A newbie question about sampling.

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DareDemon666

New member
Hi,

I've just started getting into creating music with a DAW. I am a musician of a good 10 years so I understand at least what I'm trying to do. When it comes to making music with MIDI though I have no clue of how to get more 'instruments' to use other than I need some sort of sample collection. I happened upon a thing called SoundFonts but that seems to be a really old and nearly extinct format.

I'd appreciate it greatly if someone could point me in the right direction here. As I said, I'm a musician not a technician. I don't know how to make a digital instrument, I just play 'em.

Cheers,
DareDemon666
 
DareDemon666 said:
Hi,

I've just started getting into creating music with a DAW. I am a musician of a good 10 years so I understand at least what I'm trying to do. When it comes to making music with MIDI though I have no clue of how to get more 'instruments' to use other than I need some sort of sample collection. I happened upon a thing called SoundFonts but that seems to be a really old and nearly extinct format.

I'd appreciate it greatly if someone could point me in the right direction here. As I said, I'm a musician not a technician. I don't know how to make a digital instrument, I just play 'em.

Cheers,
DareDemon666
Click to expand...

sounds to me like you're so un-experienced with this/so far behind (no offense by the way!) in terms of technology you need to hire someone or take some classes or something. let a pro teach you if u can, u'll get it a lot faster.
bottom line is you need to buy (or download) plugins that are compatible with your setup. some of these plugins are pretty expensive but give u a good sound. if your computer is all outdated then i dunno man
 
Yeah I'm currently taking some classes however most of the other students are new to music in its entirety and are even a fair ways behind me on the tech. I just wondered how I'd go about adding new instruments because the ones available to me with the program are pretty poor.

As for my actual PC it's fairly up to date and I'm no newbie to technology (I built it myself), but I am completely new to producing music via a computer.

Thanks for the help anyway!
 
Building a sample cataloger is essential, and trying to find and make your own samples takes a lot of time and patience. I would offer you the advice of not sampling other people's tracks and vocals. In the end I made alot of music that I can never sell for any real profit considering the time and effort I put into them. You can always torrent sample cd's or pay for them online. Since I am still under the # of replies to post any links.. I can't put them on here for you. But I would highly recommend Xfer Serum for making your own sounds. Beats can be found online, and you can make them easily with programs like Propellerhead Reason.
 
DareDemon666 said:
Yeah I'm currently taking some classes however most of the other students are new to music in its entirety and are even a fair ways behind me on the tech. I just wondered how I'd go about adding new instruments because the ones available to me with the program are pretty poor.

As for my actual PC it's fairly up to date and I'm no newbie to technology (I built it myself), but I am completely new to producing music via a computer.

Thanks for the help anyway!
Click to expand...

it just seems like you're not even sure how to word it correctly because your question is so broad... what program/daw are you running? i gave u an answer in my last post. u will need plug ins for the software you are running. plugins are virtual instruments. for quality ones u would have to pay (or dl them). if you're using some shitty free daw, then u may need to upgrade to something better

challenja said:
Building a sample cataloger is essential, and trying to find and make your own samples takes a lot of time and patience. I would offer you the advice of not sampling other people's tracks and vocals. In the end I made alot of music that I can never sell for any real profit considering the time and effort I put into them. You can always torrent sample cd's or pay for them online. Since I am still under the # of replies to post any links.. I can't put them on here for you. But I would highly recommend Xfer Serum for making your own sounds. Beats can be found online, and you can make them easily with programs like Propellerhead Reason.
Click to expand...

this guy just came in the thread n started speaking about something completely different.
 
You are correct, I do not know how to word it properly because I have no idea what it is I'd need. I have very little knowledge of the technical terms, the question is so broad because I don't know what to narrow it down to. I'm a complete newbie to this having very rarely experienced this side of the music industry. To quote "plugins are virtual instruments", until now I did not know that.

As for the DAW, I'm currently using Presonus Studio One 3.
 
Like chopz makes beats said you're going to need to get some plugins. There are two different types of plugins in VST format. One is VST which are effect plugins such as EQ, Filter, Compressor, Delay, etc. The other type that I think you are looking for are called VSTI. The I at the end stands for instrument. These types of plugins will be your synthesizers and samplers. This is a huge topic as there are tons of plugins available. Some are synth engines meaning that a wave shape will be produced by an ocillator and manipulated through the path of the virtual circuit, just like a hardware synth but in a software form. Some will be rompler type instruments that come loaded with various preset samples that can be manipulated with whatever functions that particular piece of software offers. Then there are samplers and sample playback engines. What I would suggest is to do a search for the type of sounds you're looking to use and type in vst or vsti after that on Google. You'll be blown away by the overwhelming amount of options but luckily there are a lot of reviews and youtube demos for most pieces of software that can help you narrow it down. Be aware that some things you might think are stand alone will actually just be a sample library for another engine (like Kontakt) and that you may need the other piece of software to make it all function. If you're just starting out I would also recommend checking out some free vst's and vsti's to get a handle on things like where to put them on your hard drive so Studio One can find them and you can practice loading up some free ones before you go and spend a bunch of money. The price on these plugins goes from cheap to pretty expensive and you might want to start free and then build up when you're ready. To find the free ones just do a Google search for free vsti or something like that. maybe throw the word "best" in there so you're not overloaded with really crappy ones. There are some great freebies, price doesn't always indicate quality.
 
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