New: Sample This! Edition Three

[julia]

New: Sample This! Edition Three.

Sample This! (Third Edition) is your opportunity to learn about sampling directly from the professionals. This book is for both the established musician who wants to develop a greater understanding of what sampling can do to help them make music, as well as the musician who is taking their first steps in sampling. Sample This! contains hundreds (literally) of tips from professional musicians with years of experience of sampling, sound design, and creating large sample libraries. It is a resource you will want to return to again, and again. In addition, purchasers of the book will also receive TSW-X VST, a sample-based synthesizer (Windows PC (XP) compatible) together with a wide range of sample material from Back in Time Records (after submitting proof of purchase).



This new printed book is written by skilled writer and sample expert Klaus P. Rausch, bitr CEO and maker of so many sample products, in close cooperation with Simon Cann, gifted author of books like "How to Make a Noise: A Comprehensive Guide to Synthesizer Programming" and "Building a Successful 21st Century Music Career" and more (for more details visit his website www.noisesculpture.com).

The new version of Sample This! is a printed book in a perfect size, a must-have for everybody who is working with samples and sample-based VSTs. Release date at amazon.com is November 1, and you can pre-order it right now here: http://www.amazon.com/Sample-This-Third ... 417&sr=8-4

List Price: $14.95

[harryson]

Update info:

The book is reviewed now, here's the text:

"Sample This
Third Edition

By Simon Cann and Klaus P Rausch

Reviewed by Squibs


"Sample This" dropped through my letterbox the other day. It's the newly published third edition, and you don't get to do a third edition unless people have been buying the earlier editions - publishers are quite resolute about this kind of thing.

The authors Simon Cann and Klaus P Rausch are well qualified to write about the art of sampling. Simon already has a substantial history as a music technology writer with the seminal "How to Make a Noise" title, as well as the forthcoming "Project5 Power" and many others under his belt. You can learn more at his website http://www.noisesculpture.com. Klaus is the sound designer behind Back in Time Records (http://www.backintimerecords.de), a company familiar to many for supplying quality sample libraries and VSTi instruments at affordable prices.

The first thing that struck me was the size of the book. It clocks in at a very manageable 132 pages. Indeed, I managed to read the entire publication in one evening. This is a book which may well appeal to anybody who is a little wary of music technology books. It's divided into bite-sized chapters which shouldn't pose a problem for even the most rabid bibliophobe and it's sensibly priced at $14.95/£9.95

The first chapter is an introduction to sampling, covering all the bases and setting us up for a chapter on planning and choosing the right tools. We learn to analyse what we are going to sample, the hardware and software we will require for the job, and the format we will use for storing the results. It is a well rounded essay on the subject, although occasionally the depth of the exploration is limited. In the section which deals with aliasing for example, we are told that we need to understand the Nyquist point. The explanation is that it is half the sampling rate and that any sound with frequencies above this point will lead to aliasing. I found this incomplete, but then this is not a book on the physics of sound, and a well programmed sample engine will negate the requirement for any knowledge of such issues.

The chapter on the sampling process describes getting the audio into the sampler and editing the individual samples. A competent section on uploading samples into playback tools follows and this covers velocity layering, choking, polyphony matters and other facets of laying out a sample set which you might not otherwise consider. The sound shaping chapter considers filters, envelopes and includes a very cursory look at effects. The chapter finishes with an interesting study of some of the challenges in making a sampled acoustic instrument sound authentic.

Chapter 7 - "Putting the Theory into Practice" gives the reader an opportunity to practice what they have learned. Download links are provided for the Paax 2 Free sampler and a zip file of samples for use in the chapter. The TSW-X VSTi and an additional range of samples are available if you mail in the form found at the back of the book. This extra content is a valuable freebie. It is in Chapter 7 that the reader will discover whether they have really understood the earlier content and I wonder if it might not have been prudent to distribute the exercises all through the book to keep the reader more involved. That being said, the examples start small and build up, implementing the techniques described earlier in the text.

Chapter 8 is made up of a long list of tips and tricks, broken into a number of categories, which the user can delve into at random when a sampling session goes stale. Chapter 9 deals with the tedious but crucial task of managing your sample library. The book finishes with a section entitled "So I've finished the book - What Now?" Here, Simon and Klaus encourage the user to purchase their books and sample libraries. I've no issue with the authors advertising their own products, but nowhere in the Further Reading section is it mentioned that Simon is the author of every single book in the list.

"Sample This" does exactly what I expected of it. It tells you what sampling is, how to prepare for and conduct your sampling session, and how to process your raw samples into homogenous polished sample banks. The book is concise, forsaking extended histories of sampling and concentrating instead on modern software sampling. If you are already well versed in the art of sampling, you'll probably still pick up some valuable knowledge. If you are a ROMpler preset hound with a hankering to learn how to roll your own, "Sample This" is a worthy introduction."




http://www.musician.ie/content/longgear.php?artno=7

[mahtazz]

I've already own it.

Thank you both!