Software for automatically slicing long recordings from sampling sessions into individual samples

The Lounge General Discussion
#1

Hi guys&gals,
As I have been swapping out some gear lately I have this huge ass library of lengthy recordings from previously owned gear. The recordings are usually going through presets and doing a few hits with different note/velocity/gate, so there are lots of shorter and longer samples with silence in between.

I’m sure there must be some better way than cutting this up manually. I remember a plugin in Cubase from back in the day that I think did this. I’m currently using ableton osx, but would really like a dedicated software that cuts my audio for me, and help me build my own sample-library.

Any tips?

#2

Recycle was the classic software for this but i haven’t used it in a while let alone the latest version: https://www.propellerheads.com/recycle

Ableton does kind of do it, slicing transients to a midi track, you can then crop (after adjusting start/end points if necessary) the sample and Ableton will save it to its own file (show in finder to see where these are then stored and move to your own folder).

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#3

thanks for the tip! Care to elaborate on the ableton option? Does it have to do with the audio to midi function?

Recycle seems ok, but more tailored to loops? I have a few arped/tempo synced stuff (some patches from the a4 f.ex.), but mostly multi-samples and one-shots, both long ambient stuff and short percussive stuff.

The functionality i’m looking for is to detect silence, and make a new sample from the audio between the silent parts. I would then just sort the files in size and start making chains for my DT, OT, ESX and MPC Live.

I would love a librarian type software, dedicated to handling audio with advanced functions. I’m gonna google this Adobe plug I just remembered using long ago…

#4

not really, there’s an abundance of guides online.
basically: ctrl click the audio you want to slice, select “slice to new midi track” using the transients setting, you’ll get a drum rack full of samples, you’ll need to adjust start/end points which is fairly laborious but then cropping to new file is straightforward.

it is tailored for loops but i remember doing exactly what you are stating you want to achieve very quickly, the transient detection is spot on and adjustable. try the demo.

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#5

i’ll def check out the recycle demo then! :slight_smile:

#6

resonic is pretty slick for this sort of thing, you can select sections and save as separate files with ease

Alternatively you could write a short SOX script to detect whatever intervals of whatever degree of silence you determine to be a gap between audio events and slice that way. No visuals though, just a script.

4 Likes
#7

Maybe Audacity: https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/splitting_a_recording_into_separate_tracks.html

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#8

looks promising -> " You can save time by using Analyze > Silence Finder to automatically add labels in the silences, or Analyze > Sound Finder to label the regions to be exported for the songs. The Sound Finder method thus lets you exclude some or all of the areas between songs.

Both these effects depend on correctly detecting the “silences” between tracks and this depends on setting their parameters appropriately for your track. See this example of adjusting Silence Finder parameters in order to place labels correctly between the songs."

#9

RECYCLE, already been mentioned and been around for years.

It’s works, use that.

Str.

1 Like
#10

Trying to source the free options first and it seems Audacity would be up for the job!
Gonna test it as soon as i’m finished sampling my analog four due to depart tomorrow…

#11

It’s a good option if you need it often (99€ for a one time task seems a bit expensive) and/or work with REX files. Can’t remember, does it export slices as individual *.wav files?

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#12

Keep looking as you will find it much cheaper…

Str.

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#13

Reaper’s Dynamic Split will do this. You have to tweak the settings a bit, but it’ll create regions, delete silence, and you can then render out the regions as separate files. There’s an option in the render menu to save each region as a separate file (something like that).

2 Likes
#14

I LOVE REAPER!

Str.

#16

ableton simpler has slice mode, you can focus on regions adjust the sensitivity, once you have done that you can quickly create midi clips with ascending note order and just freeze the channel - this way you’ll get separate files pretty quick

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#17

yeah, that should work for a lot of my recordings. Gonna try using simpler, audacity and octachainer for my samplechain production efforts :slight_smile: Plan is to offer handcrafted sample packs and chains for Korg ESX, Digitakt and OT. Just love making music with chains, but there is quite an effort putting them together. Thus looking for the most automated method.

#18

btw, really dig your dt vids on youtube! love the footworky vibes on the new one!

1 Like
#19

humbled!