I just want to start this off by stressing that this is a *beginner's* guide to sampling ... but no worries; when it comes to making sample-based rap, it basically comes down to two things: 1. having good samples (as well as a good ear for samples ... no two people will hear the same sample the same way) and 2. creativity (having a good sample means nothing if you can't find something creative to do with it). So learning the basics is the best place to start - what you do after that is up to you.
Now, before you can get started on sampling, you need to find out what version of FL you have - I believe it's version 5 that they made the transition. But if, like me, you're on one of the older ones, you'll probably have to convert your MP3 files to .WAV files in order to use them as samples on FL. A number of solutions have already been discussed in this thread, here's one that I've shown to a number of people, and everyone (including myself) seems to be satisfied with it:
http://www.mp3convertors.com/
Now that you're ready to convert files, let's take a look at FL's different sampling capabilities.
Sampler
FL offers a variety of ways to sample, and in this tutorial we'll cover a few of the most simple (yet still effective) ways. In this tutorial we'll need a empty template a number of times, and if you forgot how to do that, it's just "File" -> "Templates" -> "Empty". This should just leave one channel left in your step sequencer - a channel labeled "sampler" (if not, just do "Channels" -> "Add One" -> "Sampler"). Left-click the "sampler" channel, and then click the folder icon - this will let you browse the files on your computer - locate the sample mix and open it. It's literally that simple - you can now just post the whole sample mix as one big note in the piano roll and that's it. But obviously we want to do more with this sample.
(note:Â whenever you use this sampler, under the "loop" section, make sure to check the box saying "use loop points", unless it's an acapella you're sampling).
The first thing you'll probably want to do is be able to change the starting point of your sample - chances are your sample is a big three or more minute long song, and you don't really want your sample to start from the beginning.Â
Fruity Granualizer
The Fruity Granualizer gives you a nice amount of control over your sample without having to chop it. So go to "Channels" -> "Add One" -> "Fruity Granulaizer". When the Granualizer opens, you start out on it's Plugin menu, so click the menu directly to the right of it, labeled "SMP" (for Sample). Here you can load up a sample the same way you did in the standard sampler. Once you've done that, return to the plugin menu. The Granualizer offers you a number of effects to use, but all you really need to be concerned with is the one labeled "start". With this, you can zoom ahead to a different, later part of your sample.
I should also mention that, if, in your browser, you go to "Plugin Presets" -> "Generators" -> "Fruity Granualizer", you can choose from a couple different presets, including a version of the Granualizer that plays your sample in reverse.
Chopping
Now, one of the terms you'll hear samplers using most often is "chopping". This is pretty much what it sounds like; it's sample surgery. You usually chop for one of two reasons: 1. To isolate a small part of a sample that you'd like to include in your song without having to use the entire sample or 2. To re-arrange the sample so that it plays in a different order than it normally does. Let's take a look at how to chop automatically and manually.
Automatic Slicing
With automatic slicing, your software does the chopping by itself, chopping audio "vertically". The following diagram demonstrates how this is done:
As you can see, if you were sampling a drum sample that had kicks, snares, and hi-hats in this pattern, the automatic slicing program would create slices whenever it "hears" audio. And with this pattern, you can find isolated kicks and hi-hats (meaning, for example, and isolated kick drum would be a kick drum with nothing else playing alongside it, such as snares, hi hats, bass, or anything else. You could then use this kick drum as your own and put it in whatever pattern you want). However, there's always a hi-hat playing when the snare hits, so if you want to seperate the snare from the hi-hat, you'll have to use something like an EQ. Now, let's look at two of the automatic slicing programs built-in to FL:
Import a Beat to Slice
This one is based on some of the oldest beat slicing technology out there, and I don't use it for much, except it has a pretty accurate bpm counter. To use it, go with "Files" -> "Import" -> "Beat to Slice", and then find a sample on your computer:
See where my arrow is pointing to? That's what it believes the bpm of your sample is. In general this thing is pretty damn accurate, but I'm not quite sure how it actually figures out bpm's, so any number of problems could happen. The most common one I see is that sometimes it gives you double the real bpm (which is understandable since, if you've looked at old music compositions, alot of them are written in cut time). So if your sample turns up being 214 bpm, try 107 bpm; that's probably what it meant. Outside of that, just try to make sure your sample is ONLY what you intend to use, and that there aren't parts of other songs in there or something else; that'll only confuse the program.
Then, if you want to use it, the program dumps all your slices into one big piano roll, giving each slice one note of the keyboard. However, the interface is a bit clumsy, and when you sample this way, it creates an individual file of each slice and saves it on your computer, which you probably don't really want, so you might want to try the very similar ...
Fruity Slicer
This is pretty similar, only with a somewhat cleaner interface. However, don't trust it's bpm counter. To use this one, just go with "Channels" -> "Add One" -> "Fruity Slicer". Once it's open, all you do is select the "open & slice up sample" icon, and load up your sample. This program will let you do some nifty things like fade your sample in and out, reverse it, and so on.
*** SPECIAL NOTE: For the next part, manual slicing, your computer will have to load up and entire wave form of your whole song. If you're running on a crappy computer like I am (or, even if you're not, I'd say this is a good practice since it will save a LOT of your computer's resources), you probably won't be able to load up an entire 20-minute-long sample mix and chop it. So I've found a great solution - load up your huge sample in Fruity Granualizer, then post one big note (about 12 measures or so long) in there. Then mess with the "start" knob a bit until you get to the area where you wanted to sample. Then make sure the whole thing you wanted to sample is in that note. Then just go to "Files" -> "Export" -> "WAV File". Presto! Now you have a very managable WAV file to use for sampling. ***
Manual Slicing
Now, the appeal of automatic slicing is that it tends to cut things just right, whereas with manual slicing, there's a bit more handywork involved in trying to get things perfect. However, in some situations, manual slicing can save you alot of time, and some times it's your only solution. So, let's go back to the standard slicer we started out this tutorial using, and load up a sample:
Then click that little wave icon to bring up a menu, and from that, choose "edit sample":
This is, essentially, a graphical representation of the audio coming out of your speakers as music (or, in more techincal terms, the peaks and falls of audio frequencies). The wave form I have marked "1" is the waves coming out of your left speaker, and the one marked "2" are the waves for the right speaker (I believe; I could have that mixed around, though).
The wave marked "3" is the combination of those two waves. Initially, when you make a change to either your right or left speaker wave, it will affect both of them the same, but you can change the settings to just work on one or the other. On the left and right ends of your sample are two vertical bars with a "s" and an "e" (respectively) at the top of them; these are bars you can move around and create a loop from (if you click the "play" icon, you'll play the entire wave form, but two icons to the right will let you play just the area you've selected as the loop). The loop features are really just there to help you determine what you want to chop more efficiently, though, because if you want to chop, you need to select things a different way:
Simply left click an area, then hold the button down while you drag to the left or right to highlight the area you want to cut, then right click that selected area and choose "cut" from the pop-up menu. (note: do NOT cut the area you want to actually keep; cut out everything you DON'T want).
*** VERY IMPORTANT!!! When you close down the wave-editor, you will be asked if you want to keep the changes you've made to the sample. Please know that these changes affect the ACTUAL sample on your computer; therefore, if you trim off a piece of the sample and then save your changes in FL, that MP3 or WAV file on your computer is now changed forever. It's a good idea to instead, after you've chopped what you want, click the "save as" icon in the wave editor and save your new sample as something seperate. Making back-ups of your samples is also VERY recommended. ***
The wave editor is obviously alot more powerful than that, but, if you're reading this tutorial and most of this is new to you, that's probably all you need to know so far. And, in truth, FL's wave editor is rather simple; eventually you'll want to step up to a professional wave-form editor like CoolEditPro2, Wavelab, or Soundforge - but wait till you have the couple hundred to drop for them ;).
Tempo Changes
Now, working with samples is fine and all, but it's pretty limited if all you plan to do is work with samples that all have matching tempos - let's say you created a dope drum loop at 96 bpm, and a guitar sample that would sound soooooooooooooooooooooo good over it ... but it's 90 bpm and just doesn't sound right over it. FL's got you covered - just load up a sample in the standard sampler:
The area I've marked "1" is the "stretch to fit to steps" area - try left-clicking this box, and while holding the mouse button down, move your mouse up. While doing this, pay attention to what's being said in the window I marked "2" - at first, it'll tell you that you have an unrealistic tempo (it's way too fast), but as you keep going, you'll start to reach "human" tempos. Now, the whole deal with all of this is basically that you need to know what tempo your sample is. For example, if you're using a sample that is 90 bpm, keep scrolling until the box reads "original clip is 90 bpm". If you've done this correctly, your sample is now "aligned with the grid". How can you tell if you've done it correctly? The snares in your sample should continously hit on the two's and four's:
How easy this will be able to figure out depends on your sample ... for example, Timbaland often has alot of extra snares other than just those on the two's and four's, but with most music those two main snares are still a little more accented. My suggestion is just to keep trying this with simple drum patterns, and DEFINETELY keep using samples with drums for a while before you try using samples without and drums. Also, while using the "import a beat to slice" feature can often be accurate in determining your sample's bpm, it's not always correct, so sometimes you just have to figure it out for yourself.
But the end result of this work is a big pay-off - once your sample is aligned with the grid, you can then change your song's overall tempo (ie, the main tempo of the song, not just your sample's tempo), and your sample will still stay in line with the grid. So, with our previous situation, you'd have your song set at 96 bpm, with your dope drum loop in place, and then you'd just load up that guitar sample and set it to fit 90 bpm.
Case Study #1
Just to make sure you've got a grasp on this, though, let's do a project. Load up Scorpio's Sample Mix Volume 2 and then try to chop it up so you can isolate the part used in Game's "Hate It or Love It" - it's right near the middle of the mix (the sample itself may sound a little different than it did in Game's song because it's an odd, 3 and 1/2 measures long loop, so Cool and Dre did a little ingenious chopping to extend it to a 4 measure long loop - see if you can get it to work, too (try messing with that second measure a bit). Just letting you know, in the state it's currently in, this wouldn't work well for a loop). This song seems to be 99 bpm, so set your sample to fit 99 bpm, and then set the song's overall tempo to 99 bpm, and it should sound just like the real thing, and the snares should steadily hit on the twos and fours every measure. From there, you can mess with the song's overall tempo to make it faster or slower.
Acapella
A great way to get going with sampling is to use acapellas - that is, tracks with just the vocals, no music - of known tracks and try putting your own beats under them. You know you're getting somewhere if the end result is something someone would want to listen to. And, in the wake of remixes of Jay-Z's "The Black Album", acapellas are becoming very widely available (you can actually buy an acapella version of "The Black Album"). The Beastie Boys have even been kind enough to make acapellas of a number of their songs avaiable for free download, even letting you know the bpm of the acapella:
http://www.beastieboys.com/remixers.php
The other reason why working with acapellas is useful is because you have to work with a rhyme - and one of the most frequently asked questions by producers is 'how can I get my beats to match the vocals?'. While there are a number of factors and techniquest invoved in perfecting this, at the very least you should know some basic theory in rhyming. In general, rappers while make their rhymes land on the snare drums, sometimes both on the two and on the four, but almost always at least one the four. Let's try to illustrate this with the lyrics to the Beastie Boys' "3 The Hard Way":
These rhymed words usually get a little extra stress from the emcee, so it's usually easy to pick out. And keep in mind that it's the rhymed SYLLABLE that gets placed on the snare, not necessarily the rhymed WORD. So, in this case, what hits the snare is "flapJACKS" and "WAX". Essentially, all this is just to let you know what you should be listening for; if it sounds like their rhymes and your snares are hitting in time together, you're doing good. Of course, it's unfortunate that these acapellas are from the Beastie Boys, since lots of times they do rhyme off-beat, and since there are three of them, they often times have one guy say the rhyme before the snare, and then another guy echoes it on the snare. Still, there's almost alway some straight-forward rap in the song that you can use to gauge if you're on beat or not.
Case Study #2
Alright, now, let's put this all together. Get Dizzee Rascal's single "Fix Up, Look Sharp" (you can find it at this page. It also used to be hosted at Matador Records' site, but I can't find it anymore). There are a couple places you can find the drums out in the open for sampling on this song, but I like the last four or so measures of the song the best (he's not talking AT ALL there). You can get a good four-bar loop out of that.Â
Now, Dizzee's song is 104 bpm, so stretch your sample to fit that tempo. Now, get the Beastie Boys acapella of "Ch-Check It Out" (from the link posted previously in this tutorial), which is 115 bpm, so set your songs' overall tempo to 115 bpm (you don't need to stretch the acapella to fit at all, just use it as is. Assuming you chopped the drums to Dizzee's song appropriately, you should be set! And this is still quite sparse, so feel free to add anything else you might want to it.
Conclusion
So, like I've said, this is strictly a beginner's tutorial. I'm sure alot of you might already know all of this stuff, but hey, you've gotta start somewhere. If you have any specific questions on anything else, feel free to ask, and if any of this information is incorrect or there's a better way to do any of this, let me know! Peace.
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