New to sampling!

[James75]

Hello, I have just purchased my first Elektron piece of kit, the Digitakt 2. Prior to this my hardward set up consisted of a Squarp Pyramid, a Roland TR-8S and 3 synths. I got the Digitakt 2 as I didn’t have a real sampler (although the TR-8S can play samples) and also as a dad of 2, I don’t get much time to go and hide away and use my full set up so I wanted something that I could take with me and use whenever the opportunity arises and also integrate with my existing set up.

I am working my way through its feature set and so far I am loving the workflow, feels really intuitive. I am planning on sampling my existing synths to use on multiple tracks on the Digitakt. I am into house and trance primarily but will be experimenting as much as possible with the device. I know there must be thousands of places to get samples from but given the main genres that I am interested in I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations of good places to get sample packs from or do most of you just sample other instruments to get what you need? Many thanks in advance for any suggestions and responses

[Tchu]

Welcome to Elektronauts!

Samples From Mars.

[Kegeratorz]

@Tchu

Samples From Mars.

Wait for the Black Friday sale, assuming they still do it. They offer their whole catalog for a crazy low price! Worth every penny!

[gekkonier]

The fun starts when you create your own samples.
If you created a lot of kits you like on your tr-8s i would just sample that as a start into one shots.
Propably wait for mono sampling if you don’t need stereo samples of that.

[bibenu]

You might try browsing this recent thread. (This topic comes up regularly)

Looking for fairly raw percussion one-shot sample libraries

I am looking for percussion one-shots that haven’t been compressed/ overly processed. I am happy for these to be acoustic or synthesised (even old general midi orchestral/latin percussion sounds would be nice), but all of the samples packs I have heard are ridiculously over produced, I want nice simple sounds whose dynamics haven’t been compromised! Not sure If this is the place to ask? But surely people are feeding their digitakts with something.

[bibenu]

@bibenu

This topic comes up regularly

But not as regularly as I thought … still … more recommendation threads to be found here:

https://www.elektronauts.com/search?q=sample%20pack%20category:44%20in:title%20order:latest

EDIT: And let me add one more:

How do you recreate the drum sounds of Born Slippy?

Think it was me. The old link is gone, but here’s the updated database so you can pick and choose what you want without having to d/l a billion GBs of stuff you don’t want. https://nnty.fun/downloads/other/90ssamplecds/converts/

[reeloy]

…warm welcome and congrats to ur new sonic beast…

dunno about v2 but the original dt came with heaps of sounds already, to cover all the essentials…
and since dt2 offers defenitly even more soundtransformative options, i’d say, for now, mae heavy use of those, before u look out for any further samplepacs…

while for the actual sampling part, first of all, feed ur dt2 with random sound snippets u catch with ur phone…big fun…and start to realize, that sampling is far more than just play a little piece of audio…audiorecording manipulation is pretty much the mother of all sounddesign, even long before there were synth…

and before u sample ur synth…get ur hands dirty with the single cycle sample collection that already waits for u somewhere on the +drive…don’t worry, while auditioning, u only hear clicks…
but once loaded and loop turned on, u got quite some “synth” sounds at ur disposal…

and do urself the favour to dive deep into dt2’s lfo options…expressiveness, surprises, happy accidents and lucky dips are waiting for u all over the device, but especially there…

and whenever u stumble over some of those, find the next level of magic and start to resample ur snippets…

and to avoid any later dissapointments…learn upfront how to save ur results…project saving procedure AND single sample saving procedures!..really rehears that a few times, than u can feel safe, u never gonna loose any of ur creative results later on…

[Humanprogram]

Hi and welcome. One thing I wished I’d done sooner rather than later with the Digitakt was getting familiar with the factory samples, which a) is of very good quality and b) the Digitakt can do a crazy amount to manipulate: stretch out chords, apply LFOs, filters, and effects to drum breaks, comb filter the different kinds of noise (with filter keytracking), try the wavetables (64-cycle Grid mode) and single-cycle wave forms), etc etc. The DT2 has strong synth-like powers to shape sound, and they’re worth checking out before getting too hung up on finding other samples…

[captain8]

Greetings

[shigginpit]

Definitely want to learn how to use single cycle waveforms from the included toolkit and learn how not just parameter locks but also how sound locks work in the sequencer.

Using the preset sound pool for sound locks is less essential with 16 tracks than it was on the original DT but it’s still a useful feature of the elektron sequencer.

Welcome to the forum, and have fun!

One more thing to be aware of is that sampling directly into the DT will normalize any recording, so if it’s something where the nuance or the volume levels are important, you may want to consider chopping that up on a computer and moving it over with the transfer software.

Transfer is how you will back up and reload projects, samples, etc.

If you aren’t too concerned about your samples sounding a little different than the source, then you can just record straight into the machine with 1/4" cables, and even over USB from like an android or an iphone as someone mentioned.

[Phurniture]

I’m into similar music genres (producing house, techno, electro etc.). I find that the world of sampling can lead to decision paralysis with the unlimited options available to you. Since I use the DT (OG version) mainly as a drum machine, I first focused on the classic dance music drum sounds (all the Roland x0x machines and 80s EPROM based sounds such as the LinnDrum, DrumTraks, DMX etc).

Since you have the Roland TR-8S, if you’re up for sampling them yourself you can tweak them on the TR and then create your own sample library. A few suggestions for creating drum samples I would recommend are to make the sounds sounds as long as possible (maximum decay) and without any filtering, so that you can apply those things within the Digitakt itself, which can be used in a fun way during parameter locking.

Another thing to consider doing, if you’ve ever produced your own tracks, for example in a DAW, you could create loops of the synth parts from those songs and import those into the Digitakt.

Creating chord stabs from your synths are another fun thing to use, and is a classic sound within genres like house and techno. Again, I would sample a longer, sustained chord so that you can set the length in the Digitakt with the envelopes, and if you play them higher up the scale they aren’t unnecessarily short as they are sped up. Again, you could apply minimal filtering on your synths and leave that up to the Digitakt’s filter, which can be modulated by the filter envelope and LFOs.

Have fun!

[OldmanChompski]

Samples from Mars is really the only one I’d recommend.

If you already have synths then you’re good to go. Sample those and get weird with pitching things up and down. Sampling as a sound design method is my favorite thing to do. Also get a field recorder and sample every sound you hear every where you go. You don’t have to be a weirdo with a with a drum stick tapping on every piece of metal you find but even recording bus/ train station ambience can be cool.

I typically avoid sample packs in general cuz it’s a vortex of consumerism and all of them have the same types of sounds and those sounds, especially drums, can be made and layered in your DAW so you’re just fast tracking sound design, which is fine. But also most DAWs come with good sounds already so if you’re gonna use someone else’s sounds use those ones.

[James75]

Firstly, wow! What a welcoming and helpful bunch you are. Thank you so much for the shear volume of advice and suggestions on sampling!! I will check out all the resources shared.

As several of you have pointed out, there is a lot that can be done with the onboard samples and I fully intend to see what I can achieve with those first but imagine that eventually I’ll want some additional resources onboard.

Thanks for the suggestions of where to get 3rd party samples from and also all the advice on sampling my current instruments. I will take it all on board!

Thanks again for the warm welcome!!

[Sempai]

@OldmanChompski

Samples from Mars is really the only one I’d recommend.

Just curious as to why?

[OldmanChompski]

I mean… I explained why in that post.

@OldmanChompski

I typically avoid sample packs in general cuz it’s a vortex of consumerism

To piggy back WHY I’d choose samples from mars: because it’s fairly cheap during Black Friday and has a whole lot of sounds that are great to build off of and sound design plus it covers pretty much every drum machine sound you’d ever need and is high quality.

But yeah, I love sampling but the consumerist nature of sample packs and VST plugins and gear in general turns me off. That new sample pack isn’t what’s holding you back from making good music

[g3o2]

SFM offers very reasonable licensing terms. Plus, they have a nice collection of good quality and reasonably priced samples.

Many other sample providers forbid you to use the samples in isolation, that is not mixed with at least another sound. Whether such a condition would be enforceable in practice or not is another story, however, unlicensed use of samples can potentially mess up with the entitlement of your own compositions.