This is a video I've been working on for that last 8 days. There's also a free sample library that goes along with it: https://www.decentsamples.com/product/mandriola/
2024-08-08 17:11:25 +0000 UTC View Post
I've been meaning to make a video about the Casio SK-1 for ages, and now I finally have!
– Dave
2024-07-20 11:26:14 +0000 UTC View Post
Video here: https://youtu.be/Yo7I9U5UcTs
I've spent the past few weeks messing around with the Casio SK-1, a legendary sampling keyboard from the mid-80s. I had one for several years around 2001, and I remember liking it quite a bit. I'm not sure if I lost mine during a move or what happened, but at some point my SK-1 we...
2024-07-18 20:52:47 +0000 UTC View Post
About a year ago, I took a guitar that had been abandoned and turned it into a basitar: a two-string instrument that uses thicker gauge strings. That quickly became my main songwriting instrument for rock songs. The only problem I had with it was that in order to be used it needs to be plugged into an amp, wh...
2024-06-07 17:33:32 +0000 UTC View Post
I recently got my hands on a Casio VL-1. It's classic mini keyboard from 1979 that was featured in the song Da Da Da by Trio. Of course, part of my experiments with this keyboard involved running it through a bunch of outboard pedals. The result is this sample library which contains a bunch of interesting pad and key sounds. Have fun!
2024-05-04 12:56:14 +0000 UTC
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Last month, I made a video about the Solar 42, a highly cinematic synthesizer from Elta Music. Now I've sampled it!
Last month, I made a video about the Solar 42, a highly cinematic synthesizer from Elta Music. Ever since making that video, I've wanted to have some of the Solar's sounds in Decent Sampler format. Well, I ...
2024-04-08 13:26:37 +0000 UTC View Post
I made a new video! It’s partially a release announcement for a new commercial sample library I made with Venus Theory, but hopefully it’s also a fun video. Also, a new Patreon exclusive sample library is coming next week. :)
2024-04-03 22:37:51 +0000 UTC View Post
Hi All,
You may have gotten a notification a few minutes ago about an update to the old Omnichord sample library. I'm not sure what Patreon notifications look like when they go out, so I thought I would explain it in more detail here.
When I made the Omnichord sample library, I did it by sampling ev...
2024-03-06 17:01:23 +0000 UTC View Post
My next video is about the Domra, a Russian instrument that has a lot of in common with the mandolin.
2024-02-17 04:29:52 +0000 UTC View Post
The Domra Prima is a folk instrument that gets tuned just like a Mandolin. I'm currently working on a video about it. While the instrument was invented in Russia, it is played in Belarus and Ukraine as well. In fact, the instrument I have was made in Odessa.
One normally plays the Domra by plucking it – either with fingers or a pick – but for this sample library...
2024-02-16 21:41:06 +0000 UTC View Post
I'm working on a video about this instrument I found in the trash. I won't go into great detail about the adventures I had in restoring it until I'm done with the video, but in the meantime, here is a little sample library I made from it. The sound is the classic thud you expect from a hollow body bass from the 60s.
I played it using just my fingers (i.e. no pick). The Coral Fiddle ...
2024-01-17 12:48:14 +0000 UTC View Post
Over the course of the last nine months, I've been working on an effects plugin called Refractions. It's a really fun sound toy that lets you sequence live audio. In this "making of" video, I chronicle how that effect came to be.
2024-01-06 12:58:37 +0000 UTC View Post
I’ve been working on a video about Bontempi Memoplay 26, a beautifully styled toy keyboard from 1981. The basic sound of this instrument is very simple, just a pulse wave with no way of changing the tone, but, as I discovered in my video, it really opens up when put through effects pedals. In these patches, I’ve put it through a Microcosm (by Hologram), the Generation Loss (by Chase Bliss),...
2023-12-17 13:14:56 +0000 UTC View Post
This is a video I just made about Chase Bliss Lossy. It's a pedal that allows you to use the sound of low-bitrate MP3s as a real-time effect. The pedal was a lot of fun to work with and also ended up being the inspiration for the last patron exclusive sample library.
– Dave
2023-12-03 12:13:21 +0000 UTC View Post
I've been working on a video about Chase Bliss' very cool Lossy effects pedal. It's a pedal that simulates the audio artifacts produced by low bitrate MP3s. As part of that video, I ended up spending a lot of time playing the Korg Volca Keys through it. If you don't know about the Keys, it's basically a tiny no-frills anal...
2023-12-02 17:27:24 +0000 UTC View Post
I finally finished my video about the Casio PT-10, which I've found to be quite an inspiring little toy synth.
Also, as part of the video, I've sampled it again. I've also updated the "for patrons" version of the Casio PT-10 library so that it's now called "Casio PT-10 & Friends." It includes the new samples plus the old ones I had made using various FX pedals.
2023-11-10 02:17:17 +0000 UTC View Post
This is a rock song I just finished work on. I thought I would share it here, since it's featured in my latest video. Enjoy!
2023-10-20 13:55:19 +0000 UTC View Post
This my next video, the one about the guitar in this month's sample. It took me 14 days to finish this video which makes it the longest video I've ever worked on. I will be releasing this to the public tomorrow, once I've decided on the exact wording of my clickbait title. ;)
2023-10-20 13:47:56 +0000 UTC View Post
To learn more about this guitar, watch this video. I'm deliberately keeping things vague in this description so as not to spoil the fun of watching it. ;)
But I can tell you about the sample library: Basically, I've taken this ersatz telecaster and sampled it both clean and through a range of outboard effe...
2023-10-16 18:37:15 +0000 UTC View Post
In my most recent video, I had fun generating distortion using a bunch of different devices that were not intended for that purpose. I tested each device by pumping a sine wave into it and seeing what waveform I got back. I was amazed at the richness of the samples I got back. In addition to a tape recorder, a mixer, and a pho...
2023-09-16 12:48:12 +0000 UTC View Post
A viewer named Hamza contacted me from Germany. He had just bought a Casio PT-10 at a flea market and thought I would enjoy it; he wanted to send it to me. As it happens, my family and I were just about to head out on vacation, a long overdue trip back to my parents' home in Switzerland. Since I would be in Europe anyway, I decided to have Hamza send the Casio to the tiny village where they liv...
2023-08-19 11:50:45 +0000 UTC View Post
I don't usually upload rock songs here, but since it has to do with my latest video I thought I would share. All of the bass and guitar sound that hear in this song was made using the Basitar from the latest video.
2023-07-14 13:00:09 +0000 UTC View Post
A video about this instrument can be found here.
A basitar is an electric guitar that has been strung with bass strings. This particular configuration was invented by Mark Sandman of the band Morphine, and later refined by Chris Ballew of the Presidents of the United States of America.
For this project, I too...
2023-07-14 13:00:09 +0000 UTC View Post
As you may have seen from my other post, I just made a video about Chase Bliss' Mood MKII pedal. While I was working on that video, I spent a fair amount of time singing into the pedal, and while these vocal experiments happened a little too late to end up making it into the video itself, I have now turned them into a Decent S...
2023-06-18 11:26:01 +0000 UTC View Post
I've just put together a video about Chase Bliss' fantastic MOOD pedal. That video features this guitar, which I built about seven years ago. Since I've never recorded it at all, I figured it would be fun to make a sample library of it.
Enjoy!
– Dave
2023-06-18 03:36:26 +0000 UTC View Post
This video, in which I investigate the origin of a mysterious violin bearing the name W. T. Fisher, is coming to Youtube tomorrow. The sample library I made in this video can be downloaded here: https://www.decentsamples.com/product/folk-art-violin/
2023-05-16 22:30:56 +0000 UTC View Post
In early 2022, I bought a Novation Nova at a flea market for $42. I smiled all the way home, thinking I'd gotten the deal of the century. It came with a bunch of cables, among which I assumed I would find the power supply. Alas, it wasn't long before I realized that not only was the power supply missing, but replacing it would be very hard. Novation no longer makes them and they have a very str...
2023-05-11 20:57:46 +0000 UTC View Post
Two years ago, I constructed the long, bowed string instrument pictured above. Here's a video about that experiment. As a physical instrument, it's quite cumbersome and hard to play, so I vowed to sample it...and I finally have.
The sample library contains four patches:
Here is a video about this project. :)
In January 2023, I bought a Fender Squier Competition Mustang and modded it by replacing its pickups. It should surprise no one that one of my first orders of business was to plug it in...
2023-02-17 20:21:05 +0000 UTC View Post
Here is a video about this sample library. This week I've been playing around with the Minifreak from Arturia. It's a hybrid synthesizer featuring over a dozen different oscillators. I took some of my favorite sounds and made a little sample library. It has 14 patches that run the gammut from classic 70s pads to glitchy vaporw...
2023-01-28 15:27:32 +0000 UTC View Post