Vocal snippet and hit samples

[mcdreamer]

I was wondering whether anyone could point me in the direction of a good source of vocal snippet / hit samples. I'm thinking along the lines of how vocals are used in the following tracks as subtle but important parts of the music:

Bonobo - Kiara - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7m86aMNjlQ
Blue Daisy - All Night Long - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWmEk4qxoj8

and to some extent slightly longer vocal lines such as:

Burial - Dog Shelter - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsEaoIeOwY8

I realise I might be looking for something which doesn't exist but something like a sample CD which provides a selection of this kind of thing would be ideal. Thanks in advance.

[memes_33]

look for some acapella sites and download some vocals. then cut them up. bam!

i don't think anyone offers pre-snippeted samples. i would personally think of that as cheating. but the nice thing about making music is there are no rules (contrary to what others on this form or others might say)

[antarktika]

Why not just listen to a bunch of movies and songs, and sample stuff you like? it worked for Burial! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxsSb-YjMYM

I really don't get why you'd want a sample pack made up of stuff other people sampled, that tons of other people would also be putting in their tracks, kinda takes any personality out of your music, doesn't it?

Like memes said, you can also download acapella versions of songs from places like http://www.acapellas4u.co.uk/ and just chop those up, I do that a lot for vocal hits! You can get pretty far just cutting out a short chunk of a R&B track, messing with the pitch, and throwing it through a massive reverb!

*edit* I actually did a pretty Burial-esque vocal snippet by pitching up a tiny section of Seal's "Crazy", it's not even fully understandable words, just a chunk of our-of-context vocal played back in simpler from an acapella that I found on the site I linked above, and running a bandpass filter across it, slowly modulated by an lfo, followed by delay and reverb.

[mcdreamer]

i don't think anyone offers pre-snippeted samples.

I was kind of expecting this might be the case. I certainly couldn't find anything pre-baked when I had a look.

I really don't get why you'd want a sample pack made up of stuff other people sampled, that tons of other people would also be putting in their tracks, kinda takes any personality out of your music, doesn't it?

Yes, that would certainly be a problem as no doubt lots of people would have used those samples before. Funnily enough I was almost concurrently thinking the opposite in that sampling from other people's tracks feels like you're just going to end up with a remix rather than your own track. I suspect that's just my own lack of creativity though. I must remember that sampling vocals doesn't just mean taking the chorus and shoving it into your track.

Thanks for the description on what you did with the Seal vocals. Certainly sounds interesting!

By the way, I did a bit of research on acappella sites and came across http://ccmixter.org/ which is creative commons licensed stuff. I haven't checked out any of the content but might be a good place to explore to find something a little different.

[re:dream]

Take any vocal sample, about 1 - 2 bars long, and hit slice to midi. Done.

[mcdreamer]

Take any vocal sample, about 1 - 2 bars long, and hit slice to midi. Done.

Slice to MIDI is a good tip thanks. Do you have any sources of vocal samples which haven't been mentioned so far in this thread?

[re:dream]

Well, it really depends on what you want to do. What sort of vocal samples do you want? Do you want to focus on the words, or on the sound of the person's voice?

I often just copy things off internet radio, podcasts, etc. Or from Youtube clips.

Or you can go to free sample libraries like freesound.org

[mcdreamer]

What sort of vocal samples do you want? Do you want to focus on the words, or on the sound of the person's voice?

I'm after sung vocals be it single lines from a song or just an "ooh" or "ah" type of thing as opposed to spoken word.

Thanks for the freesound.org suggestion. I will check it out. I suspect my real problem lies with the fact I've not really worked with samples in this way before (despite listening to lots of sample based music) and so I'm lacking the required creativity and editing shills.

[TomViolenz]

I would imagine such a thing exists and I don't find using Uhs and Ahs that someone else sampled any more cheating that using synth stabs or drum loops others made.
I mean when he uses them he can still add crazy FX to them to make them his own.
But I could imagine that this is more of a DJ thing, something that you would load into Traktors sample slots to spice up your mixes.
So look for any DJ oriented sample packs.

I know Loopmaster had 4 or 5 vocal packs with movie samples. But honestly, they weren't very good. (Neiter selection nor audio quality)

So in the end, maybe you actually want to make your own, not because it's cheating otherwise, but because it lets you use what you want.

[Cobaine]

I would try "Voices of the 70s" a Royalty-Free VOCAL sample pack that contains over 200 one-shots, chants and screams from vocalists that sound like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Steven Tyler and Bob Dylan.

Get the full version: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/27 ... ?ref=video