Is there a standard for samples/loops?

Fingolfinzzz

I’m wanting to record a bunch of samples and loops, is there a preferred bit rate/sample rate to do them at? Also should they be mastered/normalized or should they stay at lower volumes for mixing into other stuff?

BlueGreenSpiral

Are you using these for music making on iOS? recording acoustic instruments that might need audio cleanup? creating a sound library to sell? scoring a film or video game with a budget?

If the first one applies I would stick to 16bit 44.1kHZ.

Storage on iOS is expensive and easily eaten up using higher values that ultimately won’t make a huge difference in the final result.

Personally I would avoid Normalise, we are blessed with a huge dynamic range nowadays and what’s done is difficult to undo later on!

distraub

I would vote for 16bit 44.1kHz .wav as well if you are planning on using them in iOS.

Also you will want to adopt a naming convention, especially if you are going to put them in something like blocs wave.
The convention for that is Name_BPM_Key_Type.wav
e.g. MySound_136_Fm_Lead.wav

Fingolfinzzz

@BlueGreenSpiral said:
Are you using these for music making on iOS? recording acoustic instruments that might need audio cleanup? creating a sound library to sell? scoring a film or video game with a budget?

If the first one applies I would stick to 16bit 44.1kHZ.

Storage on iOS is expensive and easily eaten up using higher values that ultimately won’t make a huge difference in the final result.

Personally I would avoid Normalise, we are blessed with a huge dynamic range nowadays and what’s done is difficult to undo later on!

Yeah for now it’ll be personal stuff on ios and maybe desktop. I’ll probably move on to commercial later on but I’d like to get acoustic stuff as well when I can grab some better mics and afford studio time. Sweet thanks for the info though, I’ll definitely work with that. Okay cool I’ll avoid normalization as well.

@distraub said:
I would vote for 16bit 44.1kHz .wav as well if you are planning on using them in iOS.

Also you will want to adopt a naming convention, especially if you are going to put them in something like blocs wave.
The convention for that is Name_BPM_Key_Type.wav
e.g. MySound_136_Fm_Lead.wav

Okay cool, yeah that’s good advice. I’ve definitely overwhelmed myself being lazy and not naming files very well