Sampling Synths

Just curious how you people sample your synths. Do you sample one note and transpose it or sample long melody phrases. I bought a couple synths and am a bit confused how to integrate them into my setup.

Also I'd prefer to sequence in my daw and I'm not that good with playing keys by hand but I could...

Yes.

(Phrases are usually more fun)

  On 12/4/2020 at 10:44 PM, sweepstakes said:

Yes.

(Phrases are usually more fun)

But if you do by hand without midi and you don't like it you have to find that sound again.

Do you program with midi?

  On 12/4/2020 at 10:46 PM, yekker said:

But if you do by hand without midi and you don't like it you have to find that sound again.

Do you program with midi?

Keep it punk rock, do it by hand. More fun that way. The recording is a truer form of the full experience.

MIDI just gives you more hands/fingers.

I don't really multisample anything, if I'm sampling something it's because I want it to get all pitch shifted and weird so I'll do at most one note per octave but more often  it's just a bunch of different chord voicings in C3 or C4 and even that's pretty rare because 99% of the time it's 90s MPC style sampling and chopping up a complete mix, whether it's my own or off of a record or VHS or something.

For the last couple years, partly out of convenience and partly for the sound, I do most of my sampling on a semi-broken SP-303 username Limpyloo mailed to me years ago (THANK YOU!!!!) in my living room where my turntable is and then I take it into the spare room I use as a studio and sample it from the 303 outputs on the sampler I actually want to use it in.

As far as I'm concerned, it's easy enough to make a high quality multisampled instrument now that it's more compelling to do your sampling shitty.

To be honest I prefer shitty in general,.

  On 12/5/2020 at 2:47 AM, TubularCorporation said:

I don't really multisample anything, if I'm sampling something it's because I want it to get all pitch shifted and weird so I'll do at most one note per octave but more often  it's just a bunch of different chord voicings in C3 or C4 and even that's pretty rare because 99% of the time it's 90s MPC style sampling and chopping up a complete mix, whether it's my own or off of a record or VHS or something.

 

For the last couple years, partly out of convenience and partly for the sound, I do most of my sampling on a semi-broken SP-303 username Limpyloo mailed to me years ago (THANK YOU!!!!) in my living room where my turntable is and then I take it into the spare room I use as a studio and sample it from the 303 outputs on the sampler I actually want to use it in.

 

As far as I'm concerned, it's easy enough to make a high quality multisampled instrument now that it's more compelling to do your sampling shitty.

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So you would sample one note?

if i'm sampling a sound i tend to do every note with in a few octaves of more depending on what it is. but that's if i'm just sampling to sample so i can pull the sound into other environments. 

if i'm doing a track i'll write w/midi then when i have the parts sorted i'll record audio. but some times i'll do a bunch of passes w/midi recording knob turning etc. and edit that some and then record audio after. 

also sometimes i'll just do the jam thing and record audio while turning knobs. also can do takes that way; 

all this just depends on the song and the intention. sometimes i'll sample the modular when i find something i like and want to save it. 

  On 12/5/2020 at 4:23 AM, yekker said:

So you would sample one note?

Yes.

Casio SK-1/Impulse Tracker style

Yeah, whatever you do, lean into the grit and artifacts. You gotta have that sampling BDE.

Have a ball!

Yek Back

Record a bunch of noodling, save it, forget it, rediscover it after a couple of months and edit it to the track you're working on.

I have a ms2000 and a dreadbox nyx2 MIDIed into ableton. I like to turn the local midi control off on the ms2000 and use it as my master keyboard, ala MPC. it’s fun to just play my presets and tweak with live. You can also do really involved parameter automation that’s not possible without a daw. 

Furthermore, I like to use max sequencers to sequence hardware and then record my tweaks with a combination of live midi input. However, I try to be very strict about capturing some audio and then deleting the midi tracks, so I can’t keep going back.

the main thing I suggest is as soon as you can get some good bits, print everything to audio and don’t look back.

multisampling is also fun, but the only thing I’ve ever taken the time to multisample is this one string instrument from an old iOS app that I really love. All my other sampled instruments are from one note. Why take the time to multi sample a synth I already have sitting next to me?

i also have a table full of hardware that I record sessions with into audacity on a separate windows computer. 100% live hardware. 

  On 12/5/2020 at 4:03 PM, sheatheman said:

as soon as you can get some good bits, print everything to audio and don’t look back.

Yeah this. Commit to a decision ASAP. Multisampling goes the other direction, into indecisive nerdery.

  On 12/5/2020 at 10:51 AM, Squee said:

Record a bunch of noodling, save it, forget it, rediscover it after a couple of months and edit it to the track you're working on.

Use it for this:

One fifth intervals, seemed like a good compromise but kinda wonky if you like your octaves 

I don't really use hardware synths anymore but back when I did I would just sample the same phrase looping over and over while twiddling the knobs. Maybe the first loop was kind of clean and then I would just go crazy with the knobs and after recording I would chop up the sample in Renoise and rearrange as I wanted.

  On 12/5/2020 at 6:28 PM, TubularCorporation said:

Use it for this:

 

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Nice little Electrix rack he's got there!

  On 12/5/2020 at 10:51 AM, Squee said:

Record a bunch of noodling, save it, forget it, rediscover it after a couple of months and edit it to the track you're working on.

This is a good one. I can't say I've done it a lot, but it's kinda like plunderphonics but with your own music.

Going crazy trying to find it with search.. but it is sampling related so I will resurrect this thread: there is/was an user on this board called Mesh Gear Fox (I think) who made M4L devices and particularly they made a thing for quick and easy sampling of hardware instruments.

A thousand thanks if anyone can point me to that M4L device.

Back when I saw it around I never had M4L but now I do and it sounds like thing I need for getting some nice drum sounds from my synths into Live so I can use my hardware for all the other cool sounds in there.

If you're just doing drums, the first part of this video is a good overview of how to use dynamic split in Reaper to automate exporting a bunch of drum hits from a recording in Reaper:

Thanks.

Yeah I think I have to roll with something like that. I just remember that M4L device having options to sample at multiple velocities and automatically do fades and cut the samples to be as short as possible as to not contain silence and start with a transient etc etc.

Maybe past me was smart enough to at least get that device and its still around on my computer somewhere.

might be of interest for some

https://samplerobot.com/