Soundweaver is a new software that designs new sounds to create from using the samples you already own and have.
A world of additional possibility is lying in wait within your existing folders music and sound samples. Soundweaver is a new piece of audio software from Boom Library that designs entirely new sounds from existing ones to infinitise your sound collection.
The standalone app searches your sound library using keywords and folders to find sounds it can match and meld into new designs. You can pitch, offset, gain, shuffle and randomise sounds, groups and entire projects to create endless sonic possibilities.
Once you have something new that you like the sound of it’s as simple as dragging it in to your DAW to edit, chop and play with. SoundWeaver can generate countless variations from your project during export via pitch, offset and take randomisation.
It sounds like a great source of inspiration and also a big money saver on new sample packs and VSTs. Just transform your existing ones and take them even further than ever possible before.
KEY FEATURES
SoundWeaver automatically picks, slices, aligns and layers sounds
Search by keywords, folders or drag’n’drop
Pitch, offset, gain, shuffle and switch out individual sounds, groups or the whole project
Each of the previous parameters can be randomized.
Export: Drag’n’drop the project into your DAW
Export as: Individual layers, groups or mixdown
Export features: Generate variations using pitch, offset or random takes
Take snapshots and return to your favorite combinations, parameter settings and sounds at will
USE CASES
Produce more assets and increase productivity on tight schedules
Set up your sound design session with ready-to-use sound combinations
Generate variations with ease instead of manually tweaking everything
Find new combinations, discover and create new flavors and variety within your library
Sampling has developed as an art-form in itself and laces genres and artists through evolving patchworks of music; but when the paintbrush is sodden in legal and ethical questions how does it prevail and where does it stand?
The art of music sampling is a storied and mostly modern tale. It’s evolution is found in the essence of all autered creation: to take inspiration from the creators and artists who came before and wield that power to paint your own picture with the methodology and vision you’ve soaked up from your experiences of all the art and creation you’ve witnessed throughout your life.
But beyond ingesting an author’s prose or finding a resolute influence in the music you hear; sampling is the method of literally taking that work and making it your own. It’s the re-working of something you see potential in and bringing it into a new light, one found from your own vision.
Sampling found a calling through hip-hop as disc jockeys took disco hits and funky rhythms and bent them to their will. They took music that they loved and moved them into the backseat, no longer the piece itself being the foreground they laid the blueprint for MCs to rap over. A new form of appreciation blossomed in how people were able to make songs their own, as a newly realised whole.
Sampling came to the foreground when disc jockeys span records together to combine their elements
The decades progressed and so did the flowering process of sampling. To the work of producers reworking records into brand new mixes, to vocal chops being spliced into dance anthems, to the entire deconstruction of elements that could be plucked and placed anew within an entirely different context.
Now, here we are today with years of the process and the expanding possibilities with each generation behind us and the art in full flourish. There are entire websites dedicated to the creation and distribution of samples that were made to be used in tracks as their own ingredient. Sampling has come a long way and the process can be found in music spanning all genres, from the biggest acts to the fledgling bedroom producer.
Taking directly from other source material of course means that sampling can be a legal grey area. It can be as simple as asking the original copyright holder for the legal rights to use their content but a lot of the time it’s not as simple as that.
For a start, making contact with the original copyright owner isn’t a feasible task for a lot of creators and it only gets more difficult the more high profile the source material. Then there’s a deeper ethical argument to be had when the sample has been reworked to the point where it is entirely abstracted from the original – is it then still under the ownership of the sampled creator/copyright holder?
Legally, yes. But of course, its an argument that finds loyal supporters on both sides of the issue. The barriers to legally obtaining the rights to use samples are being softened though. There are now dedicated websites to licensing the use of songs and samples withing tracks that open up the access to that kind of request to people around the world.
But there’s not always the guarantee the sampler will simply be granted permission for having gone down the official route, nor is it ubiquitous for all music or all types of sampling. It’s best to affirm this position before sweating blood and tears over a track – if you plan to release it commercially.
What is the state of sampling in music today?
Sampling is thriving in the modern market and is more common than ever before, though you may not always recognise it. Whether it be hip-hop artists continuing to re-invent the process that their forefathers birthed with sliced beats to rap on top of – to some of the biggest pop artists in the world making use of the endless catalogue of music that has come before.
A recent study by Tracklib (a great source of songs that can be bought and legally sampled) found that 15% of all of the songs on Billboard contained samples last year. In fact, over the last decade up to a quarter of the songs listed by Billboard have contained samples each year. The biggest track of 2019 used a sample!
Lil’ Nas X’s hit song ‘Old Town Road’ used a sample of ‘Ghosts IV’ by Nine Inch Nails and is a perfect example of how music can be recreated from it’s source material to become an entirely new whole. I’m sure that Nine Inch Nails are upset by their cut of the track’s massive success either. In fact, NIN’s Trent Reznor won a Country Music Award for his listing as a writer on the Country/Rap track.
Sound familiar?
There are no confines in the 20th century to this production tool. Pop artists like Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande use samples. It’s a technique that is now used across all strands of the wide open musical tapestries of the 21st century. It is constantly being re-invented and applied in new ways. Check out how much sampling was used across all broad genres last year:
Sampling is more prominent this decade than it ever has been, second only to the 70s – although people have been sampling since the 50s. It’s used to such effect now that most of the time you won’t even know when a song has been sampled and it has almost become a craft of its own to find obscure sample sources.
It’s also interesting to note how the use for sampling has evolved. When hip-hop made it so popular its primary use was for snatching drum breaks to provide rhythm as a backdrop. Now with advanced music production tools for creating drums sampling has become entirely more creative taking vocal chops or melodies and reworking them. Just look at how Kanye re-invented the vocal sample in the early 2000s.
Sampling can cause issues but for the most part it has become an instrument of it’s own in much the same way that DAWs have. In fact, Tracklib also found that over half of the Top 100 albums contained samples last year.
If you’re sampling you just have to make sure that you’re following the unwritten code of ethics relating to it – and more importantly the very-much-written copyright laws relating to it. It’s an art form, an appreciation, an instrument, a paintbrush, and it has made for some of the greatest music of recent years.
Apple have unveiled the biggest update for the music production DAW since Logic Pro X 7 years ago.
Apple’s DAW is one of the top choices for music recording and production and a favourite for studios around the world. That’s why the announcement of a massive new update that has just dropped for Logic Pro X is hugely exciting news.
Logic Pro X 10.5 is available as a free update to all existing users today and represents their biggest update in 7 years since they launched the monumental Logic Pro X. Apple say it is “a massive release for all musicians, including those producing electronic music”.
There’s a lot to get into, so let’s take a look at what’s new:
Live Loops
With Live Loops on the Mac, Logic users can now create music in new freeform and nonlinear ways. Loops, samples, and recordings can be organized into a new musical grid, where musicians can spontaneously perform and capture different arrangement ideas into the timeline. From there, tracks can be further refined using all of the professional production features in Logic. Remix FX enhances Live Loops with an exciting collection of electronic effects like Bitcrusher, filter, gater, and repeater that can be performed in real time over individual tracks or the entire song mix. Both features become even more powerful when using the free Logic Remote app, allowing users to pair their iPhone or iPad with their Mac to provide Multi-Touch control over Live Loops and Remix FX.
Sampler and Quick Sampler
Sampler represents the next generation of the popular industry-standard EXS24 plug-in with an all-new modern design and expanded sound-shaping controls, while maintaining full backwards compatibility. Producers can use Sampler to create and edit sophisticated multisampled instruments, using elegant drag-and-drop workflows that automate complex production tasks.
Sampler is a powerful professional multisampler that enables sound designers to create sophisticated instruments in minutes.
Quick Sampler is a fast and simple way to turn any individual sound into a playable instrument. Musicians can pick a sound from within Logic, the Finder, Voice Memos, or even record directly into Quick Sampler. With just a few clicks, an imported sample can be trimmed, looped, and played across a keyboard controller, with access to creative sound-shaping controls.
Quick Sampler makes it easy for artists to instantly turn any sound into a musical instrument.
Beat Creation
Logic Pro X 10.5 offers a collection of new creative tools designed to work together to make it fast and fluid to build original beats — an integral part of hip hop and electronic music production.Step Sequencer is a new editor in Logic designed to make it fun and easy to program drum beats, bass lines, and melodic parts using an interface inspired by classic drum machine workflows. Step Sequencer combines a pattern-based style of music creation with powerful editing options for creating original parts — providing detailed control over note velocity, repeat, gate, skip, playback direction, and randomization.
Step Sequencer, a new editor in Logic, is designed to make it easy to build original and creative beats.
Drum Synth provides a wide collection of kick drums, snares, toms, and percussion sounds generated entirely by software. Each sound is accompanied by dedicated sound-shaping controls to help musicians fine-tune their favorite parts. Drum Synth sounds can be used on any pad in Drum Machine Designer, where it can even be blended with samples for creative sound design options.Drum Machine Designer, the tool for building electronic drum kits in Logic, has been enhanced to integrate with the new sampling and beat-programming workflows. Each drum pad can host the new Quick Sampler and Drum Synth plug-ins, making it easy to edit and shape individual sounds within a drum kit. After kits are created, they can be played in real time, or programmed with Step Sequencer.
Drum Machine Designer has been tightly integrated with the new sampling features of Logic Pro X 10.5.
Logic Remote
Logic Remote is a free companion app that allows users to pair an iPhone or iPad with their Mac to control and perform Logic features and instruments using Multi-Touch. Logic Remote is receiving a major update to allow triggering of sounds in Live Loops, browsing and adding loops, and applying Remix FX to a session.
Optimized Performance for the Mac
Logic Pro X has been optimized to take advantage of the latest Mac hardware and the power of macOS, delivering incredible performance when working with the most demanding projects with thousands of tracks and hundreds of real-time plug-ins.
Logic Pro X 10.5 is available today as a free update for all existing users, and is available on the Mac App Store for $199.99 (US) for new customers. Logic Remote 1.4 is also available today as a free download on the App Store. Customers can sign up for a free trial of Logic Pro X. For more information, visit apple.com/logic-pro.
Sample, loop, preset, plugin and DAW project sharing site Splice have recently acquired Superpowered, a company that helps developers build audio functionality into apps.
Subscription based service Splice has been a favourite for producers sharing samples, plugins and DAW projects, but will they go beyond this area? Splice’s recently purchase of Superpowered has people wondering what the next moves from the company will be.
Superpowered is an audio technology company, offering frameworks to companies building cross-platform, real-time, audio based applications to run on mobile, web, desktop, etc., with existing clients such as Beatport, Naver and Tencent.
We created Splice with the mission of empowering musicians to realize their creative potential. Content – samples – have been a huge part of achieving that mission to date. But technology is also key to the creative process, and we’re excited to be investing in technology that will usher in a new era of creation and collaboration tools that empower musicians to realize their creative potential.
Steve Martocci – Splice Co-Founder and CEO
Creating new, interactive audio experiences can be unnecessarily arduous and time-consuming, because most of the audio development world is still stuck in decades-old paradigms. Superpowered is changing this status quo, and we’re thrilled that Splice shares our vision. We look forward to joining forces and extending our reach to unlock even more juice in Superpowered’s technology.
Gabor Szanto – Superpowered Co-Founder and CTO
Will Splice be making audio apps for their services, or give support to third-party developers? Only time will tell.
LANDR’s new Creator tool expands their already-huge set of resources for artists to use in their creations to near unlimited potential.
LANDR have just launched the beta of their new beat maker Creator. It uses their database of over a million samples in their ‘LANDR Samples’ library to open up new possibilities in beatmaking.
It makes exploring their huge sample library even easier by allowing you to quickly see if they work together – automatically editing them so that you can hear what they sound like aligned rather than comparing their discordant raw files.
It matches sounds to your key and BPM so that they can be immediately harnessed in your workflow and then you can add more samples into the mix to match them up. Download the samples once they’re sounding how you like and they’ll be in the perfect position to go straight into your track.
Press play and Creator will match your sounds to your key and BPM
Close Creator and add more samples as you go
Change your key and BPM anytime
Download your samples time-stretched and pitch-shifted
LANDR Samples is available for just $5.99 a month and unlocks their entire library with over a million sounds. With this great new tool making it simple to get samples working together, it’s a subscription with almost unlimited creative potential.
LANDR CEO, Pascal Pilon says: “Our goal with any new feature is to help producers do what they are best at, make creative decisions. The addition of Creator to the samples platform streamlines sound selection for pros and helps aspiring artists to quickly sketch ideas for a track without having to download and manipulate individual sounds.”
