Can’t believe I managed to say ‘great’ three times in that post. Great.
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Probably the most sample based artist I’ve listened to - and he’s been great at it, IMO (along with the hands-on producers of course) 
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I feel like a very small amount of his samples are kind of egregious lifting and most is amazingly creative and transformative. There is something kind of weird about sampling old acid, house, or techno in a genre that already boarders it but usually I think it usually comes across as transformative.
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I was surprised to hear some of the synth sounds were samples, but then I realised most jungle/d’n’b producers then were sampler bros, not synth geeks. Great to hear some of the original tunes, which are lesser known records in our day.
1:06 has that Velvet Underground which was censored on the original LP but included on the 1984 remix of We’re Only in It for the Money.
Incidentally, much can be said about the gnarly tape edits/drop-ins on WOIIFTM in the context of a thread about sampling.
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Was MC Hammer cheatinf
Was Vanilla Ice cheating?
What about DJ Premier?
What about Stardust (Music sounds better with you)?
Daft punk?
Sampling → cheating is one of those things where you know it when you hear it.
Forgive me, I have been cheating again. This might be the first time that I’ve actually comitted to recording anything from the OT, it’a one of my most used boxes but see above for the various stupid backstory.
It was actually a bit of a stoned pain trying to work out how to record it without overbridge so I tried a few things trying to sort out the Roland S-1 over usb until I eventually rtfm and discovered the audio in literally only goes to the headphone out so long story short I pulled over the Syntak and recorded the OT into Overbridge that way.
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Made myself have a proper sit down with the octatrack again tonight. A bit cooked and I’m still trying to make sense of how I think I want to actually arrange/mix tracks on it but I think I’m quite happy with the cheating.
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The composer Edgard Varèse defined music as “organized sound”.
I once read that art “imitates life or other works of art.”
These two definitions, put together, seem to suggest that sampling can pass as art.
I also read that 97% of art is crap.
Edit: I found this warning about sampling in the Woovebox documentation.
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Accurate recently made a video on the topic of sampling (100% on point IMO) in which he did a very cool analogy with the collage:
I had a really great cheating session today: I had all this audio material from previous cheating, so I booted up a couple of my favorite cheating machines, imported it into them and cheated everything together. Then I strung up a real non-cheating instrument and cheated that into the cheating machines and stitched it altogether. Fun times. Cheaters gonna cheat.
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I sample and use samples but not ones taken from commercial/other people’s finished work. When I need instruments or other loops/sounds I’ve got a subscription to a sample library - I’m not going to be buying a real mandolin, hurdy-gurdy or pipe organ!
I will use a loop from the sample library if I really like a chord progression but after a few days of messing it doesn’t sound much like the source. I don’t think it’s cheating but it is a shortcut. Like sitting with another musician and them having a good idea on a shared project.
Why not just use the chord progression loop as a ghost track? As long as you don’t bluntly copy any melody or lyrics, the ghostbusters will stay away.
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I’m such a big cheat that I’ve decided to go all in on an Akai MPC live 2 and I have to say, I’m finding it just so much more inspiring that the Octatrack, maybe it’s a honeymoon but I’m just feeling like it’s nearly what I have always wanted from a sampler type instrument.
I’m still under a week in and there is lots to learn but I made this out of a couple of little bits of traditional japanese music and I’ve been working on slices and ‘flips’ as I believe the kids used to call them. Lovely times.
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Very atmospheric- They should be paying you to write the music for Ghost of Tsushima 2!
I’ve never really explored sampling, which is odd since I do a lot of looping. I’ve been debating getting a Digitakt or a M:S.
The conundrum is that I started with the M:C and then got the Digitone for more flexibility. I use and love both. But if sampling isn’t for me, a Digitakt would be overkill. I’ll probably start with a used M:S. Maybe.
If money isn’t the biggest factor, I’d defnitely just go for the Digitakt first. I got a M:S as my first ever elektron box and it was great but it was a very short time before I missed being able to sample things into it without being at a computer and changed it up for a DT.
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If 1996 me could hear now me I think they’d be pretty happy. Still just practicing/learning on the MPC Live 2 but am having quite a nice time of it.
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Just more messy edibled practice/learning. Tonight I was trying to get my brain a bit around automation and song mode on the MPC L2
I am really enjoying just taking a single sample and then chopping it around and then building some things around it. I’m doing lots of digging around youtube for nice bits of soul for the chop.
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