What is sampling?
In music, sampling is the act of 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. When it comes to 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/or 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. Certain 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 method of sampling. 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).
Therefore, Ideal for arranging songs out of pre-produced samples because it preserves their duration and amplitude contours.
Envelope-Controlled Samples
On the contrary, here the time-based envelope defines the sample’s amplitude contour. Great for making variations of the same sample.
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 brief, in this method samples sustain themselves by repeating a certain portion until the release of the trigger.
This is great for making 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, great for making melodic and harmonious instruments out of 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 certain velocity ranges.
