The "Tips and Tricks" thread

J.Daniels wrote:actually ive been doing that recently quite abit. Time stretch the sample, then resample it. and then stretch the new sample back to the original tempo. It gives a really grainy messed up sound.

can someone elaborate on this? i've done my searching/researching, but i'm still not quite confident if i have the concept correct. i have a 8 disc cd changer to sample from so i don't have the capability of a record player to speed up what i want to sample. if i already have the sample on my mpc at normal speed, do i
1. speed up the sample using time stretch and save the sped up sample.
2. then re-timestretch the sped up sample back to a slower/original tempo?
3. could i also instead of re-timestretching, pitch down the sped up sample? what would be the difference between restretching slower and pitching down?

if this is possible with my setup, how many times do i speed up the sample? twice as fast (2x)?

is this method possible with my setup? or is the only way to achieve this result to actually have sped up vinyl before it goes into the MPC? after the sped up vinyl, do you pitch down or time-stretch slower the sample in the MPC? i'm doing this all so i can maybe get a little more lofi grit.

my bad if this is so many questions, i just some homies to shed some light

leonard-lee wrote:

J.Daniels wrote:actually ive been doing that recently quite abit. Time stretch the sample, then resample it. and then stretch the new sample back to the original tempo. It gives a really grainy messed up sound.

1. speed up the sample using time stretch and save the sped up sample.
2. then re-timestretch the sped up sample back to a slower/original tempo?
3. could i also instead of re-timestretching, pitch down the sped up sample? what would be the difference between restretching slower and pitching down?

if this is possible with my setup, how many times do i speed up the sample? twice as fast (2x)?

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. Not for the effect described by JD. The added graininess comes from repeating the timestretch process in reverse.

This can be done with or without a turntable, how much you stretch the sample is for you to decide bearing in mind what type of sample you are using and the available choice of timestretching algorithyms.

Experiment with various settings and compare the results.

Not sure if someone else has already posted this one but have a rim shot and snare on 2 seperate pads and flam them but have either rim or snare (preferably rim but hey whatever!) hit early. you can do this manually then adjust with step edit. Good way to get good swung feel with your beat. Take quantise off and layer a few copies of the same clap over it spread out a bit for maximum snare drum mayhem!!!!

whilst on the subject of drums, get a heavy hi hat sound and fade the attack a bit - kind of ends up sounding like a heavy shaker and delay the hat in relation to the rest of the beat while we on the swung tip. Then make your filler bass notes late but the root or core bass notes bang on with kick or a fraction late. Then your sample hits a bit late too.

When I'm sampling, I run the turntables through my moog filter, then into RNC, sounds really good then run the whole beat through the really nice compressor, brings out subtleties and sounds phat.

Yerrrp!

when i sample a sound or loop
i go to edit - trim then i extract it 4 times

then i pan it

L+R
L-R
L
R

whichever one sounds best is what i work with then i delete the others...
have found notes and shit that i never noticed and also have turned out with better samples altogether in some cases

when playing a pitched up or tuned up voice sample (with drums in the background) try to layer the drums over the drums in the sample - if their happens to be an open spot with just the drums on the song/album play those drums on top - so it does sound like ur drums are too high pitched

for the mpc's that dont have a visual trimmode (mpc 60,3000, 2000 and 500) can more easily set the end point of a sample by first reversing the sample and then trimming out the unwanted region than comes after it by using the start point instead. when you done this simply reverse the samplle back and you have an trimmed end point. (make sure to purge the unwanted region before reversing it back again)

instead of using the swing function in the sequencer you can achieve swing by leaving a FEW milliseconds of gap before a sample kicks in. most effeciently is to trim the startpoint of a sound as tight as possible and then decrease the value away from were the sound comes in.


Fade out samples in the seq *works on the mpc2kxl
enter mixer mode, highlight the pad you wish to automate the volume on, press overdub and start scrolling down the volume.
Only Works if its a short onenote staccato-like sample (drumhits etc)
+ works best if :
the automation is kept inside 1 sequence.
and the automation is made on the sounds within the same padbank.

MegaTON wrote:when i sample a sound or loop
i go to edit - trim then i extract it 4 times

then i pan it

L+R
L-R
L
R

whichever one sounds best is what i work with then i delete the others...
have found notes and shit that i never noticed and also have turned out with better samples altogether in some cases

idk what mpc you have but with the 2500 you can listen to the input in L+R, L or R mono. might save you some time instead of having to extract it 4 times

i just find a new trick(for me)i do a loop with chopped samples for example and on the same program set to mono mode i assign no sample to one pad.then i hit this pad on my chopped sample track and when i hit the pad with no sample it will mute my chopped sample so you can do some little mute very easyly..sorry for my english.peace

From a thread from a few days ago...

Chop shop makes life just a little easier when dealing with slightly off loops...
For example, I would be trying to take 1 long sampled loop that I know is flawlessly looped and try to pitch it up and add drums behind it. BIG MISTAKE! Once I laid down the tempo and tried to add the drums everything sounded off as hell. (Quantize or not)

Solution:
Chop your loop into regions (any multiple of 4 will do, 8/16/32/64) the more the merrier, 16 works just fine for me. Make those 16 chops into a new PROGRAM (Just a few button presses). I then setup my double-time 16 bar sequence and in 'Seq Edit' put those chops in the first beat of each measure/bar one by one. Then I pitch up the entire program to my liking and then press PLAY. The chops play in order but have a small gap between them, right? So adjust the tempo until there are NO GAPS and the sample plays exactly how that one long sample was supposed to play before!
Remember those off ass drums I was talking about earlier??? I use the 'enhanced' resolution to lay my drums with 1/64 quantize ON!!! 1/128 resolution because it's double-time.

The cool part is now I can pitch-up/down and just adjust the tempo and the drums WILL match whatever tempo I like.

ACTIVATE BEAST MODE!!!

Thought i'd post this here, not really a trick just something i only thought of doing the other day.

I was listening to some beats by a French producer called Dela whos drums are perfect sounding, he uses an MPC 3000, but i use a 2kxl.
I noticed his kicks (which are all sampled) are deep and sound lowpassed, but still have a nice loud snap/attack (like a 808 kick).

I mucked about with the filter settings in my MPC on a kick, lowpassing it to about 30, if you set the filter envelopes attack to zero then set the release/decay to the point where it just lets the high frequency attack through before the lowpass filter kicks in, it gives it a really nice clean sound, and adds more definition as it removes the air and vinyl noise from said kick while retaining the all important attack.
Thought someone might get some use outta that.

takkin wrote:Thought i'd post this here, not really a trick just something i only thought of doing the other day.

I was listening to some beats by a French producer called Dela whos drums are perfect sounding, he uses an MPC 3000, but i use a 2kxl.
I noticed his kicks (which are all sampled) are deep and sound lowpassed, but still have a nice loud snap/attack (like a 808 kick).

I mucked about with the filter settings in my MPC on a kick, lowpassing it to about 30, if you set the filter envelopes attack to zero then set the release/decay to the point where it just lets the high frequency attack through before the lowpass filter kicks in, it gives it a really nice clean sound, and adds more definition as it removes the air and vinyl noise from said kick while retaining the all important attack.
Thought someone might get some use outta that.

Dela is nice still....... BUT, Onra is nicer......

Thanks for the tip, i'll check out Onra, never heard of him.

Delas got perfect drums to me, phat and old school sounding, but still got that modern polish. (Cheer ft. Large Pro is dope!)

May already be in here but save up to get a quality mic pre (stereo if possible) and track through it. Your drum/mix depth and punch will improve quite a bit.

Use different plugin processing for categories of drums, ie. don't use the same eqs, comps, etc. for the kik/snare vs. hats/shakers. This goes for music too (synths vs. bass). Some things should gel of course but to me, variety in processing adds to depth and hearing sounds in their own space.

NEVER buy cables from the 99 cent store

MalaKai wrote:down pitch-shifting!

explore the art of tune. take an otherwise average melody/instrument solo/loop and change the tune settings of the chops to something like -8 or -6. this works wonders sometimes when you think you found a good sample but become frustrated by not being able to come up with anything. i've made beats this way and have only ended up using like 3 pads of the original sample.

you take the original sample, make it completely unrecognizable, and transform it into something unique and unexpected.

here's a video of me actually doing this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dA066ffClPI

why did you take it out?