Multisampling a Real Piano for the EP-40 Riddim
A piano has 88 keys. An EP-40 multisample has eight zones. Here's how to choose which notes to sample, where to place them, and how to handle a piano's long decay so it plays convincingly across the keyboard.
A real piano is one of the trickiest things to multisample well. It spans a huge range, every note has a long decay, and the tone shifts a lot from the lowest string to the highest. The EP-40 gives you up to eight zones and about 20 seconds of total sample time, so the whole game is choosing your samples wisely.
This guide is about strategy: which notes to capture and how to lay them out. For the mechanics of building the multisample, see How to Make Multisamples for the EP-40 Riddim.
You're sampling 8 notes, not 88
With eight zones, you sample roughly one note per zone and let the EP-40 pitch-shift the keys in between. A sensible starting layout is one sample every octave or so across the range you care about, say from a low C up to the top of where you'll actually play.
Pitch-shifting a sample too far starts to sound unnatural, so space your samples to keep any key within a handful of semitones of the nearest one.
Capture more detail in the low end
Pianos change character most dramatically down low. Those long, rich bass strings sound very different from the bright top octaves. And pitching a low sample up exposes the stretch more than pitching a high sample down.
So weight your zones towards the bottom: narrower zones, sampled more often, in the low range, and wider zones up top. With only eight zones to spend, spend them where the ear notices most.
Record at one consistent dynamic
EP multisamples have no velocity layers, one sample per zone, chosen by pitch rather than by how hard you play. So record every note at the same medium dynamic, a comfortable mezzo-forte. Mix soft and loud captures and the instrument will jump in tone from zone to zone. Pick one dynamic that sits well and hold it across all eight samples.
Handling the decay
This is the part people get wrong. A piano note rings for a long time, but you've only got about 20 seconds total across all your samples, so you can't keep full-length decays for eight notes.
Two ways to handle it. The simple one is short, natural captures: record a couple of seconds of each note, enough to hear the attack and the start of the decay, and let the EP-40's envelope handle the tail. Easy on your sample budget. The other is a looped sustain: if you want notes to hold, set a loop in the sustained part of each sample so it rings out, with the loop points at zero crossings so the seam doesn't click.
For most EP-40 piano parts, stabs, chords and riffs, the short-capture approach is plenty and keeps things tidy.
Save memory where you can
Eight piano notes adds up. To stay inside the budget, go mono (a piano part rarely needs stereo on the EP-40, and mono roughly halves the size), and trim each sample tight, cutting the silence before the attack and any tail you're not using. Prepare all eight in one pass with the Batch Processor before you build the multisample.
Putting it together
- Record or source about eight notes across the range, one consistent medium dynamic, mono.
- Trim and level them in the Batch Processor.
- Build the multisample, weighting zones towards the low end, with correct root notes.
- Short captures for stabs, looped sustain for held parts.
- Send it to the EP-40 and play it in.
If a note sounds out of tune once it's on the device, it's almost always a root-note mismatch. See Fixing Detuned or Clicking EP-40 Multisamples.
Get started
EP-PatchStudio is free to download, with multisample creation included.