[quote quote="SaintPaulix":3s6rvd6c][size size=150:3s6rvd6c]How to chop a sample using ReCycle & Reason [/size:3s6rvd6c]
Tools used:
Reason 4.0
Recycle 2.1
Garageband
USB cable
Midi Controller Device (USB Keyboard, or USB drum pad device)
This lesson is for intermediate to advanced music producers who know how to make beats and have been doing so for quite some time. This is not a lesson on how to make a complete song, it strictly focuses on how to manipulate a sample. You must have a basic understanding of music theory as well as a basic working knowledge of Reason, and Recycle. These are fantastic programs for production and composition on any level. It also helps (but isn’t mandatory) to have used certain software or hardware, ie: fruity loops, garageband, Akai MPC series samplers, or any sampler. For this lesson, I’ve included detailed step-by-step instructions along with a short 7 minute video to help you out.
Link to Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37MdYBZXnGA
[color color=#FF0000:3s6rvd6c]As a side note: When listening to the Jame’s Blake sample, take notice of the filtered guitar-sounding instrument that repeats. I liked that sound, which is what made me choose the sample. The original sample has a slower type of feel. I wanted a faster head nodding hip-hop beat so I had to transpose the sample up a major third, (from C to E) so that the guitar sound would move faster. It’s like taking a record and making it spin faster on the turntable. The result could be a chipmunk sounding vocal, like Kanye West’s early tracks. One pointer to sampling is to find a way to play your sample either like an instrument or like a drum, so that it fits over the beat and sounds good. The rest is up to your talent, creativity and imagination.[/color:3s6rvd6c]
Step 1: Find your sample. You can sample something you find online, or from some other source such as a record, cd, videogame, etc. As long as you can find someway to get it on to your hard drive, it’s fair game. For this example I used a part from James Blake’s song “I Mind.” Most digital files are either .wav or .aiff but to use the sample in Reason, you have to convert it to a format that Reason will understand. For that purpose they created Recycle, which is a loop editor designed to work with Reason. Recycle works in a fashion very similar to the MPC2000’s TRIM feature. So….
Step 2: …you’ll have to load the .wav or .aiff file into ReCycle.
Step 3: Add SLICES, which are individual cue points, or start/stop points for each sample. Some programs such as Pro Tools and Garageband refer to these as regions.
There are 2 ways to add SLICES, and these steps are really important, because the way your song will sound is based on where you put the markers and how you play them through your midi controller device. Below is a screen shot of Recycle that will be used for the next couple of paragraphs.
Manually: Click the PEN TOOL and move the cursor down to the waveform. Click where you want to put each slice. You can add as many or few slices as you want. You can also move them around to your heart’s content, just make sure you click on the ARROW TOOL to move each one.
Automatically: use the SENSITIVITY SLIDER and move it to the right, keep your eyes on the waveform and you’ll see more slices being added.
Step 4: Audition each SLICE. Once you are done playing around with Step 3, you can listen to each one, to make sure that’s what you want. The cool thing about Recycle is that you can have the beat in your head (or can be beatboxing it) and you can play each SLICE in real time by clicking the region of audio between each one. There really is no limit to the number of SLICES that you can create. For this example I use 3 separate slices.
Step 5: Here’s the tricky part. You have to tell Recycle how many bars the sample is, so that you can SAVE the file. If you know how many bars then cool, just enter it in. If you haven’t a clue what a bar is, I suggest taking a crash course in music theory. (My favorite site for learning basic theory is from http://www.8notes.com/theory) If you don’t know how many bars that’s ok too. Most of the time I sample something that is a fraction of a bar, ie a piano or guitar riff, I have no clue as to how many bars are in the sample. I used 4 bars for this example. Once you change the number of bars, you can then save your file file in their proprietary format .rx2
Step 6: Once the file is saved you can quit Recycle and begin to make your track in Reason. After it loads up, you’ll need to add the Dr. Rex Loop Player to your rack. You will load your sample to the Dr. Rex, and then use midi device to trigger the individual parts that you set up in Recycle, there’s an excellent article in this forum that tells you how to set up a midi instrument, I suggest you take a look at that if you need to know more info on setting that up.
To load your sample, locate the folder icon on the Dr Rex Player and click it. (It’s the icon that looks like a folder, nuff said.)
Find your sample, wherever you saved it and open it. You’ll notice that the red waveform in the middle of Dr. Rex will change it’s shape to reflect the new sample. Below is what the James Blake sample looks like. Notice that the middle region is highlighted. You can change a variety of things for each region but to keep things basic, we will save that for another time.
You can audition the various parts in the sample by pressing the PREVIEW button, located above the red waveform. Recycle saves some time because you don’t have to manually assign your samples to keys on your controller device; it does the work for you. Since I have 3 slices, they are assigned to 3 separate keys on my controller device, starting at C1, C#1, and, D1. (1 is in relation to where it is located on the keyboard.) Now all you need to do is load up another drum loop in a separate Dr. Rex Loop Player, select a tempo, and play the sample to the tempo of the drum. I don’t expect yours to sound exactly like my version, but you should have a basic understanding after watching the video. Any other questions just hit reply.
Peace
SP
RIP GIL SCOTT-HERON
[soundcloud:3s6rvd6c]http://soundcloud.com/st-paul/04-peace-feat-gil-scott-heron[/soundcloud:3s6rvd6c][/quote:3s6rvd6c]
