Making Music with Samples

personally i have never tuned a drum sample.

But i guess i never needed too. I mean, usually if the sound doesnt fit, i just go to another sound.

I know this doesnt help............but i guess my point is, dont worry about it unless its really bad!

and in that case, i would say do it by ear, and just match it to the track accordingly.

[quote="cyrus"]personally i have never tuned a drum sample.

But i guess i never needed too. I mean, usually if the sound doesnt fit, i just go to another sound.

I know this doesnt help...........

Cheers man, It does help.. Ive been going up my arse a little too far on a spectrum analysis vibe (eqing out partial harmonics etc....) Your calming thoughts and straight thinking is great. Lifes so much easier if you just find a sound that does fit.
cheers dude.

I just read an interesting article on SOS about one of my favorite producers Trevor Horn and the songs "Buffalo Gals and the Beat Box. Which by the way it a b-boy classic. Using a Simmons drums kit which you can download from Hollow Sun website , Trevor tuned the drums to make that unqie beat. Also Kanye West in Scratch talked about Eminim tuning up this snare +3. If you become more familiar with your drum kits it makes perfect sense to tune your drums like a real drum kit to get the sound that you want. Use your ears. Play around with the sounds and experiment make a copy so you don`t have to worry.

I have to state that this book is one of the best buys I have invested in as a fact. I have read and reread the book going more indepth on the whole spectrum of sampling, sound designing, sythnesis and samples. I would highly recommend this to all 4k users advanced and beginners. I would have to state that it is crucial that you read the whole guide in depth to the end. The text is deep and it can be easy to miss the hundreds of tips and techniques that are presented by just glancing at the topics and title pages.

For example* excerpt pg 125

"Once of the most popular, if perhaps less obvious uses of delay is with drum sounds-creating rhythmic patterns from a single hit.

Set the delay time on a digital delay unit to 500ms and feed in a single kick drum. Set a decen amount of feedback, the kick drum will be repeated every 500ms which is (do the math) half a second there will be 120 in a minute. That`s 120 bpm a classic tempo in popular music, especially dance-oriented material, from soul to funk to disco to house. Repeat the trick placing the hi-hat exactly 250ms after the kick, then add the snare at two beats which is double the length of the interval between kick sounds using a second delay set to 1000ms or one second. This is a long-winded way of making the point that all music is about mathmatical relationships. By playing around with regular and irregular time intervals between sounds/notes almost any rhythm can be created. So using multiple delay processors can produce incredibly intricate and complex musiclal relationships from just a single, very short sound source." By Daniel Duffell.


Keymapping, Offsets, Modular S&S, Overdrive, Resampling, the secret to great EQ Control Changes I learned so much and still experiment using the tips. This is the last of this series. As I said before this can answer alot of questions new and experienced users have.

Take care and I`m back to the lab.

I wish the MPC4000 had a built in BPM/ms Calculator w/ variable time signature inputs.

Or should I say.. What's the formula to calculate this?

I can do it with some computer programs, but I would rather not turn on the computer just to make an fx ms calculation.

djredhead wrote:I wish the MPC4000 had a built in BPM/ms Calculator w/ variable time signature inputs.

Or should I say.. What's the formula to calculate this?

I can do it with some computer programs, but I would rather not turn on the computer just to make an fx ms calculation.

4K has it check the newbie bible basically trim page on to sample end turn it to beat turn the bpm to the number of beats 4, 8, and 16. It in there. If you want the fx delay calcucator for delay, reverb, and so on there are no presets just the formulas read the book it explains the formulas. It will show you how to catch your own fish. Just read. Good luck.

I finally got the book today from Barnes and Noble.. I glanced through it and realized that all of the so called "dumb" questions refering to Basic Sampling Theory and Methods are right there in this book..and alot of stuff is broken down so Newbies like myself can understand it. This was exactly what I was looking for when I bought that other non-sense book that I wrote about on the previous page. This information couldn't have come sooner .... There's nothing like learning how to fish as opposed to being served fish...

Newbies save yourself some dignity on this forum, buy the book!

Tyran wrote:I finally got the book today from Barnes and Noble.. I glanced through it and realized that all of the so called "dumb" questions refering to Basic Sampling Theory and Methods are right there in this book..and alot of stuff is broken down so Newbies like myself can understand it. This was exactly what I was looking for when I bought that other non-sense book that I wrote about on the previous page. This information couldn't have come sooner .... There's nothing like learning how to fish as opposed to being served fish...

Newbies save yourself some dignity on this forum, buy the book!

You got the right attitude, there is a wealth of info out there in books on the net and last but not least on this forum. You only need to use the search button to find it. Unfortunately a lot of cats still resort to name calling/flaming when you point this out.

"Once of the most popular, if perhaps less obvious uses of delay is with drum sounds-creating rhythmic patterns from a single hit. "

You can use the formula w/ the abacase or computer of your choice to calculate the ms values of various effects paramaters to get your desired result.

I use BPM fx Calculator on the mac to generate the ms values for me instead of inputing random numbers.

Like I said, I wish this was implemented in the mpc 4000. Say, you are in the fx screen w/ a delay. Put the cursor over the ms value and hit window. A new screen will pop up w/ a table of ms values 1/2 - 1/64 notes for the current sequence's BPM and time signature. Move the cursor, select a value, press enter and the value is entered in the delay fx page. I think it would be cool.

I have been using the delay trick for years. 3 over 4, 5 over 7, or 6 over 8 to get cool results.

djredhead wrote:"Once of the most popular, if perhaps less obvious uses of delay is with drum sounds-creating rhythmic patterns from a single hit. "

You can use the formula w/ the abacase or computer of your choice to calculate the ms values of various effects paramaters to get your desired result.

I use BPM fx Calculator on the mac to generate the ms values for me instead of inputing random numbers.

Like I said, I wish this was implemented in the mpc 4000. Say, you are in the fx screen w/ a delay. Put the cursor over the ms value and hit window. A new screen will pop up w/ a table of ms values 1/2 - 1/64 notes for the current sequence's BPM and time signature. Move the cursor, select a value, press enter and the value is entered in the delay fx page. I think it would be cool.

I have been using the delay trick for years. 3 over 4, 5 over 7, or 6 over 8 to get cool results.

Yes automation is cool. But with simple math I can change the value too. 60/Tempo=duration of 1 beat. Since most delay units count time in milliseconds, multipy by 1000 to get the delay time for one beat. For example 60/120=0.5x1000=500ms. An eight note would be half as long (250ms) or a half note twice as long (1000ms) and so on. You might be able to use tap tempo in the delay page to to sync with a tempo. Now check my previous post to get the examples from the book on how to set the different kicks, snares and hi hats.

djredhead wrote:"Once of the most popular, if perhaps less obvious uses of delay is with drum sounds-creating rhythmic patterns from a single hit. "

You can use the formula w/ the abacase or computer of your choice to calculate the ms values of various effects paramaters to get your desired result.

I use BPM fx Calculator on the mac to generate the ms values for me instead of inputing random numbers.

Like I said, I wish this was implemented in the mpc 4000. Say, you are in the fx screen w/ a delay. Put the cursor over the ms value and hit window. A new screen will pop up w/ a table of ms values 1/2 - 1/64 notes for the current sequence's BPM and time signature. Move the cursor, select a value, press enter and the value is entered in the delay fx page. I think it would be cool.

I have been using the delay trick for years. 3 over 4, 5 over 7, or 6 over 8 to get cool results.

greatone - imo this should be aded to the feature wish list.

thanx - that site is nice and imo it surely looked nicer if it were in the 4k. ... i got an excel sheed with many numbers always at reach. still ... it would be dope if you could control the 4k fxs in 1/8 or triplets and such .

We have great help on this forum and lots of diverse tips and ideas to help each other. I`m glad to everyone`s contributes to the forum. Like I added your reading the parts and articles from the book by Daniel Duffet it breaks down the basics on first what does each term mean like offset, pre delay, diffusion, lfos, peak filters, and velocity crossfading and most importantly how to use the parts of a sampler. Most parts of sampling is simple math times and equations. The more foundations I got from reading and practicing the guides the easier and more in depth I developed as a person using my 4k possiblilites.

As for my own personal history, trial and error, and development at first I use the calucalators posted by binger0, and reveal, I used the mixing chart by binger0 again and some others, used the layering and low end theory by MPC tutors and others, but I didn`t understand how it worked. I have recycle 2.1, Live 4, and dedicated plug in for effects and editing but I didn`t truely how they worked. I was like many other concerned with making music and having the processing automated for me and if it wasn`t automated fast enough I would look for the next new item that could do it for me.

Once I started getting and more indepth understanding of the process, the formula, the different notes length, the basic math that drives the cpu calculations, I realized that I could go personalize the settings deeper and with more clarity than if I use just a preset. The manual became much easier to understand and new possibilites came out how to use the gear more. I`m starting to see no limits to what I can do oppose to having limiits on what I thought the gear could do.

Likely in the future companies with make the processing functions more and more automated so that the users can concentrate more on just the music. I love these features, but at the same time as long as I have a deep understanding of the basics I wouldn`t be dependant on them and I wouldn`t be hindered by my own fear of diving into the presets and changing, innovating, and creative my own personal user presets on effects, lfos, filtlers, and you name it. Rather than buying a top line sythn or sampler set that someone more experienced and developed programmed for the masses to buy and use as presets I could and would develop my own.

The basics open up an entire new world of possiblities for the creator. The more I understand thanks to this and other simple, easy to read books, the easier and greater the creative process is.


It is not the arrow it is the archer who shoots the arrow that makes a difference. Reading is the basics of building on previous experiences and improving from the previous generations. There is no need to reinvent the wheel each generation. But to truely move forward one must have a basic understanding of the fundamentals.

Tone, time, and volume.

Peace out and I just use a usb calcalator for the timing of effects, bpm, and tempo of a record as it plays (djing necessity) it takes less than 15 secs to do. My understanding of beats, notes, has also run with numbers of even counts for my bars, measures, and sequences.