# Recording your own samples



## Tanuj Tiku (Feb 25, 2012)

I am in the planning stages of recording my own samples.

This is not for any commercial activity or Cinematic Epic stuff. I just want to record all sorts of instruments - percussion, string, bowed, winds. I am starting a project and I need to record some material for it. 

Before I even think of taking this into Kontakt, I am looking for some do's and dont's as I have never done this before.

I am planning to record this both in reverberant spaces and extremely dry studio sessions. The bulk of this recording is going to be material that I will use to begin writing my new compositions. 

Its mostly going to be 'sound-based' - as in I am not recording phrases or only melodic isntruments. I am looking to record sounds that are musical in nature but not neccessarily traditional or performed traditionally. 

In any case, I am in the process of research at the moment and I would like any sort of inputs I can get to achieve this. 

Of course, I want to record in as high quality a mode as possible. 

I am looking for both technical and philosophical inputs.

Ultimately, this is going to be played via Kontakt and similar samplers and synths. So, I will need to think about recording in a way that is best optimized for these software.


Thank you for your time!

Best,

Tanuj.


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## RiffWraith (Feb 25, 2012)

First off, good on you for even thinking about doing this, and best of luck in your venture.

I am not sure what you know about audio and the recording process, so forgive me if some of this is redundant to you, but....

There is alot that goes into a good quality recording:

Musicians
Instruments
Room (space)
Mic choice(s)
Mic placement
Mic pre
Other gear in the chain
Destination

If you have never done a recording before, or have extremely limited experience, dont expect the first venture to come out stellar sounding. It takes time, and practice to have an unserstanding of how things should sound while you are on location, how to reposition the mics if something doesn't sound quite right, when to use certain things in your chain (such as compression)...

Just make sure you are as prepared as possible. Make a list before you leave the house of everything you need...start this a few days before, as you may find yourself saying, "oh yeah - I forgot about that". You want to do that while you are in the house and can add it to the list - not whan your are on location. Speak to your musicians first, and make sure you are all on the same page. Send them sheet music in advance, and let them tell you if they dont understand something. And most importantly - enjoy yourself!

Cheers.


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## Mike Greene (Feb 25, 2012)

My advice would be to do your first few instruments very quickly, without a lot of second guessing or trying to make it "perfect." You'll learn a lot this way about what's important and what's not important.

It's way too common for people to have plans to make a sample library, but never actually do it, because they worried too much to make it perfect. It's a lot like songwriting, in fact. Some of your best work can be the stuff you do in under an hour.

Way back in the Akai S1000 days, I recorded myself singing a few falsetto notes with an SM58, mapped the "wet-only" reverb to the keyboard and it wound up being a surprisingly useful airy vocal pad. I knew another guy who didn't have a bass, so he sampled a guitar, pitched it down an octave, and it made a really good bass that we used a lot. My point is to start by making a bunch of quick and dirty instruments, rather than trying to make your first instrument perfect.

I would challenge yourself to make an instrument *tonight.* Use whatever mic and preamp you've got and record whatever you think might be interesting. Maybe your own voice singing low "doo" or "boom," so you can double that for basslines. Or bang on stuff around the house to make a percussion instrument. Maybe you'll wind up with a gem, more likely you'll wind up with a dud, but the process will teach you a lot.


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## wst3 (Feb 25, 2012)

Mike's advice is spot on!

Especially the part about percussion. Have a blast sampling anything you can find that makes a noise - and that's a lot of stuff!

I remember putting together a percussion kit with bricks, trashcan lids, dog dishes, little tin ash trays, and a bunch of other stuff. All using the Mirage no less. I used a recording I made back then of the sound of dumping a bag of dog food into a plastic bin a couple years ago.

Now you aren't building a deeply sampled percussion instrument, you are taking snapshots of interesting sounds. That's important.

Then take those sounds, clean them up, and map them into a patch.

Not only will you learn a lot, you'll end up with an instrument that is uniquely yours, and I'll bet you end up using it a lot!

Then you can fine tune it. The trash can lid sample rings too much? Re-record it using different microphone placement, or a different microphone, or damp it somehow.

And so on and so forth. Build and rebuild the instrument a couple times till it's really good.

Then sit down and think about the facets of each step that mattered, and you are off to the races.

It probably goes without saying, but just in case... there is a huge difference between a sampling experiment like the one I described, and a more detailed sampling project... but most of the differences will be about scale, not technique. The one technical thing that will differ is repeatability, but I'll let the masters speak to that one, as I never really graduated from my Mirage adventures!


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## Blackster (Feb 26, 2012)

It'S funny. Actually, I'm writing a tutorial series about that topic. Like you, I wanted to do my own stuff. Right now, I've finished a few custom libraries (with which I'm very happy) and I like to share my experience on that.

I will put the first of three tutorials online within the next 1-2 weeks. In the meanwhile I suggest to follow Mike's advice and simply do it  ... it's the best way to move forward.


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## germancomponist (Feb 26, 2012)

wst3 @ Sun Feb 26 said:


> Mike's advice is spot on!



And so it is with experimenting in Kontakt Sampler; learning by doing.

Some years ago I experimented in Kontakt with only 3 samples from the Chris Hein sopranosax and ended with this: http://www.box.com/shared/ybr5errtkj

and this: http://www.box.com/shared/k2qeduv4qi

All what you hear is done only with this same soprano sax samples, also the drums and guitars, bass .... .

It makes a lot of fun to experiment in Kontakt and you can do there so many cool things .


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## Daryl (Feb 26, 2012)

A few more words of wisdom:

Keymap Pro from Redmatica.

It will save you hours, and it is even worth wasting the money getting a Mac (or OSX) just to run this program. :wink: 

D


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## Tanuj Tiku (Feb 27, 2012)

Thank you one and all for your replies.

Some great info to get me started. I know nothing of this and I dont plan to make any traditional instruments as of now. 

I just want to start recording my own stuff and see how it goes.

Daryl,

Redmatica seems like a great piece of software. I am going through the videos at the moment. Looks like a must have. 

Macs....hmmm....I suppose I could get a cheap one for this software.


Blackster,

Do post your tutorials. It will be great to learn from your experience.

Mike,

Rigth on - I am going to get started with this!

Bill,

You always post amazing info and it makes complete sense.

Gunther,

Those samples sound very cool!


Thanks guys...!


Best,

Tanuj.


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## germancomponist (Feb 27, 2012)

vibrato @ Mon Feb 27 said:


> Gunther,
> 
> Those samples sound very cool!
> 
> ...



Tanuj, have you read what I wrote? I did not the samples, I used 3 samples from a soprano sax and built all the instruments only with it. So you can listen what you can do only with using 3 little samples in Kontakt.... .


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## Tanuj Tiku (Feb 27, 2012)

Gunther,

Yes, I got that. I do this a lot within Kontakt a lot of times as well. Taking samples and manipulating them. 

But this time, I want to record my own sounds from scratch and make them into one-shot samples and also playable instruments. Just a completely new and custom set of sounds I can use. 

I am not looking to record trumpet players or stringed instruments. I am more interested in unique sounds and experimental/extended playing techniques. 

I definitely want to record a set of small percussion.


Like Mike said, I will start with something thats doable for me and then based on that experience, I will prepare myself better for the next set of recordings.


Best,

Tanuj.


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## germancomponist (Feb 27, 2012)

Good luck, Tanhj!

But it is good to have in mind that you can built great sounding instruments with, for example, only one little stupid sample.... .


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## victorv (Feb 27, 2012)

germancomponist @ 26/2/2012 said:


> wst3 @ Sun Feb 26 said:
> 
> 
> > Mike's advice is spot on!
> ...



Gunther, sound's amazing! Just 3 samples??? My God!
hahaha I remembered I did something like that with some symphobia Strings and Chords, the final result was very nice for my ears
Best


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## victorv (Feb 27, 2012)

Daryl @ 26/2/2012 said:


> A few more words of wisdom:
> 
> Keymap Pro from Redmatica.
> 
> ...


Hey Daryl, Did you know some similar program but for windows?
I've just sampled some guitars _-) with a tube Preamp with chromatic scale >8o (A lot of notes), gonna be very boring map all the notes.
thanks


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## Daryl (Feb 28, 2012)

victorv @ Tue Feb 28 said:


> Daryl @ 26/2/2012 said:
> 
> 
> > A few more words of wisdom:
> ...


Forget looking for another program. KMP is just the best, by far. I bought a Mac Mini to run it. Saves hours, days, years.........

D


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## re-peat (Feb 28, 2012)

Daryl @ Tue Feb 28 said:


> KMP is just the best, by far.


It most certainly is. Brilliant software. (Perhaps, at times, a little bit too brilliant for its own good, like all Redmatica software.)
However, there is also ChickenSys Constructor, for both Mac and Windows. Never tried it, and I can't say I've ever had pleasant experiences with any of ChickenSys' software, I'm only mentioning that it exists.

_


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## victorv (Feb 28, 2012)

Wool thanks guys! I'll check out ChickenSys!


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## dadek (Feb 28, 2012)

i use redmatica on mac. the pc does have samplerobot. (haven't used myself.)


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## victorv (Mar 11, 2012)

If someone know another sampler softwares?
A program similar to Redmatica KeyMap for windows, some softwares mentioned before are kind of old.
thanks


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## bryla (Mar 12, 2012)

Btw... in less than a week after having got Keymap I finally made use of my percussion recordings, making this: http://www.vi-control.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25215

and 6 other instruments


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## Mike Greene (Mar 12, 2012)

victorv @ Sun Mar 11 said:


> If someone know another sampler softwares?
> A program similar to Redmatica KeyMap for windows, some softwares mentioned before are kind of old.


KeyMap has taken over. It's a small market to begin with, and KeyMap is so superior to anything else, that no one is going to develop something similar.

In other words, given that it's a very complicated program to write, combined with the fact that there aren't enough potential customers (= money) to make it worthwhile, there won't be any decent competitors. That's why a lot of developers who normally use Windows will buy Mac Mini's to run KeyMap.

Cool as KeyMap is, if you're tight on money, you can still do everything directly in Kontakt. It takes a little longer and you have to tune and loop samples manually, but it's a very workable interface.


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## victorv (Mar 12, 2012)

Thank You Michael!


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