The lost art of looping (hardware samplers)

yeah, didn‘t try it yet.
But I want to sample some synths and kontakt instruments.
you can even sample four layers of velocity per note. pretty promising

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I had a couple of tracks on FM 77 1998 and CM 42 2002, bit dated now but I did put them on soundcloud ages ago
You can listen to them below


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My mum used to work at a newsagent and would get me FM and CM for free, as for some reason the policy for most unsold magazines was to just rip the title off the front cover and send those back to the distributor, throwing the rest of the magazine away (including the CDs!). Such a wasteful industry.
I made so many terrible Fatboy Slim ripoffs using FM/CM coverdisc samples.

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I also have fond memories of FM (in particular) and CM from the days of pre-internet and it being the only source of information. I think the first issue of FM I got was maybe something like 7 or 8 but I didn’t write music then. I lived in rural nowhere Scotland and it seemed like a way to find out about new bands who were electronic. I remember reading an article about how to program a Wavestation which made very little sense to me. Though it sounded awfully cool whatever it was and I guess that’s what planted the seed to do some of this myself.

It would be really cool if the publishers were to make PDFs of back issues available to purchase to relive the old articles, interviews and reviews with more modern sensibilities.

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I remember getting my first track on the FM CD and thinking I’d made it, having a track on a CD with the Shamen !!! But apart from some label keep asking me to send them tracks ‘have you got something a bit more like this ?’ And a bloke from Ireland asking if I could do a synth ‘war of the worlds’ nothing much came of it. Then I started using Orion on pc and got a track on the CM CD but again nothing much happened and I ended up packing it in for many years.

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https://www.muzines.co.uk/mags

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There were a few guys from around that time that appeared on FM CD’s that went on to be successful , Lange the trance producer/ DJ, Mark Barrott and Mesh the synth band who released a few albums, I think they were on the first FM CD although thinking about it I think the first one was a cassette though I might be wrong.



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Vintage soundblaster sound. Put that on a Neve console and it’s game over bro

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Ha, the first I’d heard of them was yesterday when I downloaded that coverdisc! I did think to myself “I wonder what happened to these guys, they sound like a massive Depeche Mode ripoff”…

I remember this was on one of the CM coverdiscs:


It completely blew me away at the time, even though I’d heard Aphex and Squarepusher by that point… of course I ended up making a bunch of tracks “inspired” by it.
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I remember thinking that when I heard them in the 90’s. From their wiki page … Mesh are a British synthpop band formed in Bristol, England. They have achieved chart success and recognition in Germany; however, they remain comparatively unknown in their native UK.

I had a bit of “success” after being on that FM CD too, was awarded demo of the month in that Feb93 issue, which led to quite a few records on various labels and a few CDs, around 1996 though I was so fed up with not getting paid, mainly due to shady distributors or labels “going bust” I ended up getting a proper job :laughing:
I met some interesting people though, and had a fair bit of national radio play on BBC Radio 1 and Kiss FM.

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even tho Internet was there, I bought a FM Issue in 2011 as they had a great and big article about the OP-1 which at least sold me to the Unit!

the TE website was really abstract at this time and nobody could really tell if the OP-1 will ever be released to the public.

nearly the same with the OG Oplab a few years later. when people realized what it was they‘ve already stopped producing it.

26 years ago since then, time passes so fast, doesn’t seem like 5 minutes ago to me. A lot of people on here probably weren’t even born then !!!:grinning:

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Yes indeed, time flies. I still feel like I’m a young guy, but the mirror and my back and remind me I’m that not :smile:

Still I have great memories of those days, and my enthusiasm for music has never diminished, I wish that I’d been better at making decisions back then though, had interest from Nova Mute, Rhythm King and Warp but ended up going with other labels, none of whom still exist for various reasons, oh well :joy:

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Magazines like Future Music and Computer Music were my best options for free samples (and software) back then. When I first started reading CM, most people I knew were still on dial-up modems and there was no such thing as ‘unlimited data’ services. Downloading software and samples was time-consuming and potentially expensive. I was using an old Mirage keyboard, Casio FZ-1, and an E-mu ESI-32 at the time. I would get the cover disc and more often than not, simply sample the audio directly. Sometimes I’d sling it into my computer and send it to the Mirage via MIDI Sample Dump or into the ESI or FZ via SCSI (often by way of Turbosynth).

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Yes ofcours , IMS in Antwerp ! Used to be part of my Thursday routine .

  • Check new vinyl releases at USA Import and Wally’s Groove World.
  • Get Computer Music , Future Music or Sound on Sound at IMS
  • Eat at Mcdo with whatever little money i had left :slight_smile: :slight_smile:
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I still make multisamples sometimes. At the very minimum I usually automate and multisample all of the patches from a synth that I’ve decided to sell.

Most recently was an old Roland XP-80 that passed through my hands. I got it for free, fixed it and sold it. It had the vintage synth expansion card in it (Eric Persing pre Omnisphere I believe).

Anyway, Apple Mainstage has a nice multi sampling tool built into it that works really well for stuff like this (long route to my point).

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I keep thinking of doing automated multisamples with the OT, although I never got around to it yet, the idea being set up a midi track to play the target synth, 64 steps each with a variation in timbre, same note for all steps, sample it, slice it, save it, load as a static. Obviously not quite the same as actual multisamples but functionally similar.

On the subject of OT did you do your screen mod yet? Or kids keeping you busy enough? :wink:

There were FM samples all over my early tracks. Had an EPS rack sampler, used to sample drum loops then used to move the slider to adjust the start point till I got some syncopated rythms with my mc303. I probably used some of yours or Scott’s samples back then :+1:

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’I wish that I’d been better at making decisions back then though’

I totally understand this, I regret not putting more effort in and then family takes over.

Do you have any links to some of these tracks would love to have a listen

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