Samples

Hi, I’m very new to sound trackers, and I have a question about the samples. Knowing me, the answer is probably very obvious, so bear with me for a moment. I’ve looked over the site and the forums, but I can’t seem to find anything truly helpful. So, with that, where do I find instrument (drum/synth/orchestra/whatever) samples to create new songs on the tracker? I found in https://forum.renoise.com/t/samples/18688 that there are places where you can download these, but, to be safe, is there a recommended site that would have a large assortment of samples to use? Perhaps even a program to create the samples, as I believe was mentioned in the thread I just cited? I was intending on making 16-bit songs, like you would hear in, say, an early 90s videogame, if that’s any help. I’ll be grateful for a helping hand on this. Try not to flame me too much <_<

OK matey… Here goes…

The best way to get samples is to make them yourself. There are loads of ways to do this.

For drums, you can extract them from existing songs, generate your own in an audio editor, record them from hardware, make them in a vsti instrument and render them as .wav

For everything else, you can make them yourself in an electronic instrument (hardware or software) and record them.

Films are a very good source of samples too.

Basically you need to amass a reasonable amount of samples which you make yourself, start making music and then start sampling yourself. For example, if you get a Kick drum and put through a load of effects in renoise, you will have a totally different sound to the original. Record this and use it as a sample.

This is the basic idea of sampling, and obviously you can use any source you like.

Sample packs which you can buy or get for free just take out the hard work of finding samples for yourself, but there is no substitute for putting the work in. If you do it yourself you will have your own original samples and you will have a lot more satisfaction when you make your tracks.

Loop sampling is another side to all this. Lots of music such as DNB relies on sampled drum loops which are sped up in renoise (or whatever) and used as the beat. Obviously this is using someone elses drumming for your music.

Renoise has a good audio editor and it also has a #line in device (you can plug something into your computer and record it in renoise and edit the result) so you dont really need anything else.

If you do want something more sophisticated, go for Sony Sound Forge 7. It is great and you do things like extracting audio from CDs etc.

(You can do this in renoise using my trick of audio ripping with the #line in device, but it requires a certain type of sound card which you may not have)

If you want to chat about this, or need any more help, ask on here or PM me. Im not the ultimate expert, but I can point you in the right direction

Nice one

Try this for some synths:
https://forum.renoise.com/t/how-can-i-make-chiptune/17421

Thanks, this was all very helpful. I don’t have very much in the way of instruments (I have a violin, which could definitely come in handy, but that’s it) so I’ll probably just be extracting from other sources.

Chiptunes! That’s what I was looking for. I’ll definitely try out some of those, although I’m looking for more 16-bit type stuff, like from the Super Nintendo… I know, kinda childish, but some of those old 16-bit songs sounded really good. It was the Acidjazzed Evening controversy that got me started on this in the first place, although I’ve been wanting to learn how to use a tracker for a few years now. Oh well, I have the weekend to get everything situated, although I’m sure I’ll have more questions. Thanks for the help, everyone!