The joys (and perils!) of sampled chords

Yes I saw it, and it was my intention to test with such examples. You read in my mind :slight_smile:
Thanks for bookmark the video.

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Yes, that’s the idea. It’s like using a capo in a guitar.

Yes, you are introducing distortion in your samples. How this affects the sound depends on the sample itself, so I think it’s better to try and hear.

That’s why I suggested sampling several chords. If you choose well you can make the whole chord sequence diatonic to your scale. You will still have the problem with the changing speed of the samples, but all the notes in the chords will be “in tune”.

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Cool, thanks for clarifying.

As someone who has only a basic understanding of theoretical principles, I really appreciate your patience. Cheers. :slight_smile:

Uhm, is it really like that? I always thought pitching up/down keeps the relation of the individual notes intact, since you‘re multiplying all of them by the same amount.
Although there might be some music theory that I‘m missing here.

This is good advice. I do the same, sample a major, minor, min7 etc of a few chords related to the key I’m in. That was when I go from verse to chorus or bridge I’m not stuck with a pitched up/down version of the same chord as often that doesn’t work for me. Once you master those chord positions (or just copy them; it’s not as if you’re playing in real time while you’re creating your samples) you can just record one after another.

Yes, I think the same. If you take a C Major and pitch up by 2 and a half tones you get an F Major and the pitches of all 3 individual notes are well tuned. But the sample itself plays a little faster, that’s the distortion I was talking about.

Before I didn’t explained myself well. The relative distance between the notes doesn’t change, but the sample as a whole plays faster/slower, and this effect is more noticeable the more you pitch up/down the original sample.

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@Citizen The short answer is embrace the dissonance and yes use your ears. I’m pretty sure the Attack article cites dissonance as being an occasional feature of this technique. I wouldn’t get too bogged down in theory especially if your target is deep/early house vibes - the moving chord sample technique along with similar chord memory approach from some contemporary synths like Alpha Juno’s etc was a tool used by producers who in many cases had little to zero music theory education - they felt their way. Commit to a key for the track - say Am - then move that chord around - then write a simple bass line also in Am - In general the more complex the one the simpler should be the other - so If you go crazy with chord progression - a two or three note BassLine that fits the notes of your root scale will suffice - and vice versa - a two or three chord long pad progression will allow a busier bassline - add remove notes from the bass using the key of your sampled chord and your ears. Something that might help avoid too much dissonance - but I’m not so sure - is only move the sampled chord to notes of the key. These genres tend towards the melancholy or unsettling in terms of mood - even in major keys usually considered “happy” the odd placement of out of key chords/notes reinforces that this ain’t your usual Disco. Its ironically all Joy and no Peril.

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Thanks for the tips, appreciated. :ok_hand:

Not just making deep house, thats for sure, but I’ve been sampling rhodsey sort of chords lately, and they do lend themselves rather nicely to that vibe.

(I make all sorts of stuff from instrumental hip hop, deep house, 2-step and dub techno… again, with the dub techno it’s a lot of filtered (and sampled) chords.)

Yeah, I think I have enough of an ear for harmony to make reasonable calls if something is working or not, but I also like to understand the principles that underlie why something might work or not.

(I know in the past, I’ve made some really tonally ambiguous stuff, because one sound would have a slight dissonance, and then another, and pretty soon you end up with a confused mess. Not good.)

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Not gone through that article yet (though I think I did read it a while back), but for me the thing that I recognise with pitch shifted chord samples is not so much what the fundamental frequencies are doing, but the upper harmonic content becoming “unnatural”. It’s especially obvious with something like a piano chord because the natural harmonic resonances and effects going on in a piano between the strings and the resonant chamber (the body of the piano) etc are rather complex. Eg, pitch a sampled chord up and even if you timestretch it out to match the original decay, the harmonic makeup of the sound will be different to the same chord played transposed on the original instrument.

(I think you know this) but maybe it helps the OP to say - if you’re in C Major and you shift it to E rather than F it is now the “wrong” chord - it’s E Major, when it should be E min - and has an out of scale note in it G# instead of G.

The intervals stay the same when you pitch shift - the problem is they don’t in the chords of a scale.

It’s all fine though, millions of ravers can’t be wrong, and everything’s a chord.

:wink:

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I came across a book called " Music Theory for Electronic Music Producers: The producer’s guide to harmony, chord progressions, and song structure in the MIDI grid" recently, and if anyone’s confused about concepts in this thread about chords, transposing, or what in the world a diminished chord is, it’s really a good resource: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07KVPQLN8

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There are a bunch of songs that only use major chords and aren’t diatonic! Listen to sympathy for the devil by the rolling stones. I think Flaming by Pink floyd is all major.

If you’re in C major you can use borrowed chords from the parallel minor. So you can use Eb (the bIII), Ab (the bVI) and Bb (the bVII). You can also use Db borrowing from C phrygian.

Not only that, but you can make use of secondary dominant chords round the circle of 5ths. So C to B7 to E7 to A7 to D7 to G7 to C.

But as a general practice, if I’m choosing to sample a chord from an instrument, I’ll do one major and one minor just to cover my bases.

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I literally couldn’t tell you a C from an F, let alone shit like keys, scales and all that other stuff. And yet here I am, making music. If you listen to music enough, you can pretty much figure out what goes together by instinct.
Besides, when someone says my track sounds out of tune, I just correct them with “no, it’s microtonal”. :wink:

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Fuck me what a thread

Insane knowledge here. Cheers all :muscle:

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Thanks for the link to that book.:+1:

Unfortunately: ’This title is not currently available for purchase’. :thinking:

No joy on Ebay, either… only peril. :disappointed:

I got it as a kindle book for free as part of their Prime Library thing. I’m in the US, maybe you’re not? :slight_smile:

Yup. Use your ears. Tracks that sound too harmonic, aren’t interesting to me.

I was thinking exactly this same point to myself last Saturday night. Too funny!

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Damn I hate regional restrictions.

Such bullshit.

**Hi ! Do someone know how to stay structured or anticipate note which result when I use this process ? :
Im playing in a definished scale some notes and I’m ressampling live the sequence, then I play some chords of the sample : So It’s creating original sounds but I never know in which key the sample become…
Maybe you have the solution ?
Maybe some can play accordingly to a normal scale even if changing…
Please help !

Thank !