MV Kit Creator™ Basic Concepts

The fundamental goals of the MV Kit Creator™ are:

• Create customer drum kits, loops, and chromatic instruments for the MV-8000/8800
• Maintain an organized database structure of percussive and chromatic sounds
• Allow a more organized way of viewing MV-8000/8800 Instruments
• Allow offline methods to handle and audition .mv0 files
• Reduce the natural duplication of MV-8000/8800 samples due to the monolithic format

In this document, "MV-8000" will refer to both the Roland MV-8000 and the MV-8800. .mv0 files used on both instruments are the same.

The term "right-click" is used for both control clicking on the Mac and right clicking on both the Mac and Windows.

Also, most of the screenshots in this document are from the Mac - the Windows versions look very similar so this shouldn't be an inconvenience.

Projects
When you start up MV Kit Creator™, you are always building a Project. (Don't confuse this with an MV-8000 Project, which is a song and instrument setup on the MV itself.)

A Project is simply the equivalent of a MV-8000 Instrument, only it can access any WAVE or AIFF file on your computer, or any sample inside a .mv0 file.

Projects can be saved on your disk as small files, since they reference external samples.

Important Concept: you are NEVER working with a .mv0 file in MV Kit Creator™. When you load a .mvo file, you are loading it into a Project. Although a Project is mostly the equivilant of a .mv0 file, it is a Project and NOT a .mv0 file. When you click the menu File-Save, you are saving a MV Kit Creator™ Project (.mv8project).

What does this mean? It means that when you use MV Kit Creator™, feel comfortable working with Projects. When you want to output to .mv0, select Export to .mv0 under File.

Each Project has a name, which is printed in main screen at the top of the interface. You can rename it using Tools-Rename Project or right-click on the Project name itself.

For more information on Projects, go to the Project chapter in this document.

Building Instruments
The purpose of a Project is to build an Instrument (that is, an .mv0 file) to use in your MV-8000. You use the Pads on the Main Interface to arrange samples in the fashion you want them to appear.

You can import samples using a variety of methods - dragging samples from outside or inside your application, using the database, using right-click menus, or importing an entire .mv0 file. The Sound Database in particular is well integrated into MV Kit Creator™ and offers an excellent way to organize and build your Instruments.

For more information on importing samples to build Instruments, go to the Importing Samples To Pads chapter in this document. For more information on the Sound Database, go to the Sound Database Editor chapter in this document.

Playing Back Projects/Instruments
MV Kit Creator™ comes with an integrated multisample streaming playback engine. "Streaming" means that it does not rely wholly on loading samples into memory like the MV-8000 does, but plays the sample back from the disk as needed. This is very handy as it reduces load time to nothing, and you are more able to build and work with instruments without the engine trying to "keep up".

This is the first generation of the streaming engine, and as a result simply plays back the samples and reproduces the tuning, looping, level, and playback attributes. Realtime parameters such as Envelopes, LFO's, Filtering, and similar partial parameters will not be reflected when playing the pads via MIDI or by clicking on the Pads. The streaming playback engine has not been developed to that point yet, although we are working toward it and will be implemented in later versions of this software.

For more information on Playback, go to the Playback/Auditioning chapter in this document.

Editing Partial and Patch Parameters
The MV-8000 has a full complement of parameters that affect your sounds, and the MV Kit Creator™ is fully able to edit these parameters. For more information on editing Partials, Patches, and other parameters, go to the Partial/Patch Editor in this document.

Saving MV-8000 .mv0 Files for use in the MV-8000
When you are all done and happy with your Project, it should be time to export it to a .mv0 file to use in your MV-8000. Use File-Export to .mv0 to create a new .mv0 file from your Project.