# DAW of choice for prepping Audio Samples for a Kontakt Library?



## jononotbono (Oct 24, 2018)

Just wondering what preferred DAWs people like to use for prepping audio samples for a Sample library? Specifically, to create a Kontakt Sample Library. Cubase is my main DAW for writing music but I have seen a lot of people praise Reaper for it's exporting and batch naming capabilities. 

Curious to know what sample devs use for this kind of work and also curious about the workflow when dealing with such a massive amount of audio samples for a big library.

Thanks

Jono


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## jononotbono (Oct 24, 2018)

In fact, this could probably be moved to the sample, scripting section of VI-C. Sorry, didn't think about that.


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## mouse (Oct 24, 2018)

Seems a lot of people use reaper for it due to its batch abilities


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## d.healey (Oct 24, 2018)

Reaper


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## jononotbono (Oct 24, 2018)

d.healey said:


> Reaper



Why?


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## d.healey (Oct 24, 2018)

Spectral editing, batch renaming, batch exporting, and many other batch editing tools


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## EvilDragon (Oct 24, 2018)

Yep, Reaper. It's heavily used by sound designers and in game industry, and also in cutting samples for sample libraries.


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## jononotbono (Oct 24, 2018)

d.healey said:


> Spectral editing, batch renaming, batch exporting, and many other batch editing tools



Ok thanks man. I haven't taken your Scripting course part 1 yet and it's not because I don't want to (I can't wait to learn that side of things) but because I'm currently in the middle of doing this course. Recognise it? haha! 

Today is my first day trying out Reaper.


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## jononotbono (Oct 24, 2018)

EvilDragon said:


> Yep, Reaper. It's heavily used by sound designers and in game industry, and also in cutting samples for sample libraries.



Ok amazing. And down another Rabbit Hole I go then.


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## d.healey (Oct 24, 2018)

You might find this video helpful:


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## jononotbono (Oct 24, 2018)

Amazing thank you!


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## cyoder (Oct 24, 2018)

Hey Jono, here's some Reaper resources that should help get started:

Outside of basic track and item manipulation, the actions list is the gateway into how to find almost anything you need to do in Reaper (if you can find the right keywords, sometimes they're not 100% consistent):


Spoiler








Some of the most useful actions are not included in default Reaper but were added by users via scripts or extensions. You can get most of them via SWS (most widely used extension) and ReaPack (syncs most user scripts with Reaper from one dialogue):
http://www.sws-extension.org/
https://reapack.com/

Otherwise, probably two of the more sample useful things to know about are dynamic split, and render settings:


Spoiler










Otherwise, sampling techniques can just be a matter of knowing what functions are at your disposal, and putting them together in creative ways to find something that works for you and saves time. It really can be a rabbit hole, depending on how much time and effort you want to invest into sampling. I hope these videos are of some use, or feel free to PM me if you have specific questions. 

Best,
Christian


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## holywilly (Oct 24, 2018)

We use Pro Tools for recording and editing samples. I’m a Cubase guy, but hands down to pro tools for everything in audio!


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## gregh (Oct 24, 2018)

Also with Reaper - I have an action so that if I double click on the bottom half of an audio clip a copy opens in RX7. Edit then ctrl+s to save and there is the edit in Reaper as a new active take. I could make it so that all I see in Reaper is the edited file from RX, but having it visible as an active take makes comparing or rewinding easier.


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## d.healey (Oct 24, 2018)

gregh said:


> Also with Reaper - I have an action so that if I double click on the bottom half of an audio clip a copy opens in RX7. Edit then ctrl+s to save and there is the edit in Reaper as a new active take. I could make it so that all I see in Reaper is the edited file from RX, but having it visible as an active take makes comparing or rewinding easier.


I don't use takes enough, that's a really good idea!


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## gregh (Oct 24, 2018)

d.healey said:


> I don't use takes enough, that's a really good idea!


the "trick" of that method is opening a copy in the external editor, not the original file - open the original and then you get the whole problem of saving from the editor while the file is open in Reaper - which is not allowed. Reaper is smart enough to "know" you want the copy shown as a take


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## jononotbono (Oct 24, 2018)

cyoder said:


> Hey Jono, here's some Reaper resources that should help get started:
> 
> Outside of basic track and item manipulation, the actions list is the gateway into how to find almost anything you need to do in Reaper (if you can find the right keywords, sometimes they're not 100% consistent):
> 
> ...




Thanks so much.

I'm already understanding how powerful Reaper is. I've just prepared some samples, used dynamic split, reduced noise using ReaFr, now learning about batch exporting and naming and using the Label Processor. Naming all these samples in Cubase would take a long time in comparison. I'm already hooked!

I've decided I'm definitely investing in RX7 (not just for sample clean up but for other things like Dialogue and back ground noise clean up I get asked to do sometimes - this is the final push though into thinking it will be amazing for sample library creation).


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## MisteR (Oct 24, 2018)

I am new to this Kontakt library building thing as well, so take this with a grain of salt, but I have been messing around with a little utility called fission and finding it quite useful. Mac only. 

https://rogueamoeba.com/fission/


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## jononotbono (Oct 24, 2018)

So basically this little device is wonderful!


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## cyoder (Oct 24, 2018)

Nice! Looks like you've already sunk your teeth in! Or maybe it's the other way around.


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## jononotbono (Oct 24, 2018)

Just following a course at the minute and probably going to have to do this over and over to memorise it all as it's slightly frying my brain. I'm getting the impression Reaper benefits from having a scripting knowledge because there are lots of things I literally have no idea about (yet). Wildcards, $ signs. All sorts of stuff! It's a new world!


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## Ryan (Oct 24, 2018)

I use Cubase. I did a video showing how 3 years ago.


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## gsilbers (Oct 24, 2018)

Ryan said:


> I use Cubase. I did a video showing how 3 years ago.




maybe im high but i dont think there is audio in the entire video. looks good though


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## d.healey (Oct 24, 2018)

Ryan said:


> I use Cubase. I did a video showing how 3 years ago.



I made a similar video many years ago when I used Cubase. Unfortunately the offerings in Cubase (or any other software I've seen) are only suitable for relatively small tasks. If you have thousands of multi-mic samples to edit there is no software that can compete with Reaper for speed.


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## Ryan (Oct 25, 2018)

gsilbers said:


> maybe im high but i dont think there is audio in the entire video. looks good though


True! I made it without


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## Erick - BVA (Oct 25, 2018)

Reaper, because all I really use for anything.


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## JEPA (Oct 25, 2018)

Reaper all the way!


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## jononotbono (Oct 25, 2018)

Well, I'm certainly loving Reaper so far. The batch export options alone wipe the floor with any other DAW I've used and I now completely understand why so many use it for Sample Library prep. Still, Cubase will always be my writing DAW. I love it and have used it for a long time. There's room in the inn for both. 

I've also just upped my potential game and no doubt add to more brain melting by buying Xtant Audio's Kontakt Scripting: Lesson 1 course. Excited to spend the day getting stuck in!


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## Erick - BVA (Oct 25, 2018)

jononotbono said:


> Well, I'm certainly loving Reaper so far. The batch export options alone wipe the floor with any other DAW I've used and I now completely understand why so many use it for Sample Library prep. Still, Cubase will always be my writing DAW. I love it and have used it for a long time. There's room in the inn for both.
> 
> I've also just upped my potential game and no doubt add to more brain melting by buying Xtant Audio's Kontakt Scripting: Lesson 1 course. Excited to spend the day getting stuck in!


I think I like Reaper and Cubase so far --but I've also used Ableton, FL Studio, and Reason through Reaper. But that was only so I could use some of the sounds which are included in those 3 DAWs. As far as workflow goes, I've never been able to actually write anything using those 3 DAWs by themselves. I just don't understand the workflow as much as Reaper and Cubase, especially Ableton. I'm sure if I started out with one of them, I'd be well acquainted. But I started with Reaper. Cubase is not too disimilar, but I do like that EQ is built into each track (maybe it is in Reaper as well, but I just don't know how to do it). 
As far as prepping Audio, for sure Reaper. The batch saving (and the ability to apply FX to the files) is a time saver. There are also some handy tools in the actions list for editing the samples in the DAW. Some of them you have to download from 3rd parties. But they are worth it.


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## kitekrazy (Oct 25, 2018)

I've used Soundforge in the past.


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## benmrx (Oct 25, 2018)

Pro Tools. IMO it's still the best application for audio editing. Reaper wins for batch file naming out of the box though.


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## Mike Greene (Oct 25, 2018)

I use Pro Tools. Reaper may be better in some ways, but I'm used to Pro Tools, so I'm much faster with it. My fingers already know the keyboard shortcuts for pretty much everything.

For file naming, there are tricks. "Consolidate Region," for instance, can be your best friend. If you have a track with a whole bunch of regions that you want to spread across the Kontakt key range, then rename that track to whatever you want the samples to be named (say "Trumpet_FF"), then Option-Shift-3 (for Mac) each region one by one, and they will all become new samples in your Pro Tools "Audio Files" folder, each named with whatever the track name was, followed by sequential 2-digit numbers. (Trumpet_FF_01, Trumpet_FF_02, Trumpet_FF_03, ...)

It's pretty fast, and more importantly for me, it's intuitive. No doubt Reaper has slicker methods to do the same thing, but I'm terrible at remembering new methods, so for me, I'd spend more time trying to remember how to batch rename in Reaper than it would take me to do a pile of Option-Shift-3 moves in PT.


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## benmrx (Oct 25, 2018)

Mike Greene said:


> I use Pro Tools. Reaper may be better in some ways, but I'm used to Pro Tools, so I'm much faster with it. My fingers already know the keyboard shortcuts for pretty much everything.
> 
> For file naming, there are tricks. "Consolidate Region," for instance, can be your best friend. If you have a track with a whole bunch of regions that you want to spread across the Kontakt key range, then rename that track to whatever you want the samples to be named (say "Trumpet_FF"), then Option-Shift-3 (for Mac) each region one by one, and they will all become new samples in your Pro Tools "Audio Files" folder, each named with whatever the track name was, followed by sequential 2-digit numbers. (Trumpet_FF_01, Trumpet_FF_02, Trumpet_FF_03, ...)
> 
> It's pretty fast, and more importantly for me, it's intuitive. No doubt Reaper has slicker methods to do the same thing, but I'm terrible at remembering new methods, so for me, I'd spend more time trying to remember how to batch rename in Reaper than it would take me to do a pile of Option-Shift-3 moves in PT.



+1, similar PT method here. But I usually write a macro that’s specific to the task at hand in regards to naming. So I can add various bits of info to each file. Then it’s a single key press (or in my case ‘stream deck button’).

Comes in handy when your naming convention needs to specifically match an excel document.


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## EvilDragon (Oct 25, 2018)

A colleague audio editor of mine was using PT for ages to do lots of sample editing. He is literally 20 times faster in Reaper, because it's so malleable and extensible with scripts. It laughs at PT's audio editing facilities, quite literally. Custom toolbars in Reaper help with not forgetting keyboard shortcuts, for example.

He didn't get into Reaper early enough to alleviate his RSI (yes, PT is partly to blame for that), though :(


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## benmrx (Oct 25, 2018)

And this is the beauty of our world. Totally opposite experience here. Spent months with Reaper, night after night building scripts, etc. only to come crawling back to PT with my tail between my legs. Sorry buddy...., won't leave you again.


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## d.healey (Oct 25, 2018)

If there's enough interest I could do a live stream editing a session in Reaper and you could ask questions and stuff. I've got lots of unedited multi-mic sessions I need to edit.


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## jononotbono (Oct 25, 2018)

d.healey said:


> If there's enough interest I could do a live stream editing a session in Reaper and you could ask questions and stuff. I've got lots of unedited multi-mic sessions I need to edit.



I'd be very interested. I've been doing your Scripting Part 1 Course today (not finished but will soon and determined to go through all 4 courses) and something that I know I will want to be able to implement into my own sample libraries are multiple Mic Positions. But How to edit the samples, how to prep them for importing them into Kontakt etc is the first part of understanding multiple mics. Would be amazing man!

Today has been heavy...


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## d.healey (Oct 25, 2018)

jononotbono said:


> I'd be very interested. I've been doing your Scripting Part 1 Course today (not finished but will soon and determined to go through all 4 courses) and something that I know I will want to be able to implement into my own sample libraries are multiple Mic Positions. But How to edit the samples, how to prep them for importing them into Kontakt etc is the first part of understanding multiple mics. Would be amazing man!
> 
> Today has been heavy...


That's how a white board should look!


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## ironbut (Oct 25, 2018)

I you guys haven't checked out David Farmer's tuts on using Reaper for sound design/post, they are excellent.


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## Tod (Oct 25, 2018)

EvilDragon said:


> A colleague audio editor of mine was using PT for ages to do lots of sample editing. He is literally 20 times faster in Reaper, because it's so malleable and extensible with scripts. It laughs at PT's audio editing facilities, quite literally. Custom toolbars in Reaper help with not forgetting keyboard shortcuts, for example.


What Mario is saying is so true and getting more and more common place as people learn what can be done with Reaper. 



ironbut said:


> I you guys haven't checked out David Farmer's tuts on using Reaper for sound design/post, they are excellent.


Thanks ironbut, that's a pretty good video and after checking his web site I see that David Framer has more vids about Reaper.

I don't know how many sample libraries I've edited in Reaper, it's quite a few, and as far as editing goes, I've found that every sample editing project is different in one way or another. The thing I love about Reaper is the custom actions, these actions can be fashioned to do just about anything, and although they can save a lot of time, more importantly, they cut way down on the mouse clicks, as well as take the mundaness out of it and that leads to fewer mistakes.

Here's a short vid showing how I looped some violin samples. This isn't meant to show how you can make loops in Reaper, it's to show you how custom actions can be created for most anything. 





d.healey said:


> If there's enough interest I could do a live stream editing a session in Reaper and you could ask questions and stuff. I've got lots of unedited multi-mic sessions I need to edit.



That could be very interesting David.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 25, 2018)

Logic for sequencing and Pro Tools for sample editing and all audio knick-knacks (including sound design, music editing, what have you). That's mostly for the same reason as Mike's reason - I'm used to it.

I understand the arguments for an audio editor, but I never actually used one in the throes of battle (even though at one time I had them all on my Mac).

And it looks like my 2009 version of Soundtrack Pro is still working. Hah. It even has sound effects, but I think those are the same ones that come with Logic Pro X.


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## Edward Stevan (Oct 25, 2018)

but how to detect pitch and auto sort samples by pitch in reaper??


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## gregh (Oct 25, 2018)

Edward Stevan said:


> but how to detect pitch and auto sort samples by pitch in reaper??


what can you do that in?


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## Edward Stevan (Oct 25, 2018)

gregh said:


> what can you do that in?


that,s useful for quick renaming and putting the samples at the right keys


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## gregh (Oct 25, 2018)

Edward Stevan said:


> that,s useful for quick renaming and putting the samples at the right keys


sure, but what software does that?


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## Edward Stevan (Oct 25, 2018)

gregh said:


> sure, but what software does that?


Reaper, i guess
but i don,t know how.


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## EvilDragon (Oct 26, 2018)

I'm sure somebody wrote a script for pitch detection.


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## Lindon (Oct 26, 2018)

Well one more vote for Reaper for sample editing, but like many here I cant quite get my head into Reaper for composition (where I use the very very fast Tracktion).

My one wrinkle here would be these days I actually do a lot of sample editing work using Python and Pydub.


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## jononotbono (Oct 26, 2018)

What's the best way of using RX 7 Advanced with Reaper? Is it the same process as using ReaFR? Just load it on a track, do your thing with it, then copy FX chain onto export when ready to export (if you want to apply it to everything recorded with same background noise - obviously situations will vary)?

RX is too good not to use and it's the next thing I'm buying (tried the demo) so I'm hoping its a simple process to Denoise samples with Reaper.


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## James Marshall (Oct 26, 2018)

jononotbono said:


> What's the best way of using RX 7 Advanced with Reaper? Is it the same process as using ReaFR? Just load it on a track, do your thing with it, then copy FX chain onto export when ready to export (if you want to apply it to everything recorded with same background noise - obviously situations will vary)?



You can use it as an external editor to edit your samples on the fly:

How to use RX as an audio editor with Cockos Reaper


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## jononotbono (Oct 26, 2018)

James Marshall said:


> You can use it as an external editor to edit your samples on the fly:
> 
> How to use RX as an audio editor with Cockos Reaper



Thanks! I shall check it out!


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## gregh (Oct 26, 2018)

this is how I do it
1. set RX as your primary external editor as mentioned above
2. set a mouse modifier like this Options>Preferences> mouse modifiers>media item bottom half>double click >Default action > Action list > open item copies in primary external editor

Now when I double click on the bottom half of an audio file it opens in RX, I do whatever in RX, ctrl+s to save it, go back to Reaper and there it is as the active take.

You can finesse this if you want - I have (as of a few minutes ago with help from the Reaper forum) a script working to open audio in RX like above, but midi in the internal editor and not as a copy

Also if you just want a segment of a larger audio file then select the segment and drag it onto another track using ctrl+alt and a new file is generated of that selection. Otherwise what you are getting is a copy of the whole file but with a limited view onto it - if you then edit it in RX you will see the whole file not just the segment you want


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## jononotbono (Oct 26, 2018)

gregh said:


> this is how I do it
> 1. set RX as your primary external editor as mentioned above
> 2. set a mouse modifier like this Options>Preferences> mouse modifiers>media item bottom half>double click >Default action > Action list > open item copies in primary external editor
> 
> ...



That's sounds great. I apologise for ignorance with Reaper and what may have sounded like a silly question. After a bit of time I'm sure I'll be flying with Reaper!


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## gregh (Oct 26, 2018)

jononotbono said:


> That's sounds great. I apologise for ignorance with Reaper and what may have sounded like a silly question. After a bit of time I'm sure I'll be flying with Reaper!


ask away - I just got that refinement of what I do by asking over on the Reaper forum an hour ago


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## d.healey (Oct 26, 2018)

Edward Stevan said:


> but how to detect pitch and auto sort samples by pitch in reaper??


Yes you can do this in Reaper. A few years ago I commissioned a few custom scripts from X-Raym (he's the guy to go to for custom scripts btw) one of which is able to use ReaTune's pitch detection to auto-name samples and another which is able to sort samples by name. Now that Reaper has spectral peaks he's made an improved pitch detector script.

I don't actually use these scripts much any more though. I usually record chromatically (lowest to highest) so it's quick for me to just swap out bad takes for good ones as I listen to each sample and then rename them all at once (across mic positions too) with the label processor.


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## ironbut (Oct 26, 2018)

I know some folks like to use editors like SoundForge (on PC) and Adobe Audition for editing audio for game assets. The main reason is that they allow "destructive" editing which changes the original audio file and eliminates the need to do any sort of bounce.
Maybe a little old skool IMHO and as it's been said here before, game/interactive audio guys are using Reaper more and more.


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## Spip (Oct 27, 2018)

benmrx said:


> Pro Tools. IMO it's still the best application for audio editing. Reaper wins for batch file naming out of the box though.



Pro Tools has the same tool. In the clip list, right-click your selected clips > Batch rename

(And it's a little bit more elegant than the Reaper's one, IMHO)


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## Spip (Oct 27, 2018)

Mike Greene said:


> For file naming, there are tricks. "Consolidate Region," for instance, can be your best friend. If you have a track with a whole bunch of regions that you want to spread across the Kontakt key range, then rename that track to whatever you want the samples to be named (say "Trumpet_FF"), then Option-Shift-3 (for Mac) each region one by one, and they will all become new samples in your Pro Tools "Audio Files" folder, each named with whatever the track name was, followed by sequential 2-digit numbers. (Trumpet_FF_01, Trumpet_FF_02, Trumpet_FF_03, ...)



So middle-age...  

You can do all of that in one go with Audiosuite > Gain. Check that "create individual files" is selected. 

Then, use the batch rename tool in the clip list. Triple-click in the track to select all audio files.


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## wst3 (Oct 27, 2018)

I've never really enjoyed editing samples in a DAW, for me an audio editor seems better suited to the task at hand.

Disclaimer #1 - I started editing with a razor blade, which has to influence my choices<G>!

Disclaimer #2 - I stopped editing samples about the time I started using computer based samplers, almost all my experience was tied to the Mirage, EPS, and a little bit of S900. All of these required great care for looping.

My first choice for years was Sound Forge - fastest workflow of any editor I've used (and I've owned them all). But then Sony got lazy, and now they've sold it off (again) to Magix, so that's pretty much a deal breaker. I still go back to it from time to time (version 9) but only for specific tasks.

Prior to moving to Windows I used dissidents SampleWrench. When he ported it to Windows I immediately bought a license, and it became my weapon of choice for a long time. In some ways, especially for sample editing, it is even faster than SF.

When it became obvious that SF was no longer being supported properly I picked up Wavelab. At first it was so convoluted I wanted to tear my hair out. Over time I learned the ways of Steinberg, and these days it is my first choice for any and all audio editing tasks. I've never done a serious sample editing project (ask me sometime about my one foray into editing for Kontakt), but the tools are there. The batch processing is on a par with SF, and of course that's a pretty important feature.

That said, that's me, an old guy that thinks in terms of razor blades, and ancient samplers. If you have found a way to use a DAW then that's what you ought to use. But don't stop there if you've never tried an audio editor - it might appeal to you.


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## Tod (Oct 27, 2018)

wst3 said:


> I've never really enjoyed editing samples in a DAW, for me an audio editor seems better suited to the task at hand.
> 
> Disclaimer #1 - I started editing with a razor blade, which has to influence my choices<G>!



Hi wst3, I didn't use tape to make samples, but I've often wondered how may 1000s of splices I made over my nearly 30 years using tape before I finally got my first DAW in 1993. 



> My first choice for years was Sound Forge - fastest workflow of any editor I've used (and I've owned them all). But then Sony got lazy, and now they've sold it off (again) to Magix, so that's pretty much a deal breaker. I still go back to it from time to time (version 9) but only for specific tasks.



Yeah, SF was the first really good audio editor for me too, It's been a long time ago but I think version 6. I've got version 10, but never use it.



> That said, that's me, an old guy that thinks in terms of razor blades, and ancient samplers. If you have found a way to use a DAW then that's what you ought to use. But don't stop there if you've never tried an audio editor - it might appeal to you.



I have to admit, I could never go back to a regular audio editor. My last big drum sample project ended up with nearly 8,000 samples, if it were not for a DAW like Reaper and it's custom actions, I could never accomplish that, heh heh, my right mouse hand would be crippled and I'd probably be institutionalized right now.  







I used Sonar to, prior to Reaper, but it wasn't equipped for sampling projects like this.


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## benmrx (Oct 27, 2018)

Spip said:


> Pro Tools has the same tool. In the clip list, right-click your selected clips > Batch rename
> 
> (And it's a little bit more elegant than the Reaper's one, IMHO)


I keep forgetting about that. We’re still on 12.8.1 HDX due to compatibility issues with the rest of the facility...., even though our licenses go up to the current version of 2018 Ultimate. Hopefully next year we’ll tackle that beast.


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## EvilDragon (Oct 27, 2018)

Spip said:


> Pro Tools has the same tool. In the clip list, right-click your selected clips > Batch rename
> 
> (And it's a little bit more elegant than the Reaper's one, IMHO)



Reaper doesn't just have batch renaming, it's also applied when rendering huge batches of things, also there's a batch media converter and so on...

Reaper's wildcards are tremendously much more powerful since you can automatically set it up to render stuff in subfolders based on various criteria (i.e. different mics would have a subfolder created, then within them you'd have subfolders created by articulation name, etc). It is just awesome.

I'm not sure I ever saw PT do _that_ sort of thing with such ease.


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