music Thoughts on sampling?

[ReGen 1,466]

Pretty much self-explanatory.

 

For those of you who don't know what sampling is, it's basically taking a part of an existing song and sing it in a new song, typically of a different genre.

 

I've heard people say that people who sample songs are just "stealing" someone else's work and have no creativity. What do you guys think?

 

I think otherwise. I believe sampling is a great way to take one song and turn it into something else. I do think people should always give credit to where credit's due. I don't think people who sample are uncreative or lacking so, prolly because i'm one of them it really depends on how you sample.

 

Another argument I hear is that anyone can sample. Lemme tell you something: It ain't that easy.

 

I have a friend who also produces electronic music. He has much better equipment/software, knows how to play the piano and pretty much had music surround him his entire life. B-u-t he can't sample. I even showed him and he can't. I think it takes a certain ear to do it. You pretty much have to know how to loop it, know about BPM and beats... stuff that i'm sure a computer can't do.

[mineralwater 83]

sampling is really really hard

you have to find out what bpm the songs have on your own

and if you are going to use multiple samples you'll have to find out who fits together in pitch and stufffzzzz

it depends on how you are sampling though, if you sample just one bar from a song and play it over and over again it's not very clever, i think.

Edited August 19, 2013 by mineralwater

[Scootalove 10,689]

I don't really think much of sampling in the music industry. But, as long as the artist gives credit to the original music artist who made the song then there would be no problems of copyright infringement. Either that have no creativity, but they probably need inspiration. It probably isn't easy to sample.

[. eris . 1,661]

Oh, so was that what Vanilla Ice did with his "Ice Ice Baby" bassline? Which was so excruciatingly obvious that it was from Under Pressure?

 

I didn't know there was an official term for that, actually.

[Katskratch 59]

Building a song around a vocal or instrumental sample takes a lot of creativity and technical work. For me it's even harder than making stuff from scratch, which is why remixes of the show are so freaking difficult for me. So it is not easy nor cheap production, at least as far as I'm concerned. 

[akalink 163]

Oh, so was that what Vanilla Ice did with his "Ice Ice Baby" bassline? Which was so excruciatingly obvious that it was from Under Pressure?

 

I didn't know there was an official term for that, actually.

No that wasn't sampling. That in that case was plagiarism. He didn't play money to use the idea

 

I think sampling is can be cool, but often times I see one thought of a piece of music that is sampled. Then the sampler only uses it with little creativity and destroys the original intent of what was sampled. Pretty much what Kanye West does. "Hey lets take this cool build up from this Black Sabbath song and just use that, then we will scream and rap over it." or "Hey lets take this beautiful electronic choral song and then take the most memorable and emotional part. We will use that as a chorus because the rest of the song sucks."

[Katskratch 59]

No that wasn't sampling. That in that case was plagiarism. He didn't play money to use the idea

 

I think sampling is can be cool, but often times I see one thought of a piece of music that is sampled. Then the sampler only uses it with little creativity and destroys the original intent of what was sampled. Pretty much what Kanye West does. "Hey lets take this cool build up from this Black Sabbath song and just use that, then we will scream and rap over it." or "Hey lets take this beautiful electronic choral song and then take the most memorable and emotional part. We will use that as a chorus because the rest of the song sucks."

 

I'm going to disagree with this, because one of the points of sampling is to take the bit out of context and use it's musicality differently, to make a different point, and to add something to your piece it wouldn't have had if you'd just, say, composed a more genre standard bit in place of the sample. In short, sampling is a way for you to explore music beyond the genre you specialize in. I mean, do I have to go learn how to thrash an electric in order to give my mixes a little metal? As long as all samples are legally cleared (and all of Kanye's are) I think it's fine. 

[Soundgarden 2,758]

It depends on how the samples are used. Many pop/hip hop artists today (I'M LOOKING AT YOU FLO RIDA) just samples a single part from a specific song and uses that for the bigger parts of the song. There's no creativity there, it's just copy pasting

 

Some artists however, uses samples in a very creative, ambitious and well thought-out way

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmzHRGoKca0

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlEkvbRmfrA

Edited August 19, 2013 by Erio Touwa

[Moonlight 7,287]

Sampling is "meh" to me. It, more or less, just depends on the song for me. But, if the person sampling credits the original artist, then fine by me.

[John 793]

Well it depends.  If your entire work is made out of sampled material, than yeah, you should either call your track a mixdown of the things you sampled or not share it at all.  If you use a sample here and there then it is fine IMO, as long as you are modifying the sample (like with vocal slicing for example) and don't make it sound obvious.

[Hansel 1,512]

Oh, so was that what Vanilla Ice did with his "Ice Ice Baby" bassline? Which was so excruciatingly obvious that it was from Under Pressure?

 

I didn't know there was an official term for that, actually.

 

No, that's called ripping off. 

 

Sampling also doesn't necessarily involve using music samples, it can be anything. Post-Industrial acts do this all the time.

 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZg89fgiCqM

Edited August 21, 2013 by Hansel

[Moog the Kvlt 1,460]

Sampling is an art form as much as making a collage is, surely rappers like to take a piece out of a song and just slap it on the track, but there's more to sampling than stealing a piece out of someone's work.

[ASocialyAwkwardPony 299]

It's really a case to case basis I would say. When Jason Derullo steals "Hide and Seek" and sings over it without understanding the song is supposed to be ironic then it's just awkward and messy. When Ministry uses samples to make a statement, satire or just as a instrument it works really really well in most cases. It all comes down to "do you have a reason to sample this other than not wanting to make your own chorus or melody?"

 

See also Pitbull's Feel This Moment for a terrible lazy sample (the song doesn't even have anything to do with any of the themes in Take On Me!)

[LMW-YBC 102]

As long as you don't go overboard with it (*cough* Will.i.am *cough*), then I don't see that much wrong with it. Taking essentially a whole song or a significant section of a song -- especially without explicit permission -- is a problem though.

 

Thankfully, some artists manage to take care of this and sue the perpetrator for any damages, but for those who aren't so lucky, it could hurt their producing. These people can be completely reliant on their music for income, and if some narcissistic "big-shot" comes along and takes it behind their back, they might not be able to maintain their income anymore, forcing them to stop producing and take on another job.

[Freewave 1,145]

Sounds like everyone has said the important things already. Sampling can be great as its a link back to the past and can make the old fresh and new again and use it outside of the original work. It works best when its relevent in the new song and when its not just "rapping over Kashmir". It definitely doesn't work when its plagiarism (Vanilla Ice didn't acknowledge or even give credit and initially didnt pay for that sample) and you're gonna use other people's music do it for a free release (plunderphonics) or pay for that sample if you're gonna charge money. If you're wondering where Silva Hound's back catalog is after he pulled it from Bandcamp it's not because he disliked MLP (he didn't abandon the fandom, he in fact just toured with Musiquestria) its likely because profiting off all those liscenced samples caught up with him. As it should have.

 

Here's a few last comments on why a single sample can be so important to music

 

and how it can be done in a really interesting way

Edited August 21, 2013 by Freewave

[Away 2,077]

Using samples can yield pretty amazing results if it's done right.

 

[Ribbonfree 2,383]

 If you're wondering where Silva Hound's back catalog is after he pulled it from Bandcamp it's not because he disliked MLP (he didn't abandon the fandom, he in fact just toured with Musiquestria) its likely because profiting off all those liscenced samples caught up with him. As it should have.

 

Yeah, I was thinking something was fishy when the opening to Spitfire was clearly the horns from Evelyn King's 'Shame' song. I love Silva but that was definitely iffy. He probably thought he could get away with it back when he wasn't a big name, I dunno.

 

And sampling is, in my opinion, good when it's properly used (cleared, etc.) and used in a way that enhances an existing original melody/sound design, versus just whole sale being reused as an entire song. Or if it's so chopped and screwed it's only barely recognizable from the original.

[Freewave 1,145]

And actually yeah i think he may have left after all. It's confusing. That tour might have been his last hourah....

[Ribbonfree 2,383]

And actually yeah i think he may have left after all. It's confusing. That tour might have been his last hourah....

 

He just released a remix of a Knife Pony song, he was featured in Ashleigh Bell's new documentary, and he himself said he has plans to go to cons throughout this year. I think his involvement is waning for sure, but he's still probably gonna do the occasional thing.

[Freewave 1,145]

Oh I'm sure he'll do cons and they should pay his way. There's every reason for him to continue performing. 

[Courageous Thunder Dash 7,824]

To me, sampling is really like a "starter". It's not like starting from scratch, which is why I think it shouldn't really count as someone else's "original". 

[Scootaloodle 1,623]

One of my favourite topics to talk about

 

I use a lot of sampling in my own productions, and for me sampling is one of the things I’m obsessed with especially Deep/Disco/French House music sampling, and I’m also on the Whosampled website and have submitted examples.

 

I think sampling is a great tool for making a new song out of someone’s already exciting productions and an art form.

 

I think one favorite example would be Daft Punk’s- Discovery album

[PlumBum 10]

Okay, Im currently doing a degree in music production and last year we had the 'business' module of our degree. Sampling was one of the primary focus of a lecture, so here's my two cents on the legal side of sampling.

 

Basically when sampling first came about, everybody groped around for what kind of deals had to be made. Alot of sampled records around that time were released before anypony tried to clear the rights, which in turn led to artists and companies having the attitude of 'well, if they catch me then I'll make a deal'. Which they did. But do you know who's rights need to be bought out? Obviously the record company owning the record must be paid but the publisher of the composition also needs to be paid. Publishers will always insist on owning a percentage of the sample copyright, royalties and income. But this percentage depends on how significantly you have sampled. If you lift an entire melody for example they can take 50% or more of your income from the song.

 

The thing is, the catch me if you can idea stopped abruptly in 1991  when a rapper I cant remember the name of sampled a Gilbert O'Sullivan song and got caught. Not only did the rapper get slapped on the wrist but the case was forwarded to the US attorney office for criminal prosecution. Any intentional copyright infringement is a criminal offence if not dealt with the proper way.

 

Now, I don't have a problem with sampling at all. Hay, I use it myself now and again. But I feel it needs to be used in the correct way, aka not completely ripping off the original artist.

Edited March 31, 2014 by TerroRaze

[Scootaloodle 1,623]

There is a website dedicated to showing where some great tracks have sampled from called Whosampled:

 

I was surprised to find some drum breaks being sampled in two popular animated shows since I’d imagine anything like that would avoid sampling.

 

It could just be a sound alike: but it would be very cool if it was true that the Powerpuff girls theme really did sample James Brown.

 

http://www.whosampled.com/Christopher-Tyng/Futurama-Theme/

 

http://www.whosampled.com/sample/809/James-L.-Venable-Powerpuff-Girls-Theme-James-Brown-Funky-Drummer/

Edited July 8, 2014 by Asherdangerdash

[paradoxical 1,735]

I've heard some versions of the songs in MLP that I wasn't thrilled with when I first heard them (Laughter song comes to mind) that were really improved by sampling. 

I do find that if the song is good enough if that song is in peoples' minds enough, sampling doesn't add as much to it or even detracts (even the Smile song I do like that has the Typography video isn't as good as the original)

 

But there are some talented Samplings out there.  If you can do it, sure why not?