First question where exactly do I cut hits from in the sampler? It’s hard to define when a high hat come after a snare. I have examples attached.
Second question. I was chopping some Dnb breaks up to extract their groove. I noticed almost all have some of the hits not hitting exactly on the 16th note, like most good music I guess. How do you capture this in Renoise. Sometimes its very subtle as its such a fast music. Most of the dynamics seem to come from the hits themselves in this genre?
Thanks people I have wondered about this for a year.
Just go vertical on them breaks. I mean simply sync them and chop/resequence using 0Sxx command in the pattern editor. It’s huge fun and gives you instant jungle vibes.
About the first question:Sometimes hihats and snares are too much blended through eachother to make a a distinc cut. You would then need two slices with the next slice having an overlapping offsets and the first slice having an overlapping termination area, you can’t really use the slicer for these tricks unfortunately thus the best way in those cases is copy and paste the complete required areas to a separated samples (or use the sample offset command if it works out and your break samples aren’t too large) and have the second sample chime in while the first one is still playing. That way it will be less noticable when you speed up or turn down the BPM.
The second issue is a deviation problem between exact BPM timing and having a deviation percentage. If breaks were created on older drum and sampler gear, the bpm might not have been as exact as todays technology is and that makes it noticable when you are working with precise areas.
Frankly i would not worry too much, a bit of a human touch still has its charms.
It can take a sliced sample, then automatically place all the notes into the pattern for you, with all the correct note delays to maintain the original timing/groove.
The only important thing you need to do is set the correct Beatsync value on the first/original sample in the sliced instrument, since the timing of all slices will be based on this value.
The tool is not yet fully updated for Renoise 3.0, but it will automatically upgrade itself during install and should still work in the Pattern Editor.
I use the slice to pattern tool. When I think I have ascertained the right area to chop. I was just wondering if there is some sort of visual indication
when a tail of snare and start of a hat collide? I’m having difficulty understanding what was suggested with the offset command. Will need to look into it.
With regards to the second question. I doubt the breaks where made with older gear. What I’m talking about is the the delay of certain hits. In order to give a shuffle. Like aren’t certain hits delayed? Or else the break and tune would sound rigid and lame?
Thanks for the help.
I have been using this tool. It so fine the detail sometimes in dnb. That finding the exact place the hits start is so vital. It’s almost to fine for the pattern slicer to notice?
You could always chop the breaks in a third party sample editor like Audacity. I’ve been chopping breaks for years, and I can relate with you that instruments overlap, but that’s the beauty of sampling. You get some nice sounds from this overlap. If the chops cut off hard then play with the amp envelope, or use a bit of reverb or delay. Sampling is about being creative. I go crate digging on a regular basis, some of the stuff I’ve chopped up is unreal, but I can get it to sound very nice.
I suppose the chopping of the breaks is fine in Renoise. Sometimes its less than 1/256 (01-ff) of the 16th, is that even a noticeable amount? Sometimes the hits appear bang on the 16th. That’s good advice with the envelope and amp.
It’s just I want to capture the groove. It can be done a lot better & easier in Ableton. Then its easier to add the bass etc to the exact timing. In essence taking interesting rhythmic patterns from other artists to see the amount of delay on the hit.
I have noticed a lot of the groove is dependent on the length of the samples. That in effect creates the space. The ratio of attack,decay release between hits.
Sometimes a drummer would play the first bar faster then slower for the second. only slightly but that creates a groove too.
It would be interesting to see where people cut this percussion loop. It’s really difficult to find the hits. even though there separate-ish. Do to its odd attack.
im working with a lot of breaks, at the start i wondered also where to start, now i see that little chunks at the start of snare mostly giving some extra punch to snare and chunks before hat is splitting sound where snare ends and a hat starts, it doesnt really matter that its not on 16th note precise, because humans cant hear the difference anyway if there a tiny delay, when i sample raw drumbeats i allways leave a very little fade in, its giving some extra punch.
i love to use phrases with drum breaks, usually i extract drumloop in oneshots make drumkit than building it back with phrases, i place oneshots on (zsxdcvb…) make drumkit, and phrases one octave up (qwertyuiop) add some phrases with different drum patterns so in pattern editor you alternate with phrases and oneshots its allways fits no matter tempo you have and pitch stays as is (you can also make macro comaand and change the pitch on same drumloop speed. other way is sync the break than same way make phrases using 0Sxx and your loops will change pitch depending on tempo and LPB