Lesson 22
Line-in sampling & slicing
Record a drum loop from your phone through the Audio in port, then slice it across the pads and replay the pieces in a new order.
- A Move that is switched on
- A brand-new Set in Note Mode, with the top (drum) track selected
- A phone or music player with a headphone output, and a cable with a 3.5 mm plug on each end. Many phones have no headphone socket, so you'll then need the phone's USB-C or Lightning headphone adapter as well
- A drum loop or short music clip to play from it
The idea
In Lesson 21 you sampled with the microphone. The mic hears everything in the room, including your voice and the fridge. The Audio in port on the back of Move takes sound straight from another device through a cable instead: a phone, a music player, a synth. The result is clean, with no room noise.
This time you’ll record something longer: a drum loop or a short phrase of music, a few seconds long. On one pad, that’s just one long sound. Slicing chops it into equal pieces and puts each piece on its own pad. Each pad then plays just its own little part of the loop.
Now the fun part: play the pads in a different order. Kick, kick, snare, the last hi-hat, back to the start. The sounds are the same, but the rhythm is yours. This trick of cutting up a drum loop and rearranging it is behind whole styles of music, from hip-hop to jungle. It works on voices too: slice a sung line and you get short vocal “chops” to play like an instrument.
One thing to know before you start: slicing builds a new drum kit from the slices, and it replaces the kit on that track. That’s why this lesson uses a fresh Set. If you slice by accident, Undo brings the old kit back.
Plug one end of the cable into your phone’s headphone output (or its headphone adapter) and the other into Move’s Audio in port, on the back edge.
Didn’t work?
Audio in expects a line-level signal, like a phone or synth output. A microphone or an electric guitar is too quiet on its own and needs a preamp in between. On your phone, start with the volume about halfway up.You should see: Nothing changes on the display yet.
With the drum track still selected, press Sampling.
Didn’t work?
Touch the wheel to check the input source. With a cable in Audio in, you want Line in, shown as a rectangle with an arrow pointing into it. If a different icon shows, press the wheel on the source icon to step through the sources until Line in appears. When something is plugged into Audio in, Move turns monitoring on by default, so once your phone plays you should hear it through Move. Too quiet or too loud? Set the gain just as in Lesson 21.You should see: The Sampling button pulses red, the drum pads turn pink, and the display asks you to press a pad.
Start the loop playing on your phone. Right at the start of a bar (on a kick drum is a good spot), press and hold one of the pink drum pads. Keep holding for one or two bars, then let go.
Didn’t work?
Don’t worry about hitting the start perfectly. You can tidy up the start and end during slicing. Aim for a few seconds; a short, busy drum loop slices best.You should see: The pad pulses red while it records. When you let go, Sampling Mode closes.
Stop the music on your phone, then tap the pad you recorded on to hear the full sample.
You should hear: Your whole recording, played from one pad.
Turn the wheel until the icon for the sample is highlighted. It’s the extra icon that sampler sounds have, next to the instrument and the two effects.
Didn’t work?
Not sure which icon is the sample? Pick one and do the next step. If the Sample Options menu doesn’t open, press Back and try the icon next to it.You should see: The sample's icon is highlighted on the display.
Hold Shift and press the wheel.
You should see: The Sample Options menu opens.
With Slice chosen in the menu, press the wheel.
Didn’t work?
The menu may have more than one entry. If Slice isn’t the one selected, turn the wheel to it first.You should see: Slicing Mode opens, and Move has already cut the sample into equal slices.
Turn the wheel to choose how many slices you want. For a one-bar drum loop, 8 or 16 is a good start: roughly one drum hit per slice.
You should see: The number of slices goes up or down as you turn.
Press the wheel to confirm.
Didn’t work?
If you asked for fewer than 16 slices, the pads left over are simply empty. Didn’t like the result? Press Undo to get your old kit back, and try again.You should see: Slicing Mode closes. Your slices now sit on the drum pads, one per pad.
Tap around the drum pads and listen to each slice. Find the one that starts the loop, then jump around: repeat a kick slice, skip ahead, end on a cymbal.
You should hear: Short pieces of your loop, one on each pad. Mixed up, they make a new rhythm.
Lesson complete! Try the challenge below, or keep going.
Next lesson →Try it yourself
Find two or three slices you like, perhaps a kick, a snare and a hi-hat, and program a brand-new beat with them on the step buttons, as in Lesson 9. Your beat is made entirely from someone else’s loop, but it sounds nothing like the original.
Or record a short spoken or sung phrase instead of a drum loop, slice it into 16, and tap out a rhythm with the syllables.
Good to know
- While you’re in Slicing Mode, Knob 1 and Knob 2 move the start and end of the part of the sample that gets sliced. Use them to cut off silence or a stray sound at either end. To move where one slice starts, press its pad and turn Knob 3.
- Monitoring stays on after you leave Sampling Mode, as long as the cable is plugged in. To switch it off, open Sampling Mode, turn the wheel to the headphones icon and press the wheel.
- Want a single note to play like an instrument, instead of slices? Sample one held note from a synth onto a melodic track. Every pad then plays it at a different pitch. On a melodic sampler, Knob 1 transposes the sample and Knob 2 sets where it starts.
- The Sample Options menu also has a Reverse entry (since Move 1.6), which plays a drum sample backwards.