Specifications

NN-XT SAMPLER
161
Managing Zones and
Samples
Creating a Key Map
When you add an NN-XT sampler to the rack, its key map display is always
empty. That is, it contains no samples.
To create a new key map, proceed as follows:
1. Either click the Browse Samples button, select Browse Samples
from the Edit menu or select Browse Samples from the NN-XT’s
context menu.
This will bring up the regular Reason file browser.
The Browse Samples button.
2. Select the sample or samples that you want to load in the browser
and click “OK”.
The selected sample(s) are loaded into the NN-XT.
When new samples are loaded into the NN-XT they have the following proper-
ties:
• Each sample is placed in its own zone.
• Each zone spans a key range of five octaves on the keyboard - C1 to C6.
• All the newly added sample(s)/zones are automatically selected.
• The first added zone gets edit focus.
A key map with four newly added samples.
Setting Root Notes and Key Ranges
The next step after loading the samples is most likely to adjust the key range,
root note and tuning of the samples, so that they play sensibly across the key
range. There are many ways of doing this, described on page 164 and onwards.
However, we will here briefly describe a procedure for quickly creating a com-
plete key map out of a set of loaded samples.
This example assumes that the samples you load is a set of multisamples for a
pitched instrument (like guitar, piano, flute etc.).
1. Load the samples.
2. Use “Select All” on the Edit menu to select all the loaded samples.
3. Use “Set Root Notes from Pitch Detection” to automatically set up
the root notes (pitches) for the samples.
4. Select “Automap Zones” from the Edit menu.
All the selected zones will now be arranged automatically into a basic key map.
You can now proceed with adjusting the synth parameters on the front panel to
shape the sound!
About File Formats and REX Slices
The NN-XT can import various types of samples:
D Standard Wave files
These have the extension “.wav”. This is the standard audio file format for the
PC platform. Any audio or sample editor, regardless of platform, can read
and create audio files in Wave format. Any sample rate and practically any
bit resolution is supported.
D Standard AIFF files
These have the extension “.aif” and this is the standard audio file format for
the Mac platform. Again, any audio editor can read and create audio files in
this format. Any sample rate and practically any bit resolution is supported.
D SoundFont samples
This is a standardized data format containing wavetable synthesized audio
and information on how it should be played back in wavetable synthesizers -
typically on audio cards. SoundFont banks are hierarchically organized into
different categories: User Samples, Instruments, Presets etc. The NN-XT
lets you load single samples from within a Soundfont bank.
D REX file slices
A slice is a snippet of sound in a REX File (see page 153). To import a REX
slice, browse to a REX file and open it as if it was a folder. The browser will
then display the slices as files inside that “folder”. In the rest of this manual,
when we refer to importing samples, all that is said applies to REX slices as
well.
! If you want files to play back with their original bit depth - if higher
than 16-bits - make sure to activate “Use High Resolution Samples”
on the General page in the Preferences dialog. Otherwise, samples
will be played back as 16-bit files in NN-XT regardless of their origi-
nal bit depth. See the Getting Started book for more details.