How do you make looped samples sound good?

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I've been trying to get a good loop on this Kontakt 5 fiddle and can't get it to sound right, any thoughts or suggestions?

Unlooped
http://www.mediafire.com/download/uuukq ... ofberg.nki

looped
http://www.mediafire.com/download/0kuun ... Looped.nki

looped with xfade
http://www.mediafire.com/download/4cm1f ... _xfade.nki
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The main problem is that the tone is not steady. I've only looked at the lowest note (why do you extend it below G2, by the way?). Throughout the sample, it changes in pitch, timbre and volume. That makes that every longer loop will have an audible change when the "playhead" goes back from end to start. The only way to avoid that (in Kontakt) is to shorten the loop, which makes it sound like a buzz saw instead of a fiddle. The reason for that is that a natural tone (almost) never is an event that repeats itself within the cycle of its base frequency: the volume decreases, which usually creates changes in the harmonics, the pitch wavers, resonance builds up, etc.

You could use Kontakt's zone envelopes to even out the volume changes, but I didn't have much luck with that single note, and editing them is pretty unpleasant, so perhaps it's best to try it with some external tools before importing them into Kontakt.

Another option is to add some life to the loop you found, using two LFOs to change volume and some group filter.

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What about back and forth looping instead of returning abruptly from the end to the start of the loop?
The more I hang around at KVR the less music I make.

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That is also pretty audible unless the loop part is very long or stable.

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Thanks. First attempt at this and that is some valuable feedback. The more I mess about, the more I'm impressed by how much you guys know and how good the pros are at this sort of thing.
Cheers.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/5faku ... ke_Two.nki
Last edited by bigcat1969 on Sun Apr 20, 2014 2:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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This might not be too much help but what they used to do in the Akai libraries is sample the instrument without vibrato, then add it in with the sampler's LFOs. That way they had a straight note to loop which is much easier than a dynamic one.

Crossfade looping might help if you're stuck with the sample. And the old Roland trick - slap some reverb on to smooth over the transition.
http://sendy.bandcamp.com/releases < My new album at Bandcamp! Now pay what you like!

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Yup, long and evenly played sections you can loop seem to be the best thing if you can get that. I tried doing looping with my electric upright bowed samples, around a dozen variations of one note, and it mostly turned out I didn't bow it quite evenly enough.

I'll try tomorrow with some cello samples which will hopefully be more even. They are vibrato-free, so there's hope, though I kinda hope it doesn't work, cause if it works I'll then have to look for good loop points in around 200 samples. Though I've got them layered eight at a time, so at least not-so-perfect loop points will have something to hide behind.

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One of the reasons that samples like those of East-West and Spitfire sound so well, is that they have very good players, and let them play a loooong note very steadily. And even then it doesn't always work out well. The EWQLSO solo violin patches don't really loop, they repeat two bowings, so you never have a really sustained note, and louder notes have a shorter loop. It's quite natural, but it shows that it's hard even under the best conditions.

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Interesting.
How long do samples need to be then to give some illusion of realism?
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FLWrd wrote:The EWQLSO solo violin patches don't really loop, they repeat two bowings, so you never have a really sustained note, and louder notes have a shorter loop. It's quite natural, but it shows that it's hard even under the best conditions.
That would be the most realistic way to do it with fiddle samples especially... if you hit a new measure and don't have enough sample duration left until the end, reverse the bow direction (or if you don't have both just play the same sample again). If there's no tempo/measure info, do it when you hit the end of a sample. I guess that should be possible to script?

But having less realistic looping is more musically useful a lot of times... having an infinite bow and not having to ever reverse direction would be nice in real life a lot of times, too.

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First, I would recommend using something with a larger display than Kontakt's for the purpose.

A totally smooth editing of a bowed instrument can be done; you should get hold of one and study it. In a stereo sample, there is a point where your loop point seriously closely resembles (nearly identical to) what it's looped to both L and R. It's been said here but I'd like to reinforce it, there is probably that very intent in the recording in a professional product; and it's probably non-vibrato. I'm looking at an absolutely smooth con sordino violins patch. It's some older Gigastudio job which I can't place, maybe VSL. And they'll loop things today that are completely smooth.

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But it's not in principle different than a smooth edit, you have to find that place of resemblance, or where there is no problem (differences) you're cutting into. An old hand might be able to do it just from the visual! But I recommend using something you can zoom in on.

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Thanks Jan and everyone else. As I've said before this is all a learning process for me and that is a lot of the fun.

The oddest response was a message from Hollow Sun.

"I appreciate you're trying to do a nice thing with all of this but honestly, some of the stuff you're linking to really is sub-80s, substandard MT32/SC55 stuff. The Iowa stuff you're linking to is utter tripe.

But back to the point, those violin samples are just too short and too bad and too static - it's like they had some grade 2 11-year-old play them on a cheap violin with a rubbish bow.

And let's be honest, a good proportion of public domain stuff is substandard. So what if it's free if it's rubbish? Not just that but it affects serious developers who can do the job properly, provide quality goods and service and try to make a living with their skills, experience and expertise. The world can't exist if everything is for free."

I've heard elsewhere you have a rep for being a jerk to folks giving away freebies, Hollow Sun. The only reason you have any success in ripping off the original makers of hardware synthesizers that died in the 80s and 90s is because Evil Dragon is the best scripter in the game and creates amazing interfaces for you. I have zero influence on your sales, I do Acoustic and if I'm hurting sales for acoustic giants like Native Instruments, East West or Vienna they haven't mentioned it yet. People aren't stupid they know my stuff is far from top level pro stuff, but it can be nice to have some free options if you can't afford the best there is and you don't want to steal. When they are ready to step up the ladder to higher quality, they will leave me and my 'instruments' in the recycle bin and spend money on high quality instruments. This isn't hurting anyone, its natural progression.

I do what I do because I enjoy it and because I hope to help some folks starting out.
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bigcat1969 wrote:The oddest response was a message from Hollow Sun.
That was a PM - i.e. as in a PERSONAL message. Bad form for you to have published it. Very much out of order. There are, as it happens, laws against publishing private correspondence.
bigcat1969 wrote:I've heard elsewhere you have a rep for being a jerk to folks giving away freebies
An interesting observation given that you linked to my freebies as part of your free GM project.
bigcat1969 wrote:The only reason you have any success in ripping off the original makers of hardware synthesizers that died in the 80s and 90s
Define "ripping off". Do you mean sampling all material myself, editing and looping it all myself, getting permission from the original manufacturers who made them (many of whom I have have worked with) and/or paying them a licence fee?

And 80s and 90s? Sure, I've done that - I've also sampled stuff from the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s but more recently from my analogue modular that is most definitely very modern even though its antecedence may well be older.
bigcat1969 wrote:is because Evil Dragon is the best scripter in the game and creates amazing interfaces for you.
Well, on a point of order...

Mr Dragon's contribution to my products is, of course, certainly not insignificant ... it's vital even. However, *I* design and create all the "amazing interfaces" ... I do all all the graphics, panels, animations, knobs, switches and so on, the look and feel and so on. And I make, edit and loop my own samples and pay for the equipment I sample. Mr Dragon then scripts it all, brings it all together and I pay him for that.

And yes - he IS the best scripter in the game and a thoroughly delightful and a frighteningly clever bloke. We are very much good friends and we work together as a team.
bigcat1969 wrote:I have zero influence on your sales
I didn't say it did.
bigcat1969 wrote:I do Acoustic ...
Interesting given that you link to my 'electronic' freebies (or "ripoffs" as you call them) for your project
bigcat1969 wrote:I do what I do because I enjoy it and because I hope to help some folks starting out.
Fine and fair enough. I do what I do because I enjoy it and I don't charge prohibitive amounts of money for people starting out.

If you knew anything about me, you'd know that I started off with a website of freebies (over 1GB of it) but I made my own samples with the usual rigour based on decades of sample library creation with major manufacturers.

I stand by my claim, however ... that the violin samples you were trying to loop (and you were asking for advice over) are sub-standard and sound like a poor recording of a Grade 2 11 year old playing a cheap violin. They are also too short and unless you go for a single cycle, buzzy loop, they are going to be all but impossible to loop successfully (as you have found). I wouldn't bother to even try. I speak as one whose daughter is a very accomplished young violinist who plays with top orchestras, tours Europe, played at The Proms in the Albert Hall, London and more.

I used to deal with samples like this back in the 80s when RAM was small and I had to fit stuff onto a 1.4Mb floppy disk or into 2Mb of onboard ROM - hence my allusion to the MT32/SC55 which were pitifully low on ROM.

I was, actually, trying to help in the PM you so selectively quoted from and published. But whatever.

Stephen
Last edited by hollowsun on Fri Apr 25, 2014 3:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

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jancivil wrote:First, I would recommend using something with a larger display than Kontakt's for the purpose.
In Kontakt standalone you can pop-out the Mapping and Wave Editors... and then you can select one of three sizes for each (and you can tweak those sizes by editing the registry, even). Here's how it looks (I tweaked the largest size to 1320x768 for this in the registry):

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