Tascam 4 user manual Creating a Giga Instrument

Chapter 2: Creating a Giga Instrument

Giga instruments can range from the very simple (an instrument can be made from a single sample) to the extremely complex. In any case, the general procedure for creating an instrument consists of the same basic steps:

1.Create a new, empty file in the Giga Editor.

2.Import the samples your instrument will use. Samples are imported from individual .wav files. The editor will bundle the samples into the .gig file with the instrument when you save your work.

3.Create the regions on the keyboard to which your samples will be mapped. A region spans one or more contiguous notes.

4.Define dimensions and their splits in the keyboard regions. This is optional, but without dimensions a region can play back only a single sample. Much of the power of the Giga instrument design derives from the fact that many samples (currently up to 256) can be mapped to a single region, while MIDI control and intelligent MIDI rules determine which of those samples will sound at any given moment.

5.Map your samples into the regions you have created.

In practice, the last three steps are often combined into a single action. For example, dragging and dropping a group of samples into the Region Window can automatically create a region for each sample, while simultaneously mapping the samples to the regions. Dropping a second set of samples into the Velocity Window can automatically create a velocity split in each region, while mapping the new samples to the upper or lower portion of the velocity range. For more complex instruments, the Instrument Wizard can be used to create multidimensional instruments and map many sets of samples in a single operation.

For the sake of illustration, this chapter focuses on the simpler and frankly more tedious ways to assemble a Giga instrument. As you gain familiarity with the Editor, you’ll learn how to perform many of these tasks in much more efficient ways.

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