How To Make Sample Packs

April 3, 2021

As the digital age continues to push on, innovation in software coupled with more accessible ways to publish your content have helped music producers and artists broaden their horizons and lowered the barrier to getting their content out to audiences.

how to make a sample pack

But there are still challenges, and avenues such as sample pack creation require equal parts creativity, discipline and logical methodology.

Once you've honed the craft it can be incredibly rewarding, giving you superb, organised and truly unique custom content.

For a deeper understanding of what a sample pack is and what sample packs do, check out our guide What Are Sample Packs.

And if you're wondering what makes a good sample pack, we've put together this guide to help you start the sample pack journey with a lot more ease and understanding. Whilst it's important to find your own flow, it will give you a solid foundation for building your own sample content.

Making it your own and keeping it royalty free

This means starting with ingredients that are also your own. Whether synthesised or recorded by yourself, it's important you're not just repackaging pitched-down Amen breaks and selling them as your own samples. Not only could it land you in trouble and cost you money in copyright claims, it's unlikely to provide any value to anyone else if selling your sample packs is your ultimate goal.

Checking Your Sample Formats

Our other guide here talks about the whys. Suffice to say, 44.1kHz / 24-bit is the industry standard. It's unlikely you'll need to deviate from that.

Sample Lengths and Zero Points

One-shots are one-shots, but make sure they tail off soon after the audible part and you don't have bars' worth of inaudible nothingness.

Tempo based content such as drum loops or basslines should usually be 1 bar in length. If variations exist within the loop, such as key changes in bass or synth lines, then 2, 3 or 4 bar loops work well and are generally considered acceptable.

Atmospheric or textured content may well span beyond this length. Again, that's acceptable.

Looping Sample Content

sample pack loop points

For content that's intended to be looped it's important to set loop points appropriately to avoid interruption. This is done by setting loop points on what's known as the zero crossing.

Doing so correctly avoids clicks as the content loops back round. Adding small fades at the start and end of the loop can also help, but go carefully: too much fade in/out can start to produce a noticeable dip in momentum at the loop point.

Sample Levels

sample pack volume levels

Contrary to what you may read elsewhere about gain staging and setting appropriate levels, your content should be normalised to 0dB, or perhaps -0.1 to -0.3dB to avoid inter-sample peaks when auditioning on some lower end devices.

This ensures your content gets going quickly when dropped into an artist's production projects.

Names, Themes and Sample Management

Sample pack naming and file management

This is where good sample pack producers earn their worth.

Naming, sample management and consistency require strict discipline. If not practised well you'll quickly find yourself overwhelmed with variations of samples and works in progress stored here, there and everywhere: losing track, losing focus and ending up with a mismatched sample pack in varying stages of processing, levels and intent.

So what are the best practices to maintain a healthy discipline when creating your sample packs?

Establish the sample pack's intent and give it a working title. This will enable you to stay focused. It also gives it an instant identity on your computer, which is important.

From this, consider what influences, gear and workflow you'll require for your titled project.

Next, assuming you're recording into a DAW or audio editor, set up a workflow and template that loads any required screens, plugins and processing. Perhaps you're working exclusively in hardware and just recording into a DAW for final processing? Great. Remember to also set up your WAV export/bounce template settings to ensure export consistency, 44.1kHz / 24-bit or whichever you end up choosing.

Next, formulate your folder structure. Again, this will help focus and avoid strays.

For example, in our Ethereal House Volume 1 sample pack the intent was set out from the start and the top level folders followed the type of content, along these lines:

Arp loops
Bass loops
Chord loops
Drum hits, split into kicks, snares, claps, hats and percussion
Drum loops
FX loops
Melodic one-shots: atmospheres, bass and chords
Music kits
Pad loops
Synth loops

With each folder also having a separate MIDI subfolder for the associated .MID parts.

Ethereal House Vol. 1 - House, Techno & Ambient Sample Pack: Over 800MB of techno, ambient house and progressive house loops, kits, one-shots and MIDI, all at 120 BPM.

At this work in progress stage it's also a good idea to set up top level folders for:

Sample content you create which is too good to waste but doesn't fit the theme of this pack. E.g. 'Too good to waste'
Another folder, such as MISC, for samples that don't fit any of the above categories. After a while you may find you collect enough useful sounding 'weird sample 001.wav's to create a directory of their own when nearing the final stages.

Finally, avoid too many nested folders. No one wants to be navigating to

\ kicks\ kicks in b-flat\ kicks in b-flat with low pass filter\

so try and keep content at a base level folder such as

\Kicks

or at most

\Kicks\

...\trance kicks

...\techno kicks

Kick sample pack

The only exception is if you're providing Wet and Dry samples for some categories, in which case split the Wet and Dry out into separate folders under the base folder.

Likewise if you have MIDI data for any parts then a MIDI subfolder under the category folder is always welcomed by producers.

Sample Naming

sample pack naming conventions

Naming is hugely important, especially since you don't know what software or hardware your sample packs may end up on.

They could end up in a fully fledged DAW with full media bay WAV metadata capabilities, or be triggered from an MPC500 with a tiny LCD screen, so it's important to keep sample names short, descriptive and memorable.

In our example we used the naming structure

eh_chord_loop_02_120_A#m.wav

Breaking this down, it translates to:

Ethereal House (abbreviated as eh) chord loop number 2 at 120 BPM in A# minor

So it will be readable across a multitude of DAWs and hardware samplers. Some packs go as far as uniquely naming each sample based on its inherent sound, such as

"dreamy_piano_am_120.wav"

The size of the sample pack and your own inclination will decide whether you go that far, but if nothing else stick to the tried and trusted methods outlined above and, importantly, adhere to them. Consistency is king.

Quality and Size

Sample Pack Size

Good sample packs are hard to come by, great sample packs even harder. Mediocre sample packs are ten a penny. So make it great.

As we explored in our Guide To Sample Packs, targeted packs work well for some niches and price points, such as

50 Techno Kicks

These smaller packs can also be a good way to get started and build your sampling craft, especially if you only own one or two pieces of gear.

There will also be interest in smaller packs that sample specific hardware, such as

MiniMoog Basslines Vol. 1

But many producers prefer the fully featured sample pack, providing all the elements required for full track building.

SOUND7 Sample Pack Top Tips

sample pack tips

Research First

Research the genres or styles you're producing sample content for and lock in on some of the gear and methods used to create those styles. Use that as a good starting point, but don't pigeonhole yourself too tightly.

Authenticity is great but use it as inspiration rather than hard rules on what to use. It's your sample pack after all.

Create in context

It's helpful to create content in context. E.g. when producing a bassline, start with an in-theme kick rhythm and produce the bassline into that. Build on that with additional layers, perhaps synths or other percussive elements, and you quickly build up layers of cohesive sample loops that can serve as a construction kit or as individual layers for their respective categories.

With that, it's important to solo each item in isolation just to make sure no artefacts or rogue frequencies exist.

Final Mastering

Avoid mastering the raw sample content. Utility and creative processing will be part of your workflow, but don't overdo the utility processing and certainly don't maximise and limit the hell out of your samples.

Music producers will prefer unmastered content as it provides much greater usability and flexibility in their projects.

Wrapping up

Perhaps you've been asking yourself how to make your own samples?

Hopefully this guide has given you a good understanding of sample pack content, the structures, the formats and an insight into what's important when creating your own packs.

And if you're wondering whether you can make money selling sample packs, the honest answer is yes, but it takes a catalogue of consistently good, well organised packs rather than one quick release. Get the basics above right and you're already ahead of a lot of what's out there.

Looking for Sample Pack Inspiration?

Here's how we put our own packs together. All WAV, 44.1kHz / 24-bit, labelled with key and BPM, royalty free and an instant download.

Above Trance Vol. 1 - Progressive & Uplifting Trance Sample Pack: 830MB of progressive, deep and uplifting trance content, from chord and synth lines to construction kits.