I would like to start this thread as a place where people can post sampling tips, both general and for the ES2 specifically, because as someone who has never used samples in my life and I am quite overwhelmed by the available options.
What is your workflow? Where do you get your samples? How do you use slicing? How do you make good sample packs using the limited memory?
These are some of the inquries I have and I would really be grateful if you all shared your knowledge.
ES2 tips and techniques for sampling newbies.
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DiscoDevil
- Junior Member
- Posts: 78
- Joined: Thu Aug 20, 2015 11:23 am
I'm starting to agree with that tbh. Even the mangling part is a bit of a stretch for me.
Anyway, some tips for electribe sampling:
1. Use mono samples where you can. They take up less room and with only 24.7MB you want to squeeze in as many samples as you can.
2. That said, stereo samples can add a lot of depth and width compared to the sound of the synth version, so use stereo here and there to really fill things in.
3. I've been collecting drum sounds for years, though I try and keep it managable too. Too many samples means it just takes longer to find something you need while writing. Anyway, when you hear something you like, sample it and save it for later.
4. A lot of sample libraries use samples with long tails. Maybe they are fading a long revaerb tail to silence or something, but usually in a groovebox setting you don't need to keep all of that. Trim it and free up more room.
5. Invest in a sample manager program. I like Spleen's for OSX a lot, it saves TONS of time compared to loading samples off the SD card, and helps you access features like assigning catagories that you can't do any other way.
6. The electribe stores it's samples at 48k, so you might as well start recording them at that sample rate if that's your end goal for the audio. For everything else stick with 44.1k.
Anyway, some tips for electribe sampling:
1. Use mono samples where you can. They take up less room and with only 24.7MB you want to squeeze in as many samples as you can.
2. That said, stereo samples can add a lot of depth and width compared to the sound of the synth version, so use stereo here and there to really fill things in.
3. I've been collecting drum sounds for years, though I try and keep it managable too. Too many samples means it just takes longer to find something you need while writing. Anyway, when you hear something you like, sample it and save it for later.
4. A lot of sample libraries use samples with long tails. Maybe they are fading a long revaerb tail to silence or something, but usually in a groovebox setting you don't need to keep all of that. Trim it and free up more room.
5. Invest in a sample manager program. I like Spleen's for OSX a lot, it saves TONS of time compared to loading samples off the SD card, and helps you access features like assigning catagories that you can't do any other way.
6. The electribe stores it's samples at 48k, so you might as well start recording them at that sample rate if that's your end goal for the audio. For everything else stick with 44.1k.
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gizmoismogwai
- Full Member
- Posts: 133
- Joined: Mon Mar 09, 2015 2:44 pm
Tarekith covered a lot of the technical basics. Cannot stress the importance of getting one of those sample editors that were released not too long ago. I use Spleen's as well and it makes the process of loading in samples far less tedious.
Though it eats up parts like crazy, I would also advise you sprinkle in some stereo sounds. They can make your tracks sound fuller. At least fuller than tracks built entirely of mono samples.
My favorite techniques for samples on the E2S:
1. I will spend 1-2 hours some night chopping 1-2 bar loops out of pretty much any piece of music I have made. Sometimes I'll cut the loops out of a whole track or I'll go into Ableton and steal individual parts. So much of it sits on my hard drive and never gets used so the E2S is a very good way to re-use ideas. Then I fill up a .all file with as many randomly selected loops as I can fit and magic happens. And this cycle can continue for whatever you do make on the E2S.
2. Use the E2S to remix a song. I will create a .all file (e2s proprietary sample set file) where I load in pretty much an entire song, or most of one. I usually like to keep the samples in stereo so I end up doing the chopping in a DAW instead of using the slice function (which only works on mono samples anyway). So I might have a sample called "Song Chorus" or "Song Intro", each anywhere between 1-4 bars, and then use the sample start knob to find new variations and make new loops. Finally I'll load in as many drum/percussion samples as I can. Then I'll devote sections of about 20 patterns to a given idea, sometimes mixing two completely different song ideas together to make the remix.
3. Adding insert effects uses up processing power and can lead to voice stealing. Avoid this by resampling your sound with the effect added. Only works if you know for sure that you want to apply that sound but can help a lot.
4. If I end up resampling groups of parts together (like a whole drum beat) to consolidate them down to one or two parts, I always trigger these in a copy of my current pattern instead of freeing up the drum parts in the current pattern. I do this because later on I can export the previous full pattern to Ableton along with the newer patterns I freed up parts on and I still have access to individual, separated tracks for everything I did. This is sort of an old school 4-track recorder bounce kind of technique but with Ableton/WAV export you don't lose anything!
Though it eats up parts like crazy, I would also advise you sprinkle in some stereo sounds. They can make your tracks sound fuller. At least fuller than tracks built entirely of mono samples.
My favorite techniques for samples on the E2S:
1. I will spend 1-2 hours some night chopping 1-2 bar loops out of pretty much any piece of music I have made. Sometimes I'll cut the loops out of a whole track or I'll go into Ableton and steal individual parts. So much of it sits on my hard drive and never gets used so the E2S is a very good way to re-use ideas. Then I fill up a .all file with as many randomly selected loops as I can fit and magic happens. And this cycle can continue for whatever you do make on the E2S.
2. Use the E2S to remix a song. I will create a .all file (e2s proprietary sample set file) where I load in pretty much an entire song, or most of one. I usually like to keep the samples in stereo so I end up doing the chopping in a DAW instead of using the slice function (which only works on mono samples anyway). So I might have a sample called "Song Chorus" or "Song Intro", each anywhere between 1-4 bars, and then use the sample start knob to find new variations and make new loops. Finally I'll load in as many drum/percussion samples as I can. Then I'll devote sections of about 20 patterns to a given idea, sometimes mixing two completely different song ideas together to make the remix.
3. Adding insert effects uses up processing power and can lead to voice stealing. Avoid this by resampling your sound with the effect added. Only works if you know for sure that you want to apply that sound but can help a lot.
4. If I end up resampling groups of parts together (like a whole drum beat) to consolidate them down to one or two parts, I always trigger these in a copy of my current pattern instead of freeing up the drum parts in the current pattern. I do this because later on I can export the previous full pattern to Ableton along with the newer patterns I freed up parts on and I still have access to individual, separated tracks for everything I did. This is sort of an old school 4-track recorder bounce kind of technique but with Ableton/WAV export you don't lose anything!