Like many folks here I don't care for the use of sample CD's
I've tried to do so, but I feel like it's "cheating" - you should make your own samples/loops
HOWEVER, I'm not very good at writing music and what i find myself doing is trying to mimic/copy/sound-like the loops I enjoy from the CDs. So they act like encouragement to me to make my own version of what I like.
How do you all encorporate the use of Sample CDs?
I don't have a problem if you grab a hit or some one shot...
but the marketers seem to encourage you make entire tracks from their CDs.... am I wrong?
comments?
best way to use Sample CDs?
i only really use hits and one shots for drums. but i got hardware drum machines now so it's rare i'll use a sample CD for drums.
i've used vocal samples before but after i heard the same samples in other tracks it put me off doing it again.
i've used loops before and i chop them up and rearrange them into something new. i still do this now when i want some trumpet, sax or guitar snippets.
the best samples have to be multi sampled instruments. they are the best thing for realistic instruments (apart from recording it yourself) but i choose to use physical modeling plugins because they take up less hard disk space. i do use the sampled drum kits that come with NI Battery and there is some usable stuff in Reasons factory and orkester sound banks.
i've used vocal samples before but after i heard the same samples in other tracks it put me off doing it again.
i've used loops before and i chop them up and rearrange them into something new. i still do this now when i want some trumpet, sax or guitar snippets.
the best samples have to be multi sampled instruments. they are the best thing for realistic instruments (apart from recording it yourself) but i choose to use physical modeling plugins because they take up less hard disk space. i do use the sampled drum kits that come with NI Battery and there is some usable stuff in Reasons factory and orkester sound banks.
For me one shots are justified. Full loops i won't touch no matter how good they are. If I was forced to use pre made loops to make music, i'd quit all together!! There's just no satisfaction in using other peoples creations. I generally just hold onto the one shots and scrap the loops. If the loop has a really cool sound in it i'll sample that one sound, that's it. There's this one producer that I had so much admiration for, but I recently found out that lots of his percussion loops were pre made. The latter quickly killed the admiration!!
thats the same feeling I get. I recently listened to this 6pod9 Sample CDRaddler wrote:For me one shots are justified. Full loops i won't touch no matter how good they are. If I was forced to use pre made loops to make music, i'd quit all together!! There's just no satisfaction in using other peoples creations. I generally just hold onto the one shots and scrap the loops. If the loop has a really cool sound in it i'll sample that one sound, that's it. There's this one producer that I had so much admiration for, but I recently found out that lots of his percussion loops were pre made. The latter quickly killed the admiration!!
I really like the loops, but I couldn't use them because I felt like I was stealing HIS IDEAS, no fun in that.
so I listen to the loops and try to see if I can come up with something similar or as you mention if a loop has a sound in it I really gotta have, I'll slice it up to grab that bit....
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Shepherd_of_Anu
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Its a strange day when techno music producers refuse to use samples that they didn't create. I bet a lot of the best classics have samples that were not created by the producer.
I think you need to ask yourself, "Am I a producer or am I a session musician?"
If you are a producer then its ok if your tracks have samples you didn't create. If you are a session musician then you had better be playing the instrument yourself. For all the huff and puff about supporting the artists its seems strange that there is so little support for samples. The people making the samples or loops are trying to make a living. They need to eat too. Its not like they are trying to bait people in with their loops in the hopes of lowering producer's creative self-image. They are musical artist too... and probably better ones then most producers or else people wouldn't be tempted to use their samples at all. So go ahead... support the artist. Alleviate your guilt cause thats no fun.
The funnest thing to do with loops is to slice them up in Recycle. Rex2 files can be used through Reason Rewired into almost any DAW and they are also supported in Logic directly.
I like to take hand percussion loops and then splice them in Recycle. Then I use my kontrolpad to trigger them. most one shot samples are pretty boring after awhile, one shot percussion hits can be even more so because when a real percussionist is playing few hits are the exact same. Each hit has its own nuances and overtones. If you have 16 pads set up, each with a slightly different hit it really opens things up and lets you create more natural sounding drums. Loops are fun.
I read somewhere that a lot af akufen's samples were just recorded off the radio one day. I can't say that I think less of him for it.
I think you need to ask yourself, "Am I a producer or am I a session musician?"
If you are a producer then its ok if your tracks have samples you didn't create. If you are a session musician then you had better be playing the instrument yourself. For all the huff and puff about supporting the artists its seems strange that there is so little support for samples. The people making the samples or loops are trying to make a living. They need to eat too. Its not like they are trying to bait people in with their loops in the hopes of lowering producer's creative self-image. They are musical artist too... and probably better ones then most producers or else people wouldn't be tempted to use their samples at all. So go ahead... support the artist. Alleviate your guilt cause thats no fun.
The funnest thing to do with loops is to slice them up in Recycle. Rex2 files can be used through Reason Rewired into almost any DAW and they are also supported in Logic directly.
I like to take hand percussion loops and then splice them in Recycle. Then I use my kontrolpad to trigger them. most one shot samples are pretty boring after awhile, one shot percussion hits can be even more so because when a real percussionist is playing few hits are the exact same. Each hit has its own nuances and overtones. If you have 16 pads set up, each with a slightly different hit it really opens things up and lets you create more natural sounding drums. Loops are fun.
I read somewhere that a lot af akufen's samples were just recorded off the radio one day. I can't say that I think less of him for it.
^^^^^^ I don't quite agree, but I do see where you are coming from. Something I had a hard time with was building Hi hat loops, and I spent days and days trying to perfect them to sound like the pro's. Only recently have I started to get them the way I like. My point is that in the process of doing that I learnt alot about swing, eq and reverb techniques. The reward for me was the process of learning how to do it. That's my satisfaction in making music. The making of it.
thats a bit different from using sample CD's. getting stuff off the radio is proper sampling because you have to press record and cut it to size. my problem with sample CD's is the content. most of them are cheesy rubbish and i feel embarrassed just listening to them.Shepherd_of_Anu wrote:I read somewhere that a lot af akufen's samples were just recorded off the radio one day. I can't say that I think less of him for it.
I think I'm at the same spot you were. At a point where making certain elements of music is a challenge to me - sure I could turn to a sample CD, but I will learn a lot more in the long run if I figure it out myself. SO like one would reverse engineer a preset of a synth to learn how a certain sound is created, I will "reverse engineer" how a loop was made...Raddler wrote:^^^^^^ I don't quite agree, but I do see where you are coming from. Something I had a hard time with was building Hi hat loops, and I spent days and days trying to perfect them to sound like the pro's. Only recently have I started to get them the way I like. My point is that in the process of doing that I learnt alot about swing, eq and reverb techniques. The reward for me was the process of learning how to do it. That's my satisfaction in making music. The making of it.
The slice in Recycle idea isn't a bad idea, Live has it's slice to MIDI function that I'll use to re-arrange a loop sometimes, but even then it's not far from the original if I'm just changing the rhythm of the loop.
I guess it all depends on what you do with it