Can someone explain to me what a sample chain is

[peachesandbacon]

Would someone care to explain what a sample chain is for OT and why one would want to create one?

[yoyz2k]

Imagine a simple wave file which contain for example many kick, with a silence to isolate them.

Each of the kick is equally spaced in the wave file. And you have 8, 16, 32, 64 of them.
Tada! It’s a samplechain

[GurtTractor]

Or put a whole drumkit into one sample chain.

[Kraus]

If you have a series of drum hits in one WAV file, you can slice it in the Octatrack, and then do cool tricks like use an LFO to select different drum hits, or scan through the slices with the crossfader. Lots of fun.

[sezare56]

I’ll add on Octatrack, slices aren’t necessarily equally spaced. Equally spaced, you can use start mode, 128 slices is possible.

Slices can be also used for melodic, chromatic or scaled stuff. 64 slices = 5 octaves and 3 semitones.

[bibenu]

Was trying to figure this out recently, and came up with what I guessed were the right answers. Nobody replied. Can’t tell exactly why but it’s possible I hit the nail right on the head ?

@bibenu

I had the same question as @emadb so can I see if I’ve got this straight ?

You’d want to create sample chains if:

• you want to exploit some slicing feature of a sampler, such as the new machine on the digitakt (or similar on 1010 blackbox and probably many others)
• you are running up against hardware limits of the number of samples you can use.

Does that sum it all up ?

[PofM]

There’s more to it than that. With the Octatrack you can P-lock which slice plays on a trig, and also use the crossfader to alter which slice plays. This means the sample chain isn’t just a way of loading many samples at once or saving memory, it allows total madness like the megabreak of doom:

Octatrack 64 breakbeat x 16 slices megabreak of doom:

Just recorded a quick example video so you can see it in action:

[reeloy]

…u got 128 flex slots…and 128 static slots…

if u adress single audio snippets to each of them, all u got is 256 samples max…

BUT if u think in sample chains ur able fill these 256 single audio slots with HEAPS and HEAPS of of various audio snippets and then can really enjoy the full potential since now u can adress each single snippit in each sample as an audio event of it’s own via slice grids…

and now imagine what u got…256 audio slots that contain thousands of individual audio snippets…

so that’s all it is…one same sample that contains just way more than one same sample…

[Funk_Illuminati]

[peachesandbacon]

I guess this is also important because the OT wont slice via transient right?

If it sliced by transient it would make sample chaining unnecessary correct?

[estragon]

@peachesandbacon

If it sliced by transient it would make sample chaining unnecessary correct?

Not correct. Sample chaining is essentially just using a software tool to combine a collection of discrete wav files (a folder of 909 samples, cut up clips of you hitting a tennis ball into a pile of fine china, etc) into a single wav with slice points at the start of each sample. It has nothing to do with slicing up a single file by transients.

The basic application for this is being able to load a kit of 64 samples while only taking up 1 slot in the sample pool, but it also allows some tricks with modulation, plocking, crossfader scenes etc.

[Microtribe]

@peachesandbacon

OT wont slice via transient right?

Incorrect.
You can slice where ever you please, just do it manually. ‘Auto slice by transient’ has made people lazy

[peachesandbacon]

I understand you can do it manually. But it’s not possible to Auto slice by transient with an OT right?

[Microtribe]

Correct.
Auto slice to step divisions only.

[Buad]

Well, I was at first a bit baffled at your reference to me. However I was busy and wanted to give you a proper response. Though I use the OT I haven’t done sample chaining. And your post was quite the hilarious riddle.

I certainly wouldn’t consider myself an authority regarding the OT, greater minds here understand it’s depths and use more of it’s features than myself, like @sezare56.

However I would say in the vein of humorous and meme-morable analogies explaining sample chains you nailed it!

[LyingDalai]

I like slices.
I use OctaChainer to create sample chains with single hits or textures.
Getting tracks playing several sounds makes it easier to overcome the 8-track limitation but also offers to create easy transitions within a the same pattern.

[Martebar]

One other way to use sample chains si to separate parts of a song.
Personnaly I have chains of three samples where the first one is the intro loop, the second the main body, and the third the outro loop.
That way I can store 128 songs in my project instead of 42.

[s3kn0tr0n1c]

Yeh . Try using octachainer

[LyingDalai]

On my old Mac, it works flawlessly.

[subdatum]

I’ve been loading in raw dub chord stabs from pigments. For some reason didn’t think to use chains. Doh. Just realized I can sample chain chord inversions / textural variations!