A better way to chop samples?

[SoSpiro]

I have my backslash key programmed to chop audio. i basically play the track throughout and chop what i need to use.

 

However, my timing is never perfect and i always have to end up editing and stretching the audio to make the chopped audio the perfect length so it sounds fluent instead of choppy. ex. the chopped audio always ends short because my timing wasn't 100% accurate (which seems very hard and almost impossible to do).

 

is there a method to make my chops more accurate so i don't have to spend so long editing the length of it to make sure it is perfect?

or is that just how it is?

[jtees]

depending on the material, using the marque tool then using the arrow keys to snap to transients, then delete to slice the region is a quick, easy way to chop up audio.

 

for me anyway

[SoSpiro]

depending on the material, using the marque tool then using the arrow keys to snap to transients, then delete to slice the region is a quick, easy way to chop up audio.

 

for me anyway

 

 

i experimented with this for a quick second and this isn't that bad.

 

much less meticulous, but maybe I am just being a perfectionist with the length of my samples. That's what makes good music though.

[jtees]

that technique is good if you are chopping up drum loops or whole tracks and you want to have a seamless loop as it snaps to the transients.

 

Another fun way for experimenting with samples is to right click the audio region/s and choose - convert to sampler instrument. you can then choose to chop each sample via transient or region. then experiment with a midi keyboard

[zgmg]

Oh boy, hey jtees - I struggled with this for weeks and months and have came up with a few methodologies that should help you as they've helped me.

 

Most efficient process I've found:

 

A) Do your rough draft backlash chops and figure out your sequences to a body. You just want to have a direction and not waste your time. Also, if you do this, tune in EXS24 at this stage to find out what net key the chops sound best in. When you tune, you are actually changing the notes. For your important samples (generally not your breaks/drums etc.) you only need to tune by whole semitones or tunes. Cents are necessary at this point.

 

B) Copy the track again and lengthen it back to it's original size (so you're basically reverting to what it was before the chops).

 

C) Send your whole sample area through EXS24 and set the body to your tune if you decided on a new tune.

 

D) Now chop the beginnings of each of your chop. Here are four things to look out for:

 

1.a) You are a historian of music. You don't want to sample it any less than you can. Don't under or overcut. Find that goldylock chop. I do two things for this:

 

1.b) Logic automatically displays audible information with lines and boxes/waves. Cut at the beginning of each line but at the end of each silence. This is what I mean by 'historian' using only as much information as provided. Second tip on this is watch out for left and right channel audio - sometimes it won't add up, let's say there's a small line on the left channel and then the right but they don't connect or overlap. More often than less often, this is the imperfection of your sample. Just chop it as far yet respectable to where the line begins without flipping sides and just as where the attack of each note begins.

 

1.c) Listen to your chops. Does it click or not? Clicks are generally audio information that are interrupted before they finish their decay. The biggest clicks occur on bass in my knowledge, so listen for these. If it gets to a point where you can't tell if it's click or not, chop it as late as possible. You don't want to make a chop then change it later, so chop where it's definitive.

 

2.a) Does the sample use bass or drums? Bass sine waves give off interesting shapes, they are very deep, very ugly, and very opposite of the smooth wave lines of music without bass. These are perfect finds for where to cut, even if they're late or early because it will more often than less sound wrong. Trial and error but that's my recommendation.

 

2.b) If you're having trouble hearing the bass or drums, sometimes, especially old records, pan those instruments all the way to the left or right channels (assuming your sample is stereo). Slide your pan to the left or right if so to better hear those bass and drum notes for chops.

[zgmg]

I'd stay away from transients. Generally, I've found that whenever you use Logic's features over your understanding of x, y, z, Logic will backfire on you. It has it's own agenda, you have your own, and quite literally, they rarely time up. Transients, in my opinion, are for people who are too lazy to do their chops. The more you depend on them, the more your creativity will lack, I feel, because you are less in charge of your output. 2 cents

[rainstick]

I don't think I'm really following this too well - are you referring to when you bring an audio track into the logic arrange and cut the bit's out you want to sample or are you talking about chopping stuff thats already in the arrange page of an in progress project?

[SoSpiro]

that technique is good if you are chopping up drum loops or whole tracks and you want to have a seamless loop as it snaps to the transients.

 

Another fun way for experimenting with samples is to right click the audio region/s and choose - convert to sampler instrument. you can then choose to chop each sample via transient or region. then experiment with a midi keyboard

the thing is, when i convert to sampler instrument and use the midi editor to cut, it just replays that sample from the beginning instead of cutting it where i would like it to end.

 

Oh boy, hey jtees - I struggled with this for weeks and months and have came up with a few methodologies that should help you as they've helped me.

 

Most efficient process I've found:

 

A) Do your rough draft backlash chops and figure out your sequences to a body. You just want to have a direction and not waste your time. Also, if you do this, tune in EXS24 at this stage to find out what net key the chops sound best in. When you tune, you are actually changing the notes. For your important samples (generally not your breaks/drums etc.) you only need to tune by whole semitones or tunes. Cents are necessary at this point.

 

B) Copy the track again and lengthen it back to it's original size (so you're basically reverting to what it was before the chops).

 

C) Send your whole sample area through EXS24 and set the body to your tune if you decided on a new tune.

 

D) Now chop the beginnings of each of your chop. Here are four things to look out for:

 

1.a) You are a historian of music. You don't want to sample it any less than you can. Don't under or overcut. Find that goldylock chop. I do two things for this:

 

1.b) Logic automatically displays audible information with lines and boxes/waves. Cut at the beginning of each line but at the end of each silence. This is what I mean by 'historian' using only as much information as provided. Second tip on this is watch out for left and right channel audio - sometimes it won't add up, let's say there's a small line on the left channel and then the right but they don't connect or overlap. More often than less often, this is the imperfection of your sample. Just chop it as far yet respectable to where the line begins without flipping sides and just as where the attack of each note begins.

 

1.c) Listen to your chops. Does it click or not? Clicks are generally audio information that are interrupted before they finish their decay. The biggest clicks occur on bass in my knowledge, so listen for these. If it gets to a point where you can't tell if it's click or not, chop it as late as possible. You don't want to make a chop then change it later, so chop where it's definitive.

 

2.a) Does the sample use bass or drums? Bass sine waves give off interesting shapes, they are very deep, very ugly, and very opposite of the smooth wave lines of music without bass. These are perfect finds for where to cut, even if they're late or early because it will more often than less sound wrong. Trial and error but that's my recommendation.

 

2.b) If you're having trouble hearing the bass or drums, sometimes, especially old records, pan those instruments all the way to the left or right channels (assuming your sample is stereo). Slide your pan to the left or right if so to better hear those bass and drum notes for chops.

thank you so much for the plethora of information. i will test it out when im not exhausted from figuring this program out :-/

i was sampling a guitar and it did have many clicks though, i probably would've came back here to post about how to fix that as well if u didn't mention

Edited June 25, 2012 by SoSpiro

[SoSpiro]

I'd stay away from transients. Generally, I've found that whenever you use Logic's features over your understanding of x, y, z, Logic will backfire on you. It has it's own agenda, you have your own, and quite literally, they rarely time up. Transients, in my opinion, are for people who are too lazy to do their chops. The more you depend on them, the more your creativity will lack, I feel, because you are less in charge of your output. 2 cents

 

i can definitely see why you say that. That is generally what made me ask this question because it seemed so difficult.....not difficult but time consuming.

 

I don't think I'm really following this too well - are you referring to when you bring an audio track into the logic arrange and cut the bit's out you want to sample or are you talking about chopping stuff thats already in the arrange page of an in progress project?

first option, the process of chopping an actual sample......although i did ask for tips in order to make it sound more fluent which can incorporate both if anyone can provide me with something i dont know (which is a whole lot)

[BJG]

Another refined way of doing this is by the Playhead, it eliminates the need to even use the Marquee tool when chopping regions.

 

 

 

I have " [ " set up as Rewind by Division Value, and " ] " as Forward by Division Value.

 

I have Shift + " [ " set up as Rewind by Transient, and Shift + " ] " set up as Forward by Transient.

 

Then I have " \ " set up as Split Regions/Events by Playhead Position.

 

Mix in a shortcut for increasing or decreasing the Division Value to quickly refine your playhead position increments (from /4 to /192). I Have mine setup as Ctrl + " - " & "+".

 

 

So, with this method, all aspects of chopping regions is rather refined to those four keys on the keyboard. It eliminates the need to switch tools and streamlines the process.

 

Make sense?

 

-B

[zgmg]

that technique is good if you are chopping up drum loops or whole tracks and you want to have a seamless loop as it snaps to the transients.

 

Another fun way for experimenting with samples is to right click the audio region/s and choose - convert to sampler instrument. you can then choose to chop each sample via transient or region. then experiment with a midi keyboard

the thing is, when i convert to sampler instrument and use the midi editor to cut, it just replays that sample from the beginning instead of cutting it where i would like it to end.

 

Oh boy, hey jtees - I struggled with this for weeks and months and have came up with a few methodologies that should help you as they've helped me.

 

Most efficient process I've found:

 

A) Do your rough draft backlash chops and figure out your sequences to a body. You just want to have a direction and not waste your time. Also, if you do this, tune in EXS24 at this stage to find out what net key the chops sound best in. When you tune, you are actually changing the notes. For your important samples (generally not your breaks/drums etc.) you only need to tune by whole semitones or tunes. Cents are necessary at this point.

 

B) Copy the track again and lengthen it back to it's original size (so you're basically reverting to what it was before the chops).

 

C) Send your whole sample area through EXS24 and set the body to your tune if you decided on a new tune.

 

D) Now chop the beginnings of each of your chop. Here are four things to look out for:

 

1.a) You are a historian of music. You don't want to sample it any less than you can. Don't under or overcut. Find that goldylock chop. I do two things for this:

 

1.b) Logic automatically displays audible information with lines and boxes/waves. Cut at the beginning of each line but at the end of each silence. This is what I mean by 'historian' using only as much information as provided. Second tip on this is watch out for left and right channel audio - sometimes it won't add up, let's say there's a small line on the left channel and then the right but they don't connect or overlap. More often than less often, this is the imperfection of your sample. Just chop it as far yet respectable to where the line begins without flipping sides and just as where the attack of each note begins.

 

1.c) Listen to your chops. Does it click or not? Clicks are generally audio information that are interrupted before they finish their decay. The biggest clicks occur on bass in my knowledge, so listen for these. If it gets to a point where you can't tell if it's click or not, chop it as late as possible. You don't want to make a chop then change it later, so chop where it's definitive.

 

2.a) Does the sample use bass or drums? Bass sine waves give off interesting shapes, they are very deep, very ugly, and very opposite of the smooth wave lines of music without bass. These are perfect finds for where to cut, even if they're late or early because it will more often than less sound wrong. Trial and error but that's my recommendation.

 

2.b) If you're having trouble hearing the bass or drums, sometimes, especially old records, pan those instruments all the way to the left or right channels (assuming your sample is stereo). Slide your pan to the left or right if so to better hear those bass and drum notes for chops.

thank you so much for the plethora of information. i will test it out when im not exhausted from figuring this program out :-/

i was sampling a guitar and it did have many clicks though, i probably would've came back here to post about how to fix that as well if u didn't mention

 

Best of luck to you! Even if it doesn't have bass or kicks, use the goldylock zone - where it isn't undercut or overcut. You can use your eyes for ideas where these sections begin and your ears to confirm. If it starts to click or a sound just triggers but doesn't come through... it's just you make techniques and principles because that way you can believe in yourself when your chopping and that is a very hard process with accuracy.

[boafzilla]

Actually, I just posted about this exact issue in Tips and Tricks. Though it only really applies to samples which have transients exactly on beat, it might be a good starting point for other samples, too.

 

How to quickly slice an audio region into equal parts

 

[rainstick]

Don't think that's what their on about...(although i'm not really a hundred percent myself)

 

I think they're talking about the best way to pin point samples or something, and that method just slices by grid... chop at transients would probably be more applicable.

[boafzilla]

[...] that method just slices by grid... chop at transients would probably be more applicable.

 

Absolutely. This method only works if the sample is quantized.

[rainstick]

Absolutely. This method only works if the sample is quantized

 

Really? I can't check now but as far as I'm aware the sample doesn't have to be quantized.... the sample editor detects the transients, adjust the frequency / sensitivity and then chop them to those points...

 

ill try and check tomorrow if i remember

[David Nahmani]

Really? I can't check now but as far as I'm aware the sample doesn't have to be quantized....

I think that by "this method", boafzilla meant "that method" (his method).

[boafzilla]

Really? I can't check now but as far as I'm aware the sample doesn't have to be quantized....

I think that by "this method", boafzilla meant "that method" (his method).

 

Eek, yes! I did in fact mean my method.

[rainstick]

oh right... that makes more sense then...

 

I sometimes use the ' auto chop ' for sampler instruments if i don't really have an idea of what i want and just want to see if it throws anything useable out, generally ill manually chop thing's though.