Help Tuning Samples

T

TDOT

New member
What up FP?

I'm starting to finally use samples from different songs and bringing them together.

Any suggestions or tricks to tuning your samples so that they sound good together, I understand in terms of theory that they would have to be within the same 'scale" sorta say or else it will just sound bad.

If I have my individual samples that are all different and for everyone of my samples I play them in keyboard mode, if I play every sample in the key of C for example would they be at the right pitch, or does the original sample affect the sample be played back over keys???
Sorry if I'm confusing I may not be explaining myself well.
 
You could choose to make a harmonic sound ie;chord type harmony with your samples.
So for example you could pitch your root sample to C, have you main harmony coming in at G, and then either a major or minor harmony coming in at F or F flat...
Then you can scale up or down 2 semitones your Root note (C) to create movement and progression (Major) or down 1 semitone (Minor)... and so on, this is music.

Using a chord calculator can help a lot if you can't play an instrument. Experimentation will go a long way, and often with beats you only need 2 or 3 notes and 1 harmony to make the whole thing work. Chords and scales... online resources will tell you exactly which notes fit if you can't play by ear yet, but with practice it comes easily. As a new musician I recommend C and G as root keys, as your notes will always fall on the white keys on your keyboard or controller generally (major harmonies), which makes things loads easier. And then to add a touch of darkness/lift in your track you can touch a black key (minor/other harmony).

As to your samples being the right pitch, that depends on where you set the starting point (cue/root reference) in your sampling software for each individual sample. You need to figure out the note/pitch of the sample then set it manually. (best sound IMO). You can always re-pitch everything to c with autotune then add it to your sampler from there and it will work auto... depends which playback sampler you use, and how well you understand it.

Hope this helps.
 
Thanks for that, still need to digest it all but it makes sense.
All of my samples by default fall on the root key of C.
I know that because I use Maschine and the root key for everything on my Maschine is C.

However though, that doesn't mean that because my root key is C on my maschine that the sample itself is played in the key or scale of C right?
 
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