread through many cultures, came into use in China during and after

9954-483: The modern horn or, more colloquially, French horn, had emerged by 1725. The slide trumpet appeared, a variation that includes a long-throated mouthpiece that slid in and out, allowing the player infinite adjustments in pitch . This variation on the trumpet was unpopular due to the difficulty involved in playing it. Organs underwent tonal changes in the Baroque period, as manufacturers such as Abraham Jordan of London made

10080-433: The most advanced dedicated samplers, and also includes features such as a sequencer . Samplers, together with traditional Foley artists , are the mainstay of modern sound effects production. Using digital techniques various effects can be pitch-shifted and otherwise altered in ways that would have required many hours when done with tape. In Japan, since the 1980s, digital samplers using pulse-code modulation (PCM) as on

10206-429: The most highly regarded samplers for use in hip-hop related production. Its 12-bit sampling engine gave a desirable warmth to instruments and a gritty punch to drums. It featured 10 seconds of sample time spread across four 2.5-second sections. E-mu Emax , sold between 1985 & 1995, and aimed at the lower end of the market. E-mu ESI-32 (1994) was a stripped down, far cheaper, and simplified EIIIx, and could use

10332-515: The most influential sampler in hip hop music. That same year, the Ensoniq EPS – the successor to the Mirage – was launched and was the first sampling keyboard which was designed specifically for live performance rather being a purely studio based tool as most samplers had been hitherto. The 2010s-era music workstation usually uses sampling, whether simple playback or complex editing that matches all but

10458-411: The most popular SCSI devices used with samplers. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses, with hard drives being the fastest devices. Modern (after 2000) samplers use solid-state memory cards (such as compact Flash or SmartMedia) for sample storage and transfer. In the 1990s and 2000s, the increases in computer power and memory capacity have made it possible to develop software applications that provide

10584-462: The most popular synthesizer of all time. Fact attributed the success to its sampling and sequencer features, which allowed musicians to produce entire tracks without a studio before the rise of digital audio workstations . Following the success of the M1, Korg expanded its lineup with several series of new workstations, including the T-series in 1989, the 01-series in 1991, the X-series in 1993, and

10710-458: The most profound changes occurred during the Renaissance period. Instruments took on other purposes than accompanying singing or dance, and performers used them as solo instruments. Keyboards and lutes developed as polyphonic instruments, and composers arranged increasingly complex pieces using more advanced tablature . Composers also began designing pieces of music for specific instruments. In

10836-480: The moving tape and plays a sound. The Mellotron was the most notable model, used by a number of groups in the late 1960s and the 1970s, but such systems were expensive and heavy due to the multiple tape mechanisms involved, and the range of the instrument was limited to three octaves at the most. To change sounds a new set of tapes had to be installed in the instrument. The emergence of the digital sampler made sampling far more practical. The earliest digital sampling

10962-400: The music that accompanied wedding and circumcision ceremonies. Persian miniatures provide information on the development of kettle drums in Mesopotamia that spread as far as Java. Various lutes, zithers, dulcimers , and harps spread as far as Madagascar to the south and modern-day Sulawesi to the east. Despite the influences of Greece and Rome, most musical instruments in Europe during

11088-516: The neck to large pipe organs. Literary accounts of organs being played in English Benedictine abbeys toward the end of the tenth century are the first references to organs being connected to churches. Reed players of the Middle Ages were limited to oboes ; no evidence of clarinets exists during this period. Musical instrument development was dominated by the Occident from 1400 on, indeed,

11214-504: The nevel must be similar to vertical harp due to its relation to nabla , the Phoenician term for "harp". In Greece , Rome , and Etruria , the use and development of musical instruments stood in stark contrast to those cultures' achievements in architecture and sculpture. The instruments of the time were simple and virtually all of them were imported from other cultures. Lyres were the principal instrument, as musicians used them to honor

11340-538: The oldest known musical instrument and the only Neanderthal musical instrument. Mammoth bone and swan bone flutes have been found dating back to 30,000 to 37,000 years old in the Swabian Alps of Germany. The flutes were made in the Upper Paleolithic age, and are more commonly accepted as being the oldest known musical instruments. Archaeological evidence of musical instruments was discovered in excavations at

11466-415: The original sound to be modified in many different ways. Most samplers have Multitimbrality capabilities – they can play back different sounds simultaneously. Many are also polyphonic – they are able to play more than one note at the same time. Prior to computer memory-based samplers, musicians used tape replay keyboards, which store recordings on analog tape. When a key is pressed the tape head contacts

11592-533: The people of the New Kingdom began using oboes , trumpets, lyres , lutes , castanets , and cymbals . Unlike Mesopotamia and Egypt, professional musicians did not exist in Israel between 2000 and 1000 BC. While the history of musical instruments in Mesopotamia and Egypt relies on artistic representations, the culture in Israel produced few such representations. Scholars must therefore rely on information gleaned from

11718-766: The period of time loosely referred to as the post-classical era and Europe in particular as the Middle Ages , China developed a tradition of integrating musical influence from other regions. The first record of this type of influence is in 384 AD, when China established an orchestra in its imperial court after a conquest in Turkestan . Influences from Middle East, Persia, India, Mongolia, and other countries followed. In fact, Chinese tradition attributes many musical instruments from this period to those regions and countries. Cymbals gained popularity, along with more advanced trumpets, clarinets, pianos, oboes, flutes, drums, and lutes. Some of

11844-426: The process of assigning names to these instruments is challenging since there is no clear distinction among various instruments and the words used to describe them. Although Sumerian and Babylonian artists mainly depicted ceremonial instruments, historians have distinguished six idiophones used in early Mesopotamia: concussion clubs, clappers, sistra , bells, cymbals, and rattles. Sistra are depicted prominently in

11970-507: The region included vertical harps derived from those of the Orient , lutes of Egyptian design, various pipes and organs, and clappers, which were played primarily by women. Evidence of musical instruments in use by early civilizations of India is almost completely lacking, making it impossible to reliably attribute instruments to the Munda and Dravidian language-speaking cultures that first settled

12096-468: The rising popularity of the guitar. As the prevalence of string orchestras rose, wind instruments such as the flute, oboe, and bassoon were readmitted to counteract the monotony of hearing only strings. In the mid-seventeenth century, what was known as a hunter's horn underwent a transformation into an "art instrument" consisting of a lengthened tube, a narrower bore, a wider bell, and a much wider range. The details of this transformation are unclear, but

12222-448: The same capabilities as hardware-based units. These are typically produced as plug-in instruments – for example, using the VST system. Some such samplers provide relatively simple sample playback facilities, requiring the user to turn to other software for such tasks as sample editing, sample recording, and DSP effects, while others provide features beyond those offered by rack-mounted units. In

12348-615: The same samples. The unit could accommodate up to 32 MB RAM, 32 note polyphony and sounds could be routed internally to one of four polyphonic outputs. Via optional SCSI interface, the ESI-32 could access external CD-ROM, Zip-100 , and hard drives. Akai entered the electronic musical instrument world in 1984 when Roger Linn , the creator of the Linn LM-1 , the Linn 9000 , and the LinnDrum , partnered with

12474-405: The scores. Trumpets traditionally had a "defective" range—they were incapable of producing certain notes with precision. New instruments such as the clarinet , saxophone , and tuba became fixtures in orchestras. Instruments such as the clarinet also grew into entire "families" of instruments capable of different ranges: small clarinets, normal clarinets, bass clarinets, and so on. Accompanying

12600-399: The singing human voice. As a result, many instruments that were incapable of larger ranges and dynamics, and therefore were seen as unemotional, fell out of favor. One such instrument was the shawm. Bowed instruments such as the violin , viola , baryton , and various lutes dominated popular music. Beginning in around 1750, however, the lute disappeared from musical compositions in favor of

12726-421: The sixteenth century, musical instrument builders gave most instruments – such as the violin – the "classical shapes" they retain today. An emphasis on aesthetic beauty also developed; listeners were as pleased with the physical appearance of an instrument as they were with its sound. Therefore, builders paid special attention to materials and workmanship, and instruments became collectibles in homes and museums. It

12852-692: The slides and tremolos of Hindu music. Rhythm was of paramount importance in Indian music of the time, as evidenced by the frequent depiction of drums in reliefs dating to the post-classical era. The emphasis on rhythm is an aspect native to Indian music. Historians divide the development of musical instruments in medieval India between pre-Islamic and Islamic periods due to the different influence each period provided. In pre-Islamic times, idiophones such as handbells , cymbals, and peculiar instruments resembling gongs came into wide use in Hindu music. The gong-like instrument

12978-466: The sound. Instruments may have multiple layers of keymaps to play more than one sample at the same time and each keymap may have a different set of parameters so that the incoming note-events affect each layer differently. For example, two layers may have a different sensitivity to the velocity of the incoming note, altering the resulting timbre according to how hard the note is played. At this level, there are two basic approaches to sampler organization. In

13104-431: The sounds for the M1. To create a deep blown bottle sound, the team played a pan flute over a large sake bottle. The M1 features a 61-note velocity- and aftertouch -sensitive keyboard, 16-note polyphony , a joystick for pitch-bend and modulation control, an eight-track MIDI sequencer , separate LFOs for vibrato and filter modulation , and ADSR envelopes . Data can be stored on RAM and PCM cards. The M1 has

13230-465: The specimens found cannot be irrefutably placed as the earliest musical instruments. The Divje Babe Flute is a perforated bone discovered in 1995, in the northwest region of Slovenia by archaeologist Ivan Turk. Its origin is disputed, with many arguing that it is most likely the product of carnivores chewing the bone, but Turk and others argue that it is a Neanderthal -made flute. With its age estimated between 43,400 and 67,000 years old, it would be

13356-501: The stops more expressive and added devices such as expressive pedals. Sachs viewed this trend as a "degeneration" of the general organ sound. During the Classical and Romantic periods of music, lasting from roughly 1750 to 1900, many musical instruments capable of producing new timbres and higher volume were developed and introduced into popular music. The design changes that broadened the quality of timbres allowed instruments to produce

13482-425: The time. According to Sound on Sound , none of the M1's features were unique, but were implemented and combined in a new way. The M1 was released in 1988 and was manufactured until 1995, selling an estimated 250,000 units. Reviewing it for Sound on Sound in 1988, Tony Hastings wrote that it was "destined to be big, very big", with "sensational" sounds and extensive features that outperformed its competitors. It

13608-483: The tiny amount of memory available to the design engineers. The E-mu SP-1200 percussion sampler, upon its release in August 1987, popularized the use of digital samplers within hip hop music in the late 1980s. Akai pioneered many processing techniques, such as crossfade looping and "time stretch" to shorten or lengthen samples without affecting pitch and vice versa. The Akai MPC60 , released in 1988, went on to become

13734-425: The user to modify and process the audio and apply a wide range of effects . This makes the sampler a powerful and versatile musical tool. A sampler is organized into a hierarchy of progressively more complicated data structures. At the bottom lie samples , individual recordings of any sound, recorded at a particular sample rate and resolution. While a common sound to sample is a musical instrument being played (e.g.,

13860-502: The world. However, contact among civilizations caused rapid spread and adaptation of most instruments in places far from their origin. By the post-classical era , instruments from Mesopotamia were in maritime Southeast Asia , and Europeans played instruments originating from North Africa . Development in the Americas occurred at a slower pace, but cultures of North , Central , and South America shared musical instruments. By 1400, musical instrument development slowed in many areas and

13986-457: Was E-mu Systems' initial foray into sampling, and saved the company from financial disaster after the complete failure of the Audity due to a price tag of $ 70,000. The name 'Emulator' came as the result of leafing through a thesaurus and matched the name of the company perfectly. The Emulator came in 2-, 4-, and 8-note polyphonic versions, the 2-note being dropped due to limited interest, and featured

14112-589: Was "quite fascinated by Fairlight brass and all of those kind of things that Geoffrey and I had started messing around with before he went off to join Asia", the sampling techniques on Adventures would later be used for records Horn produced like Slave to the Rhythm by Grace Jones , Art of Noise 's The Seduction of Claude Debussy and Frankie Goes To Hollywood 's Welcome to the Pleasuredome . E-mu Emulator (1981)

14238-546: Was a bronze disk that was struck with a hammer instead of a mallet. Tubular drums, stick zithers ( veena ), short fiddles, double and triple flutes, coiled trumpets, and curved India horns emerged in this time period. Islamic influences brought new types of drum, perfectly circular or octagonal as opposed to the irregular pre-Islamic drums. Persian influence brought oboes and sitars , although Persian sitars had three strings and Indian version had from four to seven. The Islamic culture also introduced double- clarinet instruments as

14364-546: Was also used by other Japanese synthpop artists in the early 1980s, including Chiemi Manabe and Logic System . Usually a sampler is controlled by an attached music keyboard or other external MIDI controller or source. Each note-message received by the sampler accesses a particular sample. Often multiple samples are arranged across the keyboard, each assigned to a note or group of notes. Keyboard tracking allows samples to be shifted in pitch by an appropriate amount, typically in semitones and tones. Each group of notes to which

14490-409: Was dominated by the Occident . During the Classical and Romantic periods of music, lasting from roughly 1750 to 1900, many new musical instruments were developed. While the evolution of traditional musical instruments slowed beginning in the 20th century, the proliferation of electricity led to the invention of new electric and electronic instruments, such as electric guitars , synthesizers , and

14616-506: Was done on the EMS Musys system, developed by Peter Grogono (software), David Cockerell (hardware and interfacing) and Peter Zinovieff (system design and operation) at their London (Putney) Studio c. 1969. The system ran on two mini-computers, Digital Equipment PDP-8 's. These had a pair of fast D/A and A/D converters, 12,000 (12k) bytes of core memory ( RAM ), backed up by a hard drive of 32k and by tape storage (DecTape). EMS equipment

14742-455: Was during this period that makers began constructing instruments of the same type in various sizes to meet the demand of consorts , or ensembles playing works written for these groups of instruments. Instrument builders developed other features that endure today. For example, while organs with multiple keyboards and pedals already existed, the first organs with solo stops emerged in the early fifteenth century. These stops were meant to produce

14868-410: Was first used by Stevie Wonder on his album Stevie Wonder's Journey Through "The Secret Life of Plants" (1979). The Melodian was a monophonic synthesizer with 12-bit analog-to-digital sampling at rates up to 22 kHz. It was designed to be compatible with analog synthesizers and had a feature allowing it to synchronize to the pitch of an analog synthesizer, such as an ARP 2600 . This meant that

14994-502: Was out of reach for the majority of working musicians – with the early Fairlight starting at $ 30,000. The E-mu Emulator brought the price down to under $ 10,000 but it was not until the mid-1980s that genuinely affordable keyboard samplers began to hit the market with the Ensoniq Mirage in 1985 and the E-mu Emax the following year, which had a sub-$ 2000 price point. The Korg DSS-1 and Roland's S-Series followed shortly afterwards. During

15120-524: Was possible under the usage of highly optimized assembly code , an early example is the InertiaPlayer released in 1993. A recent PC Tracker with good sampler capabilities is for instance the Renoise Tracker. Musical instrument A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds . In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it

15246-513: Was previously common only in singing. Similar to the process of reduplication in language, instrument players first developed repetition and then arrangement. An early form of melody was produced by pounding two stamping tubes of slightly different sizes—one tube would produce a "clear" sound and the other would answer with a "darker" sound. Such instrument pairs also included bullroarers , slit drums, shell trumpets , and skin drums. Cultures who used these instrument pairs associated them with gender;

15372-486: Was started in New Jersey United States in 1972 by Harry Mendell and Dan Coren. The company was established to develop and market musical instruments based on computer software. The Melodian, developed in 1976, was based on Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP-8 computer. It included hand-wired digital-to-analog and analog-to-digital conversion functions, as well as tracking anti-aliasing filters . The Melodian

15498-570: Was started in Sydney, in 1975 by Peter Vogel and Kim Ryrie . The company was originally established as a manufacturer and retailer of video special effects equipment. The Fairlight CMI or Computer Music Instrument, released in 1979, started life as the Qasar M8. The M8 was handwired and legend has it that it took two hours to boot up. The CMI was the first commercially available polyphonic digital sampling instrument. The original Fairlight CMI sampled using

15624-571: Was the gong. While the gong likely originated in the geographical area between Tibet and Burma , it was part of every category of human activity in maritime Southeast Asia including Java . The areas of Mesopotamia and the Arabian Peninsula experiences rapid growth and sharing of musical instruments once they were united by Islamic culture in the seventh century. Frame drums and cylindrical drums of various depths were immensely important in all genres of music. Conical oboes were involved in

15750-740: Was used to control the world's first digital studio (EMS London (Putney) Studio), and their earliest digital sampling was done on that system during 1971–1972 for Harrison Birtwistle 's " Chronometer " released in 1975. The first commercially available sampling synthesizer was the Computer Music Melodian by Harry Mendell (1976), while the first polyphonic digital sampling synthesizer was the Australian-produced Fairlight CMI , first available in 1979. These early sampling synthesizers used wavetable sample-based synthesis . Sampling keyboards were notable for their high price which

15876-470: Was widely used in popular music and stock music in the late 80s and early 90s. The piano and organ presets were used in 1990s house music , beginning with Madonna's 1990 single " Vogue ". In 2002, the Sound on Sound journalist Mark Vail wrote that the M1 was the bestselling synthesizer in history, though he noted that Korg had not verified the sales figures. Both Sound and Sound and Fact described it as

#223776