Samples — Patchscore

The kit

Kickkick · hardRecord one hit and keep the whole tail. Trim the file afterwards, since you cannot trim back what you did not record.Snaresnare · hardTwo takes, one struck hard and one soft, where the box answers to how it is played. The softer take is the ghost note.Clapclap · brightA clap is several hits inside one sound. Record the whole spread as one file rather than cutting into it.Rimrim · brightShort. Trim close to the hit and keep only the body under it.Tomtom · darkThree takes at three pitches where the box tunes: low, middle and high. A fill needs somewhere to travel, and three files give it one.Closed hatclosed-hat · brightVery short. Cut it with a hard edit rather than a fade: where it stops is the sound.Open hatopen-hat · brightKeep the whole tail. Where it gets cut is an arrangement decision, and one to make with the file in front of you.Rideride · brightFour seconds or more. A ride is the metal sound allowed to wash, and the length is most of it.Metallic hitmetallic · brightOne long take, then two files cut from it: the strike alone, and the strike with its tail. Cut from one take and the two sit together.Ghost hitghost-perc · softShort. A tail turns it into one of the hits it is meant to sit between.Noise hitnoise · brightOne hit, trimmed tightly at the front so the file starts on the transient.Impactimpact · hardSeveral seconds, and keep the whole decay. An impact is the sound that marks a section turning over, so it is longer than it feels.

The low end

Subsub · darkHold one note for a second or two and record the whole of it.Bass notebass-mid · cleanOne note, held, with nothing touched while it sounds. This is the file a whole line gets played with, so anything that moves in the take happens again on every note of the line.Wobble bassbass-mid · dirtyA wobble is movement under a held note, so the movement is what the take has to contain. Hold a low note and move whatever tone control the patch below gives you while it sounds.

Tonal sounds

Padpad · softHold one note for eight seconds or more and record all of it. A pad is still changing at four seconds, and a short file loops audibly however carefully it is crossfaded.Leadlead · brightOne note, held long enough for the attack to settle. A second is plenty.Stabstab · brightShort, trimmed tight at both ends. The gap after a stab is part of what makes the next one land.Arparp · brightOne note, not a run. This is the sound an arpeggiator plays, so the file wants almost no tail: the next note arrives in a sixteenth.Acid lineacid · dirtyAn acid line is movement under a held note. Record several bars while you move whatever tone control the patch below gives you, rather than one still note.Vocal chopvox-chop · cleanA synthesiser is not a voice. Unless your rig has a formant or vocal engine, bring a recording or make one.

Textures and transitions

Texture bedtexture · darkThirty seconds, in one uninterrupted take. Length is the feature here: a bed long enough that it never audibly comes round.Riserriser · brightDecide the length before you record. Four bars is the common one. Write down the tempo.Sweepsweep · darkRecord the whole travel, start to finish, and write down which way it goes. Reversing the file gives you the other direction, so one take covers a move into a section and a move out of one.