I remember putting in Vocal samples into Ultrabeat then experimenting with it like a normal drum machine, Sorry I'm a bit vague it was long ago, I guess you could play around with Ultrabeat & this method too?. Great video as always man.
Huge Tip: Sampling in Logic's ALCHEMY plugin is a lot more convenient than using EXS24; Check out a video by Echo Sound Works called "The 3 Best Ways to Sample in Logic X." After watching that, you'll probably never use EXS24 again, lol.
It depends on the purpose. Alchemy does have many advantages with synthesis modulation and sound design elements you can add to your raw samples. However, if you're just trying load in samples, without applying a bunch of modulation to them, I would argue that EXS24 is actually better, and less consuming, if you know how to use it. A few points: (1) Alchemy only support 32 voices, whereas EXS24 supports 64. Now for a chopped vocal instrument, like I created in this video, 32 voices is plenty. But in the past when I've tried to create really ambient instruments, or complex multi-sampled drum instruments, Alchemy starts dropping voices, because of the 32 voice limit. This makes Alchemy completely un-usable for complex drum sampling with multiple round robins and velocity layers. (2) Alchemy's sample loading GUI is definitely much easier to use. However, a lot of the sample instruments I make I have multiple notes mapped across the keyboard with the sample sample zone range and loop length. In Alchemy, you have to go through and manually adjust each zone. In EXS24, you can adjust ONE of the zones, and then copy and paste the zone range and loop length to all of the other samples. This cuts the work exponentially. The last thing I want to do is sit in Alchemy and manually set zone/loop ranges for 80 sample zones -- that'll take forever! In EXS24, I load in the samples, set the zone and loop range for one sample, then copy/paste it to the rest. Done! in just a couple minutes of work. (3) Alchemy can re-synthesize and extrapolate pitch from a single sample. That's really cool, but it produces a different tone than multi-sampling. You also lose the natural variation you'd get from sample to sample. It also can introduce artifacts -- which might actually produce a sound you like -- but in most cases I don't prefer this. Also, if you're working with acoustic instruments, you can't do it this way, without destroying the natural character and variation of the instrument--Again it all comes down to purpose. People often say 'Try Alchemy, you'll never use EXS24 again'. Well, I have a 12 or 13 part series on Alchemy, I'm well versed in it, but there's a lot of situations where I actually prefer the EXS24 over Alchemy.
I'm having a rather odd problem where I convert the audio track to midi exactly as you instruct, but the sampler comes up with synth tones instead of vocal chops. any ideas as to why this will happen?
Only MIDI loops. They're might be a way to do it with audio too, I'm not sure off hand, but I know that by default, it does not pitch shift audio loops. You probably wouldn't want that either. If you drag an F major loop into a C major song for example, that's. shifting it an entire 4th down, so you can end up with some pretty terrible sounding loops when they're pitch shifted that much.
You can do this sample process for loops from other song. The transient markers methods actually works really well with drum loops. You could take a drum loop from an old school song and slicing it up and re-purpose it in your song. Just be careful and license the song if you plan on releasing it.
