Finding witch-y samples

Production, hardware & technical - tips and tricks.
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SP▲CE▲PE
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Joined: April 28th, 2012, 10:35 pm

Finding witch-y samples

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I get the biggest mental block when trying to find useful, nice sounding samples.
My method of going about finding samples, however is just googling whatever I think might sound good, I.E. "some girl singing in french please.wav". I'm very new to sampling, but REALLY want to get into it. As of now I don't have a turntable to simply pull recordings from vinyl like I would like to do, so in the meantime, I can make do with the internet!

So my questions are
How do you guys go about finding samples? Where do you guys look, and what do you guys look for in a sample? Maybe some other tips for sampling if you guys have any?
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Emotive Cloak
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Joined: August 5th, 2012, 10:07 am

Re: Finding witch-y samples

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I wouldn't discriminate where samples come from. Sometimes an mp3 from a blog or just recording something off YouTube is good enough. As for what to look for in a sample?, that's tough. Look for hidden meanings in vocal samples, perhaps cutting up phrases to make weird disjointed sentences and force them to say what you want (Autotune or slicing them into a sampler and repitching them may help). When it comes to odd sources i am really into Ocora, King and Folkways type ethnographic stuff oh and those Russian exercise music lps (They're called "Pulse" or something), Bollywood etc.

A great example of sampling is Oneohtrix Point Never's Returnal. Its just tons of interlocking locked groove type loops he pulled from old infomercial dvd's. Balam Acab used this sample on "see birds", so Freesound is another good source for samples although you have to be very discriminating about your choices in my opinion.
SP▲CE▲PE
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Joined: April 28th, 2012, 10:35 pm

Re: Finding witch-y samples

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Thanks for the help, I really appreciate it.
I'm enjoying freesound but it sure takes some digging to find anything I think I can use, I have found some neat stuff following up your "Russian exercise LP" suggestion

Anyone else have any tips/thoughts?
Thisisit
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Joined: August 12th, 2012, 10:29 pm

Re: Finding witch-y samples

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I sometimes get my samples from soundcloud and looperman

enjoy!
VNS
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Joined: April 7th, 2012, 12:18 pm

Re: Finding witch-y samples

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The best way is using your own samples that you've recorded. Or-- if you can't afford a good microphone, or because your laziness-- take it at freesound, or just cut a little piece from the song you like. Sometimes sample labels gives you free demo stuff, Loopmasters, for example.
But just taking a sound you like and just put it into your track isn't the best decision, I think. It's more creative to play with your sampler, to layer, to mix, to FX the sounds and create something new from the already existing stuff you've got.
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Mcll
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Re: Finding witch-y samples

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There is a program I use- but I cannot remember the name of it. Basically it rips audio from DVD's. So we sit around watching old movies. Giallo thrillers, Carpenter Horror, Hammer Films. And when we hear some stuff that sounds interesting, we rip all the audio and drag it into the DAW to manipulate.
C/∆/T
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Re: Finding witch-y samples

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Yeah, I spend a lot of time watching movies, watching random things on YouTube, listening to random music, etc. I've grown into a "anything can be a sample" mindset. With the right production you can flip the most neutral sounding piece of dialogue or singing and make it sound eerie or ethereal.

I'm Mac-based, but I invested in Audio Hijack by Rogue Amoeba a while back and what that does is hijack and allow you to sample audio from any app you have running. So I can sample from my web browser, iTunes, Spotify, etc., etc. when I come across something I'd potentially want to use in a song.

Also if you are looking for random singing, I've had good luck searching youtube for covers of songs people randomly upload of their favorite songs. You have to wade through a lot of crap but I've found some really amazing clips that with the right processing really filled out a track I felt was missing an element.
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G∆LLERI∆
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Re: Finding witch-y samples

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+1 on random youtube covers.
SVMMIT
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Joined: November 23rd, 2012, 2:38 am

Re: Finding witch-y samples

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This thread is exactly what I've been looking for. I'm fairly new to production myself so I've really been experimenting with samples and making them unrecognizable. My main question is how do you guys go about keeping your music-based samples in key with the music you've already made? Some thing like singing over synth etc. Do you really have to be that selective when choosing them or do you just have to continue to tweak the pitch until it fits?
Brothulhu
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Joined: November 11th, 2012, 9:30 pm

Re: Finding witch-y samples

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SVMMIT wrote:This thread is exactly what I've been looking for. I'm fairly new to production myself so I've really been experimenting with samples and making them unrecognizable. My main question is how do you guys go about keeping your music-based samples in key with the music you've already made? Some thing like singing over synth etc. Do you really have to be that selective when choosing them or do you just have to continue to tweak the pitch until it fits?
Melodyne or Newtone if you have FL can help
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a--
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Joined: December 3rd, 2012, 6:43 am

Re: Finding witch-y samples

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A variety of public domain resources:
http://archive.org/details/FedFlix
http://archive.org/details/prelinger
http://archive.org/details/nasa

Its a lot of fun picking through these old videos for samples and cool images.

If you use soulseek try using these search keys to find personal recordings from portable devices "ste mp3" - "ste wav" - "dr0000" - "micin.dir"
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enigm∆
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Joined: April 13th, 2011, 1:25 pm

Re: Finding witch-y samples

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Emotive Cloak wrote: A great example of sampling is Oneohtrix Point Never's Returnal. Its just tons of interlocking locked groove type loops he pulled from old infomercial dvd's. Balam Acab used this sample on "see birds", so Freesound is another good source for samples although you have to be very discriminating about your choices in my opinion.
I'm pretty sure Balam Acab also sampled this http://www.freesound.org/people/patchen/sounds/3507/
It's funny because I did a live sample/loop mix for this art installation and I was like, why does this sample sound so familiar? Haha.
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dµ5
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Re: Finding witch-y samples

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a-- wrote:
If you use soulseek try using these search keys to find personal recordings from portable devices "ste mp3" - "ste wav" - "dr0000" - "micin.dir"
WOW! How I never thought of it before? Very cool idea.
My tip: some sites assemble public domain content. The rest we can do with effects.
shams93
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Re: Finding witch-y samples

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Well you can get books with chants or spells or mantras and record yourself, lots of great material to sample from on film, I use a Firefox plugin to grab clips and then use winffmpeg to convert to wav to load into renoise.
Shams93.com ⊕
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† BLΔCK WRIST †
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Re: Finding witch-y samples

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SP▲CE▲PE wrote:I get the biggest mental block when trying to find useful, nice sounding samples.
Fear not my friend, for your fellow cultist is here to help.

As a teenager I used to make video games and I realized that good sound effects makes any game a lot better. And to be honest, it was the only thing I could get right, because in terms of graphics my games were like those yellow casette video games. And since I never really understood programming my games were quite simple. But here's the thing.

I played a lot of horror games and realized that most games have a nice little folder called "sounds". And there they are, all the samples in the entire game. Go, install Doom 3. Or Penumbra, Left 4 Dead, Quake 4, Amnesia, etc.. You will have thousands of amazing, high quality samples. So much, that you won't have enough time to browse them through.

It is the best way to find good samples for witch house music. Horror themed video games. As I remember both in https://soundcloud.com/blackwrist/cold and https://soundcloud.com/blackwrist/thereisbeautyindeath I use samples from Penumbra and Amnesia. Of course I edited them, but the source of those samples are these (by the way amazing) games.
Watch my first music video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq7nUScFtes
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