Working with samples.

[John Isige]

Hi all.

So I've got a thing called the Optical Organ Toolkit, that essentially let's you recreate an Optigan.

https://optigan.com/product/optigan-orchestron-talentmaker-the-optical-organ-toolkit/

This has wav files for all of the samples, and also nki files. But since Native's stuff isn't really accessible in this way, I'm thinking of trying to set up something in Logic. I have a keyboard and a Novation Launchpad X, but really you can probably just think of that as another keyboard, because forthis I assume it will just be triggering midi notes, unless it's got something special it can do with Logic. In order to understand this, you need to know a bit about how the Optigan works.

It has a keyboard, 37 keys I think, and then a set of buttons and switches. The buttons trigger loops. The switches can also trigger loops that are either one shots or loops. So OK, the 37 keys are easy, you just map the sampled notes, organ, clarinet, whatever to those keys. Now we get to the loops.

The chord loops need to, I think, stop triggering when a new one comes in. The other loops, the intros and one shots, probably need to toggle on and off. How would I go about starting to set something like this up? I assume I'd need to use the sampler. I assume we can do that? The basic mapping shouldn't be hard, set the keyboard to some octaves and do the keys, set the Launchpad to send different octaves, and map the loops to what the pads generate. But I have no idea how to start going about this. Like I said, you can also ignore the Launchpad part and just assume it's on a single keyboard, say the highest 37 keys for the keyboard, then a gap, and then some lower octaves for the loops.

Here's a demo that hopefully explains what I'm talking about. I have all of the samples, and I want to map keys to keys and the buttons and switches to pads on the Novation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg1D_7Rjauo

[TheOreoMonster]

Have you use the LaunchPad yet? If not you will need to go into the settings and set the Velocity mode to a higher value. By default the launch pad is so touch sensitive that it will trigger at the  slightest touch. Great as a sighted person, not so great as a blind person who needs to put their hands on the pad and fine a pad before pressing it to trigger. Unfortunately this setting has to be changed on the hardware it self and may required sighted assistance. That being said once you make the change, the component software for the Novation Hardware devices is pretty accessible so mapping things to the pads should be pretty straight forward after that.

This sound like a job for Drum Machine Designer. You can load samples on pads and the pads are mapped to notes automatically so you can play them on a keyboard. You can put loops you want to stop triggering when another starts in the same exclusive groups. Because of the name Drum Machine Designer  most think of it for only drums but it’s a great tool for triggering one shot samples or loops of all kinds.

I have playlist of Drum Machine Tutorials here that should help get you started.

The sampler is self is somewhat limited accessibility wise, and probably not the way I’d approach the workflow you are discussing if I understood your desires correctly anyways.  The Quick Sampler could be useful but Drum Machine Designer which is Essentially a control interface for a bunch of quick sampler instances is the way to go I feel. 

-T.O.M
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[John Isige]

Awesome, thanks! I've got sighted assistance if I need it, my wife is pretty amazing about that stuff. Actually, loops might not have to turn off other loops. The switches on the original are rockers, so one way makes them a one shot, the other way makes them loop continuously. So for those, you'd need a set of five pads that can play when pushed and keep playing until they're pushed again, and another set of five that just did one shots.

But the chord buttons you'd hold down on the original, which I forgot about. So if you trigger the C major loop of a choir or whatever, you'd just hold that pad, and then let go of it and transition to G or F7 or whatever.

The optigan was sort of like a chord organ, if anybody remembers those, except instead of having reeds sort of like an accordion and just playing chords when you hit a button, it triggers samples, choirs, little rhythmic chord vamps, that kind of thing. In fact, very much like a drum machine yes. This starts out with some drum beats but at about 40 seconds in you get to hear a singing loop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eMj21t0G6g

So stuff like the singing loops would be in keys, major chords on the first row, minor on the second, seventh on the third, and it might have had another, I'd have to look through the sets. So you'd trigger those loops and play the melody over them using the keyboard. The switches that rocked between one shots and loops were little intros or turnarounds, if I remember rightly.

On Aug 29, 2025, at 3:09 PM, TheOreoMonster <theoreo...@logic.band> wrote:

Have you use the LaunchPad yet? If not you will need to go into the settings and set the Velocity mode to a higher value. By default the launch pad is so touch sensitive that it will trigger at the  slightest touch. Great as a sighted person, not so great as a blind person who needs to put their hands on the pad and fine a pad before pressing it to trigger. Unfortunately this setting has to be changed on the hardware it self and may required sighted assistance. That being said once you make the change, the component software for the Novation Hardware devices is pretty accessible so mapping things to the pads should be pretty straight forward after that.

This sound like a job for Drum Machine Designer. You can load samples on pads and the pads are mapped to notes automatically so you can play them on a keyboard. You can put loops you want to stop triggering when another starts in the same exclusive groups. Because of the name Drum Machine Designer  most think of it for only drums but it’s a great tool for triggering one shot samples or loops of all kinds.

I have playlist of Drum Machine Tutorials here that should help get you started.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/logic-accessibility/9A7D45B9-7F25-4E6A-96BC-6258738A0631%40logic.band.