I'm always amazed when artists and producers can recognize a sound as something that can be radically transformed, because I'm pretty musical but my imagination doesn't work like that. Kanye is a genius at this.
While listening to music you might hear something that stands out to you. Maybe a drum sound or chord or certain part. So you record a sample (or make note for later), then load the sound up in a sampler, chop it up, repitch it, warp it, etc and store it in your library. Once its in your sample collection it becomes just another color to paint with.
> Jonny Greenwood came across it in a used record shop when the band was on tour in the United States recently I think it sold about 7000 copies, which is a lot for a classical recording.
I think it’s more experimentation with musical ideas and happy accidents. Had Johnny not gone into that shop maybe idioteque would sound a lot different today.
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.
Well, I said "most of the time", not "always". And that's talking from experience (both mine and that of fellow hobby musicians). It's true that sometimes you might come across a snippet and instantly know what you will be doing with it.
I'm talking from experience too. And from experience I found the opposite was true. Most of the time I found a snippet and knew what I was doing with it. Admittedly sometimes it sounded lousier than I'd expected and I thus scraped it but that's not really the same as having a sample and accidentally discovering it sounded good. Usually I'd pick a simple because I thought I could sound good (otherwise I wouldn't have bothered sampling it to begin with). So I think the term "happy accidents" is disingenuous because a lot of the time it wasn't an accident.
>So I think the term "happy accidents" is disingenuous.
I think, actually, that both of you are right. Everyone hears music differently, and some people may be better at putting together happy accidents, while others are better at hearing things beforehand. Ya know, just like the two of you. :)
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.
Personally, I like the use of Bobby Byrd's "I know you got soul" by Eric B & Rakim on their track conveniently called "I know you got soul". A combination of multiple samples punctuated by Rakim inventive lyrics make it a timeless classic IMO.
Just leaving this here without any context, but this song (Olivier Orand - Thursday Night) is the only one which really raised a desire to "debug" it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-z2IW0CBBo
> I'm always amazed when artists and producers can recognize a sound as something that can be radically transformed, because I'm pretty musical but my imagination doesn't work like that.
I’m usually the same way. I will say though, I once had what felt to me like a stroke of genius when I realized that a sample from the theme from American Beauty fit perfectly in my cover of NIN’s The Day The World Went Away.
I’d share, but I hate my vocals and I don’t have the original source tracks to make an instrumental mix. But if you listen to the Quiet remix you might be able imagine how it fits.
> Jonny Greenwood came across it in a used record shop when the band was on tour in the United States recently I think it sold about 7000 copies, which is a lot for a classical recording.
I think it’s more experimentation with musical ideas and happy accidents. Had Johnny not gone into that shop maybe idioteque would sound a lot different today.