DAW based samplers - what creative parameters for quick access?

[Polytrix]

Hi Everyone :)

 

I'm slowly working my way through a shed load of my Zoom samples, slicing out the good bits and putting the final samples into a drum rack containing 'nested' samplers in Ableton. So this means I can use one pad for upto 127 samples and I cycle between then via macros in Ableton.

 

I've mapped pitch transposition, ADSR, Velocity-Volume and sample volume from the sampler to the rack's macros but I think it would be good to map more things so I can do creative tweaks live other than volume envelope stuff.

 

What aspects of a sample to you automate/generally twiddle with for creative effect?

 

I'm new to sampling but really enjoy it. It feels great to be creating with your own sounds...something I've always wanted to achieve.

 

I listen to a lot of Aphex and Squarepusher and I think there is a lot of glitchy sounds created via sampler parameter manipulation so what else would you consider? I'm hoping to use this rack as the basis for all my Zoom recordings ever so I want to get it right.

 

CHEERS

[awepittance]

real-time beat slicing can go a long way with long field recordings (especially percussive ones like hitting different objects all in succession)

sample re-triggering is an older-school way of doing stutter/glitch sounds with samples. Battery has a particularly good re-trigger function

[logakght]

Hi Everyone :)

 

I'm slowly working my way through a shed load of my Zoom samples, slicing out the good bits and putting the final samples into a drum rack containing 'nested' samplers in Ableton. So this means I can use one pad for upto 127 samples and I cycle between then via macros in Ableton.

 

I've mapped pitch transposition, ADSR, Velocity-Volume and sample volume from the sampler to the rack's macros but I think it would be good to map more things so I can do creative tweaks live other than volume envelope stuff.

 

What aspects of a sample to you automate/generally twiddle with for creative effect?

 

I'm new to sampling but really enjoy it. It feels great to be creating with your own sounds...something I've always wanted to achieve.

 

I listen to a lot of Aphex and Squarepusher and I think there is a lot of glitchy sounds created via sampler parameter manipulation so what else would you consider? I'm hoping to use this rack as the basis for all my Zoom recordings ever so I want to get it right.

 

CHEERS

which zoom are u using?

[Polytrix]

H4N

 

Thanks for quick replies :) I made a tune today purely with the 72 samples I sliced up and finalized! Love it. Sounds industrial due to a metal coffee thing being smashed with a metal spoon and a kick made from dropping an empty plastic milk bottle. Problem is, I have too many recordings.

[Guest]

Problem is, I have too many recordings.

 

that's why I sold my zoom recorder eventually :) .

[Danny O Flannagin]

I use ableton and just thought it might be cool to map the "loop" on/off button on short clicky sounds then maybe fuck around with the sample length knob. Could make some weird out of time hi hat sounds

[awepittance]

in terms of beat slicers Recycle is still the most accurate, but the least convenient. Fruity Slicer is still really fucking great. Ableton Slice to track is probably among the worst transient detectors i've seen in the modern era fyi (in case anyone wanted to try slicing for the first time in Live, don't let Live's horrible idiot proof algorithm dissuade you from trying the technique in a software made over 10 years before that is 10x more advanced)

[Guest]

Fruity Slicer is still really fucking great.

 

The code for that in fruity is from the same dude that made zero-x beat quantizer ( http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/nov04/articles/beat.htm).

 

 

Pretty unique multi-track slicer/wave editor with some unorthodox extras to mangle the slices.

[Polytrix]

Wicked. Thank you.

 

I'm slowly working my way through my Zoom samples and I made an entire tune yesterday purely from the new slices.

 

Disappointed Live's slice function aint great. I just manually chop and arrange it in Arrange view...turn the snap to grid off and you can get accurate.

 

I suppose I don't know what you mean regarding 'slicing' processors really.

[awepittance]

slicing programs were originally designed for chopping up drum breaks. So say you have a like a 4 measure drum loop where every snare hit, hi hat and bass drum were slightly different sounding (like any natural live recording of a drum loop would be) and you don't want to manually go in and make a separate sound for every 'hit' a program like Recycle (or what Live is supposed to do, but does poorly) will take that long loop and automatically detect every 'transient' or hit and export each one as an individual wave file. This is useful is you are planning things in advance, to use in a sampler like Drum racks later. What i prefer to do for improvising or experimenting with samples in long form is to use real-time beat slicer plugins like Fruity Slicer, phatmatik pro or the Reaktor slicer so that instead of exporting a bunch of individual percussion samples these plugins let you load in a long wave file with many percussion hits and using Midi piano roll to trigger which part of the sample is playing based on transient detection.

[Polytrix]

I see. That sounds really good. I might have to get one of those programmes then.

 

Out of interest, how do you do this without an extra programme in Live? You mention 'slice to track' but I'm unsure I've ever seen that command in Live.

 

I realise you can auto locate warp markers and I know it auto detects the transients in Live when you load up an audio file onto a track but to go through and launch separate parts of that track using a midi controller, I believe you would have to cut the desired parts into separate WAV files and then load those onto a drum rack for midi triggered playback.

 

Thanks though. I'll look into Fruity Slicer.

[Polytrix]

Ah right, you mean the audio-midi conversion thing in Live right?

[Polytrix]

But yeah, which VST works well for real time slicing in Live?

[psn]

But yeah, which VST works well for real time slicing in Live?

 

Liveslice.

 

http://www.livelab.dk/liveslice.php

[pizza]

Ah right, you mean the audio-midi conversion thing in Live right?

right-click on a drumloop -> slice to track.

 

I never use it, I prefer to slice my breaks manually to get them reeeally precise, throw them in a Drum Rack and set up parameters like tune/finetune, adsr, stuff like that. like you're doing, basically. then save as a template if it's something I might use several times (like an Amen).

[Polytrix]

Cool. Thanks man.

 

Out of interest @pizza, with the method you mention, how are you pitch transposing the individual slices as you trigger them?

 

Are you just hitting the same pad/key to trigger the original sound and then adjusting transposition via a midi controller or mouse arrow?

 

It occurred to me the other day that unless you treat the sample on an individual track on an exclusive basis in a simpler/sampler, only that way can you map the transposition over a midi keyboard. I suppose you could simply have multiple instances of the same slice set at different transpose parameters on a drum rack and trigger them using different pads too...

 

Also, in Session view you can change what happens when you 'launch' a clip via the Launch envelope thing on a clip, you can also edit launch quantization, legato, velocity. Wouldn't it be good to be able to access this stuff from within a drum rack when the samples are already sliced and waiting to be triggered. I noticed I can't access the other cool stuff which you can on an individual audio clip basis also....warp modes, reverse, speed etc (sample options)....

 

I've got all my samples loaded onto a drum rack with nested sampler devices on each pad and I drop all the samples into the Zone area of the Sampler....I can't seem to get to these options after that's established though.

 

THANKS FOR HELP.

[Polytrix]

@psn - it's €50 for the full functioning version of Liveslice!

 

Cheap/free alternative?