Back to Ignition Mag frontpage How to start Sampling - By 'Dr.Loop' (Contributor) - 3 March 2001 Foreword: This is just a primer and the way I see it, you don't have to agree at all. There is no 'right way' or 'wrong way' to do music or sampling. Do however you feel right, as long as you have fun while doing it and don't end up in hospital, jail or dead. I am not a music guru. I am not a studio guru. Before you start Before you can start making some beats you need some source material. Firstly You can surf the web and get your essentials (808, 909 etc), and surely you know this as you are right now on a 'get free samples' page. Secondly, You can save up some money and buy a sample CD suitable for the style of music you are about to start creating. Third, you can get a good microphone, a portable DAT/MiniDisc and find somebody or something to record. Fourth, get to know a DJ with a large collection of what you like. Personally, I opt for all of the above. The essentials I store all the famous machines as samples, ex. 808 where I have many different BD-samples to choose from, each recorded in 16bit with different knob settings. This gives me lots of sonical options when I start composing something. I can have my 909 with a really soft BD and a really snappy snare to go… these can be found at many locations on the web, You can propably find some good 808 and 909 etc sample-packs really easily with AltaVista or Yahoo. Sample CDs I've got some sound libraries on CDs to choose from. Available from many sources, there are a lot of sample CDs to choose from, some crappy, some good. Please check in 'Software&Hardware' for reviews. Some of the more famous sample-CDs sound over-used to me, and I would never use them, because the loops from them are featured in every second bad commercial or low-budget soundtrack. However, there's lots of really interesting smaller companies popping up all the time with really interesting new sounds. A good resource for finding these are once again the search engines, but don't forget to buy a music-magazine atleast every now and then. Future Music and similar have reviews and a lot of ads with web adresses… Remember: 'Do your own research as you are the judge of your own sound and only you know what you are looking for'. Make your own. Every now and then I take 'sampling-trips'. I record everything. Cars, ocean, people, crowds… they don't make good drums, but they do give nice ambience to certain projects. If you find an old abandoned factory, go wild! You can find lots of nice things to bang on! Just make sure you have the portable on record and don't end up arrested by the police. Remember to have extra tape/discs and extra batteries ready and make sure capturing the long reverbs too… If you know some percussionists or drummers, use them! They're a never ending source of noise. Sample sample sample! Remember: 'Even a crappy drummer can stay in tempo after you slice the beats up and sequence him'. Steal some. Bug the DJ. Hang aroud him all night and talk dirty to all the girls who hang around the DJ booth. Then steal all his good vinyls and never return them. That is a good way to make new friends… Right. I know and work with quite a many DJ's and DJ's seem to get good self-esteem if they get to work with 'real' musicians (available as joke too). Some DJ's actually still feel uncertain if they really are musicians. They'll most likely gladly collaborate with some great beats and sounds from their vast vinyl collections. Just make sure you respect all the copyrights... Original artists do deserve their share of the possible money. Remember: 'Keep good records of where samples originate from. If your tune hits big time, It is good to know where the 'stolen' beats are from'. What you need for sampling. If you're doing some sampling yourself, be sure to get a good stereo mic and at least a MiniDisc.The sound quality on a MiniDisc is not the same as on a DAT, but it is far more better than on a tape deck. Make sure your soundcard don't screw up the good sound. Some crappy soundcards have really bad AD/DA (analog/digital) converters. Read some indipendent reviews before getting a soundcard. If you're going to record something live with the soundcard, make sure it is full-duplex. Most soundcards are full-duplex nowdays, but there can still be crappy relics out there. For live recording (sequencer/HD-recorder) make sure your ASIO is 2.0 and that the soundcard has a as low as possible latency with your setup. If you're completely flat broke, can't get a job etc. and can't afford a good soundcard (after the good stereo mic and the portable recorder you can't), which is quite normal for everyone at some point in life in general, try this: Find a guy with a good soundcard and convert the source material on his machine. Once in digital domain, you can burn it on CD, save on disc, send via modem or whatever. I can't mention any special techniques for recording more than what is common sense. Try to avoid background noise and wind. Get up close to the soundsource if you don't want ambience (reverb etc.) and vice versa. And now you're ready to go. Credits Always remember to credit people involved. I remember a Texas band with long beards with a big hit in the 80's, who sampled some (slamming) car doors for toms. They propably got a car each from the car manufacturer for crediting that…