AFRAID TO SAMPLE?!?! ADD YOUR THOUGHTS TO MY RESEARCH!

I think that laws should change but respect or some gratitude should be given to the original composer. no excuses!

unless it's chopped

i won't clear a single sample, because i chop so much. i don't think sampling is incredibly skillful unless chopping is heavily involved.

otherwise, you're doing a coloring book. it takes skill to stay within the lines, but you'd be even better if you drew your own.

that being said, chopped samples are the way to go. you totally boost the noise of the room, the noise of the instrument, and other nice little details, while you're forced to come up with something completely new out of the notes you've been provided with.

i could chop the most famous guitar lick ever and come up with something unrecognizeable but still good.

I don't think anyone should be looping any samples. No stolen break beats, or any loops at all. Sure, hip-hop used to consist of all that, but times have changed. There's more technology out there and I just think looping is straight stealing. Especially if you gotta sample a drum break, that is just straight laziness--or maybe lack of talent.

I try to chop everything up in real small pieces almost to the point where you can't even recognize the sample at all.

Sampling? Sure call it dishonest if you really want. You could even call it criminal. But couldn't you say that about graffiti art too? If what we're creating is part of hip-hop culture, and this is how it's done, then this is how it's done. Sampling still works fine today. Look at successful hip-hop producers like Numark, Pete Rock, Thes One, DJ Premier or 9th Wonder. Go ahead and listen to one of their records and convince yourself it's sample free. You know what? Nevermind don't, because I promise it's not.

Sampling may be part of an art form, but that doesn't mean it should be left for free reign either. Similar to many other arts, it has to adapt to stay accessable. Whether that means chopping, or just paying royalties, it's still being done and always will be. Is it dishonest? No. Ask DJ Premier if his drums are sampled. He wouldn't be dishonest. This guy is majorly successful off what he does. He'd probably make sure you know it's dug up and sampled, because as with any art form, sampling is a labor of love.

Personally I tend to find sampling to be some what limiting and a constant challenge. If you can play instruments and write music then surely that's much easier (it is for me). Still though, something just crys "Golden Era" about those cut up records. So with that I'm off to dig up my next dishonest creation, which may hopefully earn me a giant pile of dishonest money that I can use to buy my dishonest lakeside mansion. Or in reality, I'll just make some very good and dishonest music that I dishonestly love. By the way did I mention it's sampled? My bad.

indivisibleProductions wrote:I don't think anyone should be looping any samples. No stolen break beats, or any loops at all. Sure, hip-hop used to consist of all that, but times have changed. There's more technology out there and I just think looping is straight stealing. Especially if you gotta sample a drum break, that is just straight laziness--or maybe lack of talent.

I try to chop everything up in real small pieces almost to the point where you can't even recognize the sample at all.

the point of beatmaking is to make a dope beat, period. if your beat isnt banging no one cares if you chopped your sample 452 times. just play me a dope beat, i dont care if you looped half the original song, just play me a dope beat. i've heard wack beats (plenty of them) where the producer chopped shit to pieces, ive heard wack beats with loops, and i've heard good beats with either technique. i've made beats with both techniques and every which way you can think of. in the end its about making a hot beat by whichever means necessary. no one should be chopping just to chop if its not needed, thats ridiculous

why even dig for hot samples if you wanna chop them to pieces? why dig through obscure records and spend $50 for some unknown sh1t if all you want is a piano note thats 'unrecognizable'?? go buy a triton keyboard and leave the real diggers the records!! there are plenty of ways to be creative with loops and long samples but these new age cats just steady sleep and hate. go peep Dilla - Donuts , its 85% loops. and then tell me he didnt flip every one of those loops and make them sound crazy

Fluent

you're gonna hang me for this

but if dilla just plays loops, it does'nt matter how well he "flipped them..." each loop repetition each marks one midi note at 1:00:00. that's not enough for today's technology.

i think dilla is a good producer, but not for his use of melody/samples. i like him because of his drums. yeah, he has a good ear. but that's not enough.

same with shadow...same with lots of loop based composers. i will listen and i will groove out to the stuff.

FLUENT - ideally, to me, anyway, chopping isn't even noticeable. the point of digging for "hot samples" is no longer for the original melody, it's for the air, the instrument, and the expressiveness at which it's played. it's searching for hot samples, still, but on a more useable plane. how often have you heard something that you could use if only the melody wasnt so damn wack?

welll...with chopping, you can...just rearrange the notes, maybe pitch the whole bunch up...and don't forget to grab some air to patch it all together.

i dont care if you looped half the original song, just play me a dope beat.

so you're honestly telling me you aren't more impressed with a song which has been composed out of chopped samples, pieced back together like a toddler's body at an open casket after he was hit by a 16 wheeler (sorry, just watched pet semetary) instead of a song in which literally like a minute of the song has been sampled?

a good example of the latter is Through the Wire by Kanye. i am so uninpressed with that beat because he sampled so much of that song...yet the beat is still incredibly repetitive and unoriginal.

to me, it's the difference between an original painting and a mass production of the same thing as a poster. one took a lot more skill and intensity to make. the other got churned out in a couple of minutes.

this isn't to say i wouldn't rather listen to dope loop stuff like Jay D and Shadow instead of wack choppers. honestly, i think it's easier to sound BAD if you chop, and easier to sound good if you loop - but if you learn how to chop, you'll always sound better.

I wont hang you Nym. Honestly I could care less how many times someone chops a sample. thats not what hip hop is about to me. like I said, just make a dope beat. most beatmakers cant even do that, no matter which technique they use. it does not impress me that you chopped up a sample X times. it would impress me if you made a beat I could nod my head to. if that involved looping a 2.5 second section of a song, or piecing together a few chops that sound dope, do what you gotta do. to me this whole thing is and always has been about who digs deepest, who has the illest ear, and who makes the illest beats. no more and no less. once you start breaking it down into a science it turns into something else that isn't hip hop. beats are supposed to be repetetive, supposed to be looped, supposed to be a backdrop for a rapper. I don't care about your Emerson Lake Palmer sampled piano note which you 16 level'd. I want to hear that rare break that no one is up on. the beatmaking culture is **** up because there are too many wannabe RJD2s running around trying to compose symphonies on their MPCs and pass it off as hip hop. to me thats not what this thing is about

and honestly, most arent advanced enough or just too hard headed to recognize how genius some of these loops are. just break out a Dilla or Doom CD and listen. not everyone who loops a sample is P Diddy. but once you open your mind you'll see whats up

open my mind? i don't think that's the problem man...

i disagree with so much of what you're saying...

beats are supposed to be repetetive, supposed to be looped, supposed to be a backdrop for a rapper.

go ahead and do that man...but personally i'd rather see you work harder. fukk a rapper if he can't keep up with me. the hell with repetition...when i hear that i want to turn the song off after 16 bars. listening to a rap song with a beat like that is like listening to an acapella at that point...there might as well be nothing there.

once you start breaking it down into a science it turns into something else that isn't hip hop.

who has ever been able to define what hip hop is?

the beatmaking culture is **** up because there are too many wannabe RJD2s running around trying to compose symphonies on their MPCs and pass it off as hip hop.

HAHAH if ONLY that was the problem with hip hop today. take a stroll through the "my music" section of the mpc forums and find me FIVE PEOPLE who are trying to compose symphonies on their MPCs...why would people trying to advance the art EVER **** up the beatmaking culture? if you want to point fingers, don't get upset because sampling is changing with new and better technology - look at today's most popular beats on the up and up - for example, D4L's "Can't do it like me"

THAT'S why the beatmaking culture is fukked. not because there are too many people trying to make symphonies and "pass it off as hip hop."

for the record, if there was 1 single definition of what a hip hop beat is and should be and that definition was "looped, repetitive, and backdrop for a rapper," then FUKK hip hop, i'm not even trying to pass my stuff off for it.

Nym, If that "Made Flesh" are all small chops, then props to you big dog!

I broke out a pen and pad on that one. The change up was sick too.

made flesh is all chops. that was my first song where i was like wait a minute...control is a good thing...

the guitar that sounds kind of arabic that comes in at the breakdown is probably the STRONGEST support for chopping i can possibly present. the original sample was from Lonnie Parsons, who is a Christian fundamentalist evangelical folk singer. i turned it into something that follows Moh. HAHHA take that lonnie.

that's exactly my point - you can turn stuff that otherwise you can't really use well into pure gold with chopping, and nobody will EVER be able to get you on sample clearance.

i'm glad you liked the song, man - that is still one of my favorites and i made it back in november/october when i was doing waaaay too many drugs...hence the kind of desparately beautiful feel...but i'm pretty clean now.

man this is stupid

as soon as ur sampling riffs u should be paying loyalties (drums and breaks excluded)

at the moment i dont care what im sampling - im not putting anything out and not making any money of it. the day i am i will be clearing samples and paying for them if its not a stupid amount compared to what the beat will make. in the case it cant be cleared or is too pricey i wont use it

now i think if u take a recording and chop each note and rearrange them thats fine

these arent official laws its just what makes sense to me

would be good to see some official ish on this

If you have the money to clear samples, then you have the money to hire someone who plays whatever instrument you are sampling to come in and play the same thing for you...interpolate.

ok but if u get someone to play u the sample ur still gonna have to pay out for biting the riff right? maybe not as much

definitely gonna have to pay, but not as mcuh.

but

if you you chop, then interpolate, you don't have to pay sh!t

FLUENT wrote:the point of beatmaking is to make a dope beat, period. if your beat isnt banging no one cares if you chopped your sample 452 times.

can i get an amen?

How I see it is you wouldnt be sampling something that you didnt respect or hear something differnt in the music you like. I mean If an artist plays a D major7 scale and records it, he didnt invent that. He discovered it the same way we discoverd his record in a crate. Where we in turn hear it refine it, flip it loop it chop it all of that. I am and was a musician before I ever sampled and I dont think what we do is any less of music or less pure.
And on another tip I think hip Hop without samples is like swimming without water.