Recording - August 2010 - 49

Organization—4 modes At its simplest, Playa can be used as a sound source with well over 400 instruments to choose from, one at a time (per instantiation if used from within a DAW). An instrument is a multi-sample that has been assigned to keys/pitches over an appropriate range. You click the down-arrow (top right), a browser window opens, you select an instrument (all in the proprietary .SVX format), its name appears in the field (top right), and you trigger sounds according to the currently active mode. Keys Mode: After you click on the Keys button, your mouse can trigger sounds by clicking on either the pads (with their individually programmed functionalities) or the on-screen keyboard, but your external MIDI controller ignores any pad settings and plays MIDI notes from Playa’s synthesizer directly. Pads Mode: The pads make things more interesting. You enter the Pads Mode by clicking on the Pad button, and now incoming MIDI notes adress the pads. An individual pad can be assigned to a MIDI note number and is programmed as to how that note is triggered and retriggered. The setup for all 16 pads can be saved as a layout, and this is independent from any sounds; so—for example—you set up your pads for the way you like to play drumkits, and as long as the drumkits are consistent in their MIDI note assignments, you can breeze through different kits always knowing what to

expect from each pad. The sounds will change as you change kits, but your preferred “kick 1” pad will always trigger a kick. The blue circular mock-LED always tells you the pad layout and the currently active pad. It lacks contrast and is not that easy to read. Map Mode: This takes the pads to a new level—in Map Mode you can assign MIDI notes to individual pads, more than one note if you wish, for playing preset chords or multiple drum-hit combos from single pads. Learn Mode: A quick and easy way to synchronize external MIDI controllers with Playa pads, for example to line up your Akai MPC’s pads with the Playa pads. The sounds I hate to pierce the Hip Hop veil, but despite its attitudinous marketing image, Playa is not the bad-boy Hip Hop kid it likes to portray. I almost doubt if Playa ever wears the cap turned around or askew... The sounds are great, and even if Hip Hop is not what floats your boat, you should look into Playa just the same. Want some angelic ooh and aah samples? Playa’s got them. How about ‘80s Dyno-My-Piano Fender Rhodes for your David Foster ballads? Yep, check. Sweet orchestral strings? That, too. Even a few exotic ethnic sounds. Sure, there are tons of hard-hitting drum sounds, fat and funky basses, guitars and synth leads or pads—there’s a lot of everything except wind instruments.

The quality is uniformly good, and if there’s one that comes close but wins no cigar, make it fit then save it. Here’s how. The extras The 5-slider AHDSR envelope shaper is a quick and easy way to make a sound behave the way you want it to. Is a sweet strings sound a bit too harsh at the beginning of notes, and dies too abruptly? Attack and Release are your friends. Too much pick at the beginning of bass notes? Slow down the attack by a whisker. Not enough pick? Move over to the 4-band eq and raise up the treble a tad. Then explore the Effects section, adjusting parameters for chorus and delay. Finally, adjust the master parameters Pan and Level, tune and transpose as needed, and try the pitch and mod wheel. Now that’s tricky with the mouse, but good enough to hear what it might sound like by the time you do it from a real MIDI controller. Summary Playa owes me a couple of nights’ sleep, it’s that much fun. I first played it in standalone mode, then I loaded it up into several DAW tracks (Cubase 4 LE as it happens, on a MacBook running Mac OS X 10.5.8). It sounds great and is really easy to use in either mode—and its sound choices go way beyond the immediate needs of Hip Hop.

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Recording - August 2010

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