Sampling Only vs Playing or Playing and Sampling to Compose

How many of you guys sample 100% of the time? And how many of you play out your material or do a combination of both? I've got a hunch as what I think the majority is, but I could be wrong.

Lampdog wrote:90% play my own ****.

Huh man! I like mixing the two, but basically I play out my ideas.

If you were actually playing instruments on your own, why would you need to sample them at all? You could just track record each instrument you play, or us a live looper.

Sense-A wrote:If you were actually playing instruments on your own, why would you need to sample them at all? You could just track record each instrument you play, or us a live looper.

Well it's not that you would sample your own instruments, it's about building a composition around lets say a "loop". But the loop gives the composition a "oh I recognize that loop", and the body of the song is totally written differently or around it. Or it could be a stab or simple one beat verse or whatever. All I'm saying is creativity/ideas have no boundaries.

There's tons of tunes with this particular format, and I like how some of them are constructed.

I'm probably one of a few around here that play chords and melodies on keys. But combining a combination like that with someone who's great at putting together samples is too much like a monopoly.

dabmeister wrote:How many of you guys sample 100% of the time? And how many of you play out your material or do a combination of both? I've got a hunch as what I think the majority is, but I could be wrong.

I 100% play my owm music out. No samples. Sampling is fun but doing your own is more fun. I started out sampling but getting into clearing samples was a mess. So l got out of if and learned to play keys. Understanding music period took me on a great journey. Once l understood triads, chords , scales, major , minor, diatonic, dorian, sustain notes etc things just became so easy.
But don't get it twisted l can tear into a hot sample and go bananas on it.

I use to use the MPC 2000XL in an unconventional way to learn how to play. I would sample myself to be in time onto a pad. Then go nuts on the drums.

I use whatever composition tool I need that captures and convey the idea in my head. Sampling, working with other musicians, or playing the instrument. (If I'm competent enough to pull it off the TUBA or Bagpipes.) I do not buy into the notion, that one is better than the other.

No matter what I use, the most important things to me are mastering ones tools, learning, being honest with about what a person creates, and being passionate about music.

Sense-A wrote:If you were actually playing instruments on your own, why would you need to sample them at all? You could just track record each instrument you play, or us a live looper.

It can yield different results for examples, I'll play 8 measures on some vibes, then lay some bass licks under them. Get a good mix, add compression on the master, sample it, slice/chop it up, add effects, then rearrange it. Doing this technique will yield a different sonic expression.

Cool! Basically this discussion and you guys' techniques, will help some of the newer katz looking to find a footing in how to do some things.

dabmeister wrote:Cool! Basically this discussion and you guys' techniques, will help some of the newer katz looking to find a footing in how to do some things.

I agree considering how the techniques of sampling has evolved pass: start and end looping. In the past people really weren't doing very much. Find a drum break and melody sample with no percussion then layer them together. Many didn't want to share their process because they didn't want to be sued and because it was so damn easy. (If the person had the ear and knew where to look.)

True dat. If you're learned teach those that want to learn

dabmeister wrote:Cool! Basically this discussion and you guys' techniques, will help some of the newer katz looking to find a footing in how to do some things.

Most samples I use are either drums & one shots off the MPC or being used in sound design on the rackmount sampler as waveforms. I use the rackmount to trigger entire stems too; I have gotten into the habit of taking synths I've sequenced with MIDI on the MPC and sampling the audio into my other sampler as soon as possible. Part of this is to approximate the convenience & flexibility of working with audio that you get in software these days like Ableton, etc., part of it is to not let ideas linger by committing to them upfront and making it easy to get in that habit. Committing to audio helps lock in the composition too; when I've gone from MIDI to this chunk of audio, I feel like I have an actual building block I can put now into place and have interact with other pieces.

So I'm more or less sampling my own stuff, but only for the sake of having it in audio form. Sometimes I manipulate or work with the audio more in stem form, but I feel you really shouldn't be committing your 4/8/16 bar idea to audio stems yet if you're going to **** with them more...but sometimes that's what you have to do to get a desired effect. I used to bounce drums, bass, rhythm down to one stem sometimes to play other things over and you can get interesting results playing these stems at different pitches/tempos and different amounts of timestretch applied, but I don't find myself doing this much more and it's probably because I don't have the same mixing/recording limitations.

When it comes to sampling, every once and awhile I come across a cool drum loop or bassline in a published artist's track...but I'm usually just stealing a bass note here and there, the typical sustained note off the string section, random synth bleep I can trim & loop and use for an oscillator, etc. I find a sound, put it in the rackmount, run it through effects & modulations, resample, rinse, repeat. Resample, resample, resample. To me, sampling is just a really diverse synthesis & sound sculpting technique.

Song I'm working on today is a bassline on my MS20 being sequenced by the MPC. MPC is also playing the drums I sampled into it long ago. I came up with an fx type sound on one of my synths, so sampled that into the MPC so I can now use that monotimbral synth again. The rackmount sampler is being triggered by the MPC. On the rackmount, it's mostly vocal samples. I took vocals from Grace Slick (Jefferson Airplane) and looped them so it's kind of a soft "ahhh" chant. I took vocals from Whitney Houston and chopped it down to a small sound. At some point I sampled some sort of bells/windchime. I've layered all this and played it chromatically to get the brunt of the track.

So while I do sample...I mostly sample for the sake of creating new waveforms/textures/sounds more than I do it for compositional reasons.

The Jackal wrote:Most samples I use are either drums & one shots off the MPC or being used in sound design on the rackmount sampler as waveforms. I use the rackmount to trigger entire stems too; I have gotten into the habit of taking synths I've sequenced with MIDI on the MPC and sampling the audio into my other sampler as soon as possible. Part of this is to approximate the convenience & flexibility of working with audio that you get in software these days like Ableton, etc., part of it is to not let ideas linger by committing to them upfront and making it easy to get in that habit. Committing to audio helps lock in the composition too; when I've gone from MIDI to this chunk of audio, I feel like I have an actual building block I can put now into place and have interact with other pieces.

Key ?
50% of my beats start with a sample [usually of an instrument I do not have]
30% of my beats start with a good synth bassline I played

After that, I just try to build on what makes sense. I find that if you cannot play any keys or drums or guitar, you will have a very hard time finishing a beat. I rec teaming up with some1 compliment your weak spot.



I’m actually looking for an MPC owner who can actually play piano or bass guitar b/c I don’t. so many of my beats would stand out with a solid piano line or funk guitar riff.



Hola,
310-736-6608

I use to sample records and CDs heavily, was all I knew, and maybe some 3 finger piano licks. Now, I build and play my own instruments and make beats out of my own recordings. I like the things coming out of my guitar. What I play, is only for that moment, so what I capture, I will use to sample and compose.

So there.