Loop extract from Sample CD's

[Ben Walker]

Hi,
I have some loops that I've imported from sample CD's which I'd like to recycle for use in Stylus RMX. Unfortunately, because I extracted them myself from the wav tracks, they are not perfect loops. Do I have to finetune the loops myself, by hand/ear or can anyone reccomend any software (free/cheap preferably) which can help chop / expand the wav files to exactly the right length according to tempo.

I find the loop tuning tool in soundforge not so good for loops, better for short waveforms.

Not a very good explanation of what I need, but I'm sure someone will understand.

Thanks,
Ben

[Neil B]

I'm not really an expert Ben, but I'll try

If you're going to drop them into Stylus, they have to be in REX format.
You used the word "recycle" in your text, so have you got recycle?
If you have, I seem to remember that you can set the right locator (and left of course) so that you get the loop spot on. Then in recycle you can set your number of split points so that the REX file will generate the right points for RMX.

If you haven't got Recycle, I'm sure that Braincell or someone similar can guide you on hitpoints in Cubase for instance, but even so, you have to convert these waves into REX format.

In terms of a cheapy tool for tidyiing up wave files to the right size, I use Goldwave (free somewhere on the net).
Again with this you can set the left and right locators and then use the "trim" command to get rid of the unwanted bits.
This only leaves a wave file without split points or zones though, so you still need something to turn it into a REX file.

Hope that's a start for you

[Merkury]

Hey m8 ,SONY ACID calculate your loop time BPMs automatically,and then if you don't like the results you fine-tune it . You can also change loop pitch instantly w/o time stretching.

For loops,i can't think of a better prog !

[Merkury]

With Cubase ,i usually resize my loop by "hand" (of course deselecting the snap option).
Once you got a nice cut,you can select your audio part and by pressing P on the keyboard,your L and R locators will adapt to the audio part size. Activate the loop on the transport bar and you're set.

Hope this helps

[Neil B]

That still leaves Ben having to convert to REX format though for Stylus RMX

I'd guess you need Recycle in the end.

[valis]

What format were these loops initially Ben?

[Ben Walker]

Hi Folks,
To try and answer all your questions at once and restate the problem....

I've ripped the tracks from sample CDs in audio cd format, which had lots of related loops in one audio track (drums, bass, etc).

I then split each audio track into individual wav files using sound forge.

The main trouble is that each file is a slightly differnt length, and not all loop perfectly when I play them back.

When I open them in Recycle, I can't find a way to add silence at the end if the loop is too short.
If the loop is too long, it needs the L + R locators adjusting manually. Although I can get this pretty good by hand, I'd like to be sure that each of the loops in the set are at exactly the same tempo.

I can do this by hand by making all the files in a set exactly the same length (or multiples thereof) in soundForge, but this is all very time consuming.
I thought that somebody must have designed a way to take the hard work out of this - I'd hapily re-rip the files if that's what it takes.

Buying Acid seems like overkill to acheive what I want to acheive, as I'd probably never use the rest of the functionality. Nothing wrong with Acid, but I'm happy with the DAW's I've got already.

Any other suggestions for a simple way to get the files automatically to the right length before I open in ReCycle - otherwise a whole CD worth of loops is going to take hours to convert.

Thanks for your help,
Ben

[pseudojazzer]

Hi Ben,

As far as i know you have to do two things in recycle - you must set the tempo + number of bars/beats. AND you must have at least one hitpoint (use the sensitivity slider..etc) .

Once you have done this - lock the slices (for loads use ctrl + a, then just lock one and they all should go)

then - save them! the resulting rex files should then be linked to the tempo of the sequencer, if you drop them into stylus etc the start times should all be the same..
Recycle cannot add silence to the end of loops, but there is a way of deleting silence with the gate function and using the export feature i think - see this link :

http://www.propellerheads.se/substance/ ... es_one_day
And
http://www.propellerheads.se/products/r ... le=howto_0

hopefully that might help ... especially the first one

Cheers,
Tom

[valis]

The reason I asked is because exporting from recycle as wav isn't the same thing as taking wave files that were loops with additional file info (embedded acid info, separate live asd's etc).

To get the loops in time all you really need is recycle and proper hitpoint editing. The overall loop length that you set in Recycle has less to do with the number of samples in the file than how many hitpoints you'll wind up setting. For instance having a loop be 1 bar 2 beats isn't as bad as it seems, as in simplest use you'd just lop off the extra midi notes. Or more exactly (and interesting) you define the loop length using midi notes so it doesn't matter how many hits there actually are in the file, extra notes that 'hang off the end' and dont' make a perfect loop can still be quite usable for variations.

I am *not* familiar with RMX though I looked at it a bit when it came out. So I cannot say how this impacts the actual importing. (ie, does rmx need loops to be exact, rounded to the full bar?)

[Ben Walker]

I am *not* familiar with RMX though I looked at it a bit when it came out. So I cannot say how this impacts the actual importing. (ie, does rmx need loops to be exact, rounded to the full bar?)

Yes, it does, and that's exactly the problem - all the loops are ever so slightly different in length. I suppose I just have to ascertain the right tempo from one of them and then make them all the same tempo in Recycle (making sure that they are all too long rather than too short!).

This article is quite helpful, but it's still quite a longwinded process.

@pseudojazzer: Thanks for those links - I'll have a proper look and try to get to grips with Recycle.

Ben

[next to nothing]

Hmmm

You can try to find out how the hell to download the WaveRobot demo from here and see if it is worth the price. I think it is supposed to batch edit samples as you need.

[valis]

This article is quite helpful, but it's still quite a longwinded process.

Don't use that method, or any method that has you conforming the files to a new tempo, if you're going to be using Recycle>RMX. I would use a wav editor and either trim of the extranious bits at the end (again only actual hits matter to recycle, not decay on the final hit) *OR* copy & paste a section of audio from earlier to complete the loop (if that's possible and you don't want to lose those extra hits).

I'm going to send you a pm...

[darkrezin]

There's no way to do this other than to do it yourself, the old-fashioned way. I really don't think it should be that time-consuming if you have a fast method with your wav editor. With Sound Forge you'd do the following:

- load the file
- listen to a selection and adjust it until it loops
- crop it
- save it

IMHO this is nothing compared to actually doing the slicing in Recycle :p The fact you have to use REX/RX2 is one of the reasons I've never seen the attraction of RMX.

Valis - it probably matters if you want to use the timing as a MIDI file

next to nothing - I think WaveRobot is for sampling synths... i.e. the auto-looping is for finding sustaining loops in say a piano sample or whatever.

[valis]

Valis - it probably matters if you want to use the timing as a MIDI file

Well in the "old days" the better sample cd's (made for actual samplers mind you) would include the first hit of the next beat on purpose. You'd trim this off editing the keyground (or w/e), but it insured the point that you trim at was exactly the end of the loop/looping was seamless.

Also I agree about the timing of the midi file, in fact I recommend pasting the beginning of the loop or whatever you need to 'complete' the loop in-time (the "old fashion way" as you say). But what I mean is that the end doesn't have to transition back into the first hit 'perfectly' including ambience etc at least for straightforward recycle/rx2 support--a simple fade to 0 will work fine as long as the loop length is an even meter that can be assigned in the top of the applications (bars/beats). In recycle itself there is additional control for how the end of a drum hit is handled, and in my experience applications that use recycle's library (including recycle) for playback will synthesize the end of the current hit into the next. If you go faster it only synthesizes a very short section (a few samples) so that the end of the current hit doesn't click into the next when you render the loop out as a 'wave' at a new tempo. If you set the tempo below the original loop's speed it will sort of 'extend' portions at the end of the current hit. Also for applications like this that do direct import, the additional controls for editing the rx2/rex file in recycle are often taken into consideration in my experience. This is most obvious when you skip smaller fill hits and import into something like Logic's (aging) EXS24 which *will* render the loop at the project tempo.

I don't actually have a clue what RMX does, but the old stylus (pre-rmx) did this as well I'm pretty sure (it's been a few years now). I'm guessing from this conversation that to use RMX's internal features you really need the loop to be some even multiple that works well in your given meter (1 bar, 2 bars, 4 bars etc).

[next to nothing]

Ok this is obvious but i'll mention it anyway. If you know the tempo of the loops (i guess they are specified on your sample cd cover), and there are a lot of loops of the same tempo/lengths, you could always just load a bunch of them into a cubase project, edit start point for all of them, then export tracks as audio, length 1 bar (or 2 or whatever length they are).

By the way, when looking into options for doing this i came over a free sample editor that looks pretty neat. it has some nice features as well!

It wont do this job exactly, but it does batch processing and the author seems to be very responsive to user requests....

check out http://www.wavosaur.com/ . It is just an .exe file, so you don't have to install things that might interfere with your existing setup.

[korgano]

Hi,

does anybody know what should I do with Retro Funk, Burning Grooves, Liquid Grooves & Metamorphosis Expanded Lybrarys of SPECTRASONICS Styalus RMX.

What I have to do to be able to use them?

Cheeers!

[garyb]

the easiest thing would be to use the programs that they were meant for. extracting just the loop you want would really suck.

[korgano]

I know ....I have the programs but dont know how to use them.

I have that SAGE Converter but Dont know how to use it.
Do I have to load those Librarys in STYLUS RMX and if...where and how?

Thanks for answering.

[garyb]

yes, you use them in stylus rmx.

it's been so long since i installed stylus, but there's a window for choosing sounds in the stylus app.

i don't mean to be a jerk, but the manual has that info. there's also this page, at the bottom:
http://www.spectrasonics.net/video/vide ... lusrmx.php

i think you tube will have a number of stylus tutorials on it...

[korgano]

Thanks a lot for the link.
My STYLUS CD with videos is not OK. I can see only first 16 videos.
But now on that link I can see tham all.

The problem is that I dont have the .db expander files..only one folder with many other inside for each Bank...Library.