Gettin' that Sample

When you guys are listenin to vinyl, etc. What are some of the things you that you guys do? Do you listen with your headphones and play video games? Do you listen through your speakers and just chill? Read magazines? Or just sit and listen real hard through the entire record and do nothing else?

Also.....do you guys go through highs and lows when your listening? Sometimes I listen to multiple records and get nothing worth really using....then I'll get to a record and end up find a ton of stuff that is worth making a beat with.

what i do..i sit down and listen to the whole song, concentrating on the song.


it's always best to listen to the whole song especially if it's classical music as that keeps changing and you dont want to miss an important sample..so i just sit down wit my headphones (because they're better than my speakers).

i try to count the beat as it's playin and imagine what it would sound like sped up or slowed down, or rearranged, just to get an overall idea of how it might sound as a beat.


but the most important thing for me when it comes to sampling is to look for somethin that conveys emotion...e.g. if somethin sounds really dark and sinister, sad/happy etc. because i hear beats sometimes that have sampled music, but the music isnt sayin anything. like it's just....rythmic noise.


but this is just what i do and i've only been doing this for a minute

first, ill listen to the intro of the first song....then ill move the needle to the intros to all the songs, and middle, then end. Then ill go back and full listen. Basically just getting the feel of the record at first. BUT I ALWAYs full listen.

But when i listen for samples......its hard to explain, but i can find a use out of just about everything sometimes. But ALWAYS listen for pure breaks...this is harder than it sounds sometimes. But I use to sample stuff with light percussion, and figured i could drown it with my hihats, but now i rarely do that because i am particular. I dont listen to it in the back ground because if i do then all i will listen to is the main melody.

But there are things in a song that can be used that isnt in the main melody....like tails of vocals, or a thump in the bass and a piano at the same time that blends with the melody, and if you werent listening, isnt really a break, but it is. ya know?

Plus Ill let my mpc play a beat along side the vinyl sometimes. Im pretty good at finding loops, that arent normally loops. Youve got to have like a temporary "picture" of the music sometimes.....E.G. listen to a section of your choice, then take a mental picture of it, then continue listening to ending notes that will be tonic with the beginning notes of the "picture" in your head....this is all in like a few seconds after the beginning part of the section you think would be a good loop. I do this over and over. Eventually you get good at picking parts that would be good loops or parts to other parts.

MUST SAMPLE:

-stabs
-drum breaks
-solo instrument
-climax-in classical
-funny word phrases or breaks

always check:
-intro
-outro
-physical break on record i.e. the part where the needle groove looks white.
-if you think you hear something, dont continue to listen, go back and sample it. ...youll always forget about it.

If anyone can add to those lists, that would be cool. Peace

Db75 wrote:but the most important thing for me when it comes to sampling is to look for somethin that conveys emotion...e.g. if somethin sounds really dark and sinister, sad/happy etc. because i hear beats sometimes that have sampled music, but the music isnt sayin anything. like it's just....rythmic noise.

Very good idea with the emotion....i guess i do that, but i figured if it sounded good id sample it, but subconciously the stuff that sounds good is the stuff that conveys emotion. Very good thing to keep in mind. Thanks

btw. i forgot to mention, that sometimes ill mess with the pitch fader on the turntable, to see what it sounds like slow or sped. basically everything isnt gonna be a loop so you gotta listen for pieces of the puzzle.

eventually the more you do it, it just becomes natural, you don't really have to think about it too much...i try to be random with it, it's rare that i'll listen to a whole song to find a sample...

Damn Db75 you think just like me when it comes to sampling.

Sometimes I'm in the mood to listen, sometimes I'm not. I just like to listen and let the sample find me, I'll listen even if I don't find something to sample. In the end I just love the music

i loop a drum beat on the mpc and let the record play straight sumtimes or if i dont have that much time ill loop a drim beat and listen to just the intros and outros

cyrus wrote:Very good idea with the emotion....i guess i do that, but i figured if it sounded good id sample it, but subconciously the stuff that sounds good is the stuff that conveys emotion.

that's exactly it. a good sample, and i guess music in general, is one which portrays a mood and paints a picture in your head.

yea thanks y'all. i guess i'm on the right track. lol. that emotion part was and is major for me too......i know exactly what yall mean.

A trick I do, usually I play a slow 33rpm song at 45 to see how it sounds and play a fast 45 at 33rpm and that gives me some interesting loops.

I usually lounge in my chair smoke some sticky and put the record on and write in my book everthing that catches my ear on that record. When I first buy records I go with the instant gratification method of intro, break, outro and needle drop a few times in b/w. But this way i know which records i want to listen to all the way through.

Yeah, Intros and outros are key.
Drum fills are interesting as well, you can get some cool drums from that stuff.
Breaks in the middle are usually good to, I also just chill and listen to the whole song.

Pe@Ce

same as someone said before, ill go intro, verse, chorus outro, skipping the needle thru the tracks, I also always have a drum prog loaded so I can bash along to c if the groove is right...
thats how ill find instrument samples to start a song, from there once i've got the basics for a track ill run the sequence and go over my 'other' pile of records, cutting and tuning stuff to make it fit. The records in my other pile are stuff that I havent actually sampled yet and have no need to unless I have a context, like a record with heaps of different panned vocal parts or a vinyl with heaps of string parts + stuff.

I found this record about 2 months ago and it had this real tight drum break, I was working on something else at the time so I thought, Ill remember that record Ill sample that when im finished.....
I STILL CANT FIND THAT BREAK!!!!!!!!!!!

so yeah, since then. If I find something good Ill either put a yellow sticky note on the front and put it in a dif pile of sample it then and there....
Pez.

deity13 wrote:I usually lounge in my chair smoke some sticky.

Thats the key to finding and chopping. Gives me the patience I dont have when I'm norml.