Do you think they imagine the end result at the beginning of the process or do they just play semi-randomly until they find something that has potential, and then refine it?
The way it works is a producer will grab dozens of samples, then they'll loop things. Some stuff will sound good, some wont. Most of it will require a little polish (EQing etc) to tidy up. While a producer will have an ear for it to begin with (which can be a learned skill) you have to bare in mind that you only hear the samples that did sound good and none of the dozens of samples that were rejected afterwards.
Source: I used to write a few dance tracks in a past life
I produce sample-based music[0] - and - like a lot of sample-based producers, also listen to a lot of vinyl.
Listening to records, I will instantly know when I hear a ‘sample’. I’ll put the needle back and play it a few times - importantly (hence turntables) - play with the speed and pitch in a lossless way - and eventually record, trim, loop it, and load it into my AKAI sampler or my DAW.
If you have a synth that can sample you can load a sample and then play with filters and other features to see if it will work or not.
Very rarely do artists just know that something will work out, but the more they do it the better their skills get at recognizing samples that will work or can be turned into interpolations that work.
Not everyone gets to be DJ Shadow (king of sampling).
Most of the time, sampling like this is just fumbling around and happy little accidents. There may be a goal they have in mind, but rarely would you know in advance what the end result should sound like exactly.
That's not exactly true. While there are plenty of happy accidents there's also plenty of times I've taken a sample and looped it knowing full well what it would sound like before I started.
I wonder is it an enourmous talent and sound engineering skills, or simply drugs? Or being popular peformer people queue with ideas and it's enough to pick the interesting ones?
songs come together in pieces. mostly. the jre with billy corgan is a great place to hear some real knowledge dropped on this subject. i’ve always appreciated billy corgans approach to songwriting and his willingness to talk about it.
hnlmorg|4 years ago
Source: I used to write a few dance tracks in a past life
lostgame|4 years ago
Listening to records, I will instantly know when I hear a ‘sample’. I’ll put the needle back and play it a few times - importantly (hence turntables) - play with the speed and pitch in a lossless way - and eventually record, trim, loop it, and load it into my AKAI sampler or my DAW.
YMMV
[0]https://open.spotify.com/track/7cBQ1zyG6e9Tx4jqNc3vvY?si=hsw...
racl101|4 years ago
Very rarely do artists just know that something will work out, but the more they do it the better their skills get at recognizing samples that will work or can be turned into interpolations that work.
Not everyone gets to be DJ Shadow (king of sampling).
TonyTrapp|4 years ago
hnlmorg|4 years ago
durnygbur|4 years ago
rStar|4 years ago
rStar|4 years ago