best way to use Sample CDs?

[djshiva]

why would anyone want to use sample CD's of electronic sounds when we all have access to electronic instruments?
acoustic samples are cool because it takes a lot more effort getting hold of the real instrument and the right mic to record it.

That's exactly my point too, I can't understand being involved in electronic music and not wanting to create electronic sounds. Baffling!

It was only recently that I even thought about using 'real' sounds in electronic/techno music. Got hold of some Jazzy drumming samples and a few soft brush-like loops work really well chopped up and placed under an electronic rhythm.....

No guilt doing that!

Well, for me sometimes I use random loops as quickie ideas to get started. I personally am not a sound designer and don't want to be. I can't get into the tedium of noodling for hours before I even get started.

So sometimes I throw some dumb loop into the DAW and just start tossing effects on it, cut it up, rearrange the affected sound...it's just a quickie way to get some inspiration and get a sound to play with.

Once I have something, then I may get into making some weird synth bit to go with it, or perfecting a hot snare to use with it. But not everyone wants to be a damn sound designer, honestly. I am easily bored and don't have time for it, so sometimes something random that I can mangle becomes a lot of fun to play with.

I can understand not wanting to hear loops jacked straight offa sample packs and dropped in tunes. I get that. But not a damn thing wrong with having some fun with em, IMO.

but what your doing is sound design... even if your just putting random effects on there and you have no idea what your doing. there is more sound design going on there than someone who makes their own drum loop out of one shots. it doesn't take long to put your own loops together, it's the most basic skills for making techno.

if you can't program a techno drum loop i recommend you practice it. it will take your music to another level. i bet you can program your own loops and your just making excuses

Oh, I can definitely program drums. That's not a problem. What I usually do loop mangling for is "bedding". Underlying noises and weird rhythmic variations. And I don't necessarily use much from sample cds, but I do like using loops and turning them into something unrecognizable.

In fact, I think maybe that's WHY I like doing it. Because I can. Because I like knowing that the source material is completely lost in some weird cutup, gated, crazy effects soup. So yeah, it is sound design, I guess. It's just my weird way of doing it.

I also like to take movie samples and turn them into drum hits that bear no resemblance to the original either. Most of my older techno tunes have a multitude of drum hits that were originally lines from Fight Club. But you would never know it.

[AK]

your'e using loops in creative ways, i dont think anyone has ever thought anything bad about that. At the end of the day, nobody has any right to say anything.

My own perspective on this, is that i couldnt for example, load a drum loop from a sample cd, then a bass loop, a synth line and whatever else, hit render and say, 'hey, check out my latest track'. Using samples creatively is 1 thing but simply arranging pre made loops in a sequencer is another.

[KrisM]

Loops were made to be mangled.

Doesn't anyone ever chop the hell out of em, run em through 5 different effects units and just resample em into random monstrosities?

Oh, that's just me? OK.

This is half the reason I bought Live Slice to MIDI (not using transients), rearrange slices into glitchy mess, run through an effect(s) and record, slice out hit(s), lather, rinse repeat until I have a completely destroyed creation that makes me grin like I was twleve again.

[dr.rodrigobernales]

Hi,

I'm new in posting to this forum, but i've been lurking for a looooong time. You guys have taught me much! So mad respect to you all for that.

Anyway, i've been making music with tracking software, using renoise and... well, i've had lots of sample cds and... I agree with the people in this thread. Mostly i just use the kicks or snare, maybe i'll cut the loop up and so on.

I would never use a complete loop, because as has been said here, it just wouldn't feel like a tune made entirely by me! But to each their own, i would by no means look down on someone using complete loops... as long as the song is nice, I don't see the problem. But then again, I listen to all kinds of music, i see the value of stuff by Ricardo Villalobos all the way to Supernova (a chilean teenage girl pop band) at the other end of the spectrum. Perhaps the purists will disagree with me.

But the tendency i see here is that people like to make all their stuff themselves, and that is good! It can only benefit the genre, make it grow and surprise us. In the end if we want to make music, we have to master (no pun intended) our craft! That means knowing (or trying to know, in my case) how to make the beat yourself. Using loops would remove complexity and I think the complexity required to make good beats, and understanding that, elevates us as creators.

my 2 cents