Subject:QUESTION: How do you make samples from existing songs?

Posted by: HelioS

Date:7/20/2003 6:36:28 AM

How do you make samples from existing songs?. ive tried loading existing mp3's and selecting the part i want to copy in the track properties, and i cant copy it!. please tell me how to do this or direct me to a tutorial.(i have acid 4 pro).

Subject:RE: QUESTION: How do you make samples from existing songs?

Reply by: dkistner

Date:7/20/2003 2:00:18 PM

Uh, Helios, people probably haven't answered you because what you are trying to do (unless it's your own stuff) violates copyright. So unless you've got something in the public domain or the owner of the copyright has given you written permission to do it, don't.

That said, maybe Acid's Chopper will do what you want (although I've never used it so I don't really know). And just learning how to work with audio files in Acid period (you really do need to read the manual). I'd use an audio editor myself for the task; Sound Forge is SoFo's flagship editor, and it integrates well with Acid. There are some good general audio editing how-to tutorials here for what I use (Cool Edit).

Last I heard, there are some very low-end/low-feature free audio editors out there, so you might hunt around and see what you turn up if you can't get the job done with Acid and don't want to buy anything else. I think even some of the media players have simple editors built into them. But you'll find you won't be happy with simple for very long, not if you intend to get good at all this.

Subject:RE: QUESTION: How do you make samples from existing songs?

Reply by: mortalengines

Date:7/20/2003 8:26:01 PM

yes,
bring up the chopper window & the chopper will guide you from there & the section you want can be clicked on & chopped to a new track

Subject:RE: QUESTION: How do you make samples from existing songs?

Reply by: skagoogee

Date:7/20/2003 10:41:53 PM

Or put your cursor at the position and hit S - this will split the track - then do the same at the end of the area you want. Once you have your desired area, you can either render that to a new track or copy and paste it on that same track. I do this alot when building beats and I want a particular kick from a loop.

Subject:RE: QUESTION: How do you make samples from existing songs?

Reply by: Daloryn

Date:7/21/2003 1:16:29 AM

One word-- SoundForge (wait, that's two words...?). Not that I am admitting in any way to FREQUENTLY using SoundForge to lift samples from copyrighted material (wink), but if I DID... I'd be using SoundForge to do it. It CAN be done in ACID Pro 4, I suppose, but your options would be pretty limited (no sample looping, clumsy start/end points, etc...). If, for the time being, you have no other option than to use ACID Pro 4, do this: Insert the audio material you want onto a track / solo the track / make sure the track and mixer volume are as high as they can go WITHOUT clipping the meter / resize your selection until it's just the part you want to keep as a sample / turn the loop feature ON / slide the beginning of the loop (the blue bar at the top of the track area) to the START of your sample / slide the END of the loop to the END of your sample / go to 'File,' select 'Render,' and make sure the 'Render Loop Region Only' box is CHECKED, then render as a WAV sample (44kHz, 16 bit, stereo/mono, yadda yadda yadda...) That should do it.... ~DALORYN~

Subject:RE: QUESTION: How do you make samples from existing songs?

Reply by: HelioS

Date:7/21/2003 4:47:32 AM

wow, thanks alot guys!. what i needed this for was to get a new single bass note, or a new snare hit. i dont have any good mikes, so making good samples is hard.

Subject:RE: QUESTION: How do you make samples from existing songs?

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:7/21/2003 2:58:43 PM

The keyboard shortcut for the Chopper is ALT+2. You can make selections based on an exact note value (quarter notes, for instance), or you can temporarily disable snapping by holding down SHIFT while making your selection in the Chopper.

You can also "chop to a new track" and create a separate sample from another by creating a selection in the Chopper and using CTRL+M. (Make sure the focus is on the Chopper. Use ALT+2 as I stated above to do so.)

Using Sound Forge is also a great idea, especially if you want to creatively mangle a sample. Remember that when altering Loop type tracks, you will also alter their ACIDized properties. Changing the Loop's length externally in Sound Forge, for example, will result in a different tempo in its properties. Be sure to use Sound Forge's ACID loop creation tools to gauge accordingly.

HTH,
Iacobus