How to make samples ?

author
Neos Sound
Date
February 18, 2022

What is sampling?

Simply put, sampling is the use of a musical extract from an original work to create a second one. It has been around since the beginning of electronic music and has contributed to its continuation.

Samples can be created from existing tracks or with the help of machines (Synthesizers and Drum Machines). In order, to help producers create new things creative studios like Neos Sound make samples from electronic machines.

In this article I show you how to create your own samples..

First of all it is better to choose the style of sample to create according to the style of music and your inspiration at the time.

How do you find inspiration?

In order to produce samples that are different from other samples, I spend a lot of time analysing the drums and the mix of the best techno tracks of the moment. This helps me to find new creative techniques and to follow the trend of the electronic music scene.

I also like to use the latest synthesizers developed by manufacturers to find new sounds.

How to make your samples?

First of all, to create samples you need either hardware like a TR-909, Moog or VST (Virtual Synthesizer) which reproduces a sound in your DAW.

To create drums, you have several solutions. Like I said before, you can use a drum machine, free or paid VST. If you want to see the possible free vst to use, I listed the best 10 VST in this article.

10 Best Free VST to produce techno.

In this example, I will start with the creation of a kick.

Personally, I always start with a basic kick from the Roland TR 909.

Each sound is then mixed in a different way. For example, for the kick I will have a sample of the tr-909. I'll manipulate it in all directions. I'll add an equalizer, compressor and distortion.

For the same basic sample of the tr 909 I will be able to create an infinite number of kicks. I will modify the mixing plugins and the machine settings. I will also be able to modify the attack delay, sustain, ADSR. I can also play with the key to make it sound lower or higher or change the note of the sample.

Here is a video example of how to create a kick using the TR-909.

You can find these elements in built-in plugins like the Kick 2, Serum, or Vital. If you want hardware I recommend this machine but the price is still quite expensive. The alternatives are very interesting to start with.

Audio processing.

Once you have recorded your samples, clean up your audio using the dedicated plugin in your daw. The first thing to do is to lower the first and last attack of the samples. On FL studio I use Edison.

Now you can master your samples, there are multitudes of ways to master. You can add an EQ, a compressor, maximize and many more.

If you are just starting out, I would advise you to just apply a Multiband Compressor preset on fl studio. It's a simple and efficient method and you don't need to spend a lot of time on this step at the beginning. It saves you from buying a lot of plugins, or hardware. If you're particularly interested in how I do it I recommend this article I wrote on mastering.

Once your sample has been mixed and mastered it is ready to be organized in your library.

Hierarchise your samples:

Once the processing is done, save your samples in a pack by renaming them in the right way. You must absolutely indicate the scale and the bpm of the sample. If you usually use samples with an unspecified scale, it means that the sample is in Cmin (this is a rule between studios).

If you still want to be sure of the key of your sample, you can use the plugin integrated in FL studio Tuner which allows you to know the key of a sample. Now you can export your sound in wav format

Here is an example to name your sample:

"LABELNAME"_"PACKNAME"_"TYPE"_"TYPESYNTH"(BPM)_"NAME"_"SCALE"

NEOS_IT_Loop_Lead(140)_Cobalt_Gm

Now you can say to yourself what is the purpose to make samples ?

Why create samples?

Practice sampling everything you can think of to get a consistent sound bank. Creating samples makes it easier to explore than composing directly to music. Creating samples will allow you to get to know your machine better and therefore develop your musical knowledge.

You'll save time in your creative process with pre-built kicks that you can just drag and drop. If you unfortunately don't have enough time to devote to sample creation, you can find many packs on the net that match your style. What I can offer you are more dark techno and melodic oriented packs.

Here are some examples at the bottom of the article.

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