Tips for making samples sound good?

[longloststar]

So, for any given sample, what do you do to make it sound better and on par with the rest of the song? And Im talking specifics now, not only "apply compressor or whatever".

 

Im really lost here, so advice is widely thanked for!

[alleycat]

for vocal samples, like from a movie, I find that a high-pass filter helps them sound cleaner and stand out more. Cutting out the low end helps avoid conflicting sounds mashing together, so they stand out instead of hiding behind the low end. Compression, too, helps, but isnt necessary all the time. EQing also... Umm... Recording the samples at the highest quality possible is good too, if you're recording htem yourself.

 

As for sound effects, umm.... Delay and reverb always add a bit of character, and a flanger too. But I dunno, usually I use vsts for sfx...

[Narr]

If you have a sentence, you can cut it up, and align the beginning of the words with the kick.

 

A ringmodulator is a fun tool for voices.

[alleycat]

Yeah! Ring mod with reverb and a flanger sounds crazy...

 

(FX chain like this: Ringmod>flanger>reverb, thats what I'd do, or switch the ringmod and flanger, but the reverb IMO should be last so everything before it 'verbs.)

[11:11]

It depends on what is your problem with the sound. "doesn't sound good" can mean very different things.

 

I thought back to a few times when I had this problem and thought I'd share my experiences.

 

1. The sample sounds muddy and dull.

Lets say you got a drumloop that has a real flow, you use it as it is or slice it up, and you are satisfied but.. the samples sound like dipped in wet shit. Especially compared to the rest of the sounds in the tune which are full of brilliant, shiny highs, carefully engineered tight punchy basses, and asskicking synths.

 

I think this is the most common problem, especially for people with a collection of oldskool samples, maybe ripped from xm-s. it-s etc etc... or hunted from altavista-s audio search but it could be the problem isn't so serious, you just need a little extra "punch" to that particular sound.

There are of course a trillion ways to solve this, but what I do: first, I put a sony enchancer plugin on the channel strip. It comes with soundforge. Advantages: almost 0 CPU load, counts when you are already at 70-80%. And it sounds good It has a single fader, so you dont need to read 100 pages of manual, and you can quickly decide wether it helps or not.

Well if this doesn't make it better, I turn to the Hyperprism Harmonic Exciter. Very very good plugin. Lots more settings to tweak, very fun This plugin almost always makes my old crappy samples sound fresh and clean. You can even apply it to the master channel for extrafun, thought this freezes out my machine about 2 times in 5.

 

2. Kickdrum or bassline.

Yea yea I know.. Well first of all... you need good quality kickdrums. They define everything, it's like the foundation on which the track is built, and the bassline(s) are the cement which keeps it from falling apart. Or you might want excately that... ...

I can really recommend from my heart for you, to get some very high quality kickdrums. Let me leave it to your imagination how

Bassline: If you have a bass sound and you desperately want to use it in your song, but the sound sux when you play the whole song... well... get yourself a lot of cold food and water, make a litre of coffee, lock the door, turn off your phone, and start working on it. Suggestions:

Waves Rbass: three settings to mess with, CPU friendly. VERY good bass tweaking tool. If you have a problem with the subs, first eq them out gently (-2...5dB) then use the Rbass with a freq set to 90-100 Hz. If your bass lacks the sub punch, set the freq at about 50

EQ and compression usually does the trick on the bass though... you just need a lot of patience to tweak out the right settings.

 

3. Synth sound eats the song.

About 5 years ago when i changed from ft2 to fruitty, i was obsessed with the delay plugin... it was a dream come true.

What I learned after years of producing chaotic sounding shit was that MUCH feedback is a a BAD idea 90% of the time...

So be careful with delay plugs, they can make quite a chaos.

Also if you use a compressor on the master channel, keep in mind that synths usually use the full frequency range, and they are usually "loud", or have a dominant place in the song, but only when the sound is played. This can drive the compressor crazy and make your drums and basses that you worked hours to sound good with, sound worse, by lowering their volume, to give space to the synths. Always keep an eye on the volume of each sound in relation to each other, you need to leave space for everything... even if you use side-chaining a lot or you are desperately after that thumping compressed sound.

It's difficult to set it up right, takes some patience.

 

4. You make the song at home, you write it to cd, play it at friends place, at car, in the party etc.. and it sounds totally different.

A quite common problem I think... And the solution? Well you can do two things: 1. Improve your room (acoustic isolation, diy rulez) and your tools (speakers, headphones, soundcard) 2: learn look around in the world for information. Sound is an amazing thing and its tameable. It has its laws. You dont have to be an engineer or a math guru to understand it.

 

That's all folks for today, sorry for the lenght, I hope it helps!

[snowball]

great post

[alleycat]

You can get a good ES-1 bass sample here:

 

http://www.triplag.com/4room/viewtopic.php?t=1654

 

 

And I have a nice 303 bass sample if anyone wants it...

 

http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?acti...61BF21C12B25165

 

 

That one sounds ok on its own but with a bit of tweaking it can be smooth and fat.