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Listening to the break down of the tracks, they barely takes any music playing ability so I imagine they could have easily made them from scratch instead of usi

by eweise 2y ago

Listening to the break down of the tracks, they barely takes any music playing ability so I imagine they could have easily made them from scratch instead of using samples.

hnlmorg 2y ago
Artists don’t sample because they’re unable to perform elements of a track. They sample because they hear an element of one track and go “that’s awesome, I want to use that creatively but in a different way”. To that end, most of the samples you’ll hear are pretty simple to reproduce. And sometimes artists don’t get the license to use the sample so they are forced to reproduce (this happens a lot more with vocal samples from what I’m aware)
- eweise 2y ago
  I don't know. I think it would be pretty difficult to reproduce say the Amen Break. You would have to be a great drummer and be able to reproduce that particular sound it has.
  - hnlmorg 2y ago
    Drum machines have been around for literally decades. You could take a sample of real drums and then structure it in a step sequencer which, again, is technology that’s been around for decades. Or if you’re already signed to a label (like Daft Punk were at the time) and neither yourself nor any studio engineers have a clue how to use your hardware (also highly unlikely) then you’d pay a session musician to come in and record an original sample. In fact this last part happens all the time even for artists who are actual musicians but want collaboration as part of their creative process. So there are plenty of options available to create original samples. More often than not, artists don’t sample because they don’t have other options, they sample because it’s a desired part of the creative process.
    - eweise 2y ago
      Not to argue the point, but in the article, he can't get the snare sound right so he needed to revert to a sample. I think you're underestimating the difficulty of recreating sounds. It would be impossible for instance, to recreate the amen break with a sequencer because nothing would be on a quantized beat and every single drum hit is different.
      - hnlmorg 2y ago
        > Not to argue the point, but in the article, he can't get the snare sound right so he needed to revert to a sample. That’s a different problem. He is trying to exactly recreate a sample but without using the sample. You wouldnt do that in released music because if you didn’t have clearance to use that sample then you’d be still breaking copyright law if you were to recreate it exactly. So what you’d do is recreate the essence of that sample but without making it exactly the same. Also you ignored my point that professional studios have access to more resources and professionals too. > I think you're underestimating the difficulty of recreating sounds. I never said it was easy ;) > It would be impossible for instance, to recreate the amen break with a sequencer because nothing would be on a quantized beat and every single drum hit is different. Sequencers don’t quantise beats. You’re thinking of trackers and they are a completely different beast. You can have your samples aligned any which way you like in sequencers. And even if you were to user a drum machine, you can add padding to your samples. Some drum machines also support dequantisation where they deliberately trigger the samples off beat to give the drums a more natural sound. To give an example of how sequencers don’t quantise: I was hopelessly bad at producing and some of my earliest efforts had little to no quantization at all (if you can forgive the made up word) and thus I required an engineer to come in an redo most of what I did but have those samples triggered on beat. So I’m very familiar with how easy or hard it is to get drums aligned and how quantisation works in a DAW. I did get better at producing as time went on but never good enough to even consider making a career out of it.

by eweise 2y ago

Listening to the break down of the tracks, they barely takes any music playing ability so I imagine they could have easily made them from scratch instead of using samples.

hnlmorg 2y ago

Artists don’t sample because they’re unable to perform elements of a track. They sample because they hear an element of one track and go “that’s awesome, I want to use that creatively but in a different way”. To that end, most of the samples you’ll hear are pretty simple to reproduce. And sometimes artists don’t get the license to use the sample so they are forced to reproduce (this happens a lot more with vocal samples from what I’m aware)

eweise 2y ago
I don't know. I think it would be pretty difficult to reproduce say the Amen Break. You would have to be a great drummer and be able to reproduce that particular sound it has.
- hnlmorg 2y ago
  Drum machines have been around for literally decades. You could take a sample of real drums and then structure it in a step sequencer which, again, is technology that’s been around for decades. Or if you’re already signed to a label (like Daft Punk were at the time) and neither yourself nor any studio engineers have a clue how to use your hardware (also highly unlikely) then you’d pay a session musician to come in and record an original sample. In fact this last part happens all the time even for artists who are actual musicians but want collaboration as part of their creative process. So there are plenty of options available to create original samples. More often than not, artists don’t sample because they don’t have other options, they sample because it’s a desired part of the creative process.
  - eweise 2y ago
    Not to argue the point, but in the article, he can't get the snare sound right so he needed to revert to a sample. I think you're underestimating the difficulty of recreating sounds. It would be impossible for instance, to recreate the amen break with a sequencer because nothing would be on a quantized beat and every single drum hit is different.
    - hnlmorg 2y ago
      > Not to argue the point, but in the article, he can't get the snare sound right so he needed to revert to a sample. That’s a different problem. He is trying to exactly recreate a sample but without using the sample. You wouldnt do that in released music because if you didn’t have clearance to use that sample then you’d be still breaking copyright law if you were to recreate it exactly. So what you’d do is recreate the essence of that sample but without making it exactly the same. Also you ignored my point that professional studios have access to more resources and professionals too. > I think you're underestimating the difficulty of recreating sounds. I never said it was easy ;) > It would be impossible for instance, to recreate the amen break with a sequencer because nothing would be on a quantized beat and every single drum hit is different. Sequencers don’t quantise beats. You’re thinking of trackers and they are a completely different beast. You can have your samples aligned any which way you like in sequencers. And even if you were to user a drum machine, you can add padding to your samples. Some drum machines also support dequantisation where they deliberately trigger the samples off beat to give the drums a more natural sound. To give an example of how sequencers don’t quantise: I was hopelessly bad at producing and some of my earliest efforts had little to no quantization at all (if you can forgive the made up word) and thus I required an engineer to come in an redo most of what I did but have those samples triggered on beat. So I’m very familiar with how easy or hard it is to get drums aligned and how quantisation works in a DAW. I did get better at producing as time went on but never good enough to even consider making a career out of it.