Combine Samples and synths

You know when i combine a sample with a synth it's always a pain because they don't match together, i'm not talking about matching the pitch,i'm referring to ''the feel'' like they're coming from the same record.is it all about equalization and compression?or some sound do not ever combine even with the best engineer in the world ?

Certain Synths work better than others depending on the sample. And some samples are so "pre synth" that they wont sound right with anything to synthesized. Try to consider when the music you were sampling was made and try not to use synth sounds that sound like they came out after that time period. Hope this helps.

kneebone77 wrote:try not to use synth sounds that sound like they came out after that time period. Hope this helps.

Yeah this is a good point of view

i just resample them into the asr-10 and the synths sound like samples

magic

I've read that alot of prog rock bands recorded their synths just like all the other instruments, by hooking up the synth into an amplifier and miking it.

Lampdog wrote:Some sounds just don't sound good together.

This is the best tip in this thread. Don't bother with difficult tricks or trying to mangle the synth sound to fit your samples if you don't know what you're doing.

Use only sounds that work out of the box with your tune and samples. Once you gain more knowledge on how to process sounds better you wont have headaches like these.

m:t:c wrote:

Lampdog wrote:Some sounds just don't sound good together.

This is the best tip in this thread. Don't bother with difficult tricks or trying to mangle the synth sound to fit your samples if you don't know what you're doing.

Use only sounds that work out of the box with your tune and samples. Once you gain more knowledge on how to process sounds better you wont have headaches like these.

hmmm....how should he gain knowledge on how to process sounds if it's not by trying to make them fit??


@Kaia: IDK what synths you use but in general you should have more success with not too complicated sounds. If it sounds too "modern" try to simplify the sound. less modulation, simple waveforms like saw, pulse or sine and the tip of n4l might help too (run the sound thru an ampsimulation VST)

BUT. all this won't help if you don't play a melody that could have been played by a keyboardist of the band you sampled.
Listen to stuff played by Bernie Worrell, George Duke, Jimmy Smith, James Brown or Junie Morrison, then copy the style and put your own soul in it.....there you go




peace

I have a korg x50 and a roland gaia, the problem is when i add a synth the sample lose his "magic" and sounds more modern

Use guitar rig or similar software/hardware for the synths + eq.

Kaia wrote:I have a korg x50 and a roland gaia, the problem is when i add a synth the sample lose his "magic" and sounds more modern

What kind of sample is it? (year, genre) and what do you try to add? (synth sound, piano, organ etc).

Did you already shape the sound of the sample (EQ, Comp etc)

How experienced are you in synthesis? (creating a sound, analyzing a sound)

yepp, many questions. But the more you explain what you do/did, the more focused is the help here.

peace

Now i'm working on an old piano sample,I like working on the 5K but i'm not a big fan of his Eq, so my eq consists in filtering( using low pass, high pass, band stop and band boost) and resampling.In synthesis i'm not an engineer but i have a lot of fun tweaking the gaia and the built-in synth of the 5k.When i started synthesis i read welsh's synthesizer cookbook andi used a lot voxengo and smexoscope to analyze and understand what i was doing.You understand that i love working on standalone units but i think i have to start using ''real'' equalizers instead of my filtering technique.

I'm with N4 on this one.

Any time I've ever added a synthesized layer just recording the line-in signal my ears end up tripping out. It makes a lot of (scientific) sense though.

Think about the spatial properties of what ever sample you want to use. You can HEAR the room, you can hear things that are natural. The imperfections of the physical space what ever musicians were in when they recorded. When you record line-in, you miss out on that completely (and then try to make up for that by using software reverb).

THIS is where things hardly gel.

Listen to the intro "When the Levee Breaks". Everyone knows the song and there is a TON of ROOM in the intro drums. Sample that - now - take your synth line-in and jam with it. FEEL how WRONG that sounds? Hear how WRONG that FEELS? That's called "psychoacoustics".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoacoustics

If you mic'd your synthesizer and played a riff along with those drums, it may sound less wrong. It's all about the natural balance of things. (Un)Fortunately, due to survival instincts, we'll never be able to truly trick our ears/brains into letting something like ROOMY drums and SUFFOCATED synth lines to ever sound really "right". And I don't know if I would ever want it any other way.


Hope this helped someone!
Peace!

Im using a microkorg to go with my samples, and a lot of the sounds coming out of it doesnt fit, but quite a few do. So the tip above about thinkin what they would be using in era of your sample is a good tip.
The higher freqs usually sound way to clean to come out of the 70s, regardless if the sound sounds good or not, so i usually resample into my SP1200 or S950 and lower the bandwidth some + playing a few keys up and pitching it back to grime it down a lil bit, take away some of the clarity.

But as stated above - you should start with somehing that works, or is pretty close to working. Its like that old saying "Its hard to make shit shine".

The era may have something to do with something, some where. But don't be a stickler.

I'm saying practice being more mindful lf how the brain & ears work.
If it's sh*t, it's probably sh*t regardless of how hard you fuxx with it's EQ.

If your sample/chop/blah has air and perceivable space to it and you try to layer with a standard square wave played via your favorite synthesizer with no re-amping (or insane skeelz with a reverb plug-in), yeah, it will (probably) sound weird 99% of the time.