quick question - lowering BPM vs. pitching down?

L

leroy413

New member
real quick question- I've started sampling digitally, and was wondering if my pitching down the sample/chops (in any software) is the equivalent of me previously lowering the bpm fader on my turn table.

thanks in advance!
 
There are three ways you can change a sample:
  1. Pitch down/up: the tempo stays the same but the pitch is changed: this is a frequency domain convolution it leaves the length of the sample unchanged
  2. Shift BPM down/up: the tempo changes but the pitch stays the same: this is a time domain convolution: the sample length will grow smaller or larger
  3. Stretch out or in: this changes both the tempo and the pitch - this is what happens when you ask a sampler to map the sample to different keys. The sample length will get smaller or larger. In addition, you usually make the samples on this one the same length by selecting a sustain range that is looped until the sound is no longer required.
 
bandcoach said:
There are three ways you can change a sample:
......
3. Stretch out or in: this changes both the tempo and the pitch - this is what happens when you ask a sampler to map the sample to different keys. The sample length will get smaller or larger. In addition, you usually make the samples on this one the same length by selecting a sustain range that is looped until the sound is no longer required.
Click to expand...
Just to make the answer to the original question explicit: if you change the speed on your turntable, that is the equivalent of #3 above (minus the looping
of course, unless you are very skilled :-).
 
I use Ableton so my experience may be limited to your question but i'll try my best to answer.

BPM is the actual speed of the project (Metronome clicks and such)
Pitching up and down - The actual transpose of the sample will change while maintaining the BPM (However, in Ableton I know when you unwarp a sample and decide to pitch up or down, the waveform changes)

I hope this helps
 
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