I was going through some samples and was having some trouble trying to differentiate these terms when refered to in song discussion.

I thought a "lead" synth was the main sound of the melody.

Arps, does this mean arpeggio, i.e. various notes in a cord played in sequence? How can a sample be an arp in that case, unless it is a sample of all the notes played in order...

I have no idea what a stab is.

Any help would be appreciated.

This is easy.

Stab - A short burst of sound from a particular instrument/group of instruments, generally has a quick attack and release time.

Lead - Main melody/sound (generally a single insturment) for a particular section in a song.

Arps - Short for arpeggio or arpeggiated, generally consists of an instrument/group of instruments playing in one of many sequenced notes to make up commonly defined chords.
(in answer to your question, a sample can be arpeggiated by using a sampler that has such a feature to do arpeggiate samples)

Synths - Short for synthesized, derrived from the word synthetic or not natural, coming in many forms synths produce sound using many different types of wav forms and filters to come up with unique combinations of sounds.

Cheers,
Zac

___________________
DarkSword - Turn On
DarkSword - Hell Bound
DarkSword - Fresh
DarkSword - Styled
DarkSword - Shadowed Sun
DarkSword - Turning Forward
DarkSword - ALLFRUIT
Pacific Mint vs DarkSword - Climax Zone 2005
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---FL Studio 9 User---

Thank you very much for the definitions. Are those from some online dictionary?

I did know what a synth was, and I guess it does simply refer to the source of the sound, not what it is doing (i.e lead, stab, etc.)

No, those are my own definitions. You can cross check them at something like www.onelook or www.wikipedia.com if you want to check them but you shouldnt need to. They are pretty close to what you wanted.

Cheers,
Zac

___________________
DarkSword - Turn On
DarkSword - Hell Bound
DarkSword - Fresh
DarkSword - Styled
DarkSword - Shadowed Sun
DarkSword - Turning Forward
DarkSword - ALLFRUIT
Pacific Mint vs DarkSword - Climax Zone 2005
SoundClick Page

---FL Studio 9 User---

Last edited by IDarkISwordI on Mar-22-2005 at 01:28

Haha, no, I trust you, just they were dictionary-like in their conciseness. Thanks

Yeah, those are pretty much all you need to know for the naming of samples.

However, "synth" is usually used to mean "sound made by a synth that doesn't fall under any of the other categories".

When refering to single sounds, "Arp" usually means a sound that's supposed to be played in an arp-like pattern, and usually is similar to a stab except not as big a sound.

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