Share your shortcircuit sampler techniques here!

[keyman_sam]

Sounds like you'd need to touch around with portamento, which does 'pitch-slides' per note relative to the previous note played on that instance.

Hi MaliceX, I've been experimenting with "per-note" portamento in SC, what I'm referring to, is that for example take a midi file with pitch bends, If you put SC with a sample in porta or legato it sounds artificial when the pitch changes(slides), I mean the only way for this to sound good is with formant preservation, like kontakt tone/time-machine, or using prerecorded up/down slides for an specific instrument.

And, that is not a problem of SC in itself, because I suspect pro libraries like garritan which uses kontakt internally do some type of formant correction in the pitch bends(I tested some midi pitch slides and they DO sound different in garritan/kontakt).

Well probably this pitch thing is something you should not do with a sampler, and using proffesional samples is the way to go.

cheers.

PS: I mean, samples or sf2 of an instrument, whatever it is, Im talking about being expressive with a sampler, not sampler mangling.

Dunno about that. Other than I've heard Sampletank had some kind of stretching mechanism to keep the original tones to base samples, even with multisamples, depending on the range it's still going to be artificial with pitch bends in LARGE ranges. When I tried Realguitar/strat demo, the pitch bend isn't really that noticeable to be artificial, probably because each of its notes were meticulously recorded by per-fret.

In other words, other than Sampletank to my knowledge, I don't think there exists a sampler that can do what you're saying for pitch bending.

Gigastudio has a portamento mechanism which I believe uses filters calibrated using various samples to produce a natural portamento.

In addition, Gigastudio also has a legato mode which works by setting certain samples to play when you do portamento between two notes.

[MaliceX]

How does one fix that annoying pop up asking for the samples directory when reloading shortcircuit v1.5.1?

[tommy_d]

Hey All:

How can I make a better crossfader in sc1?

The obvious way of doing it is:

ZONE 1
amplitude -50.0dB
zone mod matrix: modwheel...+50.0dB...amplitude

ZONE 2
amplitude 0.0dB
zone mod matrix: modwheel...-50.0dB...amplitude

...but since this a LINEAR x-fade, it produces a big dip in volume in the transition between the two samples (i.e. in the cenbtre of the modwheel's range)

Is there a way of creating a smoother crossfade, a DJ mixer-style (equal power, I think) crossfade?

[tommy_d]

This one's probably pretty obvious. But I kinda like it...

"Zoom Out" (for want of a better name)

Load a 1-bar loop (*) into a zone, then clone the loop to a new zone with the same keyrange.

In the second zone:

filter 1
limiter
input gain: +30.0dB
attack: 0.977ms [i.e. the minimum]
release: 100.0ms

stepLFO1
smooth: 100%
sync: 1/16

Load the "ramp up" waveform, then reduce the number of steps to 16 (*).

modulation routing
stepLFO1...+65.0dB...amplitude

Assign both zones to a new group.

Set group LFO the same as stepLFO1 in the second zone (see above).

group modulation routing:
groupLFO...-20.0dB...amplitude

(...)

It's an LFO-controlled variable NY compression effect, basically.

With the two LFOs set to ramp up it produces a kind of "compression crescendo" that snaps back into focus at the beginning of each loop. (If you want a [volume] crescendo as well you can dispense with the group entirely and just have the two zones).

For a 2-bar loop set sync: 1/8 for both LFOs.

If you set the two LFOs to sine and assign (e.g.) the modwheel to control the rate of the two LFOs you can get some bizarre effects, too.

Mileage will vary: the more background detail & ambience in your loop, the more striking the effect of the limiter.

EDIT: (*) I'm assuming a 4/4 loop here, obviously...

[tommy_d]

Kick Reinforcement #1a

Doubling the kick with a low sine wave. An old trick, but still a good one. And pretty easy to do in sc:

Insert a 1-bar drum loop into a zone.

filter 1
sinus osc
tune: about -8.0st if the loop is mapped to C1 [see below]
dry mix: 0.0dB
sinus mix: -137.0dB

Clear stepLFO1, then:

smooth: about 20% [see below]
sync: 1/32
steps: 32 [again, I'm assuming it's a 4/4 loop]

modulation routing
stepLFO1...+144.0dB...f1:sinus mix

Then play the loop, and while it's playing mark all the kicks on stepLFO1: use the LMB to draw in a vertical bar (upwards, as tall as possible) on every LFO step where there's a kick. (If you make a mistake on a step, CTRL+LMB resets it).

(...)

This should produce a short sine "blip" with every kick. The volume of these blips is controlled by filter 1 sinus mix; depending on the loop/the volume & tone of the kick/the effect you want, -137.0dB might be waaaaaay too much or "can't hear any difference". To turn it up or down, raise or lower sinus mix; to turn it off, bypass filter 1. To hear the blips, the whole blips, and nothing BUT the blips, set filter 1 dry mix to the minimum i.e. -144.0dB.

The pitch produced by sine osc depends on the keyrange to which the loop is mapped. Depending on the key of track (of course), somewhere around F0 or lower usually sounds pretty good, hence -8.0st if the loop is mapped to C1.

Raising "smooth" above zero helps reduce the glitch at the end of each blip as sinus osc closes. Raising it too far, however, compromises attack.

P.S. This is an easy way to bring out just the first beat of a loop, which sounds pretty good combined with the "zoom out"/compression-crescendo thing above...

[tommy_d]

Kick Reinforcement #1b

Slightly better version of the above

Insert a 1-bar drum loop into a zone, then clone it to a new zone with the same keyrange. Leave the first zone alone. Set the second zone as for Kick Reinforcement #1a, but set filter1 dry mix to the minimum (i.e. -144.0dB) and stepLFO1 smooth to 0.0%. Draw in the kicks on stepLFO1 as before.

Then:

filter 2
LP2
cutoff: about 100Hz
resonance: 0.0%

Filtering the output of sinus osc is better than using the "smooth" parameter of stepLFO1: it gets rid of the glitches without softening the attacks.

[tommy_d]

Kick Reinforcement #2

The only problem with #1a and #1b [above] is that the kicks might not fall exactly on a demisemiquaver (32nd note). Unless the loop is quantised. Or the drummer is supertight. So #1a and #1b might muddy the low end.

This method "tracks" the low-end of the loop so it doesn't matter where the kicks fall. (Which is good, m'kay?). But it's harder to set up: sometimes you have to tweak the settings a bit to get it to work. (Which is less good. Obviously).

Insert a drum loop into a zone, then clone it to a new zone with the same keyrange. Leave the first zone alone. Set the second zone:

filter 1
sinus osc
tune: -8.0dB [see above]
dry mix: 0.0dB
sinus mix: 0.0dB

filter 2
LP2
cutoff: about 100Hz
resonance: 0.0%

Create a new group and move the second zone to it. Set the group:

effect 1
f:gate
hold: about 70ms
threshold: between about 0.0dB and 3.0dB
reduction: -144.0dB

effect 2
f:LP2
cutoff: about 300Hz
resonance: 0.0dB

(...)

The tricky bit is getting it to respond to just the kicks. The LPF in the second zone should help, but the crucial thing is the gate in group effect 1: if the snare is getting though, raise the threshold.

The amplitude of the group controls the volume of the sine blips; the gate hold time controls how long they are. (The second LPF is just there to smooth out the sound).

There's probably a better way of doing this, though...any ideas?

[keyman_sam]

I have to try the compression tip and get back to you. Excellent ones!

[Kenmac]

Not a technique but I'm bumping this up again because I have a simple question I can't seem to find the answer to. I have a sampled drum set in wav format which I'm having problems with. I'm using Shortcircuit 1 BTW. All the instruments in the kit have been sampled at different velocities ranging from quiet to loud. When I try dragging and dropping for instance, the bass drum, which has 9 different velocities, Shortcircuit maps it across the keys. I want the bass drum and all the velocities to stay at C1. How do I do this? I looked in the help file but I couldn't find the answer to this. As I'm fairly new to Shortcircuit please explain this in an easy to understand manner. Thanks.

[Kenmac]

Still no answer? I'd really like to know how to map out the velocity. Can somebody please help me out? Thanks.

[thelizard]

tommy: thanks a lot for your tips. the compression technique works very well for experimenting...

[shanecgriffo]

useful thread thanks

[tommy_d]

tommy: thanks a lot for your tips

Hey, you're welcome - glad you liked them

I've had a lot of fun with the tips other people have posted here; many a happy hour has been spent mashing, glitching and generally ruining perfectly good drum loops...

[tommy_d]

Not a technique but I'm bumping this up again because I have a simple question I can't seem to find the answer to. I have a sampled drum set in wav format which I'm having problems with. I'm using Shortcircuit 1 BTW. All the instruments in the kit have been sampled at different velocities ranging from quiet to loud. When I try dragging and dropping for instance, the bass drum, which has 9 different velocities, Shortcircuit maps it across the keys. I want the bass drum and all the velocities to stay at C1. How do I do this? I looked in the help file but I couldn't find the answer to this. As I'm fairly new to Shortcircuit please explain this in an easy to understand manner. Thanks.

Check out keyman_sam's post on page 1 ("Automapping for velocity splits"): depending on how the wav files are named shortcircuit will do this automagically.

(See also his post about velocity x-fading further down)

BTW: Which kit is it, if you don't mind me asking?

[Kenmac]

Thanks Tommy, I'll check that out. The kit I'm using is a freebie that was posted over in the samples section, the "TinBrooke Tales" kit. http://www.tinbrooketales.com/archive/drums.htm

Not a technique but I'm bumping this up again because I have a simple question I can't seem to find the answer to. I have a sampled drum set in wav format which I'm having problems with. I'm using Shortcircuit 1 BTW. All the instruments in the kit have been sampled at different velocities ranging from quiet to loud. When I try dragging and dropping for instance, the bass drum, which has 9 different velocities, Shortcircuit maps it across the keys. I want the bass drum and all the velocities to stay at C1. How do I do this? I looked in the help file but I couldn't find the answer to this. As I'm fairly new to Shortcircuit please explain this in an easy to understand manner. Thanks.

Check out keyman_sam's post on page 1 ("Automapping for velocity splits"): depending on how the wav files are named shortcircuit will do this automagically.

(See also his post about velocity x-fading further down)

BTW: Which kit is it, if you don't mind me asking?