How to sample

[P.Noccio]

In the last showcase there was a discussion about what DAW u should use for composing or for sampling.. I'm a composer and I work with FL, but FL seemed to be better for samples than for composing.. Today I was watching Stevie Wonder videos on youtube and then I saw this song named That girl and it sounded pretty easy to sample.. So I tried to work with a sample.. When I started I didn't know what to do.. so I just chopped the song (probably in a harder way than neccesary) and pasted it in the same order as the original song, put a pella over it to listen what it would sound like.. I made this out of it:
(you can stop listening till the first chorus
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=670306&songID=6776274
It sounds allright, but I want to give it more of myself.. how do y'all do that?
Find out what tones are used and play some yourself or only mess with the sample?
peace

 

[2GooD Productions]

I cant sample a track without adding extra composition to make it my own.
Whether its taking a sample and composing with that(ie long string sample) or using synths to compose with, its neither here nor there, the process is pretty much the same.
Load patch or sample, play, tweak, play, tweak.......record, tweak some more then add fx to taste.
I think your composition ability will help you out a lot. Find the key of the sample, then mess around in the scale according to that key, using your ears for what sounds right. Thats my method anyway, in a nutshell.
For as many producers there are there are as many methods to go with them.
Thats just one method.
When sampling try to get the chops as clean as humanly possible, no clicks or distortions and synced up nicely.

 

[P.Noccio]

So u can play the sample u use on the piano just by listening, or do you try on your keyboard wich note sounds good and wich sounds bad.. and for chords, how do u do that? I know how to play the melody in my sample, but I couldn't find out the right chords.. (in that case I shouldn't have picked Stevie)

 

[Griffin Avid]

I think it's too open a question. If the question is how to inject more of yourself into your production then I'd say focus on the sample itself and realize why you sampled it in the first place. If the melody is what caught you (I'm assuming that since you said you put the chops in the same order as the original song) then reconstruct that melody using your own sounds or better yet- build off that melody to create your own interpretation.

Lots of producers manipulate samples to the point of being unrecognizable.
Re-ordering those chops is a common workflow. Anyone can experiement and try different stuff. It's your own ear that will tell you when to keep going and when to stop.

I don't want to nick-pick, but you should have some idea of what your producer sound would/will be even if it's a vague description and you haven't really been able to flesh it out fully. For producers who arent sure what that would be I always ask them What would you like for people to say when they describe your music?

Don't think about it from the perspective that your career is over as a summary or don't think of it as 300 records later. Think as if you've just done a whole album or a project and this is about their first impression. What qualities would they be praising? What's you signature? What is The You in your music?


So you don't mean COMPOSER, composer. You mean you tinker on the keyboard. In that case, I'd say dispense with the sample. You can always look for that song as MIDI and/or study the actual notes as sheet music anyway.

 

[2GooD Productions]

You can always look for that song as MIDI and/or study the actual notes as sheet music anyway.

I learned a lot doing just that.

 

[Tr3ydeeze]

If you can get your hands on Recycle 2.1 that might help out when its comes to chopping up samples and you can load them up intoprograms FL or into the NNXT in reason.

 

[Rackoon]

If you can get your hands on Recycle 2.1 that might help out when its comes to chopping up samples and you can load them up intoprograms FL or into the NNXT in reason.

I like Recycle for its straight forward convenience...Open up wav, use pencil to chop, export to recycle file and open it up in Guru or whatever program your using...

The only thing I don't like about recycle is its Zoom resolution....You cant get the precision of, for example "WaveLab" in terms of zooming....

I drifted away from Recycle cuz it was a step too much in my workflow..I just chop right away in Guru..

 

[savage_g]

Never really got recycle. Always found it wasn't precise enough, making it pretty pointless if you've gotta go edit all the hitpoints manually anyway; it aint exactly hard work chopping a break up in soundforge.

 

[The Arkitekt]

i just chop in edison right on FL, edison is not that bad at all, actually very good for chopping n shit, its also good that its inside FL cause after you chop you can just drag everything into FL instead of exporting a bunch of wavs n shit

 

[Tr3ydeeze]

I like Recycle for its straight forward convenience...Open up wav, use pencil to chop, export to recycle file and open it up in Guru or whatever program your using...

The only thing I don't like about recycle is its Zoom resolution....You cant get the precision of, for example "WaveLab" in terms of zooming....

I drifted away from Recycle cuz it was a step too much in my workflow..I just chop right away in Guru..

Yea I hope they fix that one day. If I cant chope something up they way I really want it I jusy put the samples in the NNXT and fine tune it according to start and end points for the sample. Im thinking of tryin out some other softeware myself I might check out soundforge