The Lost Art Of Cratedigging [Article]

The Lost Art Of Cratedigging

Just wanted to share this article with you.

Nice one, thanks

I think it is an interesting article but I disagree with most of it. I don't think cratedigging is a lost art. There are still a lot of sample based releases each year. Cratedigging in itself is not necessary to produce quality beats, you can sample CDs, Mp3s, Youtube, the Radio and create good music. It's the sample selection and what you do with them that is important, not from which medium you sampled. Nevertheless digging for records is a lot of fun and therefore worth doing. In my opinion the lost art is creative sampling, combining samples from multiple records into a single song. Today's artists just sample one record, chop it to hell and create ugly noise. Pete Rock, DJ Shadow, RJD2 were masters of combining multiple samples, but sadly their more recent stuff is just junk. One artist who still practices the art of sample layering is Damu The Fudgemunk. His stuff is pure sample wizardry and I would like to hear more artists doing that kind of sampling.

Will read this now! A beat of mine using about 10-11 different records; https://soundcloud.com/therealdeviant-1/potency free download too

It's not a lost art btw, I dig and dig hard. There is so much ill music out there that NO ONE knows about seriously and I love flipping it into new beats. Theres a great scene here in my city (Birmingham UK) LOADS of us dig and make new beats out of vinyl samples, thanks for the article though

Respects

Star One is in the KNOW

Yeah I don't want that source broadcast please haha

I didn't think anyone would notice if I chopped it up and slowed it down haha

That was an interesting read.

I've only ever used vinyl. To say the art of crate digging is dead, nah. It's definitely, not as big as it used to be. I know at this point I'm getting old and loosing my connection with the young generation. I do try to keep and open mind.

But, the idea of sampling from the internet just makes me cringe. For one MP3s sound like crap, but really you didn't earn what you're taking. It's sad to hear that is a becoming the norm and maybe why I don't really like any of the new stuff I'm hearing.

It's like what Jeff Goldblum says about the scientist on Jurassic park:

"If I may... Um, I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you're using here, it didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you're selling it, you wanna sell it."


And djtrublu, that beat was great!

Feeling the love

Keep digging man it's the way we advance the culture, whether online if you have no record shops or places that sell wax or use THE BEST POSSIBLE quality you can find online.

Peace to all the diggers!!!! The hobby isn't cheap but it will teach you the most.

Lots of new beats coming guys, doing 3 x new ones for a showcase we do in my city every month called listening sessions.

djtrublu wrote:Feeling the love

Keep digging man it's the way we advance the culture, whether online if you have no record shops or places that sell wax or use THE BEST POSSIBLE quality you can find online.

Peace to all the diggers!!!! The hobby isn't cheap but it will teach you the most.

Lots of new beats coming guys, doing 3 x new ones for a showcase we do in my city every month called listening sessions.

Look forward to hearing them. I checked your Soundcloud out and followed it after listening to that track you posted. Lots of good stuff on there!

I've gone through my phases in vinyl collecting. I used to be into house and techno vinyl. I ran all over the Seattle shops picking up anything with a good bassline, beat, etc. Yet, once I realized I was never going to be a great DJ at it, I sold or gave away all the records I had invested in.

Now here I am, almost 20 years later, and I am more curious about collecting vinyl on the cheap side of things. I have a portable battery operated Vestax record player, but I actually leave it at home. I just go through the Thrift stores or local garage sales, mainly because I still need to spend more on my equipment than I do my collection of bs records. I try to walk in, and spend less than ten bucks at a time. That way, even if what I buy is scratched or in poor condition, I only spent a buck on it anyway, but if I heard some potential for a dope sample, I could choose to find a better copy down the road.

This time, I'm more into stumbling into just about anything, just as long as it's cheap. I won't buy Christian or gospel records(I'm atheist in my non beliefs, so I don't need those records at all), or polka records (which are plentiful in most Thrift stores), but Latin or samba records, sure. Children's records, ditto. Electronic records, absolutely. Old Psychedelic rock/pop, HELL YEAH! But, for now, I'm not trying to spend $5-20 for 1 record, just because some shop thinks they can milk me for some rare record containing some sample he assumes I know is on it. I'm going in blind, not really doing my homework on any one style, artist, producer. But, once I get it home, if I like what I hear, I then stumbled into something I might have thumbed my nose at before. Sometimes a interesting cover art makes me curious. Once I get more equipment purchases done and over with, I can see if I can feel free to spend more at better record shops, looking to add to my collection of random artists I discovered by accident, if I can trust what my ears are telling me to look for.

I might be crate digging in a rather unorthodox manner, but my budget just doesn't allow me the luxury of filling my room full of records. Maybe someday, but for now, this is how I see how I'll be going about my diggings.