Recently I’ve made a couple of tunes and people have told me that the samples are not in key or tune with each other - my ears mustn’t be that good (plus I have tinnitus…not a great excuse I know!).
How do I go about ensuring the samples I play on the chromatic pads are in key?
For example, say I had:
Bass in A
Guitar in A
Flute in G
Would I just pitch the flute up by 2 so therefore it pitches to A?
Also on the track menu, would I set the ‘home’ note to say A4 rather than C5 for all tracks in the above example?
…if u don’t make sure, the original sample pitch is at a certain note, ur in trouble…
on cromatic trig buttons, trig nine, if pitch is zero, plays the original state of any sample…
since ptetty much no one is that strict, u can ONLY trust ur ears, what worx within and next to each other sonically and harmoically…in some way or the other…
if u don’t have the ears and feel to do so, well, than m:s won’t help it, i’m afraid…
tuning drums and samples all in all is essential to the whole thing…
so u better find a workaround…
most preset samples are in C in first place…so trig 9 can tell in most cases where to start with…any step towards anywhere from there, will ask for some math in music…if u can’t trust ur ears…
and m:c might be the better solution, if ur lost in harmony…
make sure your samples are “in” tune first. some instruments
can´t be tuned, like most flutes for example. use a tuner !
the rest is just checking if harmonies sound right for you or not…
Well I thought I could trust my ears because it sounded good to me, but when I share my work I have a few people telling me the samples aren’t in tune.
Kinda knocks my confidence and makes me doubt myself.
Some samples can sound weird when pitched up or down. Like, the pitch should be right but the texture creates some weird harmonics that make it sound out of tune.
To add to what Kuro said, it’s also common for samples to be variable in pitch throughout the sample. A sample can be anything, right? So don’t stress if you can’t get a particular sample to sound “in tune” no matter how you pitch it. It may never work in your track due to its internal pitch variability. Just toss it and find another.
Pro tip- if the sampler you work with only has coarse tuning, you can use a straight horizontal LFO with low amplitude to give yourself a handy fine-tune control that you can direct at sample pitch. Use the LFO depth to shift the tuning.
I’m sorry I have to say that but we are speaking of making music.
Which implies using/educating/trusting your ears…
At some point if you’re blind painting gonna be a hard task when it comes to choose matching colors.
A pitch is not only hertz or the root in the sample name. It has to see with scales. For instance a sample in Am can fit with another in CM depending on the context.
I’d say either you learn basic theory, either you educate your ears… both would not be a luxury
Yeah - you’re changing the midi note. You’re gonna need to pitch up or down the sample with the pitch knob (full disclosure, I don’t have M:S but this is true among any sampler really). So if your track is in C minor, but a particular sample is in D minor, you’re gonna adjust pitch down 2 (from zero to -2). Kuro is right though, you might get weird harmonics that make it sound not in tune even if numerically it’s right. Will be very difficult to fix at that point
I’ll have to agree with @Blasted_pingin… learning to both understand and hear why things sound dissonant is very usefull (and i’d even say a necessity) for making music.
A sample being in the key of Aminor can mean the sample is an Aminor chord, which would always match with other Aminor chords, but it could also mean its a progression in the scale of Aminor, which would not necessarily match with other samples in the same scale.
And still just in the major scale there are 4 minor modes (although i guess any sample you’ll buy will be always in the same one).
Then if you wanna sample anything and you don’t understand what you do, it’s gonna be a nightmare. You might earn a lot of time by learning basic theory, you might even like it!
I find it very useful to get ideas and avoid doing the same things over and over. I realize music has become a lot more accessible with all these digital toys but it’s still music. It’s also worth for rhythm.
Are your samples one shot, single notes, or are they phrases from other bits of music? If it’s the former, all of the advice above applies just fine, but if you’re using phrases, then it becomes a little bit harder as each of these phrases will be in a certain key to begin with.
Usually when someone told me something like that - i say oh yeah show me
And then if i like it better i take the advise… if not ignore them.
Even harmony is not a definitive rule (it’s help to improvise with other musicians), plus you can borrow notes in another scale. A note can feel weird, but sometimes it’s a desired effect. (perfect is boring)
Not sayin that’s the case in your situation. Just want to write that after reading the thread.
And yes is it one-shot (note) or phrases
sure it’s not the same. like @craig said
Like @darenager said maybe you can share a clyp.it of the audio, we listen and we give you if we feel weird by listening it as well
after reading the thread.