What’s the fastest and easiest way to make multi samples from different hardware synths? I’m wondering especially about how I would record and export them in Ableton efficiently to make that many wav files.
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SampleRobot, without any doubt. By far the fastest, easiest and most convenient option that I know of. Works for hardware and software instruments, even those without MIDI (in which case the process is of course a little bit more involved).
Probably the easiest software recommendation of my lifetime. Have used SR since version 2 (I think) with Yamaha’s, Korg’s and Roland’s workstation keyboards along with various sample-playback-capable synths (including plugins) and still do after all these years.
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I’ve just used MPC Beats for that. It’s the free version of the MPC software. Super easy.
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1010music Blackbox and Tangerine are pretty efficient hardware samplers and record at excellent quality. The only big drawback is their inability to conveniently define loop points for a group of samples, so that you’d end up defining one for each file - that would be a lot of work. I don’t think 1010music Bento is able to record multi-samples yet, perhaps some time in the future.
Therefore, a software sampler or sample editor is strongly recommended for any multi-samples requiring loop points.
On your hardware synth:
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for each sound you need to define the shortest possible sample time. Test how much time you need to capture the essence of the sound. Accommodate some time for the sustain phase if it is supposed to be looped, so you will have enough material to define the loop points.
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for sounds with a slow volume attack, consider whether you might want to control the attack time yourself with a volume envelope on your sample player later on. If so, reduce the attack on your synth and perhaps increase the sample time slightly to allow for further such reshaping
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sample at different velocity values if the latter controls anything else than volume on your synth, eg filter frequency, LFO etc. Otherwise switch off velocity altogether on the sound source
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check your sounds beforehand for any unwanted aliasing at various pitches and determine the useful pitch range to sample from
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remove any timed effect tails (eg delay), unless you sample for a specific purpose or tempo
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accommodate enough sample time on your sampler to capture any tonal effects properly and test at various pitches before sampling
On your sampler:
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Check whether your sampler writes note pitch and velocity information as wav meta tags into each sample. If not, check before sampling which file name structure your sample-player supports to identify pitch and velocity information based on the file name. You can still change that after the fact using tools like Endless Waves but if you can help it, get it done before
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Check the recording level for clipping before sampling by testing at varies pitches
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Consider whether you really need to sample over the whole note range. Naturally, with storage being no issue these days, you can just sample over the whole range for your convenience but it will take longer.
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A challenging stage will be defining loop points for your samples, in particular if they should sound consistent. Ideally, the sampler you use will save these loop points as WAV meta tags.
And the mandatory book reference (costs only a few dollars):
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I knew you people would deliver and you surely did. Thanks everybody! Especially @g3o2, this reads like the bible on how to make multi samples.
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Yep, that one works great! And if you want to use hardware, the MPC One is pretty cheap for what it can do. Since you can also add a USB hub, you can attach and sequence all your gear via USB, or standard midi, to create your multi samples.
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Autosampler in Logic or Mainstage. Every other solution is crap when it comes to automatic looping. The penrose algorithm is pure magic.
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Native Instruments Maschine also has a good auto sampler, I use it s lot. Sampler itself could have sone better filters. Auto loop works ok.
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I use free MPC beats. It’s not easy to configure at first but now it works very well.
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