Chopping Breaks

What up, I chop up a lot of breaks but I gotta few questions for u guys that I'm a bit confused about...

when u chop up a break and the snare has reverb (even a little reverb on it) or a hi hat that follows shortly after, what do u do? cuz if u cut the snare to short (leave a little tail) sometimes it sounds a little wierd cuz ur cutting off the reverb tail, therefore it leaves u with almost a hissing sound behind the snare...u know what im talkin bout? and also, what if u wanna keep the entire tail of the snare cuz the reverb is dope but a hat is getting in the way? do u just cut the snare with the hat in the tail? like say u got a snare hit on beat 2 but theres an 8th note hi hat that follows shortly after...

Any help/feedback would be great...thanks guys!

you could time stretch so the hi hat after the snare fits, pitch adjust it to fit or what i do is mess with your envelopes and filters to manipulate the ending and hi hats. Also there is a member here by the name of dubs banger that posts good tutorials on chopping breaks, search the forum or go to youtube and check out his vids...probably a lot could be answered for you there.

Thanks for the feedback man...much appreciated

I've seen dubs videos, they're good but they didn't really answer any questions I had.

2 ways of doing the same thing :

1. create a reverse copy of the hit and add it to the end of the sample (depending on which mpc you use its somtimes easire to do this on your computer instead)

2. set the sample to alternate loop : you can do this on JJOS mpc 1000, 2500 or on samplers like the s900 and the s950

the next thing to do is use an adsr envelopes to shape the sound so it fades out.You can also apply destructive fade , again depending on the sampler your using (easy to do on your computer)



Check the drums on my album if you want- there all individual hits which use this method to keep things sounding natural.

Mike

Wut u mean add a reverse copy of the sample at the end of the hit? Please explain...

Well there's no right way to do it but I actually prefer to chop breaks up into larger chunks instead of trying to chop out each individual hit. My 1k has an ADSR so its more flexible with what you can do, but when I have a snare-hihat, I'll basically use the ADSR to reduce the level of the hihat but still let the full chop play out. So instead of SNARE-HIHAT, i can make it SNARE-hihat.

I'm using a 2000xl btw...what exactly is alternate looping? And adsr?

alt looping is where the looped portion of the sample pingpongs back and forth. It differs from normal looping where the looped portion plays from beginning to end over and over. Its good for extending the sample.

Oh ok I knew what that was I just didn't know the term, I just call it setting loop points lol...what is Adsr? Sorry for all the questions I'm just trying to figure things out lol...

Also thanks a ton for the good feedback!

Alternate Looping and ADSR are both not in the XL, so don't think you are missing out.

Alt-looping is not the same as 'setting loop points'. When you set loop points, the sound plays forward, then plays forward again when it hits that loop point.
In alt-looping, it plays once forward, then backward, then repeats that.

If you have a sequence 1234, then a regular loop (like on the XL) would go 12341234. An alt-loop would go 12344321.

You can fake alt looping in the XL, which is basically what was suggested above with reversing the sample.

ADSR = Attack Decay Sustain Release. Wikipedia can probably help you more in depth on that one, but suffice it to say in the XL you only have access to Attack (how the sound fades in) and Decay (how the sound fades out).

Ok thanks for the clarity I appreciate it a lot. Once again I guess I'm bad with terms cuz I know what all those are...it's crazy the xl doesn't have sustain and release, those seem like pretty basic features that should be included in the envelope settings...

Anyway thanks for the feedback!

To be fair the 'Decay' parameter is kind of a hybrid decay/release depending on how you have it set up, in conjunction with loop settings.

It's important to realise that while the XL might not have everything labeled as a feature in the box, you can get the same effects in different ways by knowing the machine and getting creative.

nogginj wrote:It's important to realise that while the XL might not have everything labeled as a feature in the box, you can get the same effects in different ways by knowing the machine and getting creative.

^what he said.

yeah, no doubt...ive only had my mpc for roughly 3 months...im learning.

yeah, i guess for me, it depends on the sound im going for.

1. if you want to keep the "atmosphere" & "groove" of the break intact (or atleast most of it), then I would chop it into chunks as opposed to individual hits.

2. If you want to grab individual hits to create your sounds and completely own patterns, then how close you trim each hit is completely up to you. and sometimes cut off reverb sounds good or becomes part of the hit/sound you're going for, sometimes you can leave it, sometimes it disappears when layered iwht other sounds, sometimes it sounds good.

there is also a combination of the two, depending on the break, you might beable to snag a 1/4 or 1/8th bar of atmosphere that you can add behind your new chopped up pattern

I tend to grab individual hits most often because i like to layer more sounds to make the drums beefier, and i tend to like my own patterns better......but no doubt, sometimes ill trow in a straight loop completely intact, and sometimes i chop a loop in quarters and mess with those chunks until i get a new patern............