Hey guys,
I've heard many people talking about resampling in their tracks...what does it really mean? does it have something to do with presets?

recently i saw a pic of an FL studio work (a track) and there was a comment "So much of resampling"
The track had so many samples..so i figured it had something to do wid applying effects to those samples or 'chopping up' those samples (it was a complextro)...
so wat xactly is it?
Last edited by eliaxe on Wed Mar 21, 2012 5:46 am; edited 1 time in total

It's when you sample something, make some changes and sample it again , hence the term "resample".
Putting "re" in front of something means doing it again.

It means to change the sample rate and frequency.

For example, resampling a 16-bit/44.1Khz drum loop to 8-bit/11Khz will give a degraded sound. It's an old-skool technique and is very effective.

@Acid Mitch
What i wanted to know was what those changes ur actually referring to....coz recently i saw a pic of an FL studio work (a track) and there was a comment "So much of resampling"
The track had so many samples..so i figured it had something to do wid applying effects to those samples or 'chopping up' those samples (it was a complextro)...
so wat xactly is it?

Huh? While I can see how one could get this from the term, I've never heard of such a technique called resampling.

Resampling is, for example, taking a sound from a synthesizer, bouncing(exporting it to a .wav) it out, and then putting that sound in a sampler, and further adding distortion, or whatever effects you want. This process is most often done in complextro, and dubstep.

Here's a link to a basic method of doing this:

http://www.dogsonacid.com/showthread.php?threadid=518635

That's the DOA forum, which is known for its dubstep and drum n' bass community, so they're pretty familiar with the process.

There're several meanings of it...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resampling_(audio)


Eliaxe, who was the track you found that said "So much of resampling"?

It could be anything.
Changing sample/bit rates, changing pitch, adding ditortion - filters or other effets , layering samples, chopping drum loops - moving the parts and "resampling" as a single file again, etc.

Resampling means sampling a sample, nothing more.

Say I sample a drum break, then compress it, add a little distortion/delay/whatever, then I sample the result of those changes ... that would be re-sampling.

The Wiki thing shows different uses for it, not different meanings of it.
In each case your taking a sample, applying a change and sampling the result.

In complextro and dubstep it typically means (as previously mentioned) recording an instrument for a single note or chord, and bouncing to wav, then loading it in a sampler so you can play that one note in different pitches across the keyboard.

It can add a certain character to sounds which is sought after in hip-hop, dubstep, electro, and DnB

@mrchr The track was Steve Aoki's Ladi Ladi (Charles Deluxe Remix)
Charles Deluxe is a really talented artist! check out his tracks..!


And thanku all for d response...nd others do share ur opinions here..

Really!? That is just (time-stretched) sampling.

Resampling, in the audio world, is changing or "resampling" the original bit depth and frequency.

As stated earlier re-sampling is sampling again - but this does NOT mean recording again, it means to sample (i.e. digital sampling in terms of bit rate and sampling frequency) using different sampling configurations.

resampling drums down to 8bit/22Khz is quite a good example of resampling.

There does seem to be a lot of confusion over this matter and I'm not sure why. Resampling should almost certainly mean to "record to a given audio signal in a different bit depth and sampling frequency".

If for example you take a recording of drums from a CD recording and sample them to standard 16bit/44.1Khz WAV - this is sampling. But if you chose to sample them at 8bit/22Khz - this is resampling.

I understand what you're saying, but I've never seen it being defined that way in any audio community (and I probably spend more time reading about audio than actually making music). At least not in today's world, with the resampling technique being used all over EDM.

Also the effect you're describing is also what a bitcrusher does, and that's generally the effect/term used when needing to do such a thing.

What a coincidence, I'm Charles Deluxe (mrchr = Mr Charles) Thanks for your compliment!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resampling_%28audio%29

(Don't forget to copy the link with the _(Audio))

3 Uses for the word...
When you read "so much resampling" in my track.., they're talking about the "mixing" usage of the word, that you can read in that wiki...
They say that because they see a lot of audio clips, not midi... so they suppose that I "render to audio" (resample) my midi parts to use them as audio, which is true.

The sample rate / bit depth conversion usage... is more technical.....
If you ask an audio engineer/dsp engineer they'll probably say resampling is sample rate / bit depth conversion....... (I've read this one several times over years in forums and technical papers)

If you ask a producer, they'll probably say its just rendering to audio...
It depends on the context...

Regards!

I gotta admit, this usage of the word kinda bothers me, if there was no sampler used initially. If you're just bouncing down synth parts, whether you intend to use that audio in a sampler or not, how can you "resample" something that was never sampled in the first place?

I'm coming to realize this is like the kids nowadays calling every piece of music a "beat" though... wrong or not, maybe I'd better just get used to it. In any case, for the sake of having a conveniently-short phrase, I do think the way thecontrolcentre said it ("re-sample", with a hyphen) seems more "proper", as it creates more of a distinction between that and the more technical usage. But then, notice he was talking about working with a sample in the first place too.