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Chapter 9 EXS24 mkII 170
Use polyphonic unison mode
m Click the Poly and Unison buttons.
In Poly/Unison mode, each played note is eectively doubled, or—more correctly—the
polyphony value of the Voices parameter is halved. These two voices are heard when you trigger
the note. Selecting Poly and Unison has the same eect as setting the EXS24 mkII to Mono and
Unison with Voices set to 2, but you can play polyphonically.
Set the number of voices
m Drag the Voices eld to determine the maximum number of voices (polyphony) that EXS24 mkII
can play.
The Used eld is a real-time monitor that indicates the number of voices in use when you play
the keyboard. If the Voices and Used elds show the same value most of the time (causing voices
to drop out), set a higher Voices value.
EXS24 mkII crossfade parameters
The crossfade (Xfade) parameters enable you to crossfade between layered samples—known as
zones in EXS24 mkII—with adjacent velocity ranges.
When you assign a sample to a zone, you can set the lowest and highest MIDI note velocity that
will trigger that zone. The area between these values is known as the zone’s velocity range. You
can layer zones—dierent samples—on the same keyboard note, and trigger them individually
by playing at dierent velocities. For example, imagine the following two layered samples, zone 1
and zone 2, on MIDI note A#2:
•
Zone 1 is a sample of a snare drum hit lightly and a little o-center. It has a MIDI note velocity
range of 24 to 90.
•
Zone 2 is a sample of a snare drum hit hard in the center of the drum head. It has a velocity
range of 91 to 127.
In this example, the maximum velocity range value of zone 1 and the minimum velocity range
value of zone 2 are adjacent. If you play note A#2 at velocities above or below a value of 90,
you will clearly hear each sample being triggered. To make this transition less abrupt, use the
crossfade parameters to smoothly fade between each zone. When you have distinctly dierent
audio samples in adjacent zones, you will nd crossfading very helpful in creating realistic-
sounding sampler instruments.