Samplers Flashcards
What is sampling?
When you take part of a song, single note or sound and reuse it in another context
When did the technique of using everyday noises in music begin?
With the Concrete movement of 20th century experimental music
What was the main ‘instrument’ of early musique concrete composers?
The tape recorder
What was a limitation of using tape recorders for sampling?
it was impossible to change the speed of playback without altering the pitch
What decade saw the first instruments in pop music that could play back samples?
the 1960s
What did early samplers having limited memory in which to store samples cause?
The bit depth and sample rate were lowered, making the samples sound lo-fi`
How did bitcrusher plug-ins in DAWs create a lo-fi effect?
by lowering the bit depth and sample rate
Why did drum machines embrace early sampling technology?
The samples required were short, at a single pitch, and thus did not take up much memory
What feature controls do modern samplers often have that are similar to synthesisers?
LFOs and envelopes
In sampling, what is keyboard tracking?
Spreading a single sample out across the keyboard. The sample is pitch-shifted in response to the key played
In sampling, what is multisampling?
Taking a sample every few notes and mapping across the keyboard so that samples are pitch-shifted across a smaller range of notes
In sampling, what is velocity layering?
Switching between a number of different samples depending on the MIDI velocity of the note
When done badly, what can sampling introduce?
Artefacts such as clicks when a loop point is chosen badly
What can you do to a sample to avoid creating a click?
Cut the sample at a zero crossing point, fade the sample out, or use crossfade looping
What is a crossfade used for?
Fading between two different simples, audio regions or loops
