How to tune samples?

right on,
i wasnt really sure if he was trying to tune a single note or an entire musical phrase.

i still say, no matter how elementary it is to u or me, even tuning a single note takes some skill. i even sat in with a community orchestra and some of them had been playing for years and still couldnt tune their violin well. :p

peace
 
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dvyce said:




But when we are on the level of going "Laaaaaaa" and turning a knob until the pitch is the same as another "Laaaaaaa"... that takes no real musical knowledge... that is pretty much monkey work...

... it is just like when Bugs Bunny (or Elmer Fudd?) hits the note on the piano and sings "me me me meeee, la la la laaa" to find his pitch.
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oh lord

if tite pitch only required semitone changes! how about one cent difference being far too large for some ears? that is not work for knobs
 
StoopidBeatz said:


What do you mean by this?
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two things

a semitone is an enormous increment when tuning samples titely. a cent (1/100th of a tone or 0.016..% changes) is large to tune titely! - detail requires software (no knobs)

of course the knobs ref. has dbl meaning. ppl post what they dont know about and wont understand
 
i dont remember anything being said about semitones.

anyways, i never thought a cent was not acurate enough to tune. i dont really see what this has to do with the question anyway.
 
dvyce said:



when we are on the level of going "Laaaaaaa" and turning a knob until the pitch is the same as another "Laaaaaaa"... that takes no real musical knowledge... that is pretty much monkey work...

... it is just like when Bugs Bunny (or Elmer Fudd?) hits the note on the piano and sings "me me me meeee, la la la laaa" to find his pitch.
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b/c piano in semitone increments. and if you sing whilst fine tuning you will miss the point. i never felt the thread was about semitone incs. either until this post
 
I assumed the question here was how to tune a sample. In sound design terms that is the most integral part of the sf development process. The sample has to be pitched dead on. Emu do not even allow a variance of 1 cent +-, so it is important, but only if you are creating instrument presets. If you are tuning a sample for musical reasons then, by all means, use your ears. If you are tuning a sample on it's own merits and need to then span it across the keyboard and place it correctly and know when it will start to detune itself so you can then use a new sample at a different placement, then tuning it is absolutely crucial. If you are creating a bass preset and you need 4 samples, C2, C3, C4, C5, then even 1 cent variance will mean that each tme you go up a semitone that sample detunes itself further from the correct pitch, so you would need more than 4 samples to create your bass preset. If you have tuned the sample bang on then you could use a sample every octave and keep it in pitch.
The man asked how to tune a sample, that's how we sound designers do it. You want to use a sample that is placed at one location, say C3, and just have it triggered then use your ears. If you need to tune a sample to use in preset work, then you have to have the sample pitch correct. And there are very few ears on this planet that can spot a 1 cent difference in pitch. The other reason we tune samples is that when it comes to looping that sample, as in creating a preset(bass as an example), then you need to have full integer cycles otherwise your loop will detune itself even faster and earlier when you span the sample.This is why I asked if the poster wanted to tune more than one note being played at a time, as I assumed it was for building instrument presets. If it's for using a played piece of music and you just want it to fit into your song, then the ears are the winners here.
Hope that helps.
 
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Samplecraze said:
I assumed the question here was how to tune a sample. In sound design terms that is the most integral part of the sf development process. The sample has to be pitched dead on. [...]If you are tuning a sample for musical reasons then, by all means, use your ears.
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Without wanting to sound like a groupie, I've much respect for the knowledge you share here, Samplecraze. This has been a very informative thread, mostly due to your contributions.

Thanks, man :)
 
wonpeace said:


oh lord

if tite pitch only required semitone changes! how about one cent difference being far too large for some ears? that is not work for knobs
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First of all, I never said anything about semitones... and how else are you going to tune your sample (even if you are using a tuner) than by turning a knob to raise or lower the pitch? If the tuner or your ears tell you that your pitch is too high, then you must "turn a knob" to lower it by however many cents.

cyesergio said:
I have this guitar loop and wanted to add a bass part to it, but I think the loop is a bit out of tune...How should I tune the guitar sample? I already thought of some differnt methods, like using Auto-tune (but that only works on monophonic material I think, and I want to use this method on all types of material), I also thought of using a reference tone, but that seems quite cumbersome...Any thoughts on this? How do you sample heads do this??!!?
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Second of all, this guy said he wants to take a "guitar loop" and tune it to his bass part. He said the sound is neither monophonic nor a single note sample.

He is not looking for how to take a pure pitch and multisample it across the keyboard.

What he is doing would best be done by ear, and I would be surprised if what he is trying to do could even be done with a tuner at all.

Like I said, I have never heard of anyone using a tuner to tune a guitar loop.
 
Fine, use your ears then.
I assumed we were talking about a bass loop as in samples, since the thread progressed that way? In sound design we call a bass loop the actual sample of a bass looped, a bass lick or riff or piece is what we refer to in this context.
 
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Just to add some clarity to the thead...You're both right, in this case I just wanted quick way to detect pitches from samples lifted from existing musical pieces, and rename the samples for quick reference. For example PianoHitCmajor.wav. "Oh hey instead of using my synth to play that Cmajor (or whatever) I can use PianoHitCmajor.wav" Because my sample library has grown exponentially, I don't want to go through the cumbersome process of doing it all by ear..especially since some of the samples are slightly out of tune (like the guitar loop), and would especially show when played with the intune bass part. So let's say I have the sample which most likely is polyphonic (lifted from an existing music piece)and it's slightly out of tune how would I know the pitch (and correct it!), since all guitar tuners with strictly monophonic material, as it just counts the cycles. I hope that covers it :)

p's
 
cyesergio said:
Just to add some clarity to the thead...You're both right, in this case I just wanted quick way to detect pitches from samples lifted from existing musical pieces, and rename the samples for quick reference. For example PianoHitCmajor.wav. "Oh hey instead of using my synth to play that Cmajor (or whatever) I can use PianoHitCmajor.wav" Because my sample library has grown exponentially, I don't want to go through the cumbersome process of doing it all by ear..especially since some of the samples are slightly out of tune (like the guitar loop), and would especially show when played with the intune bass part. So let's say I have the sample which most likely is polyphonic (lifted from an existing music piece)and it's slightly out of tune how would I know the pitch (and correct it!), since all guitar tuners with strictly monophonic material, as it just counts the cycles. I hope that covers it :)

p's
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You will have to do that by ear. There is no tool (as far as I know of) that can successfully do this for you.

Also, I'm sure I will get some people disagreeing with me here, but I think you will have a very hard time using something like a guitar tuner to tune any sample... even a monophonic single note guitar sample.

...Unless the sample (guitar or whatever) you are trying to tune is a long sustained clean note played with absolutely no feeling whatsoever, it will not work very well at all...

...have you ever tuned a guitar using a tuner? You must play the notes sustained for as long as you can in a very sterile way with no vibrato or feeling at all.... basically, you would have to play it a way that would not be very musically usable in a song.

That is why I don't think you will have much luck using a tuner for the vast majority of your samples... but feel free to give it a try... it can't hurt... but I personally wouldn't invest too much money in a tuner for that purpose.
 
...Unless the sample (guitar or whatever) you are trying to tune is a long sustained clean note played with absolutely no feeling whatsoever, it will not work very well at all...

...have you ever tuned a guitar using a tuner? You must play the notes sustained for as long as you can in a very sterile way with no vibrato or feeling at all.... basically, you would have to play it a way that would not be very musically usable in a song.

That is why I don't think you will have much luck using a tuner for the vast majority of your samples... but feel free to give it a try... it can't hurt... but I personally wouldn't invest too much money in a tuner for that purpose.
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co-sign... unless its a VERY pure tone that is also sustained, it seems near impossible to use any device besides your ear.

if you get the chance,check out this site to build your ear, and tell me what you think

www.good-ear.com
 
Although we have established that this thread is not about looped samples, I would like to clarify that a tuner will instantly shoot to the pitch once a guitar string is plucked, after that it will drop off or go through other pitches that are in the played note. On tuning samples, you are actually tuning the looped segment and that is sustaining. BUT I agree that for riffs or individual strikes of a note or notes, you would need your ears, but to say that the note has to be continuous is not exactly correct. How do you think a harp is tuned to concert pitch or an acoustic guitar that has a short decay and release? Sure the ears of the pro are more than enough to determine the correct pitch but sounds that have fast decays can still be used with a tuner. A chromatic tuner will also tell you if you are in the right key once you set the tuner to the key you want. At the very least it will tell you if you are within that chosen key.
But, like I said, this thread is about a played riff or segment or chord, so use whatever methods have been suggested.
 
A chromatic tuner will also tell you if you are in the right key once you set the tuner to the key you want. At the very least it will tell you if you are within that chosen key.
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how does that work? some tuners have "keys"?
 
You select the key you want to tune in and when you play a note it will tell you if you are in that key, if not then it shows you how far away you are from that key.
On the Seiko I use, it has Key, Pitch and Note. These are the menu options you select depending on the test you want to carry out. Handy little buggers.
 
dvyce is right. any way man the loop is now a sample so it is monophonic i.e. you keymap the sample
 
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