PROGRAMA DE CAPACITACIÓN DE LAS BRIGADAS

It is possible to take advantage of the power of samplers without ever creating your own instruments. Even if you would like to create an instrument at some point, you can still use the sampler’s default sounds and available expan- sion packs. Keep in mind that most people who create sampled instruments also use samples made by other people. There are good reasons to forgo the sampling process and capitalize on the efforts of individuals and companies who create samples.

The reasons to use other people’s samples instead of creating them yourself include achieving immediate results, accessing hard-to-fi nd sound sources, and taking advantage of an indi- vidual’s or company’s professional experience in sample cre- ation. Creating sampled instruments is not usually a short process. Creating a complex instrument can take many hours of planning, recording, editing, mapping, and tweaking. Many projects will use multiple sampled instruments, and you will not likely have the time to create every instrument yourself; it just isn’t a realistic expectation. Along with the time requirements, you might not even have access to the sound source that you wish to re-create with a sampler. If you want to create a sampled Stradivarius, then you need a Stradivarius. Since a Stradivarius violin can be worth mil- lions of dollars, it is unlikely that most sampler enthusiasts would have access to one. Lastly, there are professionals who create sample banks for a living. It is possible for you to create a professional-quality instrument, but mastering the skills required will take time and personal investment. If you need

Introduction to Sampling

an instrument before you have reached that skill level, then using someone else’s instrument shouldn’t be an issue.

1.7 Using samplers

Samplers are used in a variety of settings and for a variety of reasons. The general categories include music preproduction, production, live performance, composition, and audio for video postproduction.

1.7.1 Preproduction

In the music preproduction phase, samplers are a great tool that can help with songwriting and demo creation. During the orchestration process, a single person can have access to every instrument imaginable. Instead of calling in a musician to record different parts for a song, only to rewrite the part later, a songwriter can use a sampled instrument to create the parts that can be changed as often as desired. The parts can also be tested on different instruments with the click of a mouse. Of course, permanent part changes will need fi ne- tuned adjustments to compensate for different performance options and techniques on different instruments. The orches- tration process can transition seamlessly into the creation of a demo. Samplers sound good enough to be used as a demo of a song for publishers and producers. In some musical genres, samplers are used in the next phase of record produc- tion as well.

1.7.2 Production

During the music production phase, samplers can be a very useful tool. Some sampled instruments sound as good as or better than the alternatives. It would be nice to have the best studio musicians at your fi ngertips, but this is not always practical, and some projects require something that studio musicians might not offer. Ukulele virtuoso and widely recorded studio bassist Lyle Ritz released a solo ukulele and bass album in 2006 called “No Frills.” While most would have guessed that Lyle played the bass parts on his upright

Defi nitions and examples

Audio Sampling

bass, he chose to use a blend of two bass samples. Having played on thousands of well-known records, you might wonder why he used a sampled instrument instead. When the album is heard, it is very hard to tell that the bass is not a real upright bass because it is programmed so well.

Many genres of music require the use of samplers because the sounds that are expected are not real instruments. Highly processed drum sounds and stylized piano sounds are two examples of instruments that samplers can make accessible during the production phase. Samplers are also achieving highly realistic sounds that are taking over the roles of real musicians. Sarah McLaughlin’s holiday album “Wintersong” utilized string samples instead of real string players. Many listeners will never know that the strings sounds come from someone playing a keyboard instead of a group of musicians playing actual stringed instruments.

1.7.3 Live performance

Samplers have always offered musicians a great alternative to having a lot of instruments on stage during live perfor- mances. A solo musician can learn how to play a single con- troller and then will have access to hundreds of different sounds. While this is an oversimplifi ed view of using sampled instruments on stage, it really can save a lot of resources: it can protect valuable instruments from traveling on tours, free up money that would have been spent on specialized instru- mentalists, and save on stage space because a couple of rack spaces will hold all of the instruments.

1.7.4 Composition

Composers have long pushed the development of sampling tools because they can help realize many different sounds and techniques that are not easily possible through non- sampler techniques. Composers often push the creative abilities of music technology in ways that popular music production does not. (The popular uses more often than not attempt to re-create realistic instruments.) Composers can

Defi nitions and examples Defi nitions and examples

Introduction to Sampling

use samplers to help hear their music before it is played by traditional instruments, and samplers can also be used to create new and innovative sound landscapes that no one has ever heard before.

1.7.5 Postproduction

During the audio for a fi lm or video postproduction phase, samplers can be used to great effect for demo creation, orches- tration, and during fi nal production. Samplers can be used to help fi lm composers create their scores and are often used as a part of the fi nal music track. Many scores blend tradi- tional music with pop-style music, and samplers are an effi - cient tool that can assist in this process. Samplers can also be used in the SFX and Foley creation process. Imagine having instruments that have a variety of different SFX such as foot- steps. When lining these up to fi lm, a performer could actu- ally play the footsteps using a MIDI controller instead of requiring a Foley artist. This holds true for all SFX and Foley.

1.8 Benefi ts to creating your own