Try a sample!

Hello everybody!

I was away last week enjoying my time off work, I hope you all were too(Happy new years!). Also please ignore the AI picture, Hostinger offers a ton of AI integrations and I like to test them out from time to time.

I have a ton to talk about but for the sake of clarity, I will do my best to keep this to one topic. I have been looking at changing the way my music sounds, because I am not happy with it at the moment. I think it sounds nice but is missing something. A couple months back I started trying to use more vocals in my music which is harder than it sounds. Recording vocals and properly mixing them is difficult! So I thought samples would fix this for now until I can get better at manipulating sounds.

In my short experience with samples in music, I have come to find out that I have no clue what samples really are. I originally thought a sample was a snippit of music(just learnt this is a loop not a sample) that producers use to jumpstart or compliment their project. Turns out a sample is any sound from an instrument, so a kick from a drum is considered a sample, a lick from a guitar, or vocals. Without realizing it, I have technically already used samples quite a bit and created my own.

This adventure has really given me an appreciation for music that has come before me, along with a better understanding of something I didn't realize I was completely clueless about! For example I have been grabbing loops and turning them into samples, this is pretty fun but also challenging in a few different ways. One is the timing, another is when I split them I need to make sure they are cut up in a way that they mesh will with other pieces. After this is done, I can send them to my ImpactXT and control the sounds with my BeatStep Pro. This is also fun for songs, I can take a whole song split it up and assign different parts/sections to my drum pads and trigger them. I spent quite a bit just getting this to work and finding all the right settings and still it isn't quite perfect, but I think this is more of me problem :)

I would like to include links for different sites that offer high quality samples but I don't know many, I haven't used Splice for anything yet. Right now the only site I have actually bothered to try has been one called Cymatics. A ton of free sounds(like a ton!) and some paid stuff too which I would like to get only to show my support. The problem with links is I will have to keep checking to verify they stay legit and I am lazy.

One last thing before I go, if anyone would like to reach out and share some music knowledge please do. I have a few musical friends however, they don't produce nor are they interested. And I can say from experience that playing an instrument is not the same as producing a song. So if you have questions or have some tidbit of knowledge you think would be good to get out there, don't hesitate to contact me.