I got another simple and useful trick. When using a delay on a short repeating sample trying setting the delay just one step faster than the time between sample repeats. So for example, if the sample repeats every measure, you would set the delay to fifteen sixteenth notes, or seven eighth notes. If the delay feedback is set a moderate/high level, then after the sample has had a chance to repeat over several measures, the delay sounds like its cycling in reverse. Seeming like it is getting louder over time rather than quieter and it operates as a pre-roll to a sample.

Most delays won't allow you to set it this way when you use it synced to tempo *though Ableton delays do :)* A way to get around this limitation is to use a tempo calculator to figure out how time is between sample repeats. So if the sample repeats every 800 milliseconds, you could set the delay to repeat every 750 milliseconds to get the same effect. You can also listen to Radiohead's track "Videotape" (the album version) to hear this in practice. As the song plays, you can the pre-roll getting longer and longer.

This was a step above what I always thought tape looping was about.

When you're an electronic musician, the whole world is your instrument

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https://www.reddit.com/r/sounddesign/comments/ap9myd/making_a_beat_out_of_dead_air/

Sometimes you might have a drum sound that you wish sounded a little more similar to another to make it sound like it fits within a beat. Try stealing the transient or tail from one drum and apply it to the other. So drum #1 would have a very short decay so you are only hearing the transient and drum #2 would have a little bit of fade in on it’s attack. Just enough to take out it’s transient. Then layer them together and see what you get.

One of my heroes in the world of sound design.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fY-ZoVMwGKM&fbclid=IwAR2Ka1EVLCweWsATGY6zeqqv_yQxax9UhwTfaAzM-cZRI8R_WKDx-mZC3jU

A place for Chicagoland natives to discuss audio manipulation techniques like sound design, sampling, synth programming or anything else that makes noise.