Advice for Trimming Sample Tails

[Yinxi]

Hi,

I'm working on my first sample-based instrument in HISE. I’ve sampled an electronic piano and I’m now at the stage where I need to edit and trim the samples properly.

The thing is some of the samples have very long tails, in the spectrogram, I can still see content going down to around -115 dB. I'm unsure how far I should go when trimming those tails.

My initial take was to cut around -90 dB and apply a short fade-out to keep things smooth, but I’m not sure if that’s the best practice.

I'm really curious to hear how more experienced users approach this, especially when it comes to how low you usually go in dB when trimming tails. Do you have a typical threshold you stick to ?

I feel like this kind of information could also be useful for other beginners.

Thanks in advance

[d.healey]

@Yinxi said in Advice for Trimming Sample Tails:

My initial take was to cut around -90 dB and apply a short fade-out to keep things smooth, but I’m not sure if that’s the best practice.

Seems like a good approach as long as it sounds good.

[Chazrox]

@Yinxi - 60db is almost considered silent to a human ear. I think you're safe to start fading any time after that.

[d.healey]

@Chazrox said in Advice for Trimming Sample Tails:

@Yinxi - 60db is almost considered silent to a human ear. I think you're safe to start fading any time after that.

Users have a habit of turning the volume up or using effects that boost the volume, so it might end up louder than the volume you set it. And then you get support tickets complaining your samples are distorted

[Chazrox]

@d-healey

[Christoph Hart]

@Chazrox yup 60dB is way to coarse, if you start putting that through any FX chain you're likely to hear the cutoff.

[dannytaurus]

I use Myriad to batch process samples. It's saved me untold amount of hours in the last few years.

zynaptiq: MYRIAD

Zynaptiq - Audio software based on artificial intelligence technology.

(www.zynaptiq.com)

You can run individual tasks or create workflows to batch process in groups.

My usual workflow for trimming samples is something like:

1. Trim End below -70dB (tweak this based on the group of samples)
2. Fade End below -60dB (this produces a nice fade to zero at the end)
3. I also usually trim sample start below -80dB, at zero-crossing, because Logic Auto Sampler always has a bit of start gap.

You can do a lot more in Myriad (normalising to peak or LUFS, trim around loop points, set MIDI notes and velocity ranges, etc). Very handy app!

[d.healey]

@dannytaurus Oh yeah I remember someone posting about this on the VI-Control forum. I use a few different tools for batch processing my stuff. One of the main ones is Signet - https://github.com/SamWindell/Signet

[dannytaurus]

@d-healey Nice! Command-line tools are usually my go-to as well but what I love about Myriad is that it gives you a visual preview of the fades before they're applied.

You select a workflow then up/down arrow through all your samples in the list and the waveform panel shows you all the fades it will apply when you hit Run.

Real nice to have a sanity check like that!

[d.healey]

@dannytaurus Now you're making think of creating a front end for Signet in HISE :D