Making sound "sound" sampled?

[cloud90]

Hi guys,

I am not too sure if i will be able to explain myself clearly but here goes. I have been wondering about this for quite some time, now. A lot of hip hop uses sample loops from old songs, well is it possible if i could make a song or loop but make it have that sampled effect (so it sounds like as if i just sampled a loop/song from a song) and then over lay it with drums and stuff as if i were to lay drums on top of a old sample loop? Has anyone done this? I would like to hear your examples of this.

Sorry guys, if i sound like noob. I am still a newbie hah. I also sing as well, so i would like to include that in my sounds that sound "sampled"

Thanks!

[penguinoid]

That really depends on what you want it to sound sampled from (format), and what you want them to sound sampled onto (the sampler) but since you mentioned hip-hop, I assume you're looking for a combo of sampling from vinyl and playing back through an old hardware sampler, so here's some stuff to try:

layer with samples of vinyl crackle, or use: http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/vinyl/

reduce the sample's bit rate to 12bit with your daw's native bitcrusher effect, reducing the sample rate helps too, you can use:
payware (has free trial you *could* use and resample output afterward): http://www.toneboosters.com/tb-timemachine/
or free: http://www.kvraudio.com/product/degrade_by_mda
to achieve this effect.

trimming the highs and lows a bit can help as well

[Augment]

Make something with elements you hear in the type of sample you want to recreate, it might be a guitar and a bass, some drums, some orchestral stuff, whatever. Then I think the effect you're looking for is to make it sound old, and back in the day, they didn't have equipment to record and play all the frequencies we hear today, so you're gonna want to lowpass and highpass the sound until it sounds a bit more like you want it to, then just play around with it like you would with any other sample.
I did this in my winter song remix
Soundcloud

Edit: penguinoid beat me with a better answer haha

[fragments]

I cant post any examples at the moment. The concept is rather easy. Getting it to sound good is another issue. Id start with looking up how vinyl, cassette, VHS, 2 inch tape affects sound. There are EQ roll offs, saturation, compression that happens in various analog formats.

Otherwise subtle pitch automation (warped records and tape). Layering "dust and scratches" (noise). Subtle saturation, not straight up distortion, rolling off the high end (analog often sounds "round" or "warm" . Usually analog formats have bumps and cuts at the extreme ends of the spectrum.

Reading up on how they created a lot of the recent tape VSTs will help get you that kind of sound. The white pages/paper on Waves Kramer Tape (available on the product page) and the SoS article on Slate VTM were useful in this regard.

Personally, I dont like bit crushing or bit reduction for this sound.

Happy Lo Fi ing.

(Mad EP had a nice sample pack of vinyl noise up on DSF).

The other option is to, you know, actually sample some vinyl ;p

[zosomagik]

One thing I was doing for a while was writing chord progressions with a synth patch or piano plugin etc. and bouncing it to audio and throwing it in a sampler and playing it in with pads so I could get the initial attack of that "sampled sound"

[mthrfnk]

Low pass the sample, use tape saturation plugins, layer noise/vinyl/tape hiss?

[penguinoid]

The other option is to, you know, actually sample some vinyl ;p

Given the nature of the op's question, it would really be more like: press your loops to vinyl ;p

[fragments]

The other option is to, you know, actually sample some vinyl ;p

Given the nature of the op's question, it would really be more like: press your loops to vinyl ;p

Haha. Like Portishead? Didnt they hire the London Symphony Orchestra, record them, then get parts pressed to vinyl for their live performances?

[Jizz]

hahah, thats a pretty cool idea actually

[nowaysj]

If you're really really into this, like nerd style. Figure out what time period you're thinking about, what studios recorded that time period, what gear they had in those studios, how each of those would leave a sonic imprint, and then recreate the signal path, from mic to distribution medium. THEN, sample that.

I'm not so nerdy, but this is at the heart of my workflow. Check the dsf#42 samplepack for some resampled vibes.



They talk about this workflow in this vid:

[fragments]

^I can nerd out pretty hard like that, but probably wouldnt ever take the time to do it in my productions. Though I suppose you could save the setup and reuse it. Thats all Waves, Slate etc are doing...taking measurements from the signal at different parts of the signal processing chain inside whatever they are emulating and basically hiding a bunch of EQ curves and saturation behind an interface that looks like a Neve desk or a tape machine.

Personally Id rather just find some crunchy samples on the original medium and have the work done for me. Im still surprised by what layering a few vinyl samples into an all ITB production can do for a bit of retro texture.

Alternatively you could buy a 500 series lunch box with and Neve or SSL channel strip and some other goodies and just run all your stems through them. I like running stems through my Joe Meek MC2 w/ all zeroed settings.

I dont want to get into a digital vs. analog debate...but I still feel like getting some things from your tunes out of the box into the analog world does something "magical"...in other words does something one could emulate in the digital world.. I cant be bothered to go through all that though.

Trying hard to be more of a musician and only as much of a technician as I am now.

[nowaysj]

I don't know if that slate stuff is just eq curves and saturation. Maybe it is, I haven't read the white papers, but the thing with analog is the nonlinearities, right, isn't it?

Anyway, I have modeled the whole signal chain, from mic, to pre to desk, to eq, to comp, to tape, to desk, to tape to vinyl. Not like specific models, but vst emulations at each stage. Whatever?!

It just matters if you are getting the texture you like.

[Sharmaji]

it depends on the instrument that you're talking about. actually re-amping and re-recording stuff makes a huge difference. was trying to re-create a 70s, blown-out bollywood sound on a tune a few years ago... recorded the vocals in the hallway (rather than the vocal booth), clipping the pre on the way in, hitting the distressor very hard-- a little tape emulation and spring verb on top, and the sound was great.

for samples, re-amp through your speakers. try a guitar amp as well. There's tons of tape emulations out there; my current fave is "magnetic" by Nomad Factory. yes, you can bitcrush, and resample... experiement, experiement, experiement.

[nowaysj]

experiement, experiement, experiement.

Play, play, play.

[cyclopian]

A cheap 'outboard' technique that yields some interesting results is buying a cheap tape deck from a thrift/pawn shop and buying one of those tape deck adapters made for cars.

Run your loop/sound through the tape adapter into the shitty tape deck and record the output back into your DAW.

Watch out for stereo information though cause you can get pretty bad phasing going to tape.

[nowaysj]

nwj secret technique: Run individual drum hits through a tape delay, like nastydla. Set the plug to degrade the echo pretty hard, with a heavy feedback. Record the output of an individual hit going in and delaying. Go through and find the hit that you like, with the right amount of fuckedupedness, or pull a couple. Now take that degraded hit, and kind of polish it up. Shape it with an adsr, eq, comp, and that is now your main hit. Or layer it with original clean hit. Just a way to quickly add texture and decay all at once.

[zosomagik]

nwj secret technique: Run individual drum hits through a tape delay, like nastydla. Set the plug to degrade the echo pretty hard, with a heavy feedback. Record the output of an individual hit going in and delaying. Go through and find the hit that you like, with the right amount of fuckedupedness, or pull a couple. Now take that degraded hit, and kind of polish it up. Shape it with an adsr, eq, comp, and that is now your main hit. Or layer it with original clean hit. Just a way to quickly add texture and decay all at once.

I've been using TAL DUB on my drum busses lately with the feedback all the way down and the dry wet all the way up with the filter turned on, you get some really nice tape sounding saturation/vintage tones out of it. And we all love what tape sounds like

[fragments]

nwj secret technique: Run individual drum hits through a tape delay, like nastydla. Set the plug to degrade the echo pretty hard, with a heavy feedback. Record the output of an individual hit going in and delaying. Go through and find the hit that you like, with the right amount of fuckedupedness, or pull a couple. Now take that degraded hit, and kind of polish it up. Shape it with an adsr, eq, comp, and that is now your main hit. Or layer it with original clean hit. Just a way to quickly add texture and decay all at once.

I dont have nearly enough VoS plugs installed. Every time I look at the list I think "damn son, why are these not on my harddrive" but Im never in my studio when this happens lol.

If I havent said it around here recently, if you didnt get the intro price on U he Satin you are missing out. I dont know or care how well it simulates "real tape" but if you tape style flanging/chorus/echo FX this thing is a beast. Instant vibes. Sometimes I just want to slap three of 'em on the master with a limiter and see what happens...

[Augment]

nwj secret technique: Run individual drum hits through a tape delay, like nastydla. Set the plug to degrade the echo pretty hard, with a heavy feedback. Record the output of an individual hit going in and delaying. Go through and find the hit that you like, with the right amount of fuckedupedness, or pull a couple. Now take that degraded hit, and kind of polish it up. Shape it with an adsr, eq, comp, and that is now your main hit. Or layer it with original clean hit. Just a way to quickly add texture and decay all at once.

I've been using TAL DUB on my drum busses lately with the feedback all the way down and the dry wet all the way up with the filter turned on, you get some really nice tape sounding saturation/vintage tones out of it. And we all love what tape sounds like

I think the Kjaerhus Classic Delay set to analog mode can produce something similar