Sampling... what a word!!

AlphaPhunk

AlphaPhunk

New member
Sup folks I'm new here. This is a fantastic forum with lots of talent! Anyways I wanted to start a discussion about "sampling". I think sampling is a lot more broad than folks think. A sample is generally described as a piece of a previously recorded music, but is that really all?
In my opinion we sample EVERYTHING! Those drum kits you used were played and recorded. So were the sounds on some of those synthesizers and loop packs. On a more broad scale, the conventions used to make the beats we do came from somewhere! None of us really created Hip Hop, we just contribute to it, using equipment (hardware and software) and instruments. In essence "sample free" doesn't actually mean that, it means I just can't be held financially liable for the song I just created! We should try and remove the stigmas associated with sampling and just free ourselves to create.:cool:
Thoughts or opinions?
 
I get free samples all the time at Trader Joe's. Last week they had this orange-peach-mango juice that was pretty ill.

---------- Post added at 12:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:44 PM ----------

But for real, my definition of sampling: Taking a sound that wasn't intended for using as a part of a new musical composition, and incorporating that into a new song. It could be as simple as looping a bar or two, or taking a synth sound from an 80s record and mangling it so it sounds like a bird chirping or some shit. In the latter case, I'm not going to worry about clearance.
 
AlphaPhunk said:
Sup folks I'm new here. This is a fantastic forum with lots of talent! Anyways I wanted to start a discussion about "sampling". I think sampling is a lot more broad than folks think. A sample is generally described as a piece of a previously recorded music, but is that really all?
In my opinion we sample EVERYTHING! Those drum kits you used were played and recorded. So were the sounds on some of those synthesizers and loop packs. On a more broad scale, the conventions used to make the beats we do came from somewhere! None of us really created Hip Hop, we just contribute to it, using equipment (hardware and software) and instruments. In essence "sample free" doesn't actually mean that, it means I just can't be held financially liable for the song I just created! We should try and remove the stigmas associated with sampling and just free ourselves to create.:cool:
Thoughts or opinions?
Click to expand...

You could make songs using real instruments or total synthetic replicas of sounds and totally be sample free.
 
Xabiton said:
You could make songs using real instruments or total synthetic replicas of sounds and totally be sample free.
Click to expand...
Quite true my friend. The underlying concept however is those instruments were all created by someone else, and though they are plenty of unique ways to use them, they still exist by certain conventions. People talk about sampling only in instances where someone should be financially accountable. However the idea of sampling exists ambiguously!
 
Snax a.k.a. BBK said:
I like DIY projects and it'll have a sound that's different from a soft synth that thousands of other people use. Mostly for the fun of it though.
Click to expand...
But why limit yourself to soft synths either? Theres no reason imo to build a synth unless u just want to lol. There are cheap analog synths out there. I got my alpha juno 2 for $150. Its an analog synth thats controlled digitally.
AlphaPhunk said:
Quite true my friend. The underlying concept however is those instruments were all created by someone else, and though they are plenty of unique ways to use them, they still exist by certain conventions. People talk about sampling only in instances where someone should be financially accountable. However the idea of sampling exists ambiguously!
Click to expand...
People in urban and pop music only talk of music this way. Get into dance music and other forms of electronic music and you'll find people sampling all kinds of wild sounds. I personally like to make my own samples from synth patches I made myself.
 
AlphaPhunk said:
Quite true my friend. The underlying concept however is those instruments were all created by someone else, and though they are plenty of unique ways to use them, they still exist by certain conventions. People talk about sampling only in instances where someone should be financially accountable. However the idea of sampling exists ambiguously!
Click to expand...

Everything pretty much is created by someone else.

I understood where you were going when you were talking about samples, but what do you mean "those instruments were all created by someone else"?
 
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If I use my real TR-808 to make a beat you could not say I am using (808) samples, however it would be perfectly acceptable to say I am using preset sounds, even if I can tweak the sound a bit, you could even go so far as to say that my trumpet or flute for example also have preset sounds but my synths are a different story because they have such a wide range of parameters to tweak, now the real kicker is that if you apply the same kind of tweaking to a sample (of a preset sound) you can make something that ceases to be a preset and becomes it's own thing.
 
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