Reader Sam Spiers (Kindred Sol) shared this video, demonstrating his approach to sampling the world around us, with the goal of using field recordings to capture unique sounds that you can use in your music.

The video is part 1 of a planned four parts. So this is accessible to anyone, Spiers tried to limit his demonstration to the devices that are available in Live Intro + some nice free 3rd-party plugins.

Here’s what he has to say about the video:

“I’ve taken an everyday sound (carrot in the kitchen) and turned it into kicks, hi hats and some interesting percussion parts – plus a lead and bass.

And in the name of keeping it more accessible (ie affordable), I’ve tried to do all of this limiting myself to the devices found in Live Intro (and some lovely free third-party plug-ins).

It’s aimed at beginners and intermediate Live users, though the concepts could probably translate to other DAWs.”

Everything you hear in Part 1, aside from Spiers’ voices, comes from the same field recordings.

Topics covered:

00:00 – Intro
01:43 – Getting Started (Live Intro + free plugins)
05:10 – Mangling Recordings/Sound Design (Clip Automation)
07:40 – Mangled Audio (example) + Wrappig Devices
09:55 – Talking About Stereo/Mono mic
10:24 – Nice Crunchy Beat:) (Pt 2 will go into more detail)
10:38 – Digital Housekeeping (boring, but important)
11:25 – Creating Kick Drums + Hi Hat
15:11 – Creating Lead & Bass (+Another Crunchy Beat)
17:51 – Putting It All Together (making a beat)
19:40 – Parallel Processing (Return Channels) + A Note on Mono
22:09 – Wrapping it Up
22:35 – Nice Outro Beat + Visuals

You can find more from Spiers at his site and Bandcamp page.