Term is used in reference to a synthesizer or sampler that uses sample data for the raw building blocks of the sound generation. It is a means to assign each sample to a particular key or range of keys. So a piano keymap would theoretically have each tone from the entire piano keyboard mapped to exactly the same keys on the synthesizer or sampler. A second keymap might contain similar information, except that each note was sampled using a stronger/lighter strike of the piano keys. Of course, it is not always necessary to assign one sample per key. In fact one could assign a single sample across the entire keymap. Different manufactures refer to keymaps by other names, such as Key Group or multi-sample.