How To Start Making Your Own Synth Samples
Always downloading synth samples instead of making them? Imagine if you could walk into any studio anywhere in the world and figure out any synth they have sitting on the rack, right away.
You could have the freedom to just setup and cook on the spot. You'd be incredibly valuable as a producer. People will talk about what a wizard you are. There are people like this in the world and you can be one of them if you choose to.
What is stopping you? Like even a lot of established producers, it might be that you're addicted to using free samples all over the place. If you want to make a new track or get inspired, you have to go get sounds from someone else or you can't get anything going.
Be honest here. This article is for anyone who answers YES to any of the following questions:
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Have you ever wondered how to make your own sample pack?
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Are you worried that you use too many free synth samples in your music production?
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Are you getting bored searching Google or YouTube for free downloads every time you want to make new music?
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Are all the free synth samples you find online too generic and aren't who you are as an artist?
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Do you want to build a professional library of samples you can take into the studio to work with artists?
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Do you love classic synth sounds and want to learn how to make them?
If this is you, we're going to walk you through the process you need to make all the samples you will ever need for your own music production. And you're going to learn synthesis from the inside out if you do this long enough.
Also, you'll be able to release lots of free synth samples strictly for the culture or to help promote your own music. Everything from classic synth sounds to the most modern synth sounds.
But first...
8 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Use Free Synth Samples
We're not saying to never under any circumstances use free synth samples. Obviously. We're a sample pack company!
We're not so drunk on out own Kool-Aid that we won't be honest about the pros and cons of free, paid, and homemade samples.
We think of it like food. Sometimes you eat out at the nicest place you can afford, sometimes you cook at home, and sometimes you hit the drive through. They all have their place.
Having a bunch of sounds you like, ready made, is very convenient. Also, maybe you have found a company that does a certain kind of sample really well so you use their material in certain places.
Or maybe you're interested in making some free samples so you can share them with other producers and build community. Making things to share is a great thing.
These sounds certainly have their place and we give away from free synth samples for this reason. We hope to be one of your favorite sample pack companies that you use in your music and we're always always always interested in hearing music people have created with our free synth samples.
But, you should make your own sounds too! It's important to see both sides things and participate instead of only searching for yet another free download to make a track.
#1 Everyone Else Has Them
You need to develop your own sound and music is a very saturated industry. You need to stand out. If you're using the same sounds as everyone else, it's easy to get lost in the crowd.
#2 Sound Quality Issues
A lot of free synth loops and sounds you find for free have recording quality issues. Sometimes doing it yourself is the only way to get it done right.
#3 Lack of Variety
There are tons of packs with classic synth sounds for download because they won't go out of style. They're classic for a reason. But again, you might be looking for something to help you stand out. For example, a Moog bass patch sounds great and works a lot of the time, but its not going to turn heads as easily as something more modern and innovative.
#4 They aren't always royalty free
A lot of people don't understand copyright law and give away free downloads of samples that aren't royalty free.
Sample pack companies are a bit more reliable because there are more people involved, but some musicians are getting sounds from individual, independent producers who don't fully understand what you are and are not allowed to legally sample.
#6 No Updates :(
One benefit to paid sample pack products is a good company gives you access to premium service. If they improve the pack, add to it, or fix problems, paying customers will usually get updates for free.
A strictly free sample pack of drum sounds or synth sounds is generally not supported in this way.
#7 Not Customized
If you get in the habit of making your own collection of sounds, you can customize them to be exactly how you like. This can be in how you shape the collection of sounds themselves, crafting them to your exact genre, or simply how you organize the collection
#8 Missed Learning Opportunities
Knowing how to adjust a sound or make what you need on the spot are essential skills for a music producer. One day you will be in the studio with someone you want to impress and if you don't know how to tweak a synth preset or cook up what you need, you could miss a big opportunity to contribute.
Making your own samples will push the limits of your creativity, what you can produce, and give your tracks a more personal feel. If you only use free synth samples, you'll miss out on some big learning opportunities.
Bonus: Another Revenue Stream
Making a living as a musician is a major challenge and selling branded sample packs is another thing artists and producers can do to create an income stream from their art.
We don't see this as creating competition for ourselves, this is just creating a richer ecosystem which is essential to a creative industry.
What Should You Make?
By now you understand some of the downsides to being over reliant on free downloads to obtain your samples. So what should you make?
Different genres have different requirements for samples.
If you produce hip hop, you're probably not as interested in making bass drops like a Dubstep producer might be. Similarly, the kinds of drums you need for old school hip hop are going to be very different from what you need for modern EDM or electronica.
That said, we generally recommend that you break up you sampling efforts into the following categories:
Drums/Percussion
Your drums and percussion samples can be drum loops or one shot drum samples that you load into a sampler and play or program to make rhythms.
One Shot Effects
Functionally, these are all the samples you use for transitional moments as well as "ear candy" that add detail and polish to a track.
These are things like risers for a big EDM bass drop, sound effects you can use in a percussive way, and all the samples that add vibe and texture to a production, but aren't always as explicitly noticed by the listener.
Melody Loops
Melody loops are exactly what they sound like. Pitched melodies that feel good when you repeat them. Generally, you want to make sure these are labeled both by key and BPM so you can search for them efficiently, pitch them to match existing tracks, and easily line them up with your project tempo.
These are also some of the most important samples to make yourself because they tend to cause a lot of royalty and take down issues on various music streaming platforms.
If you're buying premium sample packs, you're probably ok, but if you've made the sounds yourself you know for a fact nobody else has them.
Ambient Textures or Soundscapes
These are the kinds of sounds mostly used to add texture and a sense of depth and space to a production.
The fastest shortcut to making these types of sounds is to take any sound, loop it, then throw it through some kind of time based effect like delay or reverb.
Then, you can easily use this as a bed of sound that you can compose over. You can simply layer other synth samples over an ambient texture, sidechain drums to it for pumping rhythmic effects, or trigger it with a sampler.
Multi-sampled Instruments
Multi-sampled instruments are a little more sophisticated than basic one shot samples, but it is entirely possible to make them yourself. Instead of individual samples, you have collections of samples for different velocity ranges and you load these into a sampler instrument like Kontakt or your DAW's native sampler.
Some samples are triggered when you play more lightly and others are triggered when you player harder.
These are significantly more work than a basic set of one shot drum kit samples or basic synth loops, but this allows you to build a playable instrument you can play over and over again on your tracks or even in live performances.
Where To Start Making Your First Synth Samples
We're about to get into specific techniques you can use to create original synth samples or even your own sample packs and bundles of synth loops.
You don't have to make every class of sampled sound outlined here and you don't have to use every technique. That's a lifetime of work and this is a good thing. It means you'll never run out of synth sounds to explore and push your creativity to new places.
Overview of Different Synthesis Methods You Can Use
If you discover an oddball synthesis method (or invent one yourself) you can of course use this to make all the synth sounds you want. However, there are some common synth techniques and architectures you need to know about that
The Major Types of Synthesis In Music Production
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Subtractive Synths
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Additive Synths
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Wavetable Synths
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Frequency Modulation (FM)
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Granular Synthesis
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Physical Modeling
Each of these has a characteristic sound as well as things they do well and areas where they struggle. Additionally, they all show up in different genres of music so if you don't know where to start, just pick one and start making noise.
Over time you'll start to be able to pick out each of them while you listen to music.
Let's start with the one responsible for many of the classic synth sounds. Subtractive synthesis.
Subtractive
When people think of warm, spacey "analog" synth sounds, this is usually what they are referring to.
It's also sometimes referred to as East Coast synthesis thanks to the contributions of Bob Moog, who was born in New York City. This basically starts with an oscillator generating a waveform like a sine wave or saw tooth wave, then using filters and envelopes to sculpt it in a musically useful way.
It is subtractive because you are using these filters generally to remove frequencies or shape them. We say generally because it's actually a bit more sophisticated than that once you introduce things like LFOs to modulate filters and techniques like self-oscillating filters.
Our VISION MAGNET collection of synth samples is made from a Sequential Prophet 6 synth, which is a subtractive synthesizer.
(We have a version called VISION MAGNET LITE that includes to some fun free synth loops)
Additive
If you can subtract to make sounds, then you should be able to do the reverse, right? Correct!
Additive synthesis works by adding together individual waves from separate oscillator sources to build up a complex waveform instead of starting with something already complex and removing frequencies like a subtractive synth.
A common additive synth that many people might own and not already realize it is Native Instruments Razor.
Wavetable
Imagine if you had subtractive synth with a basic sine wave sound, except instead of staying on the static sine wave, you could slowly morph the sin wave in a more complex waveform or ever other synth samples.
This is basically how a wavetable synth works. This allows you to make very complex, evolving synth samples.
If you are using a plugin based wavetable synth like Massive or Ableton's Wavetable, this allows you to time the modulation with the tempo of your DAW, which can allow you to create complex synth loops that move in time with your tracks.
Frequency Modulation (FM)
FM synths work completely differently than subtractive or wavetable synths and are usually associated with a "digital" sound. This method usually works by starting with a pure wave and modulating directly it with other waves.
The poster child for this the first commercially available FM synth, the Yamaha DX7. However, this is a dated example because the DX7 only used sine waves and did not have basic features like filters.
If you want to make a sample pack from a modern hardware synth like the ASM Hydrasynth, you get a lot of flexibility because it incorporated virtual FM with analog modeling and wavetable synths.
If you want to get started not only with free synth samples, but an completely free synth plugin, you should check out Dexed. It is an open source recreation of the original Yamaha DX7.
Granular Synthesis
Granular synthesis can work on a live audio signal or a pre-existing sample, but the process is the same.
You synthesize a new sound by slicing another sound into many tiny slices called grains. Then, you can perform different processes on the grains like looping, reversing them, jumping between different grains extremely quickly to synthesize different sounds.
Of all the synthesis techniques here, this is one of the best ones for re-imagining your packs of free synth samples. You can even combine all the samples in interesting ways.
Physical Modeling
So called physical modeling synthesis is one of the more interesting ways to create synth samples. They will have a very different character than classic synth sounds.
Instead of using actual samples or oscillators to provide a sound source, they use mathematical models that attempt to recreate the physical characteristics of different instruments.
Except unlike a real instrument, you can alter the synth in ways that aren't possible in real life.
If you are interested in making a sample pack of synth samples that imitate real instruments or impossible to build instruments (imagine trying to build a bowed saxophone or a wind powered guitar) this is probably the way to go.
No idea which to learn first?
If this is overwhelming and you really have no idea where to start making your first set of free synth samples to put on your website or release with your next album, just jump in with subtractive synthesis.
It is arguably the most widely used of all of them.
Sound + Technique + 30 Days Of Samples
The number of recipes out there for cooking up synth samples are just about endless. There's no way we could list all of them in one article or even a whole book.
Instead, we want to give you a framework to study this seriously. After a month, you'll easily have enough sounds to put out more than one sample pack of your own.
First, you're going to decide the kind of sound you want to make.
Second, you're going to pick a synthesis method.
Then, you're going to go for 30 days of working on. If you can do this every day for a month straight, you'll learn an incredible amount. However, if you need to space it out and take breaks of a day or two between sessions, it will still work.
For example, you could easily spend 30 making Melody Loops using Physical Modeling. You'll still barely scratch the surface of what is possible.
Your First Sample Pack of Synth Samples
This is a HUGE topic. And you'll have all the samples you need for a record, a sample pack, of free synth samples, or the beginnings of a great personal sample pack library to use in the future.
Where do you learn how to actually do it? There are hours of synth tutorials on YouTube for nearly any synth you want to learn to use.
Another helpful exercise for creating synth samples is to watch a tutorial on a synth you don't have and try to adapt it for the synth you do have.
For example, if you see a cool Serum tutorial but only have Ableton Live, try to recreate it in Ableton Wavetable.
This will force you to solve problems, go into new creative territory, and focus on the underlying techniques instead of just copying settings from the tutorial video.
How To Record Synth Samples, Mix, and Proof Them
While you record your synth samples, you need to stay organized.
Cut and label loops with logical names, key, and BPM. You can do this later but its going to be a ton more work to figure out what you did after the fact. This is generally a good habit for a music producer to be in anyway.
However, it would make sense to come back later to do any EQ work and add the final coat of polish to your synth samples when your ears are fresh.
Organizing Your Samples
At the end of your 30 day study, bounce everything to a folder, organize it into groups that make sense.
If you look at how we structured VISION MAGNET, there is a folder for every major and minor key so we can quickly grab the sounds we need without losing the flow in the studio.
Once everything is organized, we like to use an A, B, C rating system to go through the sounds.
A is for the absolute best samples we definitely want in a sample pack. B is acceptable but not our favorite, and C going to the sample pack junkyard.
Maybe we can clean up the C samples later for something, but they aren't our best so they aren't getting released.
At this point you should have a collection of synth samples that are ready to go!
Common Questions About Synth Samples and Synth Loops
What is a synth sample?
A synth sample is simply an isolated recording of a synthesizer for use in music production. Synth samples are usually part of a synth sample pack, usually recorded at 44.1K or 48K sampling rate and it should always be exported to a lossless format like WAV or AIF at 24-bit resolution.
Should I get a sampler or synth?
This really depends on what you are trying to do! Synths tend to be designed for musicians who want a piece of equipment that is closer to a traditional instrument
Another approach to this question is to examine the kind of equipment that is used in the kind of music you want to make and just get that.
However, the alternative is just as valid too. You deliberately get the opposite piece of gear or just use what you have available. Then, try to make it work in the genre you work in.
What is the difference between a synthesizer and a sampler?
A synthesizer uses analog oscillators or mathematical models to generate sounds, which are then shaped through various processes that can include filters or various methods of introducing modulation from other oscillators and envelopes.
A sampler works by recording audio to digital memory, then manipulating the playback of that audio.
What are the best synth sounds?
There is no single "best" set of synth samples that works in a superior way to everything else. A lot of what makes or breaks a sample as being good is how capable the producer behind it is.
Similarly, nobody "wins" at music because it's not a zero-sum game. In many ways, what makes a sample good or bad is defined by what you are able to do with it.
Analog synth samples are great. So are FM synth samples. Modern synths are awesome. So are classic synth sounds. All the samples out there have a place in music production somewhere.
Where can I get free loops for FL Studio, Ableton Live, or Logic Pro?
Ableton Live, FL Studio, and Logic Pro are all DAWs that include free synth loops and free synth samples with the purchase of the DAW.
If you are looking for additional sounds, most sample pack companies offer royalty free synth samples that you can download as a preview for their paid sample packs.
There are many other free downloads on various website and forums, but keep in mind they may be pirated or not cleared for commercial use.
Where to get hip hop samples?
There are dozens of sample pack companies that sell sample pack libraries built around any genre of hip hop you can think of. We of course offer some as well, like GRITMATTER drums and DUST DMG drums.
Wrapping Up
Now that you better understand the pros and cons of using free synth samples and free synth loops, you can mix and match what you download with the synthesis methods you choose to study to build your own, homebrew library.
Its really as simple as blocking out the time and doing it. Pick one of the methods we outlined earlier in the article and start making noise. Just don't forget to hit record!
And of course if you want some sounds for inspiration (or to warp and stretch for your granular synth experiments!) don't forget to check out some Glitch Magic synth samples.
