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Koala Sampler

Chapter 16

Recipes

Whole workflows built from the pieces in the other chapters.

Written in our own words from the chapters above, as our own walkthroughs. The Koala manual

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In this chapter · 7
  1. 16.1Flip a sample into a beat
  2. 16.2Turn a drum break into a kit
  3. 16.3Make a synth from a tiny piece of a sample
  4. 16.4Make an instrumental or an a cappella
  5. 16.5Build a mastering chain
  6. 16.6Make room for the kick with sidechain
  7. 16.7Print live effects by resampling
16.1Basics

Flip a sample into a beat

This is the classic sampler workflow, and it’s a good first trip through all of Koala: take something, cut it up, and play the pieces in a new order. You don’t need any add-ons, although Samurai makes the cutting quicker.

Get it in

  1. Tap MENU, then IMPORT AUDIO. Preview a file and tap LOAD to put it on a pad. See Import audio files.
  2. If what you want is in a video, use IMPORT VIDEO instead. See Pull the audio from a video.

Cut out what you like

  1. On SAMPLE, with the pad selected, tap EDIT. Drag the edges of the highlighted area around one phrase or hit, pinching to zoom in if you need to.
  2. Tap TOOLS, on the editor’s third page on a phone, then BOUNCE, to save that selection to a new pad.
  3. Back on the original pad, move the selection and repeat until you have your pieces.
  4. If you have Samurai, AUTO-CHOP in TOOLS does this for you. See Chop a sample across your pads.

Play it into a sequence

  1. Go to SEQUENCE. Double-tap TEMPO to set the tempo and switch QUANTIZE on if you want your timing tidied.
  2. Choose a free slot and set its length with BARS.
  3. Tap REC and play the pads. Recording adds to what’s there on each pass, so you can build it up in layers.
  4. Tap REC again to stop recording and keep listening.

From the community

How to Sample ANYTHING in Koala Sampler!

Chris Laps

A nine-minute flip from start to finish: bringing audio in, chopping it, sequencing and adding drums.

16.2IntermediateNeeds Samurai

Turn a drum break into a kit

A sampled break is a drum kit waiting to happen. Slice it on its hits and you can program the same sounds in a new pattern, and keep the feel of the original recording.

Slice it

  1. Load the break on a pad and get its volume, pitch and tone right first, because the chops are made with those settings baked in.
  2. Tap EDIT, then TOOLS, then AUTO-CHOP.
  3. Choose TRANSIENTS, and swipe the chops bar until you have one slice per hit. If the bar turns red, you don’t have enough free pads.
  4. To place or move cuts by hand, use LAZY instead, where you can tap the waveform to audition the chops and drag the markers. See Chop a sample across your pads.
  5. Switch on ONESHOT so that each hit plays right through.
  6. Switch on KEEP ORIGINAL if you want to keep the full break. If it’s off, the first chop replaces it.
  7. Tap CHOP.

Stop hits overlapping

  1. Select a hi-hat slice and tap EDIT. On a phone, CHOKE is on the editor’s third page.
  2. Put your open and closed hi-hats in the same choke group. Each one now cuts the other off. See Let one sound cut off another.

Program a groove

  1. On SEQUENCE, choose a free slot and double-tap it to open the grid.
  2. Each row is a pad. Tap to place notes.
  3. Tap VEL and slide up or down on notes to change how hard they hit.
  4. Tap DICE and slide up or down on some notes to change their chance of playing, so that the pattern never quite repeats.
  5. Tap the cross at the top right to close the grid, then double-tap TEMPO and drag within SWING to add some push and pull.

From the community

The Drum Break Chopping Hack Koala Producers Need | Koala Sampler

Verysickbeats

A five-minute method for getting new drum patterns out of a break with a Chopper technique, then resampling the result.

How I Actually Start Beats in Koala Sampler (High LvL Koala Ep. 1)

John Robinson

How one producer really starts a beat: hand-chopping a break, shaping drums, choke groups, swing and a chromatic bass line.

16.3Intermediate

Make a synth from a tiny piece of a sample

Any sound can become an instrument. Loop a single wave from a sample and it stops being a recording and starts being a tone that you can play melodies with.

  1. Select a pad and tap EDIT.
  2. Pinch to zoom in on the waveform, and drag the edges of the selection around a single wave.
  3. Switch on LOOP.
  4. Shape the note with ATTACK and RELEASE, and take off some edge with TONE. On a phone, these are on the editor’s second page.
  5. On SEQUENCE, tap KEYBOARD, then tap your pad. Use the dropdown arrow to choose GRID and pick a scale. See Play in key on the grid.
  6. Play. Tap several cells at once for a chord of up to five notes.

Print a chord, then play it in scale

  1. Go to SAMPLE, set the input source to RESAMPLE FROM APP and tap a free pad to start recording. See Resample Koala itself.
  2. Go back to SEQUENCE and play your chord, then return to SAMPLE and tap the recording pad to stop.
  3. Put that new pad in grid keyboard mode. Now one finger plays a whole chord, in whichever scale you’ve chosen.
16.4Basics

Make an instrumental or an a cappella

Stem splitting is the fastest route to either half of a song: everything except the voice, or the voice on its own. It’s heavy work for a phone, so expect to wait. Koala warns you if your device is short of memory for the job.

  1. Load the song on a pad and tap EDIT, then TOOLS, then SPLIT STEMS.
  2. Choose HI QUALITY for cleaner results, or FAST to try an idea quickly.
  3. For an instrumental, switch on DRUMS, BASS and OTHER. For an a cappella, switch on only VOCALS.
  4. Switch on MERGE SELECTED so that your choices land together on one new pad.
  5. Tap SPLIT. The first time you use each quality, Koala has to download its network, which takes a few hundred megabytes.

From the community

Koala Sampler's New Stem Splitter: Just How Much Better Is It?

sunwarper

Compares the new high-quality splitter with the old one, with Logic Pro and with real stems, so you can judge how much it helps.

16.5IntermediateNeeds Mixer

Build a mastering chain

The main channel has five effect slots of its own, and everything passes through them. It’s the natural home for a finishing chain, and you can reuse the idea on every song. The chain below is one sensible starting point, not a rule.

  1. Go to PERFORM and tap MIXER.
  2. Tap a free slot on the MAIN channel, and choose EQ. Use it for gentle overall tone shaping.
  3. In the next slot, add COMPRESSOR to even out the level.
  4. Add CLIPPER to catch the highest peaks, and then LIMITER after it to set the final level.
  5. Put METER in the last slot, so you can read the peak, RMS and LUFS levels of what’s leaving the chain.
  6. Drag effects to change their order. To compare with and without one, open it and use the power button beside its name.

From the community

Koala for Beginners Lesson 5- Master bus FX, Performance FX, 8 bar loops

small plates music

Basic mastering with the master bus effects, plus ways to keep the eighth bar interesting using Perform effects.

16.6AdvancedNeeds Mixer

Make room for the kick with sidechain

When a kick and a bass fight for space, a sidechain compressor turns the bass down each time the kick plays. Push it further and the ducking becomes a groove in its own right.

Route your sounds

  1. Select the kick pad, tap EDIT, then the MIX tab, and send it to BUS A with the bus button. The tab only appears once Show EQ is on in the settings. See Send pads to the buses.
  2. Send the sounds you want to duck to BUS B the same way.

Add the sidechain

  1. Go to PERFORM, tap MIXER, and tap a free slot on BUS B.
  2. Choose SIDECHAIN and set SOURCE to BUS A.
  3. Play your sequence and lower THRESHOLD until you can hear BUS B ducking with the kick.
  4. Set RELEASE to control how quickly the sound comes back, and use OUTPUT to win back any level it’s lost.

From the community

How to SideChain/Duck in the SP404 way on Koala Sampler (or any other DAW/hardware) | GAS Therapy #3

playpm

Ducking the SP-404 way, from 2020. That’s before the Mixer, so it’s a different route from the sidechain effect you’d use today.

16.7Basics

Print live effects by resampling

Live effects only exist in the moment unless you capture them. Resampling captures what you play and everything you do to it on a single pad, and that pad can go through the same process again. Each pass takes you further from where you started.

  1. On SAMPLE, set the input source to RESAMPLE FROM APP.
  2. Tap a free pad to start recording to it.
  3. Go to PERFORM, start your sequence, and play the live effects.
  4. Return to SAMPLE and tap the recording pad to stop.
  5. Use the new pad in a sequence, and resample it again with different effects.

From the community

Koala Sampler Resampling Tutorial

elf audio

Resampling explained by the developer in under five minutes, from the app’s first weeks in 2019.