How to slice samples from a song
0In this tutorial I will show how to extract samples from a common song file. Firstly, we have to find out which is the tempo value of this song.
For this we should take as reference the strongest beat. The tempo value has to be altered until finding the perfect match. We might also need to trim silence at the beginning of the audio file.
The target is to have the reference beats at the same position on every bar. In this example, with a value of 120 beats per minute, all the reference beats are equally aligned: the first one at 1:4, the second one at 5:4 and so on.
Thus, we can begin to slice samples. I will highlight a set of four measures from the introductory melody, which corresponds to a complete loop, and test if it transitions smoothly.
Once I have managed to get a first sample of this repeating melody, I will take a second sample of the melody, but in this case one with drums included. Precision is important, so I input numbers through keyboard to ensure it, instead of relying solely in mouse input.
When the samples are smooth enough, we can arrange a more sophisticated test in the multi-track view. At the end of this video, there is a link to a music theme which was made through wave slicing techniques like these.