Chopping up vocal samples and rearranging them is one of the best ways to create those interesting vocal textures that you hear everywhere nowadays. In this article, we’re going to share a few ways to chop vocals up and use them in your EDM tracks.
What are they?
Vocal Chops are basically parts of a vocal sample sliced and rearranged as midi to create interesting sequences. These sequences can pair incredibly well with melodies and background synths to inject a lot of feeling or soul into your tracks!
How to make vocal chops
You can use any DAW to slice vocals. But if you want to make your own edits, you’ll need a good sample to slice first. Once you’ve found a nice long vocal, drop it into your DAW’s slicer. We’re using FL Studio for this:
Once you drop the vocal sample in, your slicer will automatically create segments that can now be triggered by playing notes on your (midi) – keyboard. You can also tweak the start and endpoints of the individual slices, or even add a midi gate to add more interesting parts.
Processing and Effects
You can rarely get a vocal chop to sound good in the mix without using any after-processing. Add some gritty distortion, a splash of stereo delay and reverb to blend everything in, and some heavy EQ-ing to bring out the sparkle on those higher frequencies. For a finishing touch, dial in some spot FX in key places to accentuate your vocals. Boom!
Want more!? Here’s a list of other things you can experiment with:
- Chorus to widen and thicken up your vocal chops
- EQ to change the mid-range frequencies
- Pitch shifting and time-stretching will really turn things upside down
- You can also layer octaves to give your vocals a new twist
Vocal Chops Sample Packs
- Free option: Cymatics has a huge list available with free vocal samples that you can chop up using the methods described earlier in this article
- Our recommended packs:
Get started
You now have all the knowledge you need to make your own vocal edits. So what are you wainting for!? Go make some killer samples.
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