Sample Chains

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#71

Holy shit…that’s superawesome! So it appends file spaced evenly?
Whatever the original length?[/quote]
No, it appends the samples from a folder of choosing in alphabatical order, so make sure they are of equal length and named appropriately.

But that part is easy for me, I can chop to a grid and export easily in Digital Performer and it names every individual sample numerical :slight_smile: !

I’ve created one samplematrix and it took me almost two hours, curious to see how much time this method saves me.

EDIT: Here’s a zipfile with 10x samplechains I created (from the AK waveform library in C) using the above method, took me 7 minutes including previewing the folders in my little max tool: http://husc-sound.com/stuff/AK_10xSampleChains_64.zip ! :slight_smile:

I could do more, but to me chains can become a bit overwhelming and I enjoy exploring these for a while.

#72

So I’ll try next week because I just bought my first elektron!

But I’ve heard the sample length doesn’t really matter as long as there is silence between them when making drum or synth stab chains. If this is true then this will make things very easy for me.
However for loops they should all be equal lengths.

#73

if you want to create samplechains, the spacing between each file has to be the same. Otherwise, slicing in the OT, will not result in what you would expect from a samplechain

@husc:

you’re awesome, thanks a lot for the chains!

are those single-cycles?

-Also-

When you say:

But that part is easy for me, I can chop to a grid and export easily in Digital Performer and it names every individual sample numerical !

do you have same-bpm sources -–OR–- does DP warp automatically imported files?
Sorry for my asking, but i like a lot to know about “functions” everywhere ! :joy:

#74

Just to be clear:

It is the space between the start of each sample in the chain that is important. It doesn’t matter how much space there is at the end of each sample (other than wasted space on your card), as long as the start points of the samples are temporally equidistant, whether loops or one shots then you can slice ok in the OT.

#75

Hey all

I got my Octatrack this week, and since I have billion samples waiting for me I figured I need a way to put them into sample chains to make using them a bit easier. I don’t have a DAW installed so my next choice was… Python scripting!

http://koti.kapsi.fi/kolmone/merge.py

It reads all .wav files in the directory the script is run in and combines them into one file (named samplechain.wav, this can be changed in the script file). The files are placed in alphabetical order.

It checks for the longest file and the other samples are padded with silence so they’re all evenly spaced. Also if the file count isn’t any of the available sample grid sizes, silence is added to fill the file to the next sample grid size (if you have 60 samples, the last 4 slices in the resulting chain will be empty).

No other dependencies outside Python. There are some sanity checks (max file count, all the files having the same sampling rate etc.), but I won’t guarantee it doesn’t break anything! :wink:

As an example, here’s a chain I did of some Sequential Circuits Tom samples I had lying around: http://koti.kapsi.fi/kolmone/SCI_TOM.wav

(And just to advocate safety, never run a script blindly! Read the file before running so you see what it’s really doing!)

#76

this is really cool! thanks for sharing

i’ll pm you…

thanks

#77

If you have Python set up so that you can run it just with the command python, you can then run my script with python merge.py (don’t start the Python prompt with just python first, though).

So for example copy a bunch of samples in a directory, copy my script to the same directory, go to that directory on the command line and run python merge.py

You can also store the script in another directory and run for example python …/merge.py and it should still combine files in the directory you currently have active on the command line.

#78

I did some more work on my simple sample merger, it’s now (almost) a proper application with a GUI and all!

merger.png816×438 41.4 KB

I’ve packaged it as a standalone executable for Windows so you don’t need to worry about installing Python and such: http://koti.kapsi.fi/~kolmone/merger.exe

For other operating systems this script should work, let me know if there are any problems with it: http://koti.kapsi.fi/~kolmone/merger.py

The script has one external library dependency, wxPython. I’ve been testing it with Python 2.7, so I don’t know if it works on 3.x

For now you can only add files from one directory and there’s no sorting options or anything (the files remain in the selected column in the same order as you’ve added them, so you can do some manual sorting). I’ll work on it a bit more at some point to add some useful features, but as it is now it’s still quite handy for making sample chains.

#79

This works great on a Mac just by running python from Terminal. Thanks so much Low Life :)))

I also changed the script slightly for the AR, to account for divisions of 120.

#80

^Great to hear, I didn’t realize RYTM uses a similar concept. I also learned a trick from analogback so that OT can use 128 “slices” by not using slices per se but the start position of a normal sample instead, so I’ll add a 128 sample option to my version at some point.

#81

Hi.
I tried to create a sample chain in Ableton with the single cycle samples in the new Immortal waves wav-files, but it really sounds like crap on the Octatrack. I dont know if I do it wrong maybe someone else could try?
I asked on Elektron facebook page and they said there would be no problem in using these wavs for other machines

Also, using the smallest grid in Ableton ,1/32 grid, for single cycle waveforms produces a file of 380kb, zooming in to an adaptive grid makes the file size smaller since it leaves a lot of silence out but i dont know if that may be the problem?

If someone who knows how to create a sample chain can create one from the free and downloadable immortalwaves pack for monomachine, I’d be happy if it could be posted here. Then i can compare that to my sample chain and propably figure out what i did wrong. Thanks.
http://www.elektron.se/sites/default/files/products/files/monomachine_sound_pack_-_immortal_waves.zip

#82

One of the great features are single waves on the octo. I haven’t made any sample chains recently, but why does it sound crap? Normally I just load single -up to 4 cycle waves in octo, then go to sample edit and loop it properly, hold down function edit and you should hear a continuous sample. When trigging you’ll need to set up hold and release for desired taste. Why don’t you try just one or two cycles to check it out.

#83

I dont get near the sounds in the soundcloud demonstration of the Immortal waves pack, even after fiddling around for a long while with them.
I discovered the single cycle wavesforms after seeing Inpektor Gadjets videos and his brilliantly made single cycle wave forms sample chains and they sounded good, so I know how to use them.
But maybe the Monomachine processes the samples in some way. I dont have one and havent tried one either. That is after all the machine that sample pack was intended for…?

#84

I think you don’t want any silence in your single cycle sample chains.
Each slice needs to be a perfect loop for the single cycle wave form to sound right.

#85

When you drag the single cycle wav files into Ableton’ arrange page, make sure the grid in Live is set to off, then the files will automatically join together with no silent spaces. :wink:

#86

The problem though is that each single cycle wav is a different length (I think!). I’m not sure how other people deal with this for single cycle chains. ??

#87

All the samples in the Immortal Waves pack are the same length so should align to each other perfectly in Abletonton Live. Have you created a Slice Grid in the OT of the appropriate number of slices? - 64 for all the Immortal Waves samples.

#88

good to know… I haven’t chained these yet, just downloaded 'em yesterday or something :slight_smile:
Other single cycle collections I’ve seen have been varying lengths.

#89

I guess that makes sense, the fact that when I created them on a grid the silence between them also are included in each slice in tehe octatrack.
Adding silece to a really fast loop will of course turn that sound on and of everytime the loop passes that silence. Gotta go home and try cook up a new chain. Thanks for input. Now things cleared up :slight_smile:

#90

sorry to bump this thread, but I think it’s probably the most appropiate place.

I’ve been thinking about making my own sample chains - so far I’ve only used some made by other people (found online and such); but I usually end up scrolling through slices without finding much I like… I realized that I end up using only a few, or just going with one-shot samples.

I’ve also been thinking that instead of making chains of a certain sound (BD, SD, CL, etc.) I might arrange them by hardware (64 slices of 808 sounds / LinnDrum, Vermona, 909, etc.)

does any of you arrange them this way?

I know it might not make as much sense, but it might help my worflow somehow… the problem with arranging them by sound is that I might not recognize what hardware they belong to - not that is necessary ; I can just trust my ears and pick whatever sounds right - but I’ve been thinking about working within the boundaries of a certain palette might be a good way to get more familiarized with each machine’s signature sound, while also having a certain homogenic feeling, and modifying it onwards from there.

I’m about to start a set from scratch so I want to give this a good thought…

the length of the samples would be an issue here. I thought of making, for example, a 64-slice chain for 808 samples, but keeping long BD’s appart (as a short chain or a few one-shots)

any thoughts on this?