Creating a sampled instrument

I thought I’d share some thoughts about how I sampled my Eva Solo carafe and my crystal bowl to make instruments out of them.

I used an Audio Technica AT4041 microphone phantom powered by my Motu UltraLite mk3.

This is what it looked like;

I recorded the samples at 192 kHz so I could pitch it down and still have a lot of audio data available. I could literally play the sound at a fourth of the original speed and still have it in CD sample rate (44.1 kHz). With that amount of information I could stretch, compress, speed up and slow down and still have enough details without turning to the FFT domain.

Here’s an example using the carafe, of glass pitcher if you like. I’ve added some (okay, a lot of) reverb to it and added a pad in the background to make it more interesting. I think I finally chose to sample its neck (the narrow upper part of the carafe) and not the bigger lower part as the photo might indicate. The sound was too short and didn’t really have a pitch so it became more of a percussive instrument.

Then I brought out my crystal bowl. Not sure how old it is, or who made it. I actually inherited it from my grandmother who in turn had gotten it from someone. Just thinking about hitting it with a drumstick might sound like a crazy idea. Luckily, I don’t have any photos of the madness but I do have a sound file. Again, I sampled the bowl at 192 kHz to add as much information to the sound as I could and since the bowl vibrated for a while when hitting it it actually had a pitch which I could tune. I added some (okay, a lot of this time too) reverb to it and stuck a pad behind it to make it less boring.

Here’s the crystal bowl sound;

Our most creative track until today is still our remix of the fabulous “Butterfly Effect” song by Lamb which can be enjoyed here;

Now, dig out those microphones of yours. Put them really close to something and sample it. Play around with it, be creative. And HAVE FUN!