Start buying quality peices, now!

I know there are a lot of folks just starting, so this is mainly meant for yous. (Experienced members are encouraged to read along as well.)
Allright, its cool to buy up all the dollarbins and see what you get, but if you want to get into sampling, start buying some better, higher quality records. For three reasons.

First -- The more rare and obscure the $hit you buy, the harder it is to track the sample. You don't think Bozz Scaggs has been sampled before? He knows the deal and will be coming for your as$. If its a cheapo dollarbin on capitol, that means there were millions of them pressed. Keep it local.

Second -- The better the record, the better the players, the better the producer, the better the sound. Garbage in garbage out, right? Put high quality sounds into your sampler and you will get better material. Its great to chop a one dollar record, but its even better to chop a rare, funky cut with some session players who know what they're doing.

Third -- There is a gigantic world of music out there. Get to know the different weird places that music goes and you'll get inspiration from all over the spectrum. There are really unbelievable things out there and you can find em. There is music so good, it'll make your heart skip. It is hard to track down, but not impossible.

So put on a miners' hat, talk to everybody around your area and be prepared to pay $$$. Its worth it.

I can't stress enough how true this is! This should be stickied!

Another reason would be that if you buy a record that is already worth something, the value will only increase over time. It's like an investment.
But, in 15 years time, Boz Scaggs "Silk Degrees" will still only be worth 99 cents.


Having said that, I wouldn't say the price of a record is directly related to the quality of the players or production on it. I'd say it has more to do with how many were pressed, and how in demand it is now.

also, with more, and more, people diggin' for samples.

The better records, are gonna be harder to find, and more expensive, as time goes by.

itchyvinyl wrote:Another reason would be that if you buy a record that is already worth something, the value will only increase over time. It's like an investment.
But, in 15 years time, Boz Scaggs "Silk Degrees" will still only be worth 99 cents.


Having said that, I wouldn't say the price of a record is directly related to the quality of the players or production on it. I'd say it has more to do with how many were pressed, and how in demand it is now.

True enough, I was just trying to stress that folks should take pride in making a great collection of quality pieces.

Also I've been noticing that a lot of records are decreasing in value, like the meters or black jazz peices. fads and whatnot. anyhoo, peace.

Fukk that.

OK, if you are paying "$$$" for it, yeah its worth something but that also means that people know about it, it's classic , etc. Why do i want something that everyone knows about or something that i will def have to clear the sample on?

Then again if it is classic i'll want it for my collection, listening pleasure. I'm not saying that i only sample records from the dollar bin, but i don't loop so i'm not looking for stricktly breaks, what-have you. I go for sounds, one shots etc., and where they come from i don't give a rats azz or how much it cost.

Quality is something to consider, but to me hip hop is dirty sounding so i don't need the crystal clean.

simcity wrote:True enough, I was just trying to stress that folks should take pride in making a great collection of quality pieces.

Also I've been noticing that a lot of records are decreasing in value, like the meters or black jazz peices. fads and whatnot. anyhoo, peace.

Re-issues, drive the prices of oriignals down.

also, there are certain fads in sample records market. A record that was worth $35 a couple of years ago, may only be worth $15 today.

supply & demand

jonathan morris wrote:**** that.

OK, if you are paying "$$$" for it, yeah its worth something but that also means that people know about it, it's classic , etc. Why do i want something that everyone knows about or something that i will def have to clear the sample on?

Then again if it is classic i'll want it for my collection, listening pleasure. I'm not saying that i only sample records from the dollar bin, but i don't loop so i'm not looking for stricktly breaks, what-have you. I go for sounds, one shots etc., and where they come from i don't give a rats azz or how much it cost.

Quality is something to consider, but to me hip hop is dirty sounding so i don't need the crystal clean.

Dude in no way am I saying that expensive records are automatically good. and youd be surprised at the sheer number of amazing records that go for bills that hip hop heads aren't up on. and amazing, rare records that go for a dollar.

anyway, do you think ATCQ sampled Bozz Scags, hell no, they were sampling Weldon Irvine, Grant Geen and Phil Ranelin . good luck trying to find that charmels 45 that rza used, or synthetic substitution.
Im not sure what you're getting at with quality, but i think its sound quality. great records are usually the most raw and dirty, but genuine. Its like eating butter or something. You can just taste quality.

yo if they dont understand ,then dont drill it into there heads,

sht i kno that these are the records i look for just for the sheer pleasure of listening enjoyment. most of those reocrds where made in the late 60's earlie 70's and they sound as dope today as they prolly did when they first came out, wait they sound better today because of the hifi we have to day.

man i love classics like i said befor in another thread on this forum
I DON'T GIVE A PHUCK WHO SAMPLED ITAND HOW THEY USED IT
all i kno is i'm going to use it my way and try to flip it .

man ,this helps me out that way i dont have to pay MORE grip for the sht
less demand less money moredemand more money
peace

does this mean that all the free vinyl i've picked up is worthless? or the hot spot i found that gives em to me for a penny each, should i turn those down? i think not, and i have found so many gems doing it this way that i will never pay more than $3 for a record and that only if i am traveling far away where there might be lots of stuff specific to that region. otherwise i never pay more than $1 for records. if you want to pay 5-10 thats up to you but i'll walk away with crates for the same price.

I almost fully agree with you.

simcity wrote:First -- The more rare and obscure the $hit you buy, the harder it is to track the sample. You don't think Bozz Scaggs has been sampled before? He knows the deal and will be coming for your as$. If its a cheapo dollarbin on capitol, that means there were millions of them pressed. Keep it local.

1
There's still tons of obscure stuff in the dollar bin. Records that never made it big, stuff that only got a couple of thousand pressed.

2
Do you think a sample from a rare $50 Albert Ayler or Pharoah Sanders record is going to be harder to track because it's a rare record? I'd feel safer sampling some nobody no-one's ever heard of.

3
Sometimes, the way I chop stuff and flip it, I could sample a Beatles classic and no-one would recognise it. Most of the time I can't even remember where I got my samples from. I know a lot of hiphop tracks are made using 4 bar loops, maybe chopped a few times, but you can also just take a snare here, a bass note there, a small key chop somewhere else and make tracks that way. It's what I do 90% of the time. It makes the finished track more 'mine' and it's great practice for your sampling/programming skills. I still wouldn't sample "Thriller" but I could get away with it if I did.

4
At the other end of the spectrum, a friend of mine did a 12" last month, where he chopped up a recognisable ABBA sample on one side, and a recognisable Olivia Newton John sample on the flip. Both whack records from the dollar bin, but he made two bangers with them. The 12" is out as a white label, DJ's are playing it to death all over Amsterdam My boy's not making much money from this, but he IS seeing crowds go wild on his tracks. There is no way he could get this released for real, but who cares? He's having fun.

simcity wrote:Second -- The better the record, the better the players, the better the producer, the better the sound. Garbage in garbage out, right? Put high quality sounds into your sampler and you will get better material. Its great to chop a one dollar record, but its even better to chop a rare, funky cut with some session players who know what they're doing.

Just because it's in the dollar bin doesn't mean it sucks. Some of the most well-produced records ever made, with top-notch musicians, are in the dollar bin. Okay, most of these are so familliar that rule 1 applies, but still. You can get "Songs In The Key of Life" for a dollar, but you can't say that's a bad record.

simcity wrote:Third -- There is a gigantic world of music out there. Get to know the different weird places that music goes and you'll get inspiration from all over the spectrum. There are really unbelievable things out there and you can find em. There is music so good, it'll make your heart skip. It is hard to track down, but not impossible.

True.
Some of it is easy to track down on SoulSeek though! Not that I sample MP3s, but it's a great way to get to know musicians and record labels to improve your _real_ digging skills.

simcity wrote:So put on a miners' hat, talk to everybody around your area and be prepared to pay $$$. Its worth it.

Yes. Go digging. Besides, the dollar bin isn't much fun - you're searching through crates and crates of CRAP just to find one or two bargains - and even those are nothing special really. I don't really go through the dollar bins anymore myself, except maybe when I'm abroad because there might be cheapo stuff there that's different from the cheapo stuff here.
But I don't spend megabucks on sample-records either. I make it a rule not to spend more than about €10 ($12) on a sample-record, unless maybe when it's a really hot jazz record that I really want to have. Most of the time I get great stuff between €5 and €10 euros.

a friend of mine did a 12" last month, where he chopped up a recognisable ABBA sample on one side, and a recognisable Olivia Newton John sample on the flip. Both whack records from the dollar bin, but he made two bangers with them. The 12" is out as a white label, DJ's are playing it to death all over Amsterdam My boy's not making much money from this, but he IS seeing crowds go wild on his tracks. There is no way he could get this released for real, but who cares? He's having fun.

post it up i' like to hear it what type of music is it, can you get over here on this side of the pond

hmmm the market is so effed up today it's hard to really go with one standard. Personally I buy whatever my intuition tells me too. The dopest beats I've made have come from both dollar bins and 10 dollar picks. I've yet to pay more than 15 for a record, but I'm sure I will. Someone gonna offer me Post Modern Space Bebop for 50, ima be all over that shit. Whatever I was gonna say has been said before.

thats the problem with people,your not suppose to buy a record for sampling.what happened to just listeing to the music???studying a drummer or anylizing a rhythm section.c'mon man