Simulate multiple instruments with a single sample?

[Cyntalan]

Something that's always been on my mind with using audio samples of a single instrument playing its note is that there doesn't (to me) seem to be a good way to simulate a group of instruments playing simultaneously. Standard usage of multiple channels will just create a louder sound 'cause the sample syncs perfectly, so the obvious option is out, but I can't imagine that drastically increasing the track speed/length to manually offset in multiple channels is a good way either. Is there something I'm missing in that regard, or would I need to resample it in something like Audacity in order to achieve my goal?

[Saga Musix]

If you want copies of the same instrument with different pre-delays, you don't need to resort to Audacity. Just use the resizing tool (fourth icon above the sampel waveform) to add a delay the beginning of the sample. To fatten the sound even more, you can slightly detune each copy of the sample by a few Hz. All of that can also be achieved with pattern effects (e.g. SDx for delays, EEx / FEx for detune) but from my understanding you want a simpler solution, and the most simple solution would be create these sample copies.

[Cyntalan]

Yeah, mostly I just want to simulate a group of playing instruments. I think a copy Hz adjusted slightly might be the best possibility. I'll also look into resizing as well. Thanks!

[Saga Musix]

Another idea you can try is to find different samples of the same type of instrument (e.g. 5 different trumpet samples) and play the at the same time to create more variety. If you have multisampled instruments, one trick is to reuse neighbouring multisamples for the same note, e.g. assume that you have a multisample for note range C-5 to E-5 and one from F-5 to A-5, you could use both of those samples to play a note in that range. Since the samples are not identical, this will make the sound fuller.