Sampling has always been about reimagining sound. From early hiphop producers cutting up vinyl to today’s bedroom producers making beats on laptops, flipping and mashing samples together.
One thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of today’s producers grab a sample, but don’t know what to do outside of what they have already heard.
This isn’t because they lack their own creativity; they simply don’t know how to tap into it.
Not to worry, I’ll give you 3 methods you can use to flip samples into something completely your own.
1. Chopping Samples
This is a classic and obvious one. Chopping means slicing a loop into smaller pieces so that you can replay and manipulate the order in which the pieces are played.
Examples
Drums: Cut a 4 bar drum loop into 1 shot samples, then rearrange the 1 shots for a custom drum pattern.
Melodies: Chop a guitar riff into smaller chunks, then replay the chunks or parts to create a brand new melody or riff.
Vocals: Slice a vocal line and play it like an instrument. This is a good way to build emphasis or draw attention to powerful sections of the vocal.
Plugins to Use for Chopping Samples: Serato Sample, Audiomodern Loopmix, or the stock sampler within your DAW.
2. Time & Pitch Manipulation
This is a lot less confusing than it sounds. Stretching a vocal or piano loop can make it fit better with other samples.
Example: a 98bpm drum loop and a 120bpm piano. Stretch/slow the piano down so it fits the tempo of the drums. Pitch a piano loop up an octave and it brightens up and plays faster. Or, you can pitch it down to make it sound darker.
Try these plugins: Baby Audio Transit, or even your DAW’s built-in stretch and transpose features
3. Effects & Resampling
Sometimes, adding simple processing plugins to the chops does the trick.
Add saturation for a bit of warmth and grit, throw on a filter for lo-fi character, or mix it up with automated glitch effects. Then bounce it to audio, chop up the audio, and rework the melody from there.
Try these plugins: Sugar Bytes Effectrix and or Arturia Tape MELLO-FI.
Conclusion
Flipping and manipulating samples isn’t that complicated
The next time you drop a loop in your DAW, add a little something to it.
Experiment with these 3 approaches and watch those throwaway samples turn into pure gold.
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