How I Make Sample Libraries

[@DanKeenMusic]

Timestamps: 1:30 - Mic selection & Recording 4:49 - Corrective Processing & Stereo Imaging 9:15 - Creating the 'Thrumming Textures' rhythms 11:21 - Stylised Processing 1 15:49 - Mastering 17:03 - First Playthrough 1 17:46 - Revision 1 20:48 - Playthrough 2 21:16 - Revision 2 21:55 - Playthrough 3 22:35 - Final Revisions (Crystallizer 'Sprinkle') 27:25 - Forced Round Robins 28:45 - File Naming 29:21 - Importing into the Sampler 30:48 - Final Playthrough

[@ourfairestmirror5978]

I’m sure this will encourage so many folk to not only make their own sample instruments, but to make them in far more interesting ways. Bravo, pal.

[@DanKeenMusic]

Thank you man!

[@krwilliams79]

This is great Dan! Thank you for sharing so much comprehensive insight. Stuff like this is helping me crawl out of the 19th century 😂🙏

[@aaronnewberry]

This is such an underrated video, thanks for sharing Dan!

[@Rhythmattica]

In the 90's I worked in a music shop in the Hi-Tech dept.... And an Ensoniq nut..... A customer who'd been looking at options.. (Considering the M1), Being a EPS16+ owner, In aobviouslyreportanyone) I did an entire song (well Sequence) with that fart... It was truly a "Farterture" .... Yep.. Drums, bass, melody... I wish Id have kept that disk... Yep.. He Bought a16+..Thu nights (late night shopping) I'd have customers come in , bringing me 6 packs of the brewskis, we'd sample , id show them techniques , chat.. However, when a work mate told me miningfeelpoor

[@AntwaanMusic]

Really interesting video, no problems about how long it takes in the end, your content is full of informations, thank you for the time and energy you put into this!

[@kintozero3169]

Great work Dan, I love seeing your process & appreciate these sorts of videos. I always look forward to the content you're creating

[@DanKeenMusic]

Thank you! That means a lot

[@MusicalWizardryMarcoIannello]

This was much more than vaguely interesting, mate, keep making this sort of videos! Problem is, I will not get any music done, as I have to watch them haha

[@DanKeenMusic]

That’s very kind of you, Marco!

[@christianschroer1999]

After watching that video I now want to sample my first instrument with my stereo pair of Lewitt 140 LCT´s. Wish me luck ;).

[@sourcefor]

Very good stuff thanks for this!

[@Neuri]

awesome and straightforward thanks dude

[@princegrwl]

i have been playing around with your sample libraries from pianobook for a while. Absolutely love and adore them. Its really interesting to see here the behind the scenes process of making them. Given how good you are at creating libraries, you might as well start developing commercial sample libraries. Thank you so much for your incredible contributions to the pianobook community. Stay safe in these challenging times. Cheers!!

[@DanKeenMusic]

Thank you, that’s very kind of you to say! What’s your favourite Pianobook library?

[@princegrwl]

@@DanKeenMusic Soft String Spurs, without a shadow of doubt.

[@longjonro]

Great video, Dan! It's incredible to see how you come up with all those beautiful textures. Surely I should mess around with stretching tools more often haha. And the use of the Crystallizer plugin... WOW! Just a word of warning: the attack and release knobs on the CLA-76 compressor work the other way around, where 1 is the slowest attack/release and 7 is the fastest. Weird, I know. Apparently, the original analog unit is built like that. Please keep making these. You're such a huge inspiration!

[@DanKeenMusic]

Thank you for your kind comments! And thanks for the tip! To be honest I don’t really look at the numbers anyway, but that’s a funny quirk!

[@NaalMusic]

This is the most helpful video on this subject I’ve watched. Exactly what I needed. Thank you!

[@DanKeenMusic]

Thanks, Naal! I plan to do more of these soon

[@JoshuaBatch]

I'm going to try and finally make a same library so this is a big help!

[@JoshuaBatch]

Same?! Sample. *facepalm*

[@DanKeenMusic]

Hi Joshua, thank you so much! Always appreciate your kind comments. Looking forward to hearing what you make

[@declanguckian9111]

Nice work Dan, great videos! I couldn't get my head around the round robins so this has been very helpful. Thank you!

[@DanKeenMusic]

Thanks, Declan! Lots more to come

[@larryseyer]

Awesome job. Keep up the great work!

[@DanKeenMusic]

Thank you, Larry, I will!

[@deanmcginnes]

Great video!

[@DanKeenMusic]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it

[@jimsanger]

Great video, really interesting to see how you eq'd it. I would have instinctively left more of the high end in but the results speak for themselves

[@DanKeenMusic]

Thanks, Jim! Definitely worth experimenting with. I'd always suggest creating an instrument early on and then going back to tweak as I did here. You just never know until it's in the sampler

[@marcolyott]

Nice one Dan and thanks for the instrument!

[@DanKeenMusic]

You're welcome!

[@philjackson6774]

Very informative video Dan - lots of content - would be great if you broke the video down into time-linked sections in your description as I sometimes want to come back for a specific thing. Also a list of your many plugins (and main go-to's) would be great too.

[@DanKeenMusic]

Thanks, Phil. I intend to do a comprehensive guide of my go-to plugins shortly

[@brookmunro]

Fantastic video as always. The stereo imaging was fantastic, especially with the help of the crystallizer. Early on when you were doing your initial EQing I thought, “I should recommend Dan checks out the Pro-Q3 for this” and then you came and used it at the end. Such a powerful tool. Any reason why you don’t use it earlier on?

[@DanKeenMusic]

Thanks, Brook! I've had the FabFilter series for about 3 days so it's not quite the muscle-memory go-to just yet - I feel it will be though!

[@spadogs]

Hey Dan, do you ever use the Slice At Transient Markers function in Logic to chop it into individual hits?

[@DanKeenMusic]

Hi Emil, no I don't - I'll have to investigate that. Thanks!

[@spadogs]

@@DanKeenMusic I use it to speed up the process, especially with a lot of samples to cut. BTW, thanks for sharing your process.

[@brendanvincentsound6514]

Absolutely enjoy content like this. Especially as of late I'm trying my hand at recording sonics around the house for my library for sampling. This certainly cleared the process for me somewhat and gave me some good ideas. Thanks so much Dan! One thing I am curious of however, is what might be the deciding factor to use EXS over Kontakt and vise-versa? I'm not entirely so familiar with the two yet. Cheers Dan!

[@DanKeenMusic]

Hi Brendan, thanks for your comment, and I'm glad it'll be useful! It really depends on what you're looking to get out of it. Simply put, Kontakt is more advanced, but EXS is a powerful sampler that enables you to get the sounds you want into a keyboard quickly and easily. My main reason for investing in Kontakt was the interest from the community and the extra distance you can go with it, but EXS is still my go-to 'instant instrument' sampler. I might make a video about this sometime

[@brendanvincentsound6514]

@@DanKeenMusic okay sure, absolutely. I can appreciate how you came to invest in Kontakt then; I would/do feel a similar way given what you've said. Great idea also. That might be quite a popular video I imagine. As Christian said in NFTW3, Pianobook and the active community have increased tenfold recently, so relative content is a wise investment hehe. Really appreciate the thoughtful responses Dan, cheers and all the best!

[@lahattec]

Did you know... on the 1176 compressors the attack and release numbers are reversed, so you did the opposite of what you intended.

[@DanKeenMusic]

🤭 yes I know, someone pointed that out! Feels silly but honestly I just go with what I hear anyway. I wouldn’t consider what the numbers mean even I got the order right - if it sounds good, it sounds good 😇

[@tomprincemusic]

Hmm have you got your videos/channel set as "for kids"... Im subbed but I can't hit the bell, so I miss some of your stuff?

[@DanKeenMusic]

No I don't. Are you experiencing this on both mobile and computer? I don't have notifications enabled for the KZbin app on my phone so I can't enable the bell unless I do it on desktop first

[@tomprincemusic]

@@DanKeenMusic Yeah both