Need advice for 8bit/12bit sample sound/character

[MachFront]

First off I don't exactly have advanced-level knowledge of music via computer even though I've been working at it for a few years. And I'll fully admit that one of my biggest weaknesses is sampling. I'm a sampling dummy.

With that in mind, I'd like some advice/info.
I would like to be able to get that same warmth and grit that is present in the hardware samplers of about the mid-80's to late80's/early90's. Say, for instance, the Ensoniq Mirage or the Emax.

Surely it's not going to be as easy as using something like the MDA Degrade on some samples and so forth.
And anyhow... is using an 8 or 12 bit sample the same now as it would have been then? I mean, is 8 bit is 8 bit is 8 bit? Or not? Enlighten me there.

I realize that a lot of that tone and character came from so many 'part', from the sample, the source, the media it was on and loaded with, the filters on the samplers, the fact that the samplers were hardware and so forth.
But what to do to acheive or closely resemble this?

Pointers? Information? Advice?
Anything and everything is appreciated.
I don't know where to begin since, as I said, I'm absolutely "DUH!" when it comes to sampling. I'm attempting to 'patch that hole' so to speak.

Thanks.

[Spe3D]

That's true about all the equipment adding to the character of the original sound - for ages developers have been trying to capture that warmth - there are many variations - some ok and help

There's a thread about some of the warming plugs going on now here

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=206779

I think the 8bit thing is that if its 8 bits, that's 8 bits of info - however the moment it gets into a host its converted to 32 bit n up for internal processing (of course its only got 8 bits of info) so I doubt that will make too much of a change to its sound.

Quite a few of the samplers have bit reduction effects built in too, so you can crunch higher bit samples down a few notches.

Another thing to do is add a noise recording, or a noise plug, just a very sublte amount to help dirty up the sound.

I am sure some others will post what they do too.

Best regards,

Spe3d

:O)

[Distorted_Mastermind]

There are subtle little things.
One of the things I can tell you that gets an effect using a hardware sampler is clipping on input which will give an overdrive type effect.
Another thing is sampling time was limited, so most of the samples were mono and at reduced sample rates.
The source are often vinyl records and cassette tapes which already have a little grit and extra character going on.
Filters are another important thing. The filters on my ASRX can hang with the best software has to offer and it's over 10 years old.
Last, but not least recording it back into a computer and normalizing everything back up to 0 db
There are many factors involved. The easiest and probably cheapest way to do this for sure would be to buy an old hardware sampler.

[MachFront]

Thanks.
These are some good suggestions to get me started in that direction. I appreciate it.

I had not considered noise, I didn't even think about mono (Duh!) and I also had forgetten the smaller sample time of older hardware samplers. Hmm.

[Spitfire31]

Maybe the purist's way would be to buy an Emax on eBay for next to nothing, sample what you need into it and then re-sample (from the acoustic OUTs, of course) into your Kontakt, Halion or whatever?

Only partly tongue in cheek...

/Joey