How to Sample and Slice Using Only an iPhone

How to Download, Sample and Slice (only using an iPhone)


In this tutorial, we’ll cover the steps for sampling a song, from research (Crate Digging), choosing the song, downloading it to your device, importing it into Slicr, cropping, and slicing.

Sampling is defined in Wikipedia as:

“In music, sampling is the reuse of a portion or sample of a sound recording in another recording. Samples may comprise rhythm, melody, speech, or other sounds. They are usually integrated using hardware (samplers) or software such as digital audio workstations.”

For a bit of context, lets look at some Hip Hop history. In the early days of Electronic and Hip Hop music, the center of Hip Hop culture was the DJ - the MC or rapper, was usually there to support the DJ. DJs had at their disposal two turntables and a crate of records. In the 80’s going to the record store and buying vinyl records were one of the only means to play, listen to and collect music. During parties the DJ would isolate, replay and loop the “Break” section, which is the part of the song where the drummer would solo and the rest of the band would “take a break”. Using one of the turntables, the DJ would play the break, then on the second turntable, they would cue up that SAME break (off the same record). When the break was about to end on the first turntable, they would crossfade over to the other turntable creating a seamless loop.

Later on, the Beatmaker/Producer would use records in a similar manner, but with more manipulation possibilities (Slicing, Chopping, Pitching) using hardware samplers such as Akai S900, Ensoniq ASR10, Emu SP1200, and the most popular sampler of all time, the Akai MPC, Music Production Center, which had built in sampler pads, sampler and sequencer.

Anyway I could go on for ages talking about the history of sampling and Hip Hop, if you want some more info read books like “Can’t Stop Won’t Stop” and check out this article by Fact.

Step 1: Research and do some “Crate Digging”

Crate digging is a hip hop term for when one goes to a record store to look for old records to sample. Used like “I’m going crate digging to make this new track.”

If you’re familiar with Sampling and Crate Digging and you have song you want to sample in mind, you can skip this step, but if you’re just getting started in music production this introduction is important. Nowadays you don’t have to go to the record store to Crate Dig. You can do your Crate Digging digitally, either through Youtube’s archives of old music or through a streaming service like Spotify, Tidal or Apple Music. If you’re not familiar with old styles of music, I highly suggest heading over to WhoSample.com, which is a database of samples used in popular songs. Odds are, if you have a favorite hip hop song, it may have used a technique of music composition called “Sampling”.

Step 2: Find the song on Youtube or Streaming Service app (Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music)

Once you’ve done some research and found your song, go and find it on the Youtube app or open your favorite streaming service app, like Spotify or Tidal.

Step 3: Start a Screen Recording

Then, once you’ve got the app open start a Screen Recording using the iOS built-in screen recording feature.

If you want to sample the entire song, or if you’re not sure what part of the song you want to sample, then you’ll have to keep the screen recording going for the entirety of the song. Otherwise fast forward to the part of the song you want to sample and press play. When the song ends or the part of the song you want to sample ends, stop the screen recording.

Step 4: Buy and open the Lumatouch app, then Export “Audio Only”

For this step, you’ll need the Lumatouch app: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lumafusion/id1062022008

At $29.99, it’s a fairly expensive app, but I can assure you that its the only Video editing app you’ll ever need for professional and advanced video editing. It’s basically like Adobe Premiere, but in your pocket.

Once you have it open, create a new project and add your new screen recording to the timeline.

Then go to the export button and when the options for exporting appear, select “Audio Only”.

Then the options for where to export your audio appears and select “Other App / Airdrop”.

Then the options and settings appear for your audio file. The default values of Audio Quality = “44.1KHz” and File Format = “Wave Audio (.wav)” are fine. (Slicr only reads .wav, .mp3 and .aiff)

When the “Copy To” pop up appears, scroll to “Copy to Slicr” and tap it.

Step 5: Import into Slicr

When Slicr appears the Import panel should also appear. Select your sample, then tap “IMPORT”. Select a folder to import it into, or just use the root folder “Slicr Crate”, then tap “IMPORT”.

Step 6: Find your sample in your “CRATE”

Congrats! You’ve successfully imported your new sample into your Crate, your personal collection of samples inside Slicr. When the Slicr interface appears, scroll down to “Crate” and tap it. Then find your sample in the list of samples in your Crate.

Step 7: Enter Slice Mode

Select the sample and tap Slice in the top right corner. When the Slicing interface appears you can either slice the entire sample, or first crop your sample to make it more accurately slice the part you want to put on the pads.

Step 8: (Optional) Enter Crop Mode

If you want to optionally Crop your sample tap the Crop mode button to the left of the Slice icon (the Knife). Use the Start (S) and End (S) points to change the range of your sample. Double tap the waveform to preview the crop. Then tap the Commit button (bottom right).

Step 9: Slice your sample

Tap the Slice icon (the Knife in the top right). Then select a Slice mode.

  1. Regions will slice your sample into equal slices.

  2. Auto will automatically detect the important parts of the waveform and apply slice markers.

  3. Manual will let you swipe up to add slice markers.

In the video, we are using Regions Mode.

Step 9: Select pads

Now, select the pads you want to put your sample slices on by tapping on the pads. If you want to delete a slice from a pad, then double-tap on that pad.

Step 10: Preview and Commit to the Slices

If you want to preview and edit the slices, then tap the Preview button (speaker icon in the bottom left). That will allow you to tap the pads and preview what those pads will sound like. You can also zoom in and out (pinch) and then tap and hold on the slice markers to move them around.

Once you’re satisfied with the slice marker locations, tap the Commit button in the bottom right corner.

CONGRATS! You’ve just sliced and sampled a song from your iPhone. Keep crate digging and finding those sample gems in rare records and bring it to light to the world. Those samples are waiting out there for you to find and sample them. If you liked this tutorial or have a better way of doing it with Slicr, let us know at beatshoplabs@gmail.com

How To Add Samples with DropBox in Slicr

Importing Sounds into Slicr Part 2: DropBox

DropBox Import

There are a few ways you can import your own sounds into Slicr. One way to get sounds and audio files into your iOS Device quickly is with our DropBox feature. The current supported file types are: mp3, wav, and aiff. It will not allow you to download any other file type from your DropBox folder.

Here we’ll demonstrate the steps you must take in order to get your amazing music collection onto your iOS device. 

1. First off, if you don’t have a DropBox account, go sign up here. You get 2GB for free!

2. Next, upload some of your music to DropBox. 2GB will get you about 2,500 songs if they are in mp3 format! (Wow thats a lot of song storage for free!)

3. To do that, go to your browser (Chrome, Firefox, Explorer) and go to https://www.dropbox.com/h

4. Find your music library on your computer and drag the files or folders to the DropBox window.

5. Dropbox will ask you which folder you want to place the files into. If your DropBox folder is empty, just select “Upload”.

 
Find the Folder of sounds

Find the Folder of sounds

Find the sound file

Find the sound file

The file has been downloaded when it’s gray.

The file has been downloaded when it’s gray.

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6. Open Slicr and scroll down to the option labeled DropBox and tap it

7. A login window will appear and follow the steps to login to your DropBox account. If nothing appears, press “Back” and tap DropBox again (or check that your files have completed uploading).

8. Next, tap on the folder you uploaded your files to.

9. Then tap on the file you want to download to your “Crate”

10. When the file turns gray, that means that it has completed downloading.

11. Next, hit “Back” and go to your “Crate”. Your “Crate” is like your own collection of sounds and cropped files within Slicr. Here you will find your downloaded DropBox sound.

12. Next, tap it and then tap “Slice”.

HAPPY SLICING!

How To Add Songs & Samples to Slicr app with iTunes

There are a few ways you can import your own sounds into Slicr: iTunes Music, iTunes FileSharing, Apple’s File App, and DropBox. In this post, we’ll show you how to use iTunes to load music onto your device. Check out our other blog posts if you want to use one of the other methods above.

Importing Sounds into Slicr Part 1: iTunes Music

The first way is via iTunes, so if you have any songs on your iPhone or iPad already that you listen to through the Music App, and you own them or have downloaded the actual audio file (mp3, wav, aiff) you can access them through the iTunes section of Slicr’s main browser. There are two exceptions: if your music purchases are protected by Digital Rights Management DRM, or if you only stream music via Apple Music, you won’t be able to access these songs for copyrights reasons.

Here we’ll demonstrate the steps you must take in order to get your amazing music collection onto your iOS device. 

1. First off, go to the App Store on Mac or go to this link on PC. Make sure you have the latest iTunes version on your Desktop computer and the latest iOS version on your iPhone or iPad. 

2. Plug in your iOS device via USB into your Desktop computer.

3. Open iTunes.

4. Access your device by either: 

a. Clicking on the device icon near the playback controls.

b. Clicking on the arrow next to your device name in the list on the right side.

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5. If you chose the device icon, iTunes will take you to the detail window where you are now looking inside of your device. Lets click on the Music section under “On My Device”.
6.
Now go to your music files on your computer. Click and drag them to the Music window or drag it directly to the Music section under “On My Device”

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The Intersection of Coding and Music Production

The Intersection of Coding and Music Production

Read how I got into coding through video games, map editors, game mods which led me to Cubase, Reason and Ableton, which led me to Max4Live, Max/MSP, CSound, which lead me to iOS programming with Swift and Objective-C and how I started developing Slicr - Remix Production Tool