Every person who is more or less familiar with music programs has more than once come across the concepts of sampling and sampling. True, not everyone is fully aware of what it really is. Now we will try to figure it out.
Sample: basic concepts
Translated from English, the word sample means “sample”. In relation to sound and musical sequencers, a sample is a kind of digitized fragment of the sound of an instrument.
If we talk about the concept of sampling, it comes down to creating new sounds through the use of various kinds of filters, envelopes, etc. At the dawn of the appearance of synthesizers with the sound conversion function, special devices began to be used very actively, which later became known as samplers.
As already understood, with the help of many actions, any initial sound fragment could be changed beyond recognition, up to the creation of futuristic sounds that do not exist in nature, and then saved for future use.
Most of all, KORG, Roland, AKAI and many others succeeded in this. It was then that the concept of the sample itself changed somewhat. Now it could be said that a sample is some kind of “native” synthesizer or sampler sound used to create a specific musical part.
Sound characteristics
Only the “iron” synthesizers and samplers were not done. With the development of computer technology, many virtual instruments, sequencers, and even entire virtual studios for creating music, sound recording, mastering, etc., have begun to appear.
However, in the very first versions of such software, only sound fragments recorded from live instruments were used. As a rule, initially they were saved in the .wav format, and a bit later it was replaced by the formats .mp3, .aiff, .ogg and some others.
Each such sample could be represented in the form of a wave, and based on this, they can be distinguished by characteristics such as the sampling frequency, sound depth (signal amplitude level), bit rate, etc.
In modern computer sound, the standard is considered indicators at 44100 Hz, 16 bits, 128 kbit / s. But this standard has long been outdated, although, for example, some samples for FL Studio still have such characteristics. This is due only to the sample size, because with higher parameters, the file weight, of course, will be much larger. However, now almost all music has characteristics at the level of 320 kbps, 48 kHz, 24 bits.
Samples for FL Studio
As for one of the most popular musical sequencers of FL Studio, it, like any synthesizer, has its own set of samples. Here they are divided into groups and types. You can view them in the left pane of the sound browser.
You can immediately notice that there are also wav-files, and .ogg format, and samples like .fsc, and .sf2 (Sound Fonts). The latter were once quite popular, but due to their low frequency characteristics, they are almost never used. It’s better to use the AKAI format.
By the way, if anyone does not know, the program was originally called Fruity Loops and was intended to create drum loops (loops). Loop in English - "loop". Just at that time, the concept of a sample was again somewhat transformed. Now it was possible to consider that the sample was even a musical fragment: the whole either repeating several times, or even representing a whole batch for a certain track.
Today distinguish single samples (one-shot) and loops (loops). An example of the first is, say, the sound of an impact on a snare drum or bass drum on a drum kit.
Samples for virtual synthesizers and samplers
Today, you can find quite a lot of tools in which there are free samples in the form of collections or libraries.
An example is the powerful and popular Kontakt, which was developed by Native Instruments. So many sounds are posted for him on the Internet that you are simply amazed. Yes, take, for example, trap samples. On a variety of Internet resources, they are presented in huge collections, and from different manufacturers, but in universal formats .nki, .nkr, .nkx and .nkc.
Naturally, each software synthesizer or sampler has its own sets of sounds with original formats. However, some developers act in such a way that they save libraries in a universal form, such as .fxb libraries, which allows them to be loaded into different virtual instruments.
Practical use
If we talk about practical use, the same trap samples are simply loaded onto the selected channels or tracks in the studio program.
Of course, if these are ordinary sound files such as .wav, you won’t work much with them. In principle, even changing the tempo or the main tonality of the sound is possible only with special tools. You can achieve a certain result when using slicers (from the English slicer), which provide for editing the original sample to create a sound loop.
But the "native" synthesizer samples or universal libraries in this regard look very interesting. Each instrument, as mentioned above, has its own signal processing means such as oscillators, filters, or LFO envelopes. If you wish, even in the "native" sound, you can "wind up" so many changes that the creators themselves will not recognize it.
Instead of a conclusion
I think it’s now becoming clear that a sample is not just one single instrument sound, but even whole complex combinations obtained by mixing several initial sounds and a lot of effects, not to mention that loops and even whole vocal parts. And their diversity today is such that to use absolutely everything when creating a musical composition is simply unrealistic.