The Ultimate Guide to Digital Sampling

What is Sampling?

In music, sampling is taking a portion of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument or an audio recording in a different song or piece. Certainly, sampling is an art form that has generated many musical genres and underlies a flurry of endless artistic creativity. Regarding sound design, sampling is the other half of synthesis. Indeed, just about every electronic sound in the world was made using one or both of these two umbrella techniques. Generally speaking, most modern software synths are, to some degree, sample-based.  

NI Massive and FM8

In short, they repeat digital waveforms at auditory rates.  

Granular Samplers

On the other hand, granular samplers synthesize sound by sequencing and randomizing thousands of tiny divisions of a sample called grains.  

Spectrasonics Omnisphere and NI Absynth

In addition, These hybrid synths allow you to generate a mix of samples and synthetic waveforms and affect them together within one instance of the instrument.

NI Battery

Basically, with this sampler, you can build integrated kits of programmable sounds, similar to classic MPCs.  

NI Kontakt

Similarly, Kontakt is a sampler that builds playable exotic and traditional-sounding instrument recordings.   The term sampler is typically given to purely sample-based instruments like Battery and Kontakt. These VSTs have several ways to control the playback of samples. Specific methods are more effective for certain practices than others. Here are 5 common ways to configure sampler playback.  

Methods 

One-Shots

First of all, this is the simplest, most linear sampling method. Like a soundboard, the audio file plays in its entirety each time it is triggered. Therefore, most MPC-style samplers like Battery default to one-shot mode (volume envelope disabled). Consequently, it is  Ideal for arranging songs out of pre-produced samples because it preserves their duration and amplitude contours.  

Envelope-Controlled Samples 

On the contrary, the time-based envelope defines the sample’s amplitude contour. Great for making variations of the same model. As a result, The module below is the envelope for controlling samples in Battery 4. Click the power button (top left) to enable it.  

 

Looping Samples 

In this method, samples sustain themselves by repeating specific portions until the release of the trigger. This makes longer, evolving ambient samples and glitch sounds. To summarize, you will find loop features here in the editing windows of both Kontakt and Battery.  

 

Sampled Instruments

Sampled instruments map a sample over a range of notes. Also, they re-sample the samples for each note. Therefore, its scaling is like a keyboard. Consequently, it is excellent for making melodic and harmonious instruments from a recording. Make sampled instruments in Kontakt by dragging an audio file into the mapping editor and extending it across a range of keys (or the entire keyboard if you want).  

 

Multi-Sampled Instruments 

Multiple samples are mapped over a range of notes and transposed if necessary. That is why this is ideal for creating authentic sample-based emulations of real instruments. Great for designing intricate, “playable” exotic sounds. Make multi-sampled instruments in Kontakt by dragging multiple samples into the mapping editor. You can trigger them together or on separate notes. Additionally, you can map them to velocity levels or at specific velocity ranges.