The Wrong Samples

Dear imaginary readers, this is a reflection on making a sample pack for volca sample and beyond. Before we commence, here are the samples in action.

Driven by the need for my own sounds on my humble volca sample, I proceeded to record and install a complete 100 sound palette onto the device. I recorded each sound into Logic as a 2 bar loop, which sounded like this.

It was a good exercise in miking up instruments, setting levels and processing sounds. I then auto-spliced the sounds in logic and deleted all the peripheral sounds and empty space. I couldn’t find a way to master to mono from the iZotope Ozone 6 software I have, so I used outboard and in-the-box compression on each sound and balanced the volumes from logic in the end.

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However, on my first attempt at installing the sounds I ran out of space at just 27 sounds. Then started the arduous process of trimming each sound one by one to its bare essence. The total file size needed to be 4mb!

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I got there in the end and now my volca sample is full of the sounds from my studio.

If you would like to try them out, you can download them from here.