Using samples & loops: YES OR NO?

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Some people say when you use samples and loops your music becomes fake. I think that it is ok to use some decent loops and samples. Personally when I feel like out of ideas then this is the key. Let me know what you think.
 
Samples and loops are just more tools. How are you using them? What are you adding, or what do they add to your music?

If you are just looping someone else's work, then yes, I'd agree = "fake."

If samples and loops are tools in your music making kit, used sparingly and creatively, of course they are valid artistically. Legally may be an entirely different ballgame, which needs to be understood whenever considering using samples in a professional context.

GJ
 
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I see no shame in using loops. Why should I? I am sure that many well-known producers also use loops. What's wrong with a shaker loop over a solid drum track? Either way, I think you will go your own way anyway at some point, because a loop can also limit the creative process a lot.

Best deepman
 
Yes and no, to an extent. In my opinion it all depends what you do with those loops and samples. If you just find a loop you like and stick it into your track without doing anything to it, then yes, it's kind of not your own work. But if you edit that loop - cut out the bits you want and don't want, add a load of effects in there that you think will make it sound better, cut and paste other samples/sounds into it - then it is your own. Change it to a point where it is hard to recognize compared to the original sound of the loop. Samples are necessary- most people don't have drum kits in their homes.
 
Yes and no, to an extent. In my opinion it all depends what you do with those loops and samples. If you just find a loop you like and stick it into your track without doing anything to it, then yes, it's kind of not your own work. But if you edit that loop - cut out the bits you want and don't want, add a load of effects in there that you think will make it sound better, cut and paste other samples/sounds into it - then it is your own. Change it to a point where it is hard to recognize compared to the original sound of the loop. Samples are necessary- most people don't have drum kits in their homes.

You're right about that. If you put your own melody over a drum loop, it's okay. Who still makes for example his own bass drum in the electronic area today? Almost nobody I guess.

Best deepman
 
There are a surprising amount of artists that use the same sample in their music but you would never be able to tell (initially) because of how they edit and/or layer the samples and loops. As long as the samples and loops are royalty-free, then you can get away with it. Otherwise, it's considered stealing and fraudulent.
 
You're right about that. If you put your own melody over a drum loop, it's okay. Who still makes for example his own bass drum in the electronic area today? Almost nobody I guess.

Best deepman

I do.
Not out of some sense that using samples and presets is fake or wrong though.. I mean, hacks will be hacks.. if it wasn't for commercial sample packs, they'd find another way to be hacks.
It's for everyone on their own to decide their own line between 'creative borrowing' and 'hackjob'. A lot of well-known producers are total hacks btw.. there's even some artistry in being a total hack...so whatever.

But,

If you are just looping someone else's work, then yes, I'd agree = "fake."

So.. by this logic, that's most of the 80's/90's classic hiphop deemed fake. Pete Rock was the biggest faker of em all!!!
That's most of classic house deemed fake, and on and on..

Look, what I'm trying to say is that whatever makes the difference between music being irrelevant or a classic.. is impossible to say. Sometimes something is a classic simply because it redefines that boundary.
That's the whole point.
It's definitely not in the choice between samples, or not.. or 'stealing' someone's work or not. It's not even in technical skill or sound quality (see punk rock).. If there was a wrong or right to it..
every dip could be an artist and no, they can't.
 
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Start out with a loop, but edit into something that sounds more like your own. Don't just take a loop and paste it on your track and call it a day. A lot of ppl might say
make your own samples and stuff. I think that's just ppl being snobs. There are so many good sounding samples now a days that you'd be silly not to use them in your productions.
But as far as loops, just take a bit from here and there. don't get lazy with it.
 
>>>>So.. by this logic, that's most of the 80's/90's classic hiphop deemed fake. Pete Rock was the biggest faker of em all!!! That's most of classic house deemed fake, and on and on..<<<<

Nope. You are misunderstanding what I wrote, and also the history and methodology of the period you reference. Lots of good beat-makers that sampled and looped-- and-- did lots of other things to their tracks. Others (not mentioning names, but one rhymes with Buff Baddy, which also rhymes with B Biddy) pretty derivitive, "fake," and lame.

By your logic, I could just jack two bars of one of your productions and call it a day.

Read carefully and for understanding. Put biases aside until all material is fully digested...

GJ
 
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In electronic music, using samples is pretty basic. Expecially with all the sample based vst instruments out there. Using loops is a shortcut thing.
 
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