Sampling history
By the end, you can:
- Distinguish a sample from a replayed musical idea.
- Connect looping and sound editing to your own production.
- Explain how MIDI triggers a sampler without carrying audio.
What are we reusing?
- Sample: audio taken from an existing recording.
- Interpolation: a musical part performed and recorded again.
- Remix: a new version, often made from a song’s stems.
Borrowing before samplers
Listen for a borrowed phrase. Is an old recording being reused?
Same harmony, new melody
A contrafact reuses chord changes. Does it reuse recorded audio?
Musique concrète
Listen for a familiar sound made unfamiliar. What changed?
Rearrange time
- Splice: cut a recording and join pieces in a new order.
- Loop: repeat a chosen section.
- Reverse: play a recording backward.
Change the sound
- Playback speed: faster is higher; slower is lower.
- Filtering: change which frequencies remain.
- Reverb: add a sense of space.
Schaeffer, 1948
Hear the opening train study. When does noise become a pattern?
Hip hop extends the break
- Bronx DJs in the 1970s kept dancers moving by extending drum breaks.
- Two turntables let a DJ repeat a recorded passage live.
- Digital samplers later made it possible to store and retrigger sounds.
Explore sampled records on WhoSampled
| Musique concrète | Early hip hop |
|---|
| Starting point | Recorded noises and instruments | Breaks from records |
| Repetition | Explore a sound’s texture | Extend a groove |
| Setting | Experimental radio and studios | Bronx parties and dance floors |
What does a loop let each musician do?
The Kraftwerk connection
- “Planet Rock” (1982) replays musical ideas from Kraftwerk’s “Trans-Europe Express” and “Numbers.”
- This is interpolation: borrowing a part without copying that recording.
Compare the source relationships
Fairlight: play a recording
A stored sound can be played from a keyboard. What changes across keys?
Herbie Hancock samples
What gets recorded? What action makes it play back?
Why MIDI mattered
- Instruments from different makers needed a shared way to communicate.
- MIDI means Musical Instrument Digital Interface.
- It sends performance instructions. It does not send the audio itself.
What MIDI tells an instrument
- Note on/off: which note starts or stops, and when.
- Velocity: how strongly the note was played.
- Controllers: changes such as modulation or sustain.
MIDI triggers the sample
- A pad or piano-roll note sends a MIDI instruction.
- The sampler plays its stored audio.
- REAPER receives that audio for mixing.
If you change the sample but keep the MIDI, what stays the same?
Listen for notes placed ahead of or behind the beat.
A recording has two rights
- Sound recording: the particular recorded performance.
- Composition: the underlying music and lyrics.
- Sampling may involve both. Replaying a part can still involve the composition.
Choose sources you can use
- Record your own sounds, or use samples licensed for your intended use.
- Check the recording’s license, even if the composition is public domain.
- Save the source, license, and required credit with your project.
Quick check before Project 4
- You record a new performance of a borrowed melody. Sample or interpolation?
- You replace a snare in Speedrum Lite. Does the MIDI pattern have to change?
- Name one editing technique from today you could use in your beat.