Sampling = more variety???

Mako

Mako

New member
I'm going to try not to make this into another sampled vs composed beat posts but i was just thinking about a lot of people who compose beats often run into the problem of their songs sounding the same. For example, timbaland's first stuff (Ginuwine, Missy and Aaliyah's albums) alot of the beats and sounds were very similiar. Where as when he started sampling ("Indian Flute" & "Get ur freak on" e.g.) he developed a different sound. There plenty other examples but he's just the first to come to mind. To me, depending on the sample, a producer can get a great deal of variety in his music while still keeping his certain "style" for example how 9th wonder does. I just wanted to get yall's opinion on this.
 
Yeah but you've gotta realize, Tim wasn't sampling like Kanye is sampling... When you just take old soul songs and put beats on them, it's easy for a lot of your stuff to sound the same. Most of the time when he sampled stuff, tim was still composing a lot of his stuff on his own, except just built around the sample for flavor. Totally different things.

I don't think there really is a "sampling vs. composed"... I think both of them are just tools that you can mix together in different ways. And I think whether your music sounds the same or not depends on your own goals and skill.

I mean, Tim started a whole *sound* on his own, so of course when you're the innovator or a sound a lot of your stuff will have a similar feel, because you came up with your own thing and weren't just biting other people's stuff. That's part of what made Tim so popular, because one of his beats came on the radio and you were like "whoa, that's another hot Tim track" without even having to check and see who produced it. You just knew.

I think no matter how much you sample, true variety will always require some composition, because if you're just taking a song that's already been done by somebody else and putting a beat on it, anyone could have done that and it won't sound very individual. It's when you can add that extra flavor that your stuff becomes more colorful.
 
What a lot of people don't realize is that sampling is HOW hip hop got started. Long time ago, there were no composers or true "producers" of hip hop. Hip hop started with people rhyming over songs that were already out. Even if you go back as far as the Sugarhill Gang with "Rapper's Delight", they were actually just rhyming over a looped version of Chic's "Good times". So you can't really say that "sampled" beats are easy or that it's not hip hop when they're just as hip hop as composed beats are. Anyways, yes Tim did have his own sound when he came out that everybody was biting hard but I'm just saying that a lot of his earlier beats sounded the same and not just him, Eminem, Neptunes, Lil Jon and others.
 
Mako
Registered User Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: Virginia
Posts: 79

What a lot of people don't realize is that sampling is HOW hip hop got started. Long time ago, there were no composers or true "producers" of hip hop. Hip hop started with people rhyming over songs that were already out. Even if you go back as far as the Sugarhill Gang with "Rapper's Delight", they were actually just rhyming over a looped version of Chic's "Good times". So you can't really say that "sampled" beats are easy or that it's not hip hop when they're just as hip hop as composed beats are. Anyways, yes Tim did have his own sound when he came out that everybody was biting hard but I'm just saying that a lot of his earlier beats sounded the same and not just him, Eminem, Neptunes, Lil Jon and others.


Mako
#4 47 Minutes Ago
tmac4183
Registered User Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Chicago
Posts: 569

sampling=less money
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As he say that HipHop started out with samples, yes it did I was there I remember it vividly, where the djs would come out plug power in the light pole stealing electricity from the city lol yeah I was there. But this is now. I agree with Mako I have made it my business not to sample so much to make my beat compose it and make it hiphop. It can be done I have done it and others. I don't rely on record samples. Kicks, snares , stabs ok, but to take a loop and produce all my tracks like that , nope. Sampling is becoming hard because these people who composed these tracks want to get paid I don't blame them but at the same time, I need to use my brain and my ability to think on making new music without sampling. If I had 100 tracks under my belt about only 3 would be licensed samples. I am not going to pay cats for something that I can do. What cats need to do is sit down and learn how to play instruments, lets evolve HipHop Music and stay away from records. I know there are those who won't but ok you keep paying cats when your pockets can be full without them. You wanna know how Scott got paid so large? He made beats from scratch and they got mad radio play and sales and he got PAID!!! I know how to play keys and now working on guitar and that will be it for me. Think about it, when those people made those songs they used instruments now HipHip needs to grow up and do the same. We shouldn't have to rely on a record to control our destiny and make someone else pockets fat. Do you want all of your money or some of it? I know I wall all my BMI money and don't want to share it with a cat that made a record before I was born, he mad his loot now it's my turn, off my own invention of music. You have four different producers sampling from a hit from the 70's now think about it, that publishing company is collecting from four different producers plus it collected back in the 70's that's nuts. That person got paid FIVE FREAKIN TIMES!!! Why ? Because cats aint ready to evolve. How you think Lil Jon got paid so much, he don't SAMPLE!!! I hear dudes talking bout Lil Jon is a one finger producer (whatever the hell that should mean) but don't realize he went to school for music and he knows music and these same cats never took their azzes to school a day in their life. If NYC producers get on what I am saying a change would happen. NYC rappers get off the gun crap and NYC producers get on some make your own beats you would see things change immediately, that's what I am on. I was in the studio and my joint was blasting on the mains, and a group went by when my partner opened the door and hear it and said " dam homie that's crazy , what sample you got that from"? I said " sample ? nah homie this is all me no samples" The looked dumb founded. LOL later that week I sold them a track lol $3,000 easy money, met with their manager and bammm just like that. Now they don't have to worry about sample clearences and waiting all that nonsenese. It's a wrap I am pulling away from that. I only got like 50 records anyway those are for pulling kicks, snares, hihats, and they are break beats so I am good. I have enough talent to rock. what HipHop producers don't think they are smart enough to play an instrument? People did it before us why can't we.?
What if they said " the law is no more sampling". Don't youk now a lot of cats would cry? Or be paying mad people to play instruments for them? See again paying out to people when youcould do it yourself.

I have mad respect for Timbaland and how he produce, he puts in his own work, Love Premo that's my favorite HipHop producer of all times for me. Thing is also I don't do just HipHop I do RnB, Reggae, Pop also. So my mind is stretched and I love it.

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DaNoc, i understand what you're saying and you're right. as far as money is concerned, you get paid way more off of composed beats rather than sampled ones. My whole thing is that i do hip hop production more so because i love the culture. on my website, a person could download all of them. I know that might sound stupid but i really just do it as a hobby. Now i'm not saying that if somebody wanted to pay me to make a beat, then i wouldn't do it. That's just being stupid but i'm not like a lot of people out there trying to make a career out of this. TOO MANY people out there are trying to be the next Kanye or Dr. Dre and the sad thing is that maybe 10% of them will ever make in the real industry. I know my view point may be kind of pessimistic but i already have a different career that i get paid for so my mindset is a little different. But if money is what you're going for, composed beats are the way to go but just becareful that all that glorification of money doesn't lead you to the dark side of hip hop where you're in the video flashing $30,000 on a grill for your mouth or jumping out of Escalades and silly junk that has nothing to do with hip hop. On another note, i'm also surprised how some people (not you in particular) always down play sampled beats but then give props to Pete Rock and Premo who if you haven't noticed are the 98% sample based producers. Just a tad bit of irony to that i think.
 
The thing is kats who wanna get paid large just doing the sampling techniques the always been done. And except to go BIG, u can't do it. It's already been done. Yopu gotta come with something new.
 
Maco, Peace I seen what you typed and you made a lot of sense. For me though man on the real I would love to sample and add real instruments on top and give it to an artist without all the headache. I love sampling but me being a business minded person along with understanding my talent and the state of hiphop and publishing and attorneys are concern I have to go a new route. I sample , Yeah I sample "MYSELF", If you get where I am coming from. I have so many sounds and ways to manipulate sounds it's ridiculous so why not get out and help change things. Oh no I don't wear gold nor platinum or any of that crap nor deal with that booty shaking hafl naked madness of females, I am Muslim so I don't even get into the negativity of that mess. If I was asked to make a cameo which one should, you would see me chillin with a shirt or Jersey with "DaNOC" on it and that's it. If you want to get notice, in my business class teacher told me " take every opportunity to do so". So that's what I would do without disrepecting my belief system. I don't talk about it I help to change HipHop, not try but DO. People are already knowing how I work in the studio, from Betty Wright, John Montgomery [CBS]. You don't have to do just music for HipHop, there's Rnb, Reggae, Pop, and other mediums, to get paid, you got to get in once you are in you are good. But have talent also, people don't want you around if you aren't doing anything. It depends on what you mean as "REAL INDUSTRY" if you are talking about doing music for majors, man they are having trouble. Cats are doing it on the independent tip you don't have to be in the Major climate to get paid. It's your talent and drive that counts and getting around a trust worthy team.
 
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it hasn't been rammed down it's like this dude named ?uestlove said it best "those who want to sample will now have to really pay up and those who produce with live instrumenation or play it with a band " will be among the people who are touring,in the public eye more, and will have more spins then most soft rock comtemporary hits-enough said...but then again PETE ROCK & Primo are where my heart is at. so if i can sample and get away with it i'll do it. but not to the point of jacking another producers beat...that's just (in a mike tyson voice:) ludicrous
 
Eccentric Peace, true dat bruh. LIke ?uest said, I will make tracks to fill my pockets not the other man's pocket because I am doing all the work. They want to get paid for people using their stuff right? So I want all the money due to me because I sat there and did this beat not the cats that collect from people sampling. Like I said I love sampling but it became sickening when all these vultures got in it [publishers, attorneys] Plus we need this for HipHop anyway. They already say we aren't inventive with what we do. Ima show them wrrrrrrrrooooooooonggggggg!!!! I will love to see where most producers don't sample and watch them cry about no one sampling no mo lol I wanna see that day. You said sample and get away with it lol
 
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