damn!
thats salty! 
need to say iāve read sauceā¦
well, well, wellā¦
Best thing to come out of America, Iām not even joking.
if you have Logic Pro X on a Mac (or even just GarageBand), there are several virtual, programmable synths built in to generate endless patches from. also, the Apple Loops that come with either program are sampleable on their own into an external box
Going to make an argument for something I donāt know much about but think is probably a pretty good answer here ā a loop library!
Iāve been using my Octatrack a lot this week and although I have some nice synths and drum machines to sample, I signed up for a free trial of Splice to speed up the process of finding sounds and dumping them in the machine.
I think this is only ācheatingā if you donāt make an effort to transform your samples into something else. For me, the goal is to slice/mangle/rework the sample enough that another Splice user wouldnāt be able to recognize it. If I can do that, I feel pretty comfortable saying this is āmyā sound and not something generic from a loop library.
Splice has some handy features to help you find what youāre looking for (Iām sure other loop libraries do as well) but I particularly like that Splice lets you randomize the order of your search results. So if you search for a Jungle drum break at 170bpm, you can randomize the list that populates so youāre not just pulling from the top like everyone else. Just little things like that might help you feel more original while stealing from the collective pot of loops.
Anyway, like I said this is a half-baked idea ā I have a lot more experience curating my samples on my laptop or recording directly into my samplers, but Iām trying this loop library thing out and maybe youād like to give it a try as well. Or just fast forward to your musical destiny and go modular.
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This question seems very personal to me because it is exactly what I tend to do ā however, inevitably you donāt make the same music as me so YMMV.
I feel that Digitakt is perfectly capable of turning any source into a variety of different things, especially as it can resample, so if thereās not enough distortion (as just one example), turn it to 127, resample, then add some more. Also the dual filter setup (plus envelopes) means you can shape things to a tremendous degree.
As for my preferred source, I like weird boxes and stuff thatās not obvious so Somaās Ether is probably my favourite. Other things Iāve made full tracks from using a single source and a Digitakt: a contact mic, a field recorder, 0-Coast, Strega, Subharmonicon, Bitwigās The Grid, and so on.
Things Iāve considered or tried. Hydrasynth, Cobalt8, Pulsar-23, TR-06, YouTube, etc.
Essentially, I think Digitakt is versatile enough that the source doesnāt really matter all that much. Thatās why I love the full frequency spectrum output of Ether so much. I donāt think you need another sampler for your sampler and I get the aversion to a computer or an iPad. In fact, why not just get something, try to make an EP with just that item as the source, sell it, and get another source? I love how samples from one source tend to lend the track an almost inescapable mood from everything you try to make from it. Also, I love making tracks from one sample across all 8 tracks. Give it a go, see how you get on! 
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@craigās answer was way cooler than mine, forget what I said. Splice is cheating. (But very convenient.)
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I did try loops - splice specificallyā¦ I found I was looking for stuff that wasnāt there - either like really naturalistic sounding stuff, or weird things. I found it all a bit uninspiringā¦
I donāt know whyā¦ it just doesnāt work for me - I think the noises that inspire me are significantly more esoteric. Having said that someone earlier recommended foley sounds, and that works a bit better for tickling my feathers.
Iād love to hear some people whoāve made off kilter stuff with splice. Iāve seen some people do impressive stuff in the mainstream worldā¦
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What a great answer - Iāve not quite fully gotten into the buy / sell cycle yet - I need to break that seal a bit (only gotten into hardware in the last couple of years) - but thatās a good suggestionā¦ buy a weird bit, then sell it on.
I am tempted by you 0-coast actually! But I just got a syntakt (which Iām kind of regretting but thatās another story) but want to give that a try before moving on.
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Really interesting to learn of so much gear.
Going to look into that āBig Macā
I owned the 0-Coast for a little while. I considered it my ābuchlaā and wasnāt wanting to go full modular. That synth is quite a gem. I would love to own it again one day, it does some seriously weird and amazingly gorgeous stuff. But there is a ton of stuff online/demoās but yeah, audio quality compared to on hand is another thing.
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3x S&H LFOsā¦
LFO designer to any parameterā¦
Trig conditions, conditional trigless locksā¦
Parameter randomization (randomize page)
random LFO to slice # of a 64 hit sample chain
what more random generation do you desire?
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The best tool for this job is whatever you have with you - I donāt think anyone who has a laptop or an iPad is even close to exhausting their ability to produce novel sounds. I have a few decent suggestions in mind but I really donāt want to encourage throwing money at more gear to solve the problem. What do you have access to currently, why isnāt it sufficient for generating the sounds that you need?
Honestly, the most productive Iāve been in terms of generating samples for later use is using Bitwig to generate resonant hits by pinging VSTs with an impulse. Set it up so that key parameters randomise after each hit, render it out, slice it up, done. I have a few bits of gear that are relatively powerful/desirable (Machinedrum, Nord Modular etc), but I still use a bunch of those samples all the time and itās not something I would have discovered if I wasnāt exploring the DAW and plugins I already had access to.
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Ha is that fun?
Dfam would fit the bill for you
Just get This to go with it.
Otherwise I would suggest sittin back and watching some YouTube or your favorite movies or tv shows that made an impact on you.
The digitakt is an amazing pirate too.
You might try downloading some free trials of softwares that ādonāt allow savingā and just record the output to your digitakt.
Hitting a bunch of random trigs and randomizing the parameters of your tracks + (the important part) hard quantizing it all makes for some surprising and cool sample fodder too.
Good luck!
Good luck!
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I say Digitone, same format, and its very versatile, or Blofeld, DSI Evolver
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I knew that one would raise an eyebrow or two
I donāt particularly, and have two Norns that are pretty much my first choice of instrument when needing to mangle or otherwise mess up or make interesting sounds. Thereās so many great scripts available for the Norns now that hardly any users actually need to code for it themselves these days (though evidently many do, and do so interestingly).
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