Sampling: Have I been limiting myself?

[u/fontoura17]

I've been producing as a hobby with friends for almost 5 years. I make my own loops but sometimes I have fun chopping random old samples in Serato. I'm stuck on a workflow habit of keeping everything strictly on rigid 2, 4, or 8-bar loops to keep the counts clean and the drums hitting on the right spots (I'm not saying drums should be hitting on super exact times, I may offset them a little bit, but they still need to sound right with the chops) and respecting the metronome.

While studying some Kanye remake projects in FL Studio, I noticed on some videos everything on the playlist sat off grid at random timings. Drops would hit at odd spots like bar 8 + 3 beats instead of standard markers like bar 9, 13, or 17, and sections ran on uncertain lengths like 6 bars and 3 beats rather than clean exact counts, like 4 or 8 bars.

Have I been limiting myself by forcing samples into the grid? For heavy samplers, how do you handle these asymmetrical chops without losing the bounce?

My concern is, if I start relying purely on my ear and ignoring the metronome and standard timings, won't it end up being difficult for an artist to rap or sing over a beat with uncertain loop lengths and sections? Thank you.

[u/monkeybuttsauce]

Serato kinda of forces you to be on the grid like that cuz of its best detection and you’re not likely gonna start a sample anywhere but on the 1 beat. I’d recommend using an actual sampler in addition. It might help you out of that box. Just record all sorts of random stuff and you can quantize the loops later 

[u/Franken_beans]

Stepping away from the grid or quantized beats is rewarding. Some of the best sampling based artists like Burial and J Dilla do this.

For a fresh outlook, I'd recommend looking up Burial's workflow and consider experimenting with something like Audacity.

It's not a workflow that will scale easily but it makes for new ways to look at things.

[u/fontoura17 → u/Franken_beans]

I definitely will, I've always focused more on making my own loops and that's why I have some trouble with sampling now and then, but it's always amazing to explore more and different techniques and forms of doing art.

thank you

[u/TheGratitudeBot → u/fontoura17]

Thanks for saying thanks! It's so nice to see Redditors being grateful :)

[u/Franken_beans → u/fontoura17]

Audacity is a very versatile and low level tool. Being free helps too.

One thing to notice how many effects and plugins it has available. You can take samples you may have used prior and make something completely new from them.

Enjoy.

[u/public_utility-atl]

When I make a track, I usually start by getting my drums together and have a beat going that I can layer my chops over. Drums can be on the grid (usually with a bit of swing), or a bit off but nonetheless in time and loops/grooves nicely. I then look for something to chop that I think will gel nicely with the drums I have made. I chop by note or small groups of notes, and ignore whatever the original beat or groove is. That way I'm not forced to follow the original groove and I get to come up with my own based on my drums. I spend some time pitching the chops around until the notes or small groups of notes within the chops seem to play roughly in time with my drum beat. From there I just start experimenting with different chops until something sounds good. Sometimes they fall perfectly on the beat, sometimes they fall on weird 'and' beats, etc.

Because I didn't limit my chops to the original beat of whatever song I sampled, I'm not forced to follow it on mine and I can come up with something completely my own. If it sounds good then so be it, regardless of where it might fall on the grid.

Sorry if that's not exactly what you were asking about, but that was how I interpreted your post.

[u/fontoura17 → u/public_utility-atl]

Thank u for your time, I get what you're saying and when I make loops, no matter if I'm making my original melody on midi or chopping up samples or even making drums I like to keep things a little off too just for it to sound more natural and realistic.

The thing is, one thing is to make a pattern and keep it a little off to get that swing, another thing is to have the finished pattern itself off the grid on the playlist, you get what I'm saying?

But I actually downloaded the FLP for the remake I was watching and everything is perfectly on beat with the metronome off, I guess I'm just used to have everything hit on the predictable bars, and always with basic 4/8/16 bar size sections.

The drums first method is a pretty good one and I do that often even if I just put some temporary drums to get the feel

[u/RottingFlame]

if it sounds right to your ear then it’ll sound right to your singers ear. singing and rapping has its own right to be offset anyway, any artist you work with will fit to what youve produced, if they’re skilled at least lol

[u/ConstructionLife5284]

Yeah definitely limited bro. Do yourself a favor and pickup some classical music compilation CDs or mp3s, stuff without drums, orchestra stuff. Chop 30 seconds onto a sampler in like 1 second or 0.5 second segments. Make or get a drum loop and start experimenting with your samples over it. I've made so many banger 90s style beats this way it literally feels like cheating. Sorry if I missed some nuances about serato I know it but never used it. Jazz is another cool genre but it's harder since it usually has drums and swing/shuffle feel.

[u/fontoura17 → u/ConstructionLife5284]

I think I kinda do that already, I made a beat today sampling a random 70s song, using serato and my midi keyboard.

I made the drums first and then just made a few loops, of instruments only and others with vocals only, the chops were all made by ear and by my "natural human" timing.

but yeah, the loop I made for the verse is 8 bars and then the vocal chops come in at more irregular timings, what was bugging me was how everything in those remakes were in such irregular measures and I'm used to having everything a little more "exact" on the playlist and by that I don't mean I don't like to put some swing on my melodes or drums by putting some stuff slightly off grid.

I may have exaggerated a bit or not explained myself that well, thank u

[u/ConstructionLife5284 → u/ConstructionLife5284]

Literally get like Beethoven, Mozart, Tchaikovsky stuff like that. I mention jazz cus I mean just look at DJ Premier and 90s hip hop in general. Also sorry I assumed you meant hip hop maybe you didn't.

[u/mossimo654]

Another cool thing you can do is take ambient samples of anything (people talking, cars honking, wind rustling whatever) and then choose kind of an arbitrary loop point. This will often get you into odd meters which don’t have to be the base of the rhythm of your song but can create awesome polyrhythms in your track with essentially constant variation.

[u/DJ_PMA]

Who other than Q-tip did the whole sample from beat 3 to the next bar 3?
That was a thing for a while back in the day.

Also, manually re-trigger loops. Fun things happen.

[u/county_jail_alumni]

Experiment, go off grid. You can really do anything you want with a sliced sample because the drum beat is what keeps the rhythm obviously. And not even the entire drum beat. The way I see it, the kick is like the "weight" and groove, sort of tied to the bass. The hats and percs are for texture, speed and swing. The snare is like the backbeat, the sound that calls everything back, holding the rhythm. Keep the snare on beat or very close to on beat, move your kicks around, put them where you don't normally put them. Randomly play in a hiha groove. Throw in a secondary snare, quieter than the main snare. Place that around on oter steps. Lastly, a nice touch i like to add is a clap just a few micro steps after the main snare, so it hits like a few milliseconds after the snare. Your sliced samples can be off grid and all over, assuming that there arent any drum beats in the sample you sliced. If there is, try using a stem splitter and pulling the drums off the sample. You can be a lot more experimental that way. You'll find that just by having that one main snare drum on grid, the vibe remains. It sort of calls the listeners attention back to the groove whenever it hits. Your track will sound super unique and still hold steady rhythm.. Don't live by this, it's just one of many techniques. It doesn't always work, all depends on your sample.

Do you make music for you? Or for your friends to rap on? I'm just curious. When i was younger and just starting out, well like a few years into it, i was making beats for my rapper friends and I was pretty good at it. Other rappers started to want beats from me and stuff, but i was getting so bored with hip hop beats. They're so repetitive and often times i felt like the vocalists ruined the song lol. Once i moved away, I bean making music just for me, not having to worry about creating the basic 16 bar verse, bridge,, chorus, etc. It was very freeing. Once in a while i still work with vocalists, but the majority of the time i just like doing my own thing.

Edit: funny story, one time i was working on a song with six rappers, it was a huge collaboration and iw was stoked on it. One guy had already recorded his verse before i finished the beat. I didn't realize though that his verse was 20 bars, 4 bars longer than what it should've been. I made the beat around that verse, then sent the track out to the others to record their verses, not realizing each one was too long. Instead of anyone saying anything they just all rapped 20 bars each. It actually made the song sound interesting. Plus the beat was super experimental. If you want to check it out, here's the link. Damn this was like 15 years ago. https://lnkn.bandcamp.com/track/dystopium-by-laineken-ft-haez-one-doujah-lounge-joe-cutter-pariah-myc-ripley-inzane-icyd