All this talk of samplers and how they color the sound, from the vintage-lovely SP-1200 to the polarized Octatrack, and everything in between before and after that.
At what point does this make any real difference?
Once you put it all in a mix, blending all kinds of stuff together, does the (for example) legendary sound of the MPC60 or SP-1200 matter?
I was listening to a demo tape of Paul Simon’s Graceland not too long ago, and it was just Paul and a guitar and some songs, and you could tell just from those tracks that he was on to something great.
But is there so much relevance in what some samplers do to sound, that they could be an integral part of the track’s quality and thus be a major part of why it’s so good?
I think it’s basicslly the same as any other ‘effect’. If you like the sound of a certain effects pedal or tape recorder. It’s just colour/crunch/vibe. All down to user tastes/another colour in your palette which can be used on individual elements or across all tracks/a full mix depending on ‘glue/compression’ benefits etc. For example some samplers do an almost cassette like crunch/vibe thing to drums which sounds great… It’s not going to change the actual track, that Paul Simon example, those songs were always gonna be pretty strong pop songs, but it can change the feel/punch/vibe/perception of a song for sure.
I feel like tiny differences can change everything !
I tried exactly the same sample (old thing recorded poorly) on OT and on AR, 2 octaves down.
The difference was not huge, but on OT I felt it wasn’t sounding right, while I just felt the urge to get a track done on AR !
I know you have a crush for Volca Sample, so you know what I mean
So far I have not felt the MD was a great sampler, but I haven’t uploaded my own samples yet, so I cannot judge too severly. I can only judge resampling and while fun it was bringing the sound a bit too far in lofi territory for me.
No theory on this matter, I’m afraid… More a question of getting the right feeling in the end. So I guess in a sense it can be seen as an effect, as COTV said.
Yes I do !
It can be very “lofi” as well, I must admit.
So I guess one has to accept the digital artefacts that can be introduced by sample tweaking.
But it’s counterbalanced IMO by the fact that
you can play with samples either as a synth or as drums, with very thin editing
using the available sequencers for each, you can get easily to the octave up and down (until +4 and -4 iirc) and come up with very interesting alternative sounds out of your original samples
you can switch between your 8 prepared kits as easily as you can switch octaves
you can add, tweak and remove FX or LFO
The thing is you can do all this (apart thin editing) on the fly, while playing, which gives you a very unique way to tweak samples in a musical way.
And I love it !
(
btw thanks for the “killer tracks” ^^
Once again, I’m very happy you like such sound
)
Depends on what part the sampler plays in the music. If it’s just playing the hihats quietly in the background, then any sampler will do of course. But if the samples are a main attraction of a fairly minimal composition, of course the timbral quality of the sampling device matters.
As an obvious example, try sampling an old funk breakbeat into an SP-1200. You’ve basically got a pretty nice 90’s hip hop backing track there already, without doing much. Chop it up, use that funky pitch algorhithm a bit and it becomes even better. You just can’t do the same with the OT (or any other fairly neutral sounding sampler), it just won’t do the job. I have tried, it just doesn’t sound like that no matter what you do with the samples inside the OT.
At the point where your listening skills are sufficiently trained to perceive it.
To the listener who can hear the difference, yes. To others, maybe not.
The differences between a ‘demo’ and a ‘final’ recording are much greater than the differences between the respective recording media.
For people who are attuned to timbre, they may well readily appreciate the difference between samplers. For people who are not so attuned to timbre, the quality of a sampler may still have an influence on their appreciation, perhaps more because of their familiarity with the media used in older recordings. Or some may enjoy a song because of its melodic or lyrical content and ignore the timbre.
In summary, once you get beyond objective measures of fidelity of reproduction, it’s entirely a question of personal taste.
[quote=““Lying Dalai””]
I feel like tiny differences can change everything !
[/quote]
Like in many things, it’s in the détails ( wich you might not notice, but if they weren’t there it would be a different piece of music ) So yes, small différences in sound do have an effect in the whole.
I do believe that many people who enjoy listening to, but don’t create, music, have a more trained ear than they know. After being exposed to music for your entire life, you learn to pick up differences, although on a subconscious level. You don’t know why you like certain things more than others, but you know that you do.
I work a lot with scripting and writing, and even though I’m familiar with the mechanics that make a good story - if we stick to simply that, and don’t look at the mojo beyond, which simply can’t be phrased or formalized - I know I can’t trick the audience, just because they don’t know the proper words or tools for how certain things play out in a story.
I believe music is the same. The average listener don’t know what’s going on, but subconsciously, they’re very much aware. How could you not, if you’ve listened to music for years and years?
Very true. Whether they are aware of it or not I think people subconsciously feel/hear a kind of honesty in stuff that has degradation or is lo-fi. Old samplers/cassette etc etc. Theres a kind of charm/connection. A variation on the way that good psych stuff kind of ignites/confuses a part of your brain.
Often it’s unintentional by the person making the music, sometimes they’re just using the best tools they can find to the best of their ability, but they just nail something that is difficult to pin down. Vibe that could never be duplicated if they were to try to reproduce it in a high end studio with a perfectionist producer. They’d just kill it. But decent producers know when/how to tap in to those kind of sounds/vibes to try to envelop the listener inside a specific environment/feeling. And there’s also the nostalgia thing where using a kind of sound takes people to different feelings related to when they listened to that kind of sound before through their lives. A lot of tools at our disposal that we don’t really think about the ‘why’ very often and just reach for them instinctively
I have a theory, hope its relevant .
I believe people enjoy music for different reasons.
I think alot of people like a song just because of the lyrics. Therefore they may not like this same song if the lyrics said something different they didn’t like.
I am the opposite in that I enjoy the music production or sound and couldn’t give shit what it is saying. For example , alot of my favorite songs, I could not sing, but I remember every little sound or scratch or whatever. I also enjoy most types of music, but maybe only certain songs in some genre because of its sound .Hope that makes sense, this was really hard to convey my opinion .
And I suppose some people like both also.
p.s. I should point out I am very un-emotional (is that a word ?) which could be why lyrics don’t effect me. Actually its the music that conveys the feeling for me.
Isn’t the simple answer that when entire tracks and/or albums are made just on the sampler? Then the sound imparted by the sampler helps define the finished art - very little is lost in the mix if everything is produced and mixed on the sampler - pretty sure there are numerous iconic examples of this - producers and albums where the sampler is part of the package, sound, aesthetic. Dilla, Madlib, DJ Shadow “Endtroducing” etc etc
Am I being too obvious or not understanding the question?
I believe that album was produced using live instruments recorded into the mic input of a Toshiba RT-80, a bucketful of attitude but no samplers.[/quote]
I think your wrong there.
Go to whosampled.com
So did they live play the “Amen” break in the title track for instance ?
I believe that album was produced using live instruments recorded into the mic input of a Toshiba RT-80, a bucketful of attitude but no samplers.[/quote]
I think your wrong there.
Go to whosampled.com
So did they live play the “Amen” break in the title track for instance ?[/quote]
Yes - the Amen Break was played live by Rick Allen of Def Leppard fame “Straight into the built-in Mic” - that was the original title of the album incidentally, but they changed it to “Straight outta Compton” cos it sounded more bad ass.
I believe that album was produced using live instruments recorded into the mic input of a Toshiba RT-80, a bucketful of attitude but no samplers.[/quote]
I think your wrong there.
Go to whosampled.com
So did they live play the “Amen” break in the title track for instance ?[/quote]
Yes - the Amen Break was played live by Rick Allen of Def Leppard fame - Straight into the built in Mic - that was the original title of the album incidentally, but they changed it to “Straight out of Compton” cos it sounded more bad ass.[/quote]
I dont agree, but I cant prove you wrong.
Anybody back me up ?
Sorry, dont take this negatively, but are you f*%kin with me ?
You dont believe they used an SP 12 on this album?
Please educate me, do you know of any links I could read, I suppose most of the samples could be just played from a turntable, but not the many loops used.
I cant recall, but I’m sure there was an SP 12 in the recent movie.
Thanx.
Ok, its more likely the loops were played by the record “Ultimate breaks and beats”. I’ll leave it at that.
@andreasroman, I thought I could recreate an old hiphop song using the Octa and resampling the origianal samples, but it wouldnt be a fair test due to the EQ, comps, mastering used.
