In this weeks session we looked at sampling within Ableton. Ableton has a number of tools for sampling, we mainly looked at Simpler, which is Ableton’s primary sampling tool. Simpler is a sampler, and a very useful one at that. To use Simpler, you drag a sample in the form of a WAV file into Simpler, you’re then able to manipulate your sample, play it across a keyboard either whole or in transients. There is a pitch feature allowing you to change the pitch of your sample, within the control window you have the option to transpose up or down by semitones, or be really precise and fine tune in cents. It’s not all that straightforward as there are a few things that you need to bear in mind when working with samples, and this is what a lot of the features within Simpler are designed to fix. Firstly, when you’re using a sample that has been taken from or chopped out of a different source, you need to ensure that the start and the end of the sample doesn’t cause clicks or pops, this happens when there is an abrupt start or end to the audio, as the sound is cut off resulting in a click sound. This is especially noticeable, as a sudden jump from total silence to audio is jarring, even if it isn’t especially loud audio. To fix this Simpler has a function where you can either quickly adjust the attack and decay of a sample, or introduce fades within the sample window. When using samples its important they are in time, especially when making music, there’s no point in sampling something for your track if it doesn’t even work within it. Simpler uses one of Ableton’s other sampling tools Warp. While Warp is technically an audio engine, it is in my opinion one of the best tools for sampling audio, Warp is Ableton’s way of converting the tempo of audio to match the tempo of the project, while I personally have this disabled in Ableton, you can even set Warp to be on as standard meaning every piece of audio you import into your session is converted to project tempo automatically. Warp can also analyse the transients in audio, something that is especially useful for sampling things such as drums.