Chopping

So sometimes I find I go a little nuts with chopping up samples. I chop down so much that I'm left with heaps upon heaps of individual hits.

I have an idea in my head, and by the time it's all said and done I sometimes lose that groove, or feel of the sample.

Do you guys normally chop down this far, or leave your pieces bigger, at the 1/4 or 1/2 bar size?

I guess a lot of it has to do with preference, the sample in question, and what you are trying to do....

Lately what has been working for me is to find the main samples from a track, maybe 3 or 4 really good ones, and chop them (depending on how long they are) in 2 or 4 bar increments, assign them to the pads, and play around for awhile. If I feel I need to go smaller, I go back to the original chops, make a copy, then chop a little smaller. I find I can sound design more easily with longer chops, pitching down, layering, reversing, filtering, etc., and I can make nice little rhythmic stabs with the smaller chops. Filter and Pitch to taste. Honestly, it's not so much the length of the chop, but the quality of the sample, and taking the time to stand back and see where it's all going with the track. Hope that was helpful.

Perfect 5th wrote:So sometimes I find I go a little nuts with chopping up samples. I chop down so much that I'm left with heaps upon heaps of individual hits.

I have an idea in my head, and by the time it's all said and done I sometimes lose that groove, or feel of the sample.

Do you guys normally chop down this far, or leave your pieces bigger, at the 1/4 or 1/2 bar size?

I guess a lot of it has to do with preference, the sample in question, and what you are trying to do....

You answered your own question. It's all about what is necessary. Some beatmakers are obsessed with chopping up shit into little breadcrumb like pieces. It's all about what sound you want. Also think about the sound you want. You can't polish a turd.

Don't look at the waveform as much next time. Use your ears and make use of the q sliders and faders. I'm guilty of looking at the screen too much sometimes too. Also think like a surgeon and not like a gardener mowing the lawn. Cut where it's needed and where you think is necessary to create your groove

I think Recycle might be up your alley. Try it!

I agree with jnorth, Recycle is a godsend.

I'm nearing a decade of using Recycle for 95% of my chopping. For me it's the fastest way to just do all three of the general methods being discussed in this thread.

First I chop it down into the smallest pieces possible with a focus on getting some hits (or many hopefully) that will work as one shots even outside of being used with the source loop or other chops. When it's drums I look for the same hits repeating on different bars and usually chop the later bars different from the earlier ones. (Like if a HH is right after a BD, I first chop each separate, next one in the loop I leave together). Then I disable "Export As One Sample" in Recycle and bounce the individual chops and often a MIDI file to a folder.

Next I do more regular chops, bars, 1/2. 1/4 bars etc. Then I export those hits. After that I make more irregular chops based on what the (usually) live players did on the sample. (Those odd chops that are like 3 and 5 beats due to decay/sustain/legato and so on). At the last chopping stage I'm also exporting many different slice marker placements to simply have a small wav sample of all the ways I'd use it later, so I can save time later and not have to deal with start/end points, NDC etc. Although I'll still utilize those functions in an MPC, Maschine or whatever I'm using.

Biggest upside for me is I can do huge amounts of samples and when it comes time to make tracks I have tons of stuff ready to roll. I still like chopping on the MPC's and within the software apps while making a beat, but Recycle helps me to have more at the ready in way less time.

I tend to chop the same and hear the same potential chops whether I'm chopping offline or while making the beat, so that factors in for me personally using these methods.

i used to try to chop everything pretty small, like 1/8th notes, but then i found that if i use quarter notes or half notes depending on the sample (in recycle) then i can drag them into my mpc and if i need to i can chop one in half or whatever, so its the best of both worlds in that respect.

if i dont have enough chops in the mpc for the part i need, i just take it from the end of the longer samples if its there.

i agree, if you go too small, its easy to lose the original groove of the sample, thats kinda why i started using bigger chops to start with, then divide as needed after that.
i feel that you usually get more of the original groove intact, while still being able to get the parts you want to play with the newer "smaller" chops you make after the fact while in the mpc.

Chopping for me is splitting up a sample on the pads to make it fit with the drums. Thats how chopping started for me, then one day I hit the wrong pads and liked how the melody changed and the mood, so I was chopping and rearranging bars of loops. Nowadays I still chop and rearrange but by notes and not bars, which is a little tricky because the sample could have a random snare sound out before the timing of the sequenced snare and the beat will be tripping all over the place like trying to put a pair a pants on while running. So I have to try to make the sample have its snare land on time either with my snare or land on a hi hat, which sometimes makes the drums sound even grittier.

1/8, 1/4, 1/2
Notes, Hits, Stabs, Sounds, noises. Whatever needs to be done...