Ableton Forum

How do the house producers create the nice sounding samples - especially warming up the bass -from old soul/disco or whatever genre tunes? When I try it and it sounds like mud. I've taken advice and recreated the bass line but then the idea/concept/sound loses it's soul. I find hard to e.q. full song samples. My example would be MAW making excellent use of a sample in 'The Bomb.'

Blerrrg, don't use sections that have all the instruments.

Find a breakdown, where just the bass and maybe a little percussion is playing. Sample that.

The art of sampling is more an art of SAMPLING than it is EDITING.

Old Soul records probably need no warming, unless your record player is crap. In fact, the production on Motown records is probably better than most of what we can do. So go light on bass enhancement, EQ boosts, compression, etc...

Again, the secret, imo, is in what you sample-- you aren't missing any special tools that'll turn mediocre samples into golden ones.

Thanks for the advice.
Yeah, I see what you mean. I suppose the art's in finding the right sample.
Long live Motown.

also after you sample you can layer different basses and run different effects to get desired sound. also look into side chaining. i just learned this and will be doing my bass and kick together in this way...ableton is versitile you can pretty much hit samples from any angle imaginable.