Tips on chopping and arranging samples

S

StanleySteamer

New member
Hey guys, I am looking for some tips on chopping and arranging samples. Basically, I use maschine 2 studio and how I work currently is after I find a song and I convert it to a wav file I put it in a folder and locate it on my maschine. Then I load the sample on to a pad and begin to truncate the parts I want assign them on pads. However, I am having a lot of issues lately with the samples either being too long or too short and having that click sound at the end/beginning. I have tried getting as surgical as possible as far as timing and sometimes it doesn't work. I recently came up with the idea of chopping my samples longer and recording them shorter. Basically, if I want a 1 bar sample I truncate out 2 bars and record only 1 bar so that the end doesn't get cut short. This works sometimes however sometimes the sample is too long or doesn't loop into the beginning correctly. After I chop a sample and get somewhat of a good loop I then tune it up or down using my stretch function in maschine and assign it to the tempo of my choosing. Overall I am looking on how I can better improve my chopping/looping in maschine. I assume it has similar sample chopping functions to that of a MPC and what not. After I chop my samples I load them into Pro Tools and beginning dragging all my drums and patterns and what not from maschine into Pro Tools. Sometimes when I watch Rhythm Roulette videos I see producers directly sampling and chopping into Pro Tools. Would this be a better option for me? This is probably an overwhelming and confusing post but if you can follow what i'm saying please hit me back with some advice!
 
Cut at the zero crossing to reduce clicks and pops.
You can cut samples as long as you want if you set your pads to choke each other off.
A loop's length should be determined by it's tempo.
 
thanks for the response. I always cut a loop and then adjust my tempo/stretching to get something similar to the original sample. Now, if one of my samples is either too fast or too slow then I just set my own BPM of my liking and add my drums. It sounds like your process is different though and it's what I see sometimes when I watch videos of people sampling. I always choke the pads and set the polyphony to 1 and set it to ASDR vs One-Shot. Maybe that is what my samples are cut too short or too long sometimes and I get clicking and popping sounds?
 
Clicking and popping are caused by abrupt peaks in volume which could be the result of not cutting your samples at the zero crossing or due to your envelope settings.

How I do things is quite different to the way a lot of people work, like if I asked you "how long is a 1 bar loop at a tempo of 97 BPM?" could you tell me?......Don't feel bad if the answer is no, some of the guys producing commercial loops couldn't tell you either because a lot of cats cut their loops to the wrong length.
 
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