The Art of Sampling

Sampling is perhaps the most popular means of creating musical parts in modern production, inherent in a vast number of applications, from drum construction, to leads, to FX. This course covers all of the core concepts of sampling, using a range of DAW factory and 3rd party plugin instruments, providing students with a fundamental understanding of how to confidently work with whatever samplers they own.

Alongside lessons on many of the standard sampler parameters and behavioural aspects, including root note and transposition, start and end controls and looping, and the main types of envelope, there are numerous examples of how to apply techniques in the creation of unique and natural-sounding parts. Examples include pitch-shifted and modulated percussion, old school and current vocal presets, classic basses and velocity-modulated hats.

Once all areas of single-sampling have been covered, the lessons move on to multi-sampling, initially explaining the main considerations like keyboard mapping and velocity zones. Following this, there is a step-by-step guide to sampling a vintage accordion, teaching students how to convert any instrument in their studio into a multi-sampled patch.

Accompanying the streamed tutorials from the course are both the samples from the lessons and a 100MB bonus pack of varied oneshots and loops, giving students both the physical materials required for sampling and the ability to competently use them!

Sample Module - Old School Looping Bass Creation

Module Details

Module 1 - What is Sampling?

A summary of the main sampling applications in music production, and the ways in which they can benefit your workflow - 04.47

An introduction to the way pitching and transposition is handled in a sampler, including an explanation of root note. 

• Lesson 1 - Root Note & Standard Pitch Behaviour - 02.24  
• Lesson 2 - Transposition & Changing the Root Note - 04.01

An introduction to changing sample length, looking at start and end positions, one-shot and amplitude envelope modes, and sample snap. 

• Lesson 1 - Sample Start and End Positions - 01.27  
• Lesson 2 - Oneshot Mode & Amplitude/ADSR Envelope - 04.03
• Lesson 3 - Snap Mode - 01.50

A look at the two most common envelopes after amplitude, those being filter and pitch envelopes.

• Lesson 1 - Filter Envelope - 03.03
• Lesson 2 - Pitch Envelope - 03.19

Some tips for working with drum samples, including more radical ways of modulating percussion and techniques for achieving varied and natural-sounding hats.

• Lesson 1 - Re-pitching Percussion - 05.01
• Lesson 2 - Velocity Modulation - 08.03

How looping works in samplers, covering loop length, position, fading and synchronisation, as well as how to make a classic, old school looped bass.

• Lesson 1 - Looping Controls - 03.12
• Lesson 2 - Old School Looping Bass - 03.34
• Lesson 3 - Synchronised Looping - 03.37

A look at the way many different popular samplers handle re-pitching and time-stretching of samples, when played with a MIDI keyboard for example - 06.30

Two examples of ways of sampling a vocal to make musical parts, including a 90s rave lead and a deep stab patch. 

• Lesson 1 - 90s Rave Vocal - 03.34
• Lesson 2 - Deep Chord Stab Vocal - 05.00

A guide to multi-sampling, showing how to map sample zones to areas of the keyboard and particular velocity ranges.

• Lesson 1 - Intro to Multi-sampling - 02.02
• Lesson 2 - Keyboard Zones - 02.57
• Lesson 3 - Velocity Zones - 07.06

A walkthrough of sampling an accordion, including recording and editing the instrument, then how to import and set up samples to make a realistic emulation.

• Lesson 1 - Recording and Editing Samples - 02.52
• Lesson 2 - Setting up the Preset - 05.41

Module 11 - Outro

Some final comments from the tutor and advice about where to go next - 00.23