How To Sample Like A God (Ableton Edition)

All right so today’s an exciting day as you can tell by the title already. Today I’m going to show you guys how to sample like a god in Ableton. In addition to that, obviously, today we’re going to be working in Ableton.

I’m not mad. Yeah, if you don’t use Ableton already, hopefully you can use this video as some sort of introduction.

So I’m going to be diving in a little bit deeper on how to use it and I’ve been getting a lot of requests to make Ableton tutorials.

So this is the start.

I’m going to shut up now we can start this video. Okay, so we’re going to start this journey how any sane producer would start to look for a sample on YouTube.

Oh my God, what?

Alright, so we are currently in the trenches.

And I’m just on a journey man to just find that ah YouTube to mp3 right now. What’s up?

So there’s obviously a few ways to sample in Ableton. You can use just Arrangement View, like just do it on the track, like right here, or you can use simpler, which I use a lot. You can use sampling. I don’t really recommend using sampling, though I

Okay, so the first thing I’m going to do is just go ahead and listen to the sample cuz I think I’m only going to use like the intro and then like the part where it drops with the baseline.

So I’m just gon na go ahead and listen and see what I want to take.

Okay, so I think I’m going to take that intro.

So what I first like to do is I’ll hold command or control if you’re on a PC and then just grab the ends.

So I can move it freely.

And I can kind of take it to the transit that I know I’m trying to go to.

So I’m trying to go to this first hit where the intro starts, which is just this dope.

So it starts with that first hit, but nothing is on the beat yet.

So because this is like an r & b sample, I kind of can guess what BPM it’s I’m gon na guess it’s like around 80 to 100.

I’m just gon na move this to 90, just cuz I think it’ll be closer to what the actual BPM is.

And if you saw when I was moving the BPM, the track also changed because it’s not warped yet.

So right now it’s kind of just hanging there free, just chillin. I’m gon na go ahead and just move this to 90.

And then let’s see if that’s close. I’m gon na turn my metronome on.

Okay, so that’s asked.

Alright, so we want to try and get this to loop.

So the method I like to use before warping is to go over here to the detune area, and you can kind of use this knob.

If you see what I’m like scrolling up and down, it moves the sample.

So you can just push this to where it needs to be for it to be on beat.

So let’s try and put it right here.

So I kind of just want a sample like this. I’m just following the transients like looking for snares are kicks, things I know that are on the one and two of the beat.

So I kind of just locked it in from there. I think this is pretty close.

That’s pretty close to being on V PC, it’s kind of off in some parts.

So it’s not perfectly on V.

But this is a good starting point.

So after I do that, where I kind of get it closer to our one, I’ll go ahead and click a warp.

So now this is locked onto the grid.

And if I change the detune, stuff won’t move, but you want to make sure after you move it with the detune you take it off because it’s also changing the pitch.

So once I’ve already used the detune I’ll just double tap it and it just goes away.

And now it’s back at its normal pitch.

Right now as I’m listening and just watching the waveforms, I can kind of see that a lot of the changes aren’t really hitting where they’re supposed to be.

So this is the beautiful thing about Ableton is this little view right here. This fucker is insane. You can get every little part of the sample perfectly locked on to great.

So I’m gon na go ahead and show you guys, so if you see right here, it kind of slips off.

So I’m just gon na go ahead and zoom in here doubletap and create this marker, and then kind of just drag it on to where it needs to be.

So right there, it also goes off to Sam’s gon na go in and click over here, do the same thing.

Just kind of dragged it over to where I know it needs to be.

I know you guys are saying this is probably going to take the life out of the sample, but I kind of like to just lock it on the grid first and then I’ll go back and like delay and do things like that.

Give it some of the rhythm back.

But for now I just wanted to get it like perfectly on the grid.

Okay, it’s dark as hell in my room.

I’m gon na turn my lights on and hold up.

I look like a mad orange.

Alright.

Okay, so now that we’ve kind of stretched it and warped a little bit, you’re going to probably hear some little glitches and things like that might sound a little weird apart.

So what you want to do is go to beats and I like to use complex. It kind of just makes it sound natural.

But there’s a bunch of fun stuff you can do with all these different modes and I’ll show you guys later on in the video, but for now let’s just leave it on complex because I kind of just give you the most natural sound.

Okay, so this is honestly the part I’m going to be using for the beat.

So let’s just go ahead and get this part locked on grid tubes.

As you can see, it’s pretty.

So I’m gon na go ahead and do the same thing I did last time, kind of start moving it all on to beat locking it in.

So that hits a little early. I’m just gon na go ahead and double tap that.

Move it over.

Go and grab this, move it over. That should be good.

I think they should do pretty well.

So I’m gon na go and just highlight this and press Command L and it should just make a loop for me.

So it says here.

So the loop is a little off.

So once again, you could really go in and move it over perfectly.

Okay, now it should loop fine.

Let’s go and listen to this.

Got a perfect move already. This is a good start. I kind of have an idea of a drum break I want to add to this. I’m gon na see if it works. Hold up.

Oh, shit.

I know the loop restarts there because the second kick hits.

So I’m going to just go ahead and do that detune trick that I did earlier, move that on to the beginning.

And this should be on beat.

Now.

Let’s hear it.

Perfect.

And now I’m going to head and click warp and then remember to take this off and may put it on complex so it sounds natural, so if you see at the end here, the kick is kind of intruding, like not that much, but just enough to piss me.

So I’m gon na go ahead and bring it in just a smidge.

All right, fire gas.

I’m gon na go ahead and get a compressor. I’m going to sidechain the drum brake to the sample.

So just turn the sidechain on, let’s grab the drum brake.

I nomina Gallo crazy. I’m gon na start rearranging this brake.

So I’m gon na double tap my Arrangement View and go like 1/16 bar and I kind of like want to fill it up.

So I’m gon na go ahead and reach up this drum break and show you guys how easy it is to chop things just in the Arrangement View.

So to chop things in the render for you just press Command E.

I kind of just create chops.

I’m gon na try to move this over.

Let’s try this.

Yes, we could drag this over and put it just right.

Oh, hell yeah.

Right.

I’m just trying to fill it in more.

All right, let’s listen to this fire.

So if you saw what I just did, I basically just reached up this whole drum break in the Arrangement View, showing you guys just how easy it is to sample in Ableton.

And now I’m going to go ahead and do it just copy all this press Command J to kind of bring it together. I fucked that up.

Make sure you don’t mess it up.

Like I just did Command J my drum bus on this too.

Alright, let’s go ahead and put that on.

Goddamn.

And now what I’m gon na do is kind of just listen to the sample more and try and grab some more parts and try and like layer it over.

So okay, now that I have it like this, there’s another way you could also work samples on Ableton. If I hold shift right now and I have it on the warp mode, I can grab the end of this and move it over.

And this is just how it used to be in the NFL.

The good old days as hard to see what else is in the sample for me to take.

Okay, perfect.

Now that we got that on loop, I’m gon na go ahead and open a MIDI track and just drag in a simpler So after I already have it like warped onto the beat just to make it easier for me.

I drag it into here and then you want to go to slice and then let’s go to do a buy beat.

So we have a nice and now we could just fuck with chops on top of what we already made.

So let’s go back to what we already have and kind of just try and mess with some chops.

Okay, so I’m trying to figure out this B section real quick.

I’m gonna be using my new drum kit that isn’t out yet but will be out soon because the sounds are perfect for this beat. Do we got let’s go. I’m gon na go ahead and try to add some live percussion to this because I’

I gon add some little perks right here.

For this little breakdown section, I’m gon na show you guys why simpler is fire as well for sampling.

So let’s go ahead and get my simpler, so with this little breakdown section I could just kind of like add little nuances that kind of just feel the beat out, so I’m gon na do is I’m add like a lot of reverb on this.

So that’s where simpler could come in. You could kind of just chop up little certain parts and kind of use them as like effects to use throughout your track just like I’m using for this.

I’m gon na add this little tambourine transition effect that kind of just makes everything sound smooth.

Just like tradition, I’m gon na go ahead and look for an acapella to use for this if you guys aren’t already in my Discord.

Make sure you guys are in here because we have this thing called sample gems where everyone just sends in like these crazy rare samples and it’s honestly changed my workflow, but I’m gon na go ahead and look for these acapellas real quick. Okay, okay, so I know I kind of just shut up and just started working the viola towards them, but I hope you guys learned something about sampling and I hope I showed you how easy it is to sample in Ableton and how nicely you can line up your samples and shit like that.

Let me know if you guys are enjoying these Ableton videos because my ass is not going back to FL, but yeah, let me know what you guys want to see next.

What type of Ableton tutorial videos in general?

Thank you guys for watching.

Kisses straight up.