Synths vs. Samples

neither are mutually exclusive, and this is a very subjective question, but humour me.

what do you prefer, samplism or synthesis?

i'm a sample man myself.

sampleism here too.

My way of working is a bit strange; I tend to chop out tiny bits of samples and process them to hell until it might as well be a synth anyway.

generally synths, but i like to blend samples into them ie drop a sampled sound onto a patch. i link linking envelopes and modules and all that.

what? they're too different from each other for me to choose one. i tend to use a lot of samples for my drum sounds, ie. field recordings, acoustic hits, machines etc. and i pretty much only ever use synths or guitars for my melodies. i can't have one without the other!

i exclusively use trumpet samples for melodies and and old vermona drum synth for beats

  On 1/30/2010 at 2:18 PM, modey said:

what? they're too different from each other for me to choose one. i tend to use a lot of samples for my drum sounds, ie. field recordings, acoustic hits, machines etc. and i pretty much only ever use synths or guitars for my melodies. i can't have one without the other!

for christ sake

  On 1/30/2010 at 1:48 PM, Backson said:

humour me.

Im pretty classic: after a 100% period, I came back to use samples for durms, and synths for the rest.

It may come from me but in the end I feel like good TR samples sounds better than the vsts.

samples of synths

or

Ehhhh...I don't know...good question . I guess I don't know because I'm pretty new to the game so...eh .

I'll have an answer for you one day .

Virtual synths.

Yes, I know this is the fence-sitter's lazy option.

when i started (around 2000), i used 100% samples.

then when i started making more serious music, it was about 40% samples. i'd mainly sample basslines from dub reggae tracks, drum loops from old funk songs, and synths in buzz.

now it's almost 100% synths, guitar and piano. a few samples though, but a lot more obscure than they used to be...

i use re-sampled samples of sampling synthesizers playing samples

  On 1/30/2010 at 5:41 PM, nene multiple assgasms said:

samples of synths

this is my favourite answer

i use both. i don't prefer one over the other. i just do what sounds right to me.

Synths, i dont know how to use samples properly yet.

even when i use synths, i bounce to wave files so i can use them like samples.

what about live instrumentation? where does that fit in? yeah i prefer that to both

  On 1/31/2010 at 4:09 AM, modey said:

what about live instrumentation? where does that fit in? yeah i prefer that to both

I used to be all about live instrumentation but I find I use less and less of it more recently.

That might be laziness because I don't want to hook up the mixing board and drag out a guitar or mic up whatever I need to record. It also might be control freakery because it's always easier to get perfection with sequenced music than it is playing live. But then again, it's the slight imperfections that make music (or indeed anything - from a painting to a beautiful boy) beautiful in the first place.

Most definitely synthesis, I barely ever use samples unless I'm resampling something through tape or whatever...

The only times I ever use samples are 1) for drums (though I actually have been getting more and more into non-traditional drum sounds) and 2) if I have an actual idea in my head of "I want this to sound like a Rhodes." Otherwise, it's just much easier for me to program a virtual synth to get the sound I hear in my head.

I mean, really, I should use physical hardware synths but I just don't have the space. My studio's already taken over half the flat as it is.

  On 1/31/2010 at 12:30 PM, Masonic Boom said:

The only times I ever use samples are 1) for drums (though I actually have been getting more and more into non-traditional drum sounds) and 2) if I have an actual idea in my head of "I want this to sound like a Rhodes." Otherwise, it's just much easier for me to program a virtual synth to get the sound I hear in my head.

 

I mean, really, I should use physical hardware synths but I just don't have the space. My studio's already taken over half the flat as it is.

i find synths are heaps of fun to play around with, and if i had to use them for a track i'd get a single hardware synth and record each part with it one by one.

but on the flip side, samples just have so much flavour to them. if you use heaps of tiny samples you make a really rich tapestry related to a theme. and then its sort of like your own history of the stuff you listen to.

synths ...if using samples then only legal stuff even scratches I use must be or scratches of my own sounds or scratches of stuff I have the right to scratch

almost 100% synths. They just fit with how I work/think better.

That said, I also do a lot of audio editing of said synths... but as far as raw material, I don't use samples.

i like taking field recordings of things and making them sound like synthesizers through sample manipulation

to the original poster: . It seems defeating to me to have such a compartmentalized/rigid way of looking at it as samples OR synths, what do you consider a wavetable synth? that's using hundreds of 'samples' to generate tones and running them through a traditional subtractive synth pathway