Phattening up samples

[Flick]

Hello y'all

Im a newbie here, and have a question. When i sample different sounds, such as a CD, mp3, or record, how can i fatten up the sounds to make them sound fuller. When i sample, my music still sounds underground and demo, and I want it to have more of a crispness. I am wondering what programs or plugins would be the best for doing this.

thanks so much!

 

[Seanmorse79]

That all depends on why it's sounding demo-ish in the first place. What software & sound card are you using?

 

[Flick]

Acid

Right now, I am using Acid 3.0/2.0. I have bought a new computer on which i will be using Cubase, vst, and waves with a terratech sounds card. On my current computer, its just a regular old sound card.

I was just curious if there were any tips or plug-ins that i can experiment with to get that crisper sound.

thanks!

 

[Seanmorse79]

I can throw a couple of suggestions out there ...

1) Make sure you're "ripping", or extracting the audio digitally from the CD's, not just recording them through your audio card (especially using the cheapie card). The D/A process could be screwing up the works with a cheap card.

2) Careful use of EQ on each track. I'm not too familiar with Acid , so if you haven't got a good EQ, you might look at another WAV editor (like Soundforge, Wavelab, etc...).

3) Make sure all your recorded samples are recorded nice & hot (levels).

4) If you're not doing any final mastering, you should probably look into getting something like T-Racks or Ozone.

5) You could look at something like the BBE Sonic Maximizer plug in. I personally can't stand using stuff like that, but some people really swear by them, and they can sparkle up a 2 track mixdown fairly nicely.