How do you use your sampler - mind to share ?

[cowby]

Hi,

Everyone should have a sampler (no matter hard or soft) in their studio. But how can you guys use your sampler for ? Right now, I just load in a drum loop and chop them into pieces and re-arrange them in soft sequencer. I don't think I am smart enough to do sound design, layering and all hi-skill stuff within my sampler. Mind to share how do you use your sampler ?

Thanks!

Cowby

[realmarco]

I mainly use kontakt as a sample player.

mostly playing back libraries of non-synth sounds.

I usually programm my drums and percs with battery loaded up with acoustic kits.


for drum loops chooping and arranging may I suggest checking out PhatMatik Pro
http://www.bitshiftaudio.com/products/p ... index.html

it chops all by itself and assigns each chop to a midi note automatically.

and it generates a midi files of the timing/sequence of the loop so you can arrange the chops of the loops like you do with midi notes.

you load up phatmatik pro as a VST and you put the midi files on it track and then you just re-arrange the timing and order of the chops. it's much faster than doing your way and plus you got tempo-sync Fx(filters delays etc) and envelopes on each chops plus you can also assign each chop to 6 different mixer channels permitting you to decide what get processed with effects and what doesn't(ie reverb only on the snares and compression only on the kicks etc)

[Sascha Franck]

Basically, there's the following things I'm doing most often:

- Playing of realistic (or supposed to be realistic) sounding instrument patches.
Guess that's the most "normal" thing people use samplers for. Great to mimick real musician's instruments such as a string or horn section, a bass, a piano, whatever.
Mind you, for drums I'm using a dedicated drum sampler (while the "plain" instrument stuff is done in Kontakt/EXS24) - which is more or less a question of comfort.

- Playing of synth-like patches, sometimes/often even sampled VSTis.
While the reasons for using synth-patches are obvious (because I just don't have the originals), you may ask why I sample VSTis.
There's two reasons: 1) That way they're using up (partially WAY) less CPU power and 2) it often adds to their functionality as well. For example, one of my most often used basses is a patch sampled from Muon's Tau (the free version). Now, the free Tau was monophonic, had no pitchbend or sustain pedal support - my patch does all that, should I need it.
Also, Kontakt for instance has better filters, FX and further mangling capabilities than what you may find on your average VSTi.

- Loop mangling. I'm usually not using a "normal" sampler for this (even if Kontakt actually does a not too shabby job on slicing) but dedicated tools instead. Right now a combination of ReCycle or Phatmatik Pro or MicroDicer (the last being the best bargain) along with DR-008 or Battery.
I do sincerely hope that one day there'll be a one-size-fits-all solution for all my drum/loop needs.

- "Special sampling". Very often I am using samplers in, well, let me say "songbased contexts".
There's a whole bunch of things that could be done.
For instance, samplers are just GREAT for some choires. I may just load in my recorded choire voices and simply trigger them via MIDI. That's just great when finding the sweet spots for a choire. No need to copy things around in my sequencer, I just trigger the appropriate key(s) instead.
Also great for lead vocals (or whatever lead instrument). I often load the main vocal track into Kontakt and map the important sentences/phrases/syllables to my keys. VERY easy to do manual echoes, weird filterings and modulations that way. Kontakt's time machine sometimes even makes up for a nice artificial choire.
And, even if I consider myself being a somewhat reasonable guitar player, I just love to load up the occasional power chord or whatever into Kontakt too - there's just too much nice/weird/funny options, which I wouldn't like to miss out on.


There might be WAY more ways of (ab)using samplers. Granularizing samples, stuttering effects... whatever.

Bottomline: Samplers are THE SHIT. I really love them to death. If there was one single VSTi I had to chose it'd be a sampler (most likely Kontakt).
Not only do they allow me to use things such as an orchestra (or so) in a box, no, in their modern variants they are also boosting efficiency and creativity.