Help with gettin my snares on key?

[Venom]

This is got me stumped as hell. Ive tried to figure it out on my own couldnt do it. I use snare samples so the sample could be on any key depending on the track i cut it from... My problem is that i cant figure out which key they are on so i cant key them right in my songs. I use FL Studio with no external hardware or anything... Just FL Studio and my ears. Help me??

[bigwillz24]

Pitch shift till it sounds right.

[Noddy301]

or convert it to wav. format and use midi

[Venom]

Im not familiar with MIDI at all, actually im not even sure to what it is..

[Noddy301]

midi is your music keyboard connected to your pc...ala. Casio, Yamaha, Phantom X

[BillyBo]

the default key in FL is C. open the piano roll for your snare and apply to whatever key you'd like.

you can use a keyboard/midi controller, or even your typing keyboard for midi in FL.

[peritus]

Here's some midi info/history...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midi

About the snares... It's been at least 5 years since I've used FL, but I'm pretty sure there's a pitch knob for samples...

Listen to your favorite songs.. "record" the pitch and qualities of their snare in your head... Listen to yours.. Modify to taste...

Dr. Dre's "Chronic 2001" is a reference I use....

Edit: Oh.. looks like Billy Bo's gotcha up there.. Yeah piano roll.. It's all coming back to me now... Cool...

[Venom]

Billy i get what your saying but the problem is deeper than that. For instance, say i cut the snare from a Lil John beat or something, and say the snare in that song was at D#... but i didnt kno that cuz i cant really tell. Well FL takes samples, no matter what key they are at and sets it to C5.... so that D# is set to C in Piano roll, so its all off. Get what im sayin?

So i need to find a way to figure out what key the snares are at or a way to set them back to C or something... Cuz ive been doin the pitch thing and i dont feel its perfect with that.

[Mindset]

i don't know much about notes, but from what your saying is say the lil john's note is at D#, and it becomes C on piano roll, and you want that D# sound, why can't you press the c note to play it instead of trying to hit the D#. I can tell it's gonna be hard for me to learn all the damn notes lmao

[peritus]

Again.. been a LONG time..

But I think you can modify the "anchor" note of what you import... I mean it's sampling, you can map it to play the original pitch from any key you desire..

As far as determining the pitch of lil john's snares, that's a whole other game... If you were using Pro Tools, I'd tell you to try the tuner plug-in... Perhaps there's a free program that can help you with determining the pitch... Maybe even Audacity...

[Venom]

well i know what your sayin to, but what i mean is i dont kno the actually key its at... i have no idea, i need it to be at C so it will all be on key right but im not sure if its at D or D# or B, whatever, Basically i guess my question is how do i find out what key my sample snares are at?

[peritus]

Here's a totally off the wall way that just popped into my head...

Use a program that you can import the sample into and apply a narrow band parametric equalizer boost to... Then sweep around until you find the harmonics of it (sweep until you find glassy sounding ringing noises).. Plot them out, by frequency, and then make a approximate guess, based on a chart of keys vs. frequencies..

Very confusing, and hard work, but I'm pretty sure you'd get at least close...

Edit: Oh yeah.. There's always AutoTune... be prepared to spend some dough though..

[Mindset]

AutoTune isn't that expensive. It's only like $300 ain't it?

[peritus]

Originally Posted by Mindset

AutoTune isn't that expensive. It's only like $300 ain't it?

Yeah.. Expensive in my book.. Just to do some snare tuning...

Depends on where you wanna spend..

[BillyBo]

Originally Posted by Venom

well i know what your sayin to, but what i mean is i dont kno the actually key its at... i have no idea, i need it to be at C so it will all be on key right but im not sure if its at D or D# or B, whatever, Basically i guess my question is how do i find out what key my sample snares are at?

learn scales?? lol. i know some people who play guitar like a fiend can tell what notes are what just by hearing them. until then, i'd say you're stuck doing it the long way of comparing by ear.

[Mindset]

yeah, that's the prefered method. A lot of the musicians & real good producers/engineer's can tell a note just by hearing it... I can't even do that lol.

[BillyBo]

Originally Posted by Mindset

real good producers/engineer's can tell a note just by hearing it... I can't even do that lol.

you SUCK! lol. playin man, playin

[Venom]

Ha yeh i usually can tell by hearing, actually im pretty good with it too but snares are diff to me... its harder to tell in my opinion... but anyways thanks for ya'lls input i think i should be able to get it.

[Farview]

Do hip hop producers really tune drums to the key of the song?

With real drums, you tune then to the note that the drum resonates at.

[mrT]

I never thought it really mattered but to each his own...

[Venom]

Its not really that big of a deal but with hip hop its noticable...

[mrT]

...but if I were so inclined. In FL when you go into the piano roll nomatter what note coresponds to the actual note in the sample, it is put at middle C. It's all relative to the sample. so if you drop that to a B you've just lowered the sample by 1 step... and so on. it's not actually THAT note. so when you have your track going in FL just try all 12 steps till you find the one that sounds closest and then fine tune with the pitch controler (or just use it the whole time). If you can't do that just get a guitar and learn how to tune it. Even if you never play it you'll get the hang of listening for the beat frequency.

[Call Me Cell]

my best advice to you is to play the beat without the snare sample... then go up and down the piano-roll keyboard hitting different notes until the snare sounds like it fits in... to sum it up again

#1 play beat without snare

#2 open piano-roll keyboard on the snare sample

#3 tap on different notes (make sure you tap on beat) until the snare fits in

#4 LASTLY paint the snare in ... that's it. pretty simple

[ndutle]

MrT and Call me Cell got it.

At least from what I understood you were asking.

[onlydude]

An article by beatsbuy

http://www.beatsbuy.com/tips/tips-3.html

hope it helps