by sampleandhold » Sat Jun 04, 2005 7:32 pm
I cut my breaks up by hand. I perfer this for two reasons. 1.) I don't trust programs to chop the break up properly (just my little issue) and 2.) I feel I really become apart of the break. I learn every millisecond of the break, hear all the little changes and variations.
This is what I do (mind you, I have a 101 key keyboard attacted to my sampler via dwam): I sample the break. Set it up to probably voice 1. Then what I do is I move the start indicator and move that a 16th in. Play the keyboard about 2 octaves below the original. If I can't hear a zero crossing miss that low, I sure as hell wont hear it at the orginal or pitched up varitions later on. (just incase you don't know. A missed zero crossing is where the wave form was cut above or below 0. It makes a click or a pop, actually adds overtones to the sample. If you cut at 0, you hear nothing.) I then copy the clip board to the next available voice and then set the mapping as I go along. I copy each voice in the preset and just adjust the origins and high and low. I repeat the process over and over, about 60 to 80 times, depending on lenght of the break, and then I am done.
Oh and sometimes I will stop and resequence the break in it's original form about 5 to 10 bpms faster and listen. If I hear no gaps, that means I am cutting the beat pretty accurately. If you try resequencing at the exact pitch, you will, more then likely hear gaps and such. Just can't be done. Humans play funny.
Because I can type so fast, and cutting breaks really is a practice in reputation, you can become extremely quick at it. I can cut a 60 piece break up in about 15 minutes or so.
But do it any way you like.
snh
"{jU$t-n3Rv0U$-N-+h3-@Ll3y-W@y}"