What's the difference between samples, loops, and multisamples?

MikeFrequency

New member
I know that loops are extended pieces, such as 4 measures of a drum beat but I want to know what just a single hit is called. Like if I wanted to search the web for one single kick drum sound what would that be called and what would I search?
 
I donno, yeah it would be a one shot but mostly one shots appear in the way of "synth shots" or "bass shots" which are samples of a synth sound but only 1 short hit of it, which can be added as rythmical addition, some people smash them on the piano roll and hope it sounds great...never tried that one out, rather use a synth if you want a full spectrum sound that changes in its note...anyways if you want kicks, you gonna search for "kick samples" or "single kick sample" and if you get a sample with several kicks in a row, you get a knife and cut it out :D
same with Hi-Hats, Toms, Percussions etc.

Mostly these samples with multiple instruments are ALWAYS called loops, if you search for "Hi-Hat loop", you get a loop, if you search "Hi-Hat sample", you get single sounds :D
 
Actually what most people refer to as a loop is really just a one shot sample which is triggered in repetition so it sounds like a proper loop which is set up to cycle autonomously, as in it repeats for as long as you hold that note down.....the reason why fake loops became more prevalent is because people didn't know how to cut loops properly.....basically there is an inseparable relationship between loop length and BPM, for example a one bar loop at 95 BPM must be exactly 2.526 seconds long....and it can't be anything else except wrong.
 
A multisample pack is a set of recordings, often of an instrument such as a piano, that provides a wide range of variation for realism. There will often be a palette of pitches, dynamics, and other performance variations of the instrument to choose from. This minimizes the need for sample manipulation. For instance, pitch shifting can sound unnatural, so being able to select a sample at or close to the desired pitch helps keep the timbre intact.
 
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