Ableton Cut-Up Sample Slicing 101

A lot of my noise is sample slicing. Please Don't Leave Me, Thigh High Cat Tights and Light Eater are probably the most obvious examples of using this technique. They are the various (often literal) explosions of glitchy on/off sound that seem quite "technical". As a youtube comment to one of my songs once put it: "this is what it's like to chew 5 gum."

The full technique I specifically use for sample slicing is very, very complicated and I don't really want to give away my exact unique recipe(s). However I will tell you the basics so you can go away and do it yourself and put your own spin on what some (not me I swear) have called 'post-noise' or 'hypernoise'. It's also highly modular and can be easily adapted for a wide variety of uses outside of the specific bursts of white noise I usually do.

But nothing I am doing is particularly outside of what cut-up noise artists have done since Kazumoto Endo. It also has a lot in common with how samples are sliced in breakcore, although I often avoid coherent rhythms. However Ableton is probably the most powerful way of doing it as it allows the most control over the slicing, plus allows randomisation and can be mixed to have a much more polished sound (which you might either love or hate). I believe it could be possible in other DAWs as well, not to mention it has already been done in hardware samplers such as the Octatrack. But for the time being I strictly use Ableton for producing and performing and for slicing.

So let's get started, open up an ableton file and get some samples ready.

Step 1: Import a sound file you'd like to slice.

Basically drag literally any sample onto the Ableton Arrangement mode. I have a preference for noisey and atonal sounds. A good choice would be a harsh noise sample - say recorded by yourself with a pedal setup, or ripped from a noisy source. But you can be creative here too. I'd recommend at least 50 seconds in length otherwise there might be not enough bits to slice without manually adding them later.

Below is making a slicer out of a single source sample. You can of course get a whole bunch of small samples and do the same thing too, but this method I find is more likely to get consistent-sounding results.

Step 2: activate 'Warp Mode' if it is not on by default.

The next step won't work if this is off. You can access this by clicking on the sample.

Right click and select 'Slice to new MIDI track' when done

Step 3: Configure the slicing

'create one slice per:' is the method of determining where the slices are made in the sample. This can either be automated with the 'Transient' mode or by bar/note. or done automatically with 'warp markers' if you want more control. Make sure there are no more than 128 slices. I'd strongly recommend no less as you risk having empty spaces which might lead to gaps when you improvise, especially if you use a randomiser. Since I use a grid with exactly 128 buttons, I always aim for 128.

If you have too many (or too few) slices from the transient mode, leave the "Slice to MIDI track" menu and shorten the audio file in Ableton's arrangement mode until you get the right amount. If the full length of the sample doesn't provide 128 slices you can move to warp mode and do them all manually.

Don't worry about the 'Slicing Preset' for now, I just use 'built-in'. But you can try them out if you wish, I haven't tried most of them. Apparently you can make your own too (see bottom).

To make warp markers manually, just click on the sample so you can see the waveform. Warp markers are the big purple tags above the wave form, with the transients that are automatically detected being the smaller ones (keep in mind they likely may not be purple for you, I use a custom theme on my Ableton). Just double click on a location on the waveform to create one. Try and make 128 of these (if they get too dense, you can zoom in by making the visual of the waveform larger and drag the waveform display by dragging it from the left edge across), exactly just before where the waveform begins.

Yes, making 128 warp markers is boring and repetitive! This is why I generally try and get the waveform the right size on arrangement to get exactly 128 slices from the automatic transient mode unless absolutely necessary. This saves you from a repetitive strain injury.

Once you have 128 slices (or close enough, you can fill the holes with other samples later, but that takes extra time) click 'OK' and you should have a new MIDI instrument below. This channel will also have a MIDI file on it. It will be exactly the same length as the original sliced sample... as it is the exact sliced sample converted into a MIDI instrument. I don't usually have much use for this MIDI file, so I delete it. (btw, the sample here is called 'poolglitch4' as I made it using ppooll.)

Step 4: Play on a MIDI controller

Ta-da! you have a pre-filled sample slicer in its most basic form! To play, arm the track and plug in your MIDI controller or use the default ableton 'computer midi keyboard' if you don't have one or cbf. I plug in my Monome grid, which is essentially all 128 MIDI notes on one rectangle (I havn't really used it for anything else). I don't use velocity settings or anything else. Seeing the 'notes' doesn't matter in this instance. It's essentially one big 128-note keyboard. But you can use *any* MIDI controller here. There are almost certainly more affordable alternatives out there to the Monome grid 128, so use your imagination!

Step 5 (optional): Configuring the macros

It comes with the following macros built-in.

First we have an ADSR envelope. I generally use these settings pictured, but I usually eventually delete the "sustain" and "decay" envelope for a cut-up harsh walls of sound. One that suddenly starts, and stops. However if you want the sound to be a slow build up, have longer attacks. The inverse with 'Release', which  I use to extend the sound. With some full-blown distortion further down the chain, it can act as a sustain if you automate it to a controller.

The bottom four are more interesting. 'Start offset' controls where the slice (which is essentially a very short loop) starts, higher values mean shorter loops as the loop starts later in the slice. 'Loop length' and 'loop compress' is similar, with the latter doing the same as 'start offset' from the end of the sample. Loop compress length (as far as I can tell) does a mixture of both.

Try putting the 'loop compress' to very small values (10% to 0%) and you'll get very harsh EEEEE or glitch sounds. Rapidly moving the knob up and down is fun.

'X-fade' is sample crossfade when it goes from the end back to the beginning. I generally leave on 0%, or leave as is. I don't mind having zero-crossing clicks if the sound is already harsh and glitchy. They can add some compelling attack.

But here is the thing about these macro knobs, you can delete them and change them to something you want, such as transposition, panning or other effects. I *always* use transposition as pitching the entire mess up and down (especially up) leads to wonderfully glitchy results.

Step 6 (optional): deleting unwanted macro knobs.

You may of right-clicked on one of the macro knobs to remove it being 'mapped' to a certain sample parameter. If you have 128 slices, you'll get this.

No, you can't scroll to the bottom.

Instead click on the 'map' button, here the one in neon-green (for me when clicked as I am using a custom theme/colour scheme.) on the top-right corner.

Above the sampler on your left will be this big menu:

Don't worry, you don't have to delete each one-by-one (annoyingly, you DO have to do this for setting the mix/max settings). Just hold shift (I don't know if this is the same on windows) and select the ones you want to get rid of, and press delete.

But how to make new ones, you ask?

Step 7 (optional): making new macros

any parameter in the sample can be modified with a macro. Let's make a transposition knob, as it's is probably the most glitch-y.

First, rename your knob. I've deleted the 'sustain' knob (as the sustain for all loops I use is indefinite) and deleted all the mappings to it previously. Since the word transposition is too long to put in the macro square, you'll have to do this.

Now you have a brand-new trans knob to twist at your leisure.

(sorry)

Anyway, now we need to map it to the 'transposition' parameter of the sample. Select any sample/slice and go to the 'control' tab on the far right.

Right click on 'Transp' and map to 'trans'.

To save you having to this 127 more times (which in older versions of Ableton, you had to and it sucked) Ableton have mercifully added 'map to all siblings'. A 'sibling' in this case would be all 127 other slices. Now you can bring all of the trans community together under the singular trans knob.

(sorry)

All this means is the 'trans' knob will effect all 128 slices. You can make exceptions if you wish by deleting the mapping in the previously mentioned 'map' menu (say, so you always have some samples unaffected by the transposer which might have interesting results).

Now play with the 'trans' knob! (not sorry)

Move the knob (either by mouse, or by mapping it to a midi controller with a knob or slider) up and down for fun results. Moving the knob up a lot (say to +20-+48 steps) will cause extreme glitching artefacts from the sample being stretched into oblivion. Very annoying/fun. Pitching it down creates bass-y rumbles.

Keep in mind you can do this same process to every other selectable parameter in the sample's 'control' menu. Some good things to map are: panning, pan > rand (panning randomiser so each sample instance appears randomly L/R within certain parameters), filter (say for low/hi-pass effects, also fun), spread (often subtle, makes the stereo field wider by detuning one side). Of course, any effects you put on the instrument down the chain can be mapped to a macro too, but you'll need to group them all together and (unfortunately) map them to the macro of the group that incorporates the instruments and effects.

Finally, you can put effects not only after the slicer (compression, distortion, eq, delay etc), but also after each individual slice. The possibilities are only limited by your CPU power and this can be quite CPU intensive.

Generally to avoid extreme dynamic shifts in loudness from having 15 samples playing at once compared to one, I'd use a compressor or a clipping device such as a saturator. The saturator can also create more homogeneity in the tone by distorting them all in the same way, even if the samples are quite different.

Anyway, that's the basics. The rest is up to you!

Try to do your own thing with it and customise away. Try using interesting samples (melodic ones, voices, youtube rips, other sections of your own song, hentai samples like I did in Thigh High Cat Tights, fart sounds) and use weird effects (I recommend Grain Delay if you want squishy granular sounds). You can also quantise everything to have a consistent rhythm if you want things to be more power-electronicsy.

I've also seen you can make your own slicing presets, using this tutorial. It might save some time in the future if you want to make a variety of slicers.

Have fun! Now you all know my secret potion (kinda). Sorta sorry but not really for the trans knob jokes. That one is for the dolls.