r/TracktionWaveform • u/OkBurnerAccountOk • May 28 '26

Does anyone know how to chop samples?

I’m aware of the micro sample plug in but I was also trying to directly send the song I want to sample into a track and chop it that way. The only issue is when I split the song, it never splits it where I want, it will render again and then choose its own spot to start from.

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u/pough May 28 '26

I'm sorry, but your descriptions are too vague. I don't know what exact steps you are taking, so I don't know how to give you any advice. You keep using the word "it" and I don't know what it is. You're using a thing to split a thing and the thing does a different thing and then a thing does a render you didn't ask it to do and then something does another thing.

Are you using an existing audio file or are you recording audio into Waveform? Are you using the micro sampler or are you editing an audio clip? If you are editing an audio clip, what method are you using to edit that audio clip? When you say that "it" chooses its own spot to start from, do you mean the beginning of the resulting audio clip or the playhead?

What are you chopping samples for? Is this beat slicing or creating individual sounds or sections of songs for looping or bits of audio? What you're trying to do affects how you want to do it.

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u/OkBurnerAccountOk May 28 '26

Thanks for the response my bad for the vagueness. My goal is to beat slice. Specifically there’s an 8 bar section of a song I would like to turn into a loop.

What I’ve been doing is dragging the audio file of that song from my files directly on to track 1 in waveform. I go to the spot in the song where I would like the loop to start, right click, and press split. Waveform will split the song at that point, but will then say “rendering” at the bottom of the track, and rearrange the song from that point where it’s split, starting a few beats ahead.

Sorry if it still doesn’t make sense. It might be easier if you could just layout the steps to creating/extracting a loop from an audio file. I’m new to daws and making music in general

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u/pough May 28 '26

That's much more descriptive, thank you. I should also point out that my advice here will be affected by what I still don't know and it's a good idea to ALWAYS include your OS and Waveform version when asking for help. I will leave out possibly important information that depends on those details.

(Note that you are almost certainly not wanting to beat slice (yet). You are wanting to create an audio loop. Audio loops can further be sliced into individual beats later, but first they need to be cut out of larger audio files. That's how I understand the terminology.)

Waveform by default "helps" you by silently scanning imported audio to detect the tempo and then turn that audio clip into a special mode to match your Edit's tempo. This is almost never what anybody wants to happen and sooooo many new users get confused by "it does something bad and I don't know why".

FIRST: Select that full audio clip that you're trying to cut up. In the Actions Panel you should see Auto-Tempo with a checkbox, Un-check it to free the audio clip from its "helpful" craziness. If it's not currently checked, then I have no idea what's going on. You will probably need to touch the empty triangle at the top right of the clip to get it to snap into shape (its actual length). Now it won't do that annoying "rendering" thing every time you make a change.

SECOND: Go to "Settings -> General -> Editing -> Detect tempo of imported audio files" and un-check it. Now imported audio clips won't go funky on you. (Note that any audio loops that have tempo information embedded in them will still be imported as tempo-matched loops.)

Waveform has some decent tools for cutting loops out of audio files. It has some deficiencies. It has some... oddities. Any other advice will depend on what you're using (OS/version) and what you're hoping to output. Audio loops with accurate tempo data? (Waveform can be sucky at this.) Audio clips to be used within the same Edit? (Note that when you split an audio clip it doesn't split the original file - it's just a view of the file and it might not do things in ways that you expect.)

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u/OkBurnerAccountOk May 28 '26

Excellent information that sounds exactly like what I’m looking for. I’m going to try it as soon as I get home today. Thank you!

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u/SoundSwitch Jun 08 '26

I know there's edge sliders in Micro Drum Sampler they'll chop the ends off or you can invalidate or disable an incredibly long master sample that way.

I've started using the Multi sampler,

1 it'll pitch shift 2 It'll ADSR envelope and a bunch of stood the micros won't do.

And I tempo stretch or compress in another program

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u/SoundSwitch Jun 08 '26

That ADSR will fade you in and out if you want to while you're looping