# External Sample Editor or Kontakt's?



## Norwayguy (Jul 19, 2018)

Hello all. I'm about to have to set loop points for 1000s of samples.

Is kontakt's sample editor best ? or is there a better external one that will work faster and more painlessly? 
Feel free to share your fave if you use an external. I am limited to macosx platform right now, but still interested if you have a windows only favorite and want to recommend.
thanks


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## polypx (Jul 19, 2018)

Definitely use an external one... anything better than the Kontakt one.


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## Norwayguy (Jul 19, 2018)

polypx said:


> Definitely use an external one... anything better than the Kontakt one.


cool. what do you use? i have a license for wavelab i could use but i'd have to relearn it


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## polypx (Jul 19, 2018)

I use lots of different editors for different jobs, but for looping I prefer Keymap (it's dead tho, you'll have a hard time finding that).


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## Tod (Jul 19, 2018)

Norwayguy said:


> cool. what do you use? i have a license for wavelab i could use but i'd have to relearn it



Reaper, it's got everything you need and then some.


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## d.healey (Jul 19, 2018)

Reaper + Loop Auditioneer (if you need looping).


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## Norwayguy (Jul 19, 2018)

i didn't realise reaper could add the loop points, i'll take a look


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## d.healey (Jul 19, 2018)

Norwayguy said:


> i didn't realise reaper could add the loop points, i'll take a look


Use region markers, once exported in a media item it becomes a loop point. Don't add loop points in Reaper though, you'll spend hours trying to find a seamless loop. Use loop auditioneer and bring the loops in to Reaper by extracting the regions from the loop markers. I'll make a tutorial for this workflow tomorrow if I have time. If you're working with multi-mic samples and loops it will save you even more time.


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## Norwayguy (Jul 19, 2018)

thanks david but im limited to osx, unless there is a build for that somewhere?


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## d.healey (Jul 19, 2018)

Norwayguy said:


> thanks david but im limited to osx, unless there is a build for that somewhere?


Well it's open source so if you can set up a compiler you can build it for your OS. I'm on Linux Mint and had to do my own build. Or I think you can run WINE/Crossover on OSX to run Windows executables. You could also use a virtual machine. As a final option you could find someone with a Windows machine to do your looping  I don't know of any other program that is as good for the purpose. The only one that comes close is EndlessWav but it is Windows only (although it runs in Crossover).


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## Norwayguy (Jul 19, 2018)

I'll have a go compiling one, i have xcode. endless wav loops good too


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## Tod (Jul 20, 2018)

d.healey said:


> Don't add loop points in Reaper though, you'll spend hours trying to find a seamless loop.



Hi David, I think we've discussed this some before, I'm not sure, but I thought I had shown you how I make seamless loops in Reaper fairly quickly. In this video I show one of the ways that I do this by duplicating the track twice and reversing the sample on one of the tracks. 

In this case I'm looping violin ensemble samples and reversing would not be necessary, however, in the case of solo instruments like piano, guitar, bass, and other instruments that have a decaying sustain, reversing is extremely helpful. 



Doing it this way is quite easy and much quicker then the traditional way of finding the loop points. There's no guess work or crossfading involved, and the loops are perfect.


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## Norwayguy (Jul 20, 2018)

thanks for sharing tod, looks like a good strategy


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## d.healey (Jul 21, 2018)

Tod said:


> Hi David, I think we've discussed this some before, I'm not sure, but I thought I had shown you how I make seamless loops in Reaper fairly quickly.


Hi Tod, 

Yes I remember our conversation but I can't remember exactly why I didn't adopt your method. I've just watched your video again and I have a few questions.

The first thing you do is set the front loop marker: How is this position determined?
Then you set a marker at a pre-calculated position: How is this calculated?
What is the script that you use to process the envelopes?
Is the center portion of the loop actually playing in reverse?
Is the end of the sample retained on export or only the loop section?
How would you export these with the loop points embedded? I can see this getting messy when there are thousands of samples and multiple mic positions.
What method do you use to name the individual samples on export?


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## Tod (Jul 21, 2018)

Hi David, all really great questions.



d.healey said:


> The first thing you do is set the front loop marker: How is this position determined?



As you can see I spit the main track item and the duplicate item underneath and these two items are
perfectly synced due to the duplication. Then I play the main track and find where the timbre has mostly
smoothed out and split the two items right there and imediately place a marker. So now I've got the perfect
loops between the top and bottom items. I used to locate a zero crossing but found it unnecessary.

To further explain this, I select both parts of the duplicated sample and move that ahead to where it looks
about right. There are a few things to concider as to where it's placed, but after doing a few samples, this
position becomes more obvious.

Then I select the front of the split sample, make a time selection, and place the other marker at the end of
the time selection. Now I've got the scond loop point positioned.



> Then you set a marker at a pre-calculated position: How is this calculated?



That was calculated after editing a few samples, it became obvious I could use the same position for all
samples, so I did this to speed things up. I actually seldom do that other then with orchestra instruments
like violins, violas, and cellos.



> What is the script that you use to process the envelopes?



Actually I'm not sure I used any scripts for this, I might have. Mostly they were just custom action macros.
The thing about orchestra samples, due to thier natural phasing, there's no concern about phase alignment,
so it's fairly simple to create custom actions for this.



> Is the center portion of the loop actually playing in reverse?



Yes, I found that it makes no difference, even for solo instruments that need to be phase aligned. I should
add, some solo instruments don't work well when they are reversed due to the phase alignment. On those
occasions I don't reverse the third track, but position it where it fits well. With decaying instruments like
piano I will use track volume to equalize the volume. 




> Is the end of the sample retained on export or only the loop section?



I will usually locate a postion just past the end loop point and cut/delete the end of it to reduce sample size.



> How would you export these with the loop points embedded? I can see this getting messy when there are thousands of samples and multiple mic positions.



I used to take the embedded samples to a wave editor like Sound Forge. Actually I've used Wavosaur a lot for
this, it's pretty simple and straight forward. I think it was you who turned me onto using reagions for this, and
I think I've used that method a few times since. Not sure, it's been a little while. 



> What method do you use to name the individual samples on export?



Wildcards, any combination that works using, regions, tracks, and items names and/or numbers.

The thing about doing it this way, it's faster once you get the hang of it, it takes the guess work out of it, and
the loops are perfectly seamless. I used to dread making sample loops, but now it's not so bad.


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## JEPA (Jul 21, 2018)

another software is Soundforge. It can make batch work if i remember well. There are Win and Mac versions.


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## polypx (Jul 21, 2018)

Soundforge Mac is a lot less impressive than original Soundforge though, be warned.


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## JEPA (Jul 21, 2018)

polypx said:


> Soundforge Mac is a lot less impressive than original Soundforge though, be warned.


yes, i recommend SoundForge Windows. If you are on Mac, use it through Wine..


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## Tod (Jul 21, 2018)

JEPA said:


> another software is Soundforge. It can make batch work if i remember well. There are Win and Mac versions.



Like I mentioned above, I've got Sound Forge but for editing multiple samples and looping them, Reaper is the key.


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## Norwayguy (Jul 22, 2018)

thanks for all the options and help everyone


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