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NI's Kontakt 3 is one of the best software samplers around

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Samplers can be tricky when you first boot them up. Aside from getting sound into the damned things, you've then got a plethora of options to get it out again. Here are a few creative solutions to get you past the head-scratching stage.

What you'll need

First of all, you're going to need some sample material. Pretty much anything will do, although ideally try to find something rhythmic - these tricks work best if they're matched to tempo. We're assuming your sampler is either a software model or a hardware one attached to a sequencer.

Audio - Main loop

This is the loop we'll be sampling throughout this tutorial.

1. Sample trigger

Once you've got a loop sampled, you can have fun triggering it by sequencing a little phrase for it. To begin with, play in a phrase based on the keynote. The keynote is the note on which the original sample plays back at its original speed and pitch. If you know the tempo of the loop itself, it's easy to generate a musical phrase, complete with little stop-start moments.

The phrase we've prepared here does exactly this, never playing for more
than a few beats without being retriggered. If the retriggers are close together they'll sound like a little drum roll. Otherwise, the effect will be a kind of 'stuck-record' sound.

You don't have to do this for a whole musical phrase either - performing these types of retriggers on drums alone is a great way to get away from simply triggering a pre-existing drum loop. It's also a great trick to use if you're a Dance producer who wants to hint at a vocal part before it appears in its entirety.

Audio - Sample trigger

Having sampled our loop, we've triggered it at different points to create a new pattern.

2. Section loop

Looping is a one of the most common sample techniques and allows you to set points around a chosen bit of audio, which will then play round and round - hence its name. You can set any loop length you like and for the previous example it would make sense to loop a one, two or four-bar phrase but equally, it's great to find a short section and loop just that bit.

In this example, we've let the whole phrase play as before. However, we've also set our phrase up on three other keys, and for these we've set loop points round just a tiny bit of audio.

The result is that when these keys are triggered, rather than hearing a bit of the phrase, the audio becomes a strange buzz - less like a stuck record and more like a damaged CD.

As our phrase plays though, we've interspersed it with these little loop fragments, which gives it a glitchier feel. This is a technique that's favoured by Fatboy Slim and Squarepusher. You can here an example below.