Creating Samples Drones Hits Transitions and Multisamples

Creating Samples, Drones, Hits, Transitions, and Multisamples

Every FWG export is ordinary mono audio. A result can therefore be useful as a sample even when it would make a poor destination wavetable scanned across discrete wavetable frames.

Use this page when FWG is acting as a general sound source: one-shots, long textures, drones, transitions, resampling material, vector/crossfade layers, or multisample sets.

Choose a workspace by how much control you want

Playground — make one source

Use Single Engine / Playground to design and audition one endpoint quickly.

Playground does not ordinarily export WAV. When the patch is worth rendering, copy it into Morph or use it as the basis for another workflow.

Morph — design one event or movement deliberately

Use START→END Morph when the beginning/end relationship matters.

Examples:

• clean → damaged;
• narrow → bright;
• stable → noisy;
• hit body → noisy tail;
• tension rise/fall;
• source/carrier interaction;
• long evolving drone.

Bulk Random — search broadly

Use Bulk Random for many unrelated source ideas.

Explorer — make a related family

Use Bulk Explorer for related samples that keep a recognisable identity: several impacts, velocity layers, vector corners, or multisample candidates.

Choose the render unit for the job

Render and Export Settings offers Seconds, Cycles, and Samples.

Seconds — easiest for ordinary audio events

🎹 Use Seconds when duration is the musical requirement.

Role	Starting length
click / tiny glitch	0.05–0.25 s
hit / short effect	0.25–1 s
impact / transition	1–4 s
pad / drone source	4–20 s
long texture	20+ s

These are starting points, not limits.

Cycles — keep duration tied to root frequency

Use Cycles when the material should contain an exact number of nominal root cycles, even if it is not a strict wavetable.

Good uses include pitched loops, oscillator-like sample sources, repeatable cycle experiments, and material you intend to layer by cycle count.

Samples — exact editor geometry

🔧 Use Samples when a sampler, editor, or later process expects an exact total output PCM sample count.

⚠️ Very short/sub-cycle renders can capture only a flat or nearly flat fragment. See Render and Export Settings.

Choosing Bulk pools for general samples

Different pools provide different starting biases:

• Classic Waveforms — clean/basic material for later processing;
• Smooth — pads, drones, tonal layers, controlled sources;
• Edge — bright motion, hard digital layers, transitions;
• Glitch & Noise — impacts, rupture, industrial/noise material;
• Cycle-coherent random — broad sources with more cyclical structure;
• Unrestricted — broad discovery;
• Absurd — deliberately unconstrained material, including silent/inaudible/extreme cases.

Do not let the pool name decide the final use. A Glitch & Noise result pitched down and filtered can become a pad; a Smooth result can become an impact after downstream processing.

Forward and Reverse as sample variants

🎹 Rendering both directions is useful for riser/faller pairs, attack/tail alternatives, reverse impacts, transition variants, and extra resampling material.

It doubles result count, so use it deliberately in large batches.

START-mod-END modes for stationary interaction

Fixed START-mod-END is often useful for drones, pads, metallic pressure tones, hits, and phase/FM/PWM/ring-mod source/carrier textures.

Those modes can be a poor fit for a classic evolving START→END wavetable because the endpoint branches remain fixed. For ordinary sample use, that is not a defect.

Forward and Reverse may still differ substantially because Fixed modes can swap complete source/carrier roles.

Resampling workflow

🎹 FWG does not have to produce the finished sound. Useful downstream operations include:

• pitching down;
• reversing;
• chopping;
• stretching;
• granular processing;
• filtering;
• distortion;
• convolution;
• spectral processing;
• hardware resampling;
• layering;
• looping selected regions.

If a result is too harsh at its original pitch, slow it down before rejecting it. High-frequency digital structure often becomes more useful lower in the spectrum.

Keep the JSON sidecar if you may want to regenerate a cleaner, longer, or differently pitched source later.

Vector and crossfade instruments

Explorer is particularly useful for building several related sources for another instrument's corners or layers.

For example, create variants that are bright, hollow, smooth, metallic, noisy, or unstable, then blend them with the destination instrument's XY pad, mod wheel, velocity, aftertouch, envelopes, LFOs, macros, or automation.

This is different from one long wavetable: every layer can retain independent tuning, filtering, envelopes, and effects.

Building a multisample set

Use Calculators to plan root frequencies and zones.

A practical workflow:

1. design one complete source/Morph;
2. preserve its JSON;
3. choose the root notes/frequencies you want to render directly;
4. change only Root Frequency/render settings;
5. export each zone;
6. assign WAVs to matching key ranges in the destination sampler;
7. set destination root-note metadata correctly;
8. compare direct per-root renders with simple transposition of one sample.

⚠️ Direct per-root renders can sound different from transposing one file when aliasing, filtering, or nonlinear DSP depends on oscillator frequency.

For a coherent set, keep sound-design state fixed while changing planned root/render geometry.

Cleanup for ordinary samples

For one-shots and long textures, Whole File processing is often easier to reason about than Per Cycle cleanup.

Use DC Removal when offset is unwanted, peak normalisation when level matching serves the job, and Headroom when later processing needs space.

Ordinary sample material does not need to be cycle-coherent.

Curate by downstream use

A result does not need to be “finished” inside FWG. Keep sources that have a clear downstream job.

See Auditioning, Curation, and Building a Personal Library.

Related pages

• START→END Morph
• Bulk Random
• Bulk Explorer
• Calculators
• Render and Export Settings
• Creating Wavetables