The resulting quantization error gave samples of that era a crunchy timbre with a narrow dynamic range. Computer memory was expensive, so samplers saved space by using 12-bit audio, which is conspicuously lower-quality than the 16-bit audio we are used to now. In the 1980s and 1990s, sampling aesthetics were shaped by technological limitations. They usually do other signal processing as well: filtering, compression, reverb, delay, and so on. Rap and dance producers do not just loop their samples. Even if you can get their pitch and tempo to align, that does not mean that the melodies, harmonies, timbre and groove will sound good together. It is even more challenging to combine multiple samples from different sources. It takes many hours of trial and error to identify good loops. There is a widespread belief among musicians that sampling is lazy, or that it’s stealing. It begins to gather a compositional weight that far exceeds its original significance (p. After only a few repetitions, this juxtaposition… begins to take on an air of inevitability. Ooping automatically recasts any musical material it touches, insofar as the end of a phrase is repeatedly juxtaposed with its beginning in a way that was not intended by the original musician. In his book Making Beats: the Art of Sample-Based Hip-Hop (2000), Joseph Schloss says: When you loop a sample, you are not just placing it in a new musical context you are also juxtaposes the end of the sample with its beginning, creating a musical relationship that was not present in the original. In practice, however, there is significant overlap between long samples and radical remixes. Typically, a remix will still be a recognizable version of the original song, while a sample is usually the basis of an entirely different song. The difference is that a remix is usually a reworking of an entire existing song, rather than the editing and manipulation of a short loop or a single note. Sampling shares some creative DNA with remixing. Sound designers manipulate samples to create new synthesized timbres, for example, by looping a few milliseconds and applying various kinds of processing. Samples are not just used for looping full phrases, however. However, rap and dance music producers quickly realized that you could use samplers to capture and loop short musical phrases as well. You would load a sound, like a single note or drum hit, and then play it back via a keyboard or a grid of pads. Digital samplers were originally meant to be played like traditional musical instruments. Sampling exploded with the advent of digital recording and playback in the 1980s. While they had intended the drum loop to be a temporary track, they liked the sound of it so much that they kept it in the final song. Drummer Dennis Bryon had to leave the recording session early, so the band created a tape loop of two measures of his drum part from “Night Fever” and recorded the other instruments over it. One early example is the drum part in “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees (1977). These methods are difficult, however, so outside of experimental and avant-garde compositions, analog samples were unusual. Before digital audio, musicians sampled recordings by cutting and splicing magnetic tape, or by manipulating turntables. Strictly speaking, however, sampling is the manipulation and editing of audio recordings. In casual language, we tend to use the word “sampling” to include quotation and interpolation. Sampling transforms any recorded music or other audio into potential raw material. The idea of manipulating existing recordings for musical expression is at the heart of hip-hop, electronic dance music, and related pop styles. Sampling is one of the most significant developments in the past fifty years of popular music.
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