Modern Sampling: 5 Techniques That Go Beyond Old School Basics
Here are five ways that modern samplers have changed, going above and beyond the desires of the past to make contemporary music a reality.
Sampling used to be defined by its limits. Early machines like the SP-1200 and AKAI S950 may have shaped the raw, punchy sound of hip-hop—but they also forced producers to work within serious constraints. Short sample times, minimal editing, and gritty converters weren’t just quirks, they were the sound.
Today, things are different. Modern samplers offer a level of power, flexibility, and precision that old-school gear simply couldn’t. In this article, we’ll explore five key ways modern sampling has evolved and how you can take advantage of modern sampling workflows to push your music further.
This article uses our CR8 Creative Sampler and COSMOS Sample Finder to explain these points.
A Modern Samplist’s Take on Looping
One of the most simple sampler techniques ever is looping. The basics behind this is setting a start point for it to play from to the end point.
How is Sample Looping Better in Modern Times
Looping techniques are simple and don’t need much improvement, but there are some convenient ways that a plugin like CR8 improves on them. With different Snap Modes, your playback markers are positioned more easily, letting you set things by ear instead of to strict tempo, and helping you to set loop points more exactly.
In CR8 Creative Sampler, you can select to pick loop points by four Snap Modes…
- Off – set loop points completely freehand
- Beats – set loop points by beat divisions according to your tempo
- Transients – set loop points at loud peaks within the audio
- Zero Crossing – set loop points where the audio amplitude is zero, so no clicks or pops arise
Crate Digging for the Modern Age
In the time when digital audio wasn’t so abundant, musicians and producers would go through crates of vinyl looking for inspiring new breakbeats, instrumentals and hooks to weave into new formats. Going to a physical store and flicking through records has its nostalgic appeal, but there’s a modern equivalent.
AI Sample Finding Software
With software like COSMOS, you can load in your sample library from multiple locations and read it like a star map! With some tags chosen, you can filter down to just the loops or one-shots that you’re looking for, and click dots on the map to audition different samples.
The best thing about browsing for sounds like this is that the closely-related sounds and samples are positioned close together which makes the process of fleshing out an arrangement much less stressful.
Filtering Sample Material in COSMOS
You can choose from a variety of tags to filter down to your preferred audio type on COSMOS. Try out styles like Electronic and Industrial; genres like EDM and Drum & Bass; Instruments like Vocals, Keys and More; and filter it all by Key and BPM, so you know every loop matches your track exactly or at least closely enough to modify.
Advanced Modulation
CR8 has a lot of modulation on offer, especially when compared to typical early samplers. While you may not have a use for it on every sound, CR8 can help you make full use of every possible modulation source… more on that in. moment.
Selecting Modulators in CR8 Creative Sampler
CR8’s modulators appear in a row at the bottom of the user interface. You can use the downward arrow to expand the current selection and edit its parameters.
The full list of modulators available, in order from left to right, are…
- MIDI Keyboard tracking (of your MIDI note value)
- MIDI Aftertouch, a message after sending ‘note on’ data
- MIDI Pitch Wheel, aka pitchbend
- MIDI Mod Wheel
- MIDI Velocity
- Four LFO or Sequence ‘modulators’ (M1 to M4)
- Four ADSR Envelopes (A1 to A4)
How to Route Modulators in CR8 Creative Sampler
Setting up modulation pairings is simple in CR8 – drag the modulator’s icon onto the control you want it to modulate. From here, a small text appears below the control to indicate the pairing, and you can drag on this text, up or down, to set the amount of modulation applied.
In the below image, we’ve routed M1 to the filter’s Cutoff, and we’re in the process of routing M2 to the filter’s Resonance control.
There are lots of demonstrations of how a complex, modulating patch can get the best out of a sound within the presets. Then again, there are plenty of examples of a simple, restrained sound working great as well. Speaking of CR8’s presets…
The Magic of Presets
In early samplers, it was often possible to save setups, but having dozens and hundreds of professionally made patches at your fingertips was out of the question.
In CR8 Creative Sampler, there are over 800 presets and over 2500 samples that come along for the installation ride (unless you choose not to install these).
Time Stretching Built-In
Early samplers had tuning controls, using them both to repitch a sample to the right note or key, and to slow or speed its playback as a result. Speed and time were interlinked, just like they are in playing back from tape, so thanks to early digital processing, you could tune and stretch to fit a puzzle piece into your overall picture.
Modern samplers, however, let you disconnect time and pitch. They often use a different sort of processing to split it into two processes: pitch shifting and time stretching. You can change the pitch of your sample in one moment, without changing its BPM and then change its tempo without messing up your perfect pitch.
In CR8, as you can see above, you can select tuning controls like Tune and Fine (tuning in semitones and cents, respectively), alongside and separately to the BPM control.
Time Stratching and PItch Shifting Algorithms in CR8 Creative Sampler
Time stretching and pitch shifting works better or less well on different material, and so in CR8 we have introduced five different ways to process, which you should switch up depending on the nature of the sample you’ve got loaded.
- Beats preserves the transients of the sample in preference to the sustain, putting more processing into the spaces between hits rather than the timing of the hits themselves. This means that it’s great for drum loops and percussion – AKA “beats”!
- Harmonic is used on more complex material, so will work well on sustained, tonal sounds or complex material like piano or guitar.
- Melodic works well with monophonic tonal audio like vocals, but there’s a distinction between it and the next type…
- Voice takes the same processing as the Melodic option (above) but also adds formant correction with shifts of up to two octaves.
- Classic reintroduces the ‘Repitch’ mode we mentioned above, where pitch and time are linked – as pitch goes up, speed goes up too.
More on CR8 Creative Sampler
You can try out all these tips and more with your own copy of CR8 Creative Sampler, For more production advice, tips and tricks, check out more from the Waves Blog.
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