Do you sample lossy sounds?

Top City wrote:Thing is all sounds dont come off vinyl. So I got to find the next best source. Videogame soundtracks dont come on vinyl so I sample all that in Mp3 format.

dmarz45 wrote:You can find a lot more samples and you dont even have to leave your house and they're FREE nonetheless!

_Stilo_ wrote:

dmarz45 wrote:You can find a lot more samples and you dont even have to leave your house and they're FREE nonetheless!

I don't know...maybe I'm old-fashioned, but when I sample something to use it in a track at least I want to own the original recording (unless it's a free broadcast like tv anyway)...as in, having paid for it to get it. That's the least respect you can give to the artist.

Those sample-blogs are good for listening pleasure and to know what you want to dig for.

Jamon wrote:Think of it like this, you take a high-resolution digital photograph of a model. You load it into your PC and can zoom in close and still see detail. It isn't like actually seeing her with your eyes, but it looks similar when you zoom out and everything comes together.

To upload it to the web, you want to reduce the amount of data because bandwidth/storage costs money and is limited. You compress to JPEG, a lossy format. If you zoom in on both the original and compressed versions you'll see big blocks on the lossy image.

But those blocks aren't very noticeable unless you zoom in, due to the way the human eye/mind perceive sight. Still, the data is missing, so even if humans can't notice easily, machines performing calculations do, and have less resolution to work with.

You don't like the blocks, so you take a picture of the jpeg image using your 35mm camera. You develop it and look at the enlarged print. How does it compare to the original lossless digital photograph? It is an analog representation of a digital image.

It's true that the blocks are not represented in the same way, not as defined, there's now some noise introduced by the film grain. But the data is still missing, and it is not anything like if you took a photograph of the model using the 35mm to begin with.

Now when you scan, and recompress to jpeg to upload to web again, you lose even more data. The result is a blurry, blocky, poor quality image compared to the original. You might not notice any quality loss in your mix, due to psychoacoustics.

The problem becomes more apparent when compressing for the web. Since it is a recompression, you lose more quality than if you had the original audio to sample. Now what happens when someone samples your song and repeats?

I know factually that sometimes audio on the web, even on the official website of a label/band, was already recompressed. They sometimes give the web developers MP3s to work with, so they have no choice. Then people download that, and recompress again.

It's impossible to know where your sounds have been if you just grab them from unknown web sources. Some people even use pro samples they purchased to make loops, upload as MP3 to web, then someone samples that, chops to get individuals sounds, etc.

That's why it's best to try and keep a high-quality lossless signal from beginning up until final distribution, where if you need to compress lossy at least you know it's as clean as possible. Hopefully soon when tech increases we can kill lossy formats and only use lossless.

DUMDUMBOYZ wrote:It's not like I can hear the difference

Actually, u can if you are using studio grade headphones and/or monitors, even a decent car system.
JAMON's point is that, even a turd placed inside a golden box and handed to you is STILL a turd.

128kbps (most commonly used mp3) mp3 wrapped in 192kbps wav is still an mp3 at the most 320kbps and still sounds inferior, albiet very little to the human ear but if you listen to certain frequencies u can hear it. Technical people (pros) CARE about that difference and that's the steez that JAMON is harping on. Don't discredit it, it's actually relevant.

Pay attention to and learn the khz's and kbps's and u can start to hear stuff that you didn't notice with all that beer and smoke going through you.

Tony on the 3rd other hand is correct also, sample whatever u like, if it's nice, it's nice. Just be aware that if you plan on going pro, you'll need to also care more about JAMON's discussion and view points, ie, be more technical than just "if it sounds good it sounds good".