KVR Audio

ugo · Post by **ugo** » Sun May 06, 2007 4:34 pm

anyone have any tips/tricks/tools/suggestions when it comes to creating looped sounds for use as sustained instruments?

i've started making some samples for a project im working on and i quickly discovered that its not as easy as i thought to get a mostly undetectable loop, especially when played back at higher pitches.

manytone · Post by **manytone** » Sun May 06, 2007 4:46 pm

Extreme Sample Converter has a fantastic looping tool in it.
I either use that or Soundforge and my ears. The ESC is very cool for looping though as it allows you to set easy crossover points.

Give it a try if you can. Also some sounds can be troublesome and a crossfade might help....but a lot of times the crossfade can sound fake.

Best of luck.
Paul

ugo · Post by **ugo** » Sun May 06, 2007 5:27 pm

thanks for the ESC suggestion paul. i'll definitely try it out. i've had my eye on that one for a while now anyway, so this may be the excuse to finally buy it. i've been using soundforge so far, but it looks like the extra features in ESC might help.

to make matters worse, im attempting to make these samples useful without multisampling. i only need them for very basic purposes though, and most of the sample wont actually be heard (only some very basic attributes get through), so i can get away with a lot. but it seems that many things will still cause noticable 'bumps' when a loop is played up high.

one of the larger problems here is that im trying to force sustained loops out of sounds that decay in real life, rather than sustain. so finding a chunk of the sample that's stable for long enough to make it worth using as a sustained section has been tricky so far.

stanlea · Post by **stanlea** » Sun May 06, 2007 5:31 pm

On the free side, you may try DiscoDsp HighLife and Wavosaur. Waverobot is payware, but good also.

ugo · Post by **ugo** » Sun May 06, 2007 6:33 pm

thanks for the suggestions. i'll try those out too.

thecontrolcentre · Post by **thecontrolcentre** » Sun May 06, 2007 7:12 pm

I find Simpler and Sampler in Live6 very good for creating sustained loops ... you can assign controllers to the loop start and end points and tweak them in real time.
It should be possible to export recordings made in the Live demo to a wave editor for saving, if you don't own it.

herodotus · Post by **herodotus** » Sun May 06, 2007 8:43 pm

One quick fix that works in some cases involves

1: Finding a portion of the sound with more or less even amplitude.

2: Finding the zero crossing points nearest either side of this section and selecting the audio between these points. Most wave editors will find or snap to zero crossings, or you can do it by eye. Either way it is much easier if the sample is mono.

3: Copy the selected audio it to the clipboard, and then reverse it.

4. Paste it directly after the selected audio (and by 'directly' I mean right on the last sample of the selection). Now try looping these two sections together. Sometimes it helps if you invert the phase of the pasted audio.

This doesn't always work, but when it does work it is very convincing.

Andywanders · Post by **Andywanders** » Mon May 07, 2007 3:18 am

Hi Ugo, I use Soundforge too and I never had any problems getting smooth sustained loops with it.

The tips herodotus gives are good, though I've never tried 3 & 4 (interesting). Soundforge has a really nice crossfade loop feature in the tools menu which can help to smooth out any changes in amplitude.

tony tony chopper · Post by **tony tony chopper** » Mon May 07, 2007 3:52 am

you'll find a loop maker in Edison:

Lagrange · Post by **Lagrange** » Mon May 07, 2007 4:13 am

Edison still looks amazing to me as the 1st day I layed eyes on it! Don't forget, you can also do batch loop points in some samplers (in my case vsampler).. Which IMO is quite unpredictable (because you can't tell where your start/end points will be) but the fastest way of getting a group sustained..

L

ugo · Post by **ugo** » Mon May 07, 2007 6:30 am

thanks for the suggestions, i'll definitely try them out. i tested out ESC today and i must say i did like the looping controls on it. if i end up getting it, that combined with soundforge should take care of my editing needs.

i'll check out edison too though, as i've been meaning to check out the juice pack anyway. all those plugs look rather cool.

Mr. Tunes · Post by **Mr. Tunes** » Mon May 07, 2007 7:08 am

well if your samples can get away with a lot, then i would look at tools that are dedicated to this to see if they work at all. i know zero-x has seamless looper. i haven't used it in years since i was beta testing for peter's beatcreator back in the day.
http://www.beatcreator.com/

mailetter · Post by **mailetter** » Tue May 08, 2007 5:20 pm

Hello Guys,

Discohighlife is a beautiful thing but...

Who can say me how i can looping in a correct way the samples
when you use the vst freeze function (with discodsp Highlife)?

The looping point isn't good and it makes the sound not natural when a note is hold.

Thanks to help me

stanlea · Post by **stanlea** » Tue May 08, 2007 6:08 pm

There's a pdf manual besides the dll.

mailetter · Post by **mailetter** » Wed May 09, 2007 12:08 pm

Hello,

Thanks for your answer.
I followed your tip and I looked at the pdf manual.
Only the page 5 and 6 speak about that and anywhere you find
how to do good point looping.

How do persons that use DiscoDsp because i'm not a professional
of sound and i hear very well this looping point which give a very bad effect?
it's a pity because of the good sound of this sampler without that.
SO
1) There's a solution for this problem and i wait for the answer
2) The people are deaf!

tips for looping instrument samples?