OT - Sample Chains

Elektron Gear Octatrack
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[Feel free to delete this]

I’m bracing for the dreaded search the FORUM comment. Ha!

I did. I’m not finding an STICKY for making sample chains for the OT. Is there an authoritative thread or resource on making sample chains?

I just spent 25 minutes learning and testing some methods, which I’m happy to invest, but I still feel like my grasp is only that the samples need to be equal distance apart from each other.

Also, sidenote: I’m shocked that I have to manually place each sample on the GRID or use follow-actions in ABLETON? I’m certain there was a way to drag to the grid…

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Couple of things worth looking at :slight_smile:

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I use octaedit for making samplechains which not only makes it easy but saves a ton of memory as samples don’t have to be the same length. I used to make them manually in pro tools which can be done quite fast but just one long 808 or open hihat in the chain and it would eat most of my memory.

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saw this, read through it… still hoping for more. but maybe it is just what it is and i just need to make more chains to get the feel of it.

…actually that is probably just my answer.

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cool. i own octaedit. i just shot @Rusty an email about getting moving with it again. i didn’t pay attention when he sent the licenses out this summer, and…

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Sorry this is likely no help…

I find twirling the dials and laying down slice points manually to be relaxing, so I just line them up in a wave file. Its a chance to hear each sound as I go, see the waveform and generally get a better feel for the sounds.

I’m not doing any sort of big collections though.

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actually it’s quite helpful. i’m looking to work fast. i might do well to learn to enjoy the work. …thanks!

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this helps too :smiley:

https://www.elektronauts.com/files/375

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what i use…works great.

64 kicks on 1 slot …etc

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I’ve said it before, but chains are a breath of fresh air (wtf). Instead of just having one sample you get 16 (or 64) to jam with per track.

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You can.

Here’s my process

Open a fresh Ableton set.

Turn BPM down to 20 (more on that later)

Go to Arranger, zoom into the grid so that the grid marks are set for every BAR,
1, 2, 3, etc.

Now in Live preferences, make sure Warping is not on for one shots, like so:

48 AM
48 AM443×299 32.2 KB

Now, drag your set of samples into an audio track in the arranger.
They’ll lock to grid and not warp.

Depending on their length, they’ll look something like this:

08 AM
08 AM384×161 5.22 KB

Now, turn up the BPM slowly while watching the waveforms grow and fill in the gap. Since these aren’t warped, this process is simply removing silence between sample hits and making the chain more concise. Zoom in to get out all that silence.

25 AM
25 AM353×164 6.87 KB

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genius. thanks.

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Just make sure that when rendering you render all the way through the END of grid block 32 (up to the start of 33) for 32 slice chains, and through the end of block 64 (up to the start of 65) for 64 slice chains.

I’ve selected and rendered up to the end of the last clip, not the end of the last grid block before , and that botches the chain.

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Interesting. Did you try Octachainer?

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Certainly.

However, with my method, when I have a particularly long sample shot within the chain, I can choose to warp it into a shorter shot, and usually do. With an auto-chainer, that longer shot would define the length of all samples in the chain.

So with a bit of manual driving, I can get a bit farther, use less Flex RAM, and less space on the CF.
For Rytm chains, in particular, concise chains are crucial with the limited 1GB +Drive and 64MB project sample RAM.

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With that limitation I order one tomorrow ! :wink:

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edited

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If it could be true…
In Octachainer, @Abhoth added nice functions for Rytm and Ot, including fades, add silences and Megabreak.
https://ticticelectro.com/tag/octachainer/

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Wonderful!

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Is there any instruction? I ain’t found anything in manual…

Some special rules or anything? Tips and tricks kind of? I’m experimenting with it like just right now but I want to know MOAR :slight_smile:

Thanks.