Today I’m going to write a little about Simpler, Live’s basic sample playback device. In particular, I’m going to clear up one common area of confusion: how to make sample playback velocity sensitive (so the harder you hit a drum pad or keyboard key, the louder the sample gets), and how to set this as […]
SAMPLE IT ALL
The next time you sit down to play with some new effects, or an old synth, or pretty much anything that can be expected to make some crazy sounds, try this: sample everything. Record the entire sound design session into a new audio clip. Say you’ve gotten inspired to check out some of the Max […]
DROP IT IN A DRUM RACK
Once you’ve sampled a mess of audio insanity, one of the simplest things you can do with it is drop the whole thing into a Drum Rack, along with your standard drum sounds. Once you’ve got a basic drum part programmed, program a couple of notes that trigger your new sample and listen back to […]
WHO’S GOT TIME TO TURN THE START KNOB?
I’ll admit it: I’m just too lazy to turn the start knob to search for my favorite sample snippet. Instead, I make Live do it for me. The advantage is that I get loads of variations with very little work. The first step is to switch over to Sampler (included with Live Suite, or available […]
RE-RESAMPLE IT
If you use one of the many techniques that introduce randomness into your productions (such as in the previous tip), you’ll find that it’s generally a mixed bag. One moment you’re getting great results, the next not so much. My solution to this is another round of resampling – recording the output of the randomness […]
SLICE THE INSANITY
Another way to start having fun with some audio madness is to slice it into a Drum Rack using the Slice to New MIDI Track command: When you’re using this command to slice up a drum loop, you can often use Transient as your slicing mode (see below), but with longer samples this will usually […]
A LITTLE BUZZED
Here’s a simple trick to get a little glitch into your sampled drums. Set up Simpler like this: What you’re seeing here is a snare hit with a short loop at the end. Instead of having a natural decay, the hit will buzz at the end. First, make sure that the Loop switch is turned […]
A LITTLE MORE BUZZED
The interesting thing about setting loops in Simpler is that the Loop parameter is specified as a percentage of the sample’s Length. In other words, if Loop is set to 20%, you’ll always be looping the last 20% of the sample regardless of what Length is set to. This means that adjusting Length adjusts both […]
