How to sample

[test_recordings]

Hits. I mostly just really want drum hits so I can make decent breakbeats out of them. I've seen videos of people just going backwards and forwards on the same break to get a different rhythm and it sounds great, I can see the selection of the loop changing in real time because it's automated. I've found a 3 minute long drum solo and I know I should be able to cut it up to sound good, but no results so far...

[nowaysj]

Well that depends on the technology that you are using. There are software devices like IL's slice-x that take a bit of audio, detect the transients, like drum hits, and sets markers for each hit. Then, those markers are playable by programmed or played midi notes. There are a multitude of devices like this. Within the Kontakt sampler, there is a similar device that finds hits and makes them accessible by midi. Reaktor has devices like this as well.

But there are many other ways to handle audio.

You can cut the drum hits, and just put them in a sampler, like kontakt, and map each sample to a midi note then play or program them.

Or you can cut your hits, and just work with them as audio. Most of the daws have an arrange page, or a playlist where audio and midi tracks are laid out. Cubase, imo, excels at this type of treatment, though flstudio has certain advantages to this workflow. So here you just draw in each hit when you want it. I find this type of treatment gives you the greatest control as there is no intermediary software/device between you and the audio. If you want to fade a particular tail, you just do it with automation, you can even fade at a particular zero crossing, or whatever.

From the sound of it, going forward and backward through a loop... sounds like there is something like that slice-x device or something.

But this is where the art is in this type of music. Taking and re-purposing audio is where you reveal your particular aesthetic as an artist. Some people will leave all the air in the beat, all that room noise and verb, and even augment it with compression to bring up the quiet parts, or others might cut real tight against the hit, and pull out all that ambiance. Some people will use large chunks of the drum passage, while others will snip just sections of transient and lay them over other individual hits or parts of hits. Some people will stack two or more entire drum lines on top of each other. There are lots of ways to do this.

Again, you're still asking kind of a broad question, like how do I make music. Best thing is to start doing it, and see what works for you. Just because you are not getting results, doesn't mean you are doing it in the wrong way, it just means when you hear really quality emotive breaks, the person who produced them was skilled and likely talented. I personally believe in having an audio editor that you are really quick with, and laying out the audio and working directly with it in an arrange/playlist page. Others prefer those intermediary devices primarily because they are faster, though maybe less control. Gotta run.

[wub]

I've always used Audacity for hit sampling. Find the travel controls easier to use in terms of the shortcuts etc, plus the workflow is quicker, easier to add tails etc on the volume for samples etc. Also it uses so little CPU that if I've got a few samples from the same source, it's no strain on the system to have multiple instances open to drop different sounds in as required.

[test_recordings]

Thank you very much! Didn't know about the possible options available, other than software that slices at transients (I think FL had a good program for that) or manually choose cut points in an audio editor like Audacity. That's why it seems like I'm asking a broad question... I just don't know how much there is to deal with! I assumed the word 'sampling' meant getting the audio cut up in to hits and stuff, not then editing those samples (that would be 'how to use samples' in my mind). Quick google searches pretty much just give me that kind of stuff as well.

Looks like I'll be loading in the audio and manually cutting each hit because I want to learn how to do it. I suppose it depends on the type of audio I've got to deal with, not everything will work the same way I suppose.

Okay, I think I got the answer to the question now, thank you very much everyone...

[nowaysj]

I've always used Audacity for hit sampling. Find the travel controls easier to use in terms of the shortcuts etc, plus the workflow is quicker, easier to add tails etc on the volume for samples etc. Also it uses so little CPU that if I've got a few samples from the same source, it's no strain on the system to have multiple instances open to drop different sounds in as required.

Time to buy the dl version of fl wub, and update your workflow in fl. Fl is a program that has gotten much better over the last 4/5 years. No jokes. And not really like feature bloat, but just easier to do what you need to do in making music. In particular I'm talking about Edison, fl's audio editor. I cut samples at the individual sample level, extremely quickly. Like really really fast, like it is not a thing. I think I want that and a few seconds later I have audio dragging and dropping into whatever I'm doing. I've been recommending updating for a few years now, and I'm not going to stop! It is a game changer!

[wub]

Time to buy the dl version of fl wub, and update your workflow in fl. Fl is a program that has gotten much better over the last 4/5 years. No jokes. And not really like feature bloat, but just easier to do what you need to do in making music. In particular I'm talking about Edison, fl's audio editor. I cut samples at the individual sample level, extremely quickly. Like really really fast, like it is not a thing. I think I want that and a few seconds later I have audio dragging and dropping into whatever I'm doing. I've been recommending updating for a few years now, and I'm not going to stop! It is a game changer!

Edison, Slicex et al are fine and dandy.

But Audacity I can have on my work laptop and sample when I'm stuck in calls I don't need to pay attention on.


Also, legit since 08 bee-yatch

[nowaysj]

You've said stuff in the past about the synths included with fl such as morphine, etc., and none of those synths were included with legit fl at any purchase tier. That is neither here nor there, though, just why I said what I said.

God bless and let's make music.

[wub]

You've said stuff in the past about the synths included with fl such as morphine, etc., and none of those synths were included with legit fl at any purchase tier. That is neither here nor there, though, just why I said what I said.

XXL Producer pack on FL8. Here's a screen dump of my email confirmations from ImageLine;

God bless and let's make music.

[nowaysj]

[SunkLo]

DOCTORED! Back then their email name was "The Fruity Loops Team"

[wub]

Away with ya

[Jizz]

sampling is like peeling a banana to reveal inner sounds that could be consumed however you please

[nowaysj]

Almost everything I do is sampled or resampled. Almost everything passes through an audio editor. S'why having a speedy editor is important to me. I wish though that edison allowed you to use vst's, to apply vsts to audio, that would be very nice. Again, cubase ftw, but again, fuck those guys, ftl.

[Jizz]

I gotta give props to the Ableton sampler, it is just perfect. Its pretty much the sole reason why I switched to Ableton. The best thing about it is the layout, it doesnt jump out at you with a load of options as to how to edit a sample; but at the same time it does have all the fundamental features that every sampler should have

[nowaysj]

Cosign, it is a good simple sampler.

[SunkLo]

Doesn't have timestretching though FOR FUCKS SAKES!
So close to being perfect but that blew it.

[nowaysj]

Ableton's whole premise is rubberized audio.

[SunkLo]

Yeah you'd think they'd have that ability within their sampler. If I have a percussive loop that I'm trying to tune, it goes out of time as it gets pitched. Only option is to render it out and then warp it back into time. Huge boner kill. They should just have the ability to unlink the pitch and time and tweak both separately.

[wub]

I wish though that edison allowed you to use vst's, to apply vsts to audio, that would be very nice.

Have two instances of Edison, one to playback and another to capture, with the effects in the middle of the signal chain. Set the record to input trigger and away you go.

[nowaysj]

Yeah, I do that, but in cubase, you can just select a bit of audio and effect just that section. I can imagine myself going apeshit with this kind of workflow. Just doing a lot of fx chopping. The thing is with the edison technique, you've got to stitch everything back together, you know? I'd rather (and do) create whole fx versions from a piece of audio. And then in the playlist cut and stitch, so it is more like I've got a pallet of approaches to a particular passage, and then dabble them in where necessary. If that makes any sense, am really run down at the mo.