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Hooked on Sampling

Jordan D Smith

Jordan D Smith

New Member
I just took my first steps into the world of sampling this evening. Within a couple hours, I had a half dozen usable and inspiring virtual instruments – all with custom expression mappings! I’m instantly hooked. I just wanted to keep playing them, but sadly, I’m somewhat of a responsible adult.

I had the thought for a while now that I should sample my old drum & synth machine (my trusty Korg EMX) that I’ve had for over 15 years now. So, I plugged it into Logic and wanted to see how much I could figure out the newer Logic Sampler without really reading the manual. I made a synth sound in the Korg using its dual waveform generators, recorded some notes through the octaves, and dragged them into Sampler.

Thanks to @christianhenson ’s plethora of videos on sampling, I had enough guidance bouncing around the back of my brain to know roughly what I needed to do with those samples. A bit of tweaking here and there and boom, I’ve got a new instrument in almost no time at all.

My mind has been ignited with ideas of what to sample next and how to create even more custom expression mappings.

Oh goodness, why have I not done this before?!
Click to read more...
 
Really cool, man! Have wanted to do this for a few years now, but I live in a loud, shared flat in a loud block, in a very loud neighbourhood. There is never a moment where I could get an interruption-free recording. Percussion shouldn't be too much of an issue, but anything with any duration has always seemed to be off the table.

But only yesterday, while watching the Friday Pianobook drop episode, iy occurred to me that I might just have to embrace the simple and the imperfections. It's not like I'm trying to make some pristine deep-sampled library.

So your post is well-timed.

Curious to know what you mean by custome expression mappings. Also, do you know anything about how easily these instruments could be recreated in Kontakt? I do have Logic, but would be nice to have DAW-independant options, both for sharing and future compatibility.

Thanks :2thumbs:
 
el-bo said:
Curious to know what you mean by custome expression mappings. Also, do you know anything about how easily these instruments could be recreated in Kontakt? I do have Logic, but would be nice to have DAW-independant options, both for sharing and future compatibility.
Click to expand...
For the expression mappings, I programmed the mod wheel/CC 01 to act similarly to other libraries I use. For example, when the wheel is down, it's more subdued and warm. Then, as I move the controller up, the sounds become larger, brighter, and more "epic". ha Basically, assigned the single controller to a few values in the filters. Going to work on mapping the decay and release settings next. Anything to make it more fun to play and inspiring to write with.

Not too sure about Kontakt yet, but from what I've seen, it doesn't seem too difficult to get something working. Building UI elements looks like it would take the most effort.

I'm planning on working as quickly as possible to refine the samples into a viable instrument. Once I feel like it's at a good place, I plan on trying to program it for the Decent Sampler* so I can submit my instruments to Pianobook. I too like the idea of something being DAW agnostic, but I wouldn't want to lock my samples behind the paywall of Kontakt.

* After seeing the video from @christianhenson (you're keeping me busy with those videos, man) about Decent Sampler, I looked into the docs for it. Looks promising and wanted to give it a shot.
 
Jordan D Smith said:
For the expression mappings, I programmed the mod wheel/CC 01 to act similarly to other libraries I use. For example, when the wheel is down, it's more subdued and warm. Then, as I move the controller up, the sounds become larger, brighter, and more "epic". ha Basically, assigned the single controller to a few values in the filters. Going to work on mapping the decay and release settings next. Anything to make it more fun to play and inspiring to write with.

Not too sure about Kontakt yet, but from what I've seen, it doesn't seem too difficult to get something working. Building UI elements looks like it would take the most effort.

I'm planning on working as quickly as possible to refine the samples into a viable instrument. Once I feel like it's at a good place, I plan on trying to program it for the Decent Sampler* so I can submit my instruments to Pianobook. I too like the idea of something being DAW agnostic, but I wouldn't want to lock my samples behind the paywall of Kontakt.

* After seeing the video from @christianhenson (you're keeping me busy with those videos, man) about Decent Sampler, I looked into the docs for it. Looks promising and wanted to give it a shot.
Click to expand...
Thanks, man! That's really helpful.

I do get what you mean about Kontakt not being free, but it's pretty ubiquitous as well as being very well supported with tutorials etc. When i last thought about it, a couple of years back, I was looking to Jeremiah Pena's Photosynthesis engine as a way of bypassing a lot of the stress of having to deep-dive the software (I'm interested in making sounds/instruments, not scripting etc.). However, now his libraries are being distributed by Audio Imperia maybe there are issues using that interface.



But free options such as Decent Sampler or sforzando might be better.

Thanks for the tips. Looking forward to trying your instruments :2thumbs:
 
You could also sampl
Jordan D Smith said:
For the expression mappings, I programmed the mod wheel/CC 01 to act similarly to other libraries I use. For example, when the wheel is down, it's more subdued and warm. Then, as I move the controller up, the sounds become larger, brighter, and more "epic". ha Basically, assigned the single controller to a few values in the filters. Going to work on mapping the decay and release settings next. Anything to make it more fun to play and inspiring to write with.

Not too sure about Kontakt yet, but from what I've seen, it doesn't seem too difficult to get something working. Building UI elements looks like it would take the most effort.

I'm planning on working as quickly as possible to refine the samples into a viable instrument. Once I feel like it's at a good place, I plan on trying to program it for the Decent Sampler* so I can submit my instruments to Pianobook. I too like the idea of something being DAW agnostic, but I wouldn't want to lock my samples behind the paywall of Kontakt.

* After seeing the video from @christianhenson (you're keeping me busy with those videos, man) about Decent Sampler, I looked into the docs for it. Looks promising and wanted to give it a shot.
Click to expand...
You could also make samples from the noise in your environment, and convert it to pad textures and instruments. I mean when life gives you lemons...
 
Congrats on discovering the joy of sampling! I started with EXS, now sampler, but quickly ran into the limitations. Still use it for quick and simple instruments for personal use. And the update to Sampler made it so much quicker to use, it almost feels like cheating.

For all the criticism Kontakt gets, its surprisingly simple to learn, yet incredibly deep. Almost anything can be modulated, and then you can modulate the modulators for even more craziness. And the scripting language makes almost anything possible - if you can imagine it, there’s probably a way to build it with coding. I actually went so deep down that rabbit hole I ended up turning my sampling addiction into a livelihood, all thanks to Kontakt.
 
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