How can you sample

Ambient soundscapes make exceptional background fillers in tracks — take a recorder out into nature and capture some birds chirping and leaves rustling, or record the sounds of a city street.

Or, you can sneakily capture some chatter on the subway, hit things with other things to make percussion noises, or capture the sounds of a sea organ and program them into a sampler or, just sample from that Youtube video. We know what sampling is, we know how to think about sampling, and we know what to sample. Ok, the next step when talking about how to sample… You will almost never find a perfect sample out in the wild that you can just drop into your track. The key to effectively sampling is cleaning and processing your samples in a way that 1 makes them sound awesome, 2 makes them uniquely your own, and 3 naturally fits the track.

Kick drums that have some hi-hats printed in can help you build out a groove. White noise in samples you recorded yourself can make things feel more analog. I could go on forever…. Not having to achieve a perfectly clean, isolated sample means there are TONS more possibilities of things you can sample from. But when you do find a sample, there are three steps you should take: frequency processing, gain processing, and organization. First, use a high pass filter on a sample to remove any unwanted low end rumble.

This is critical for anything sampled from non-music sources. Next, use mid-side EQ to further remove unwanted frequencies, especially resonances. Sweep through your frequency spectrum with a high gain and narrow Q in order to identify resonant frequencies effectively, unwanted frequency buildups that sound harsh to the ears.

Hyperbits pro tip incoming: one of the most effective ways to clean samples is by EQing over time. Effectively, this means automating an EQ to remove certain frequencies at different times during the course of your sample. Here an an image of how I would isolate just the click and low end of a kick with a low pass filter removing the hi-hats that are printed into the sample :.

Next, you need to shape the volume of the sample. This seems pretty intuitive, but is sometimes overlooked. Take the extra 30 seconds to make sure you are capturing everything you need, but only those necessary things.

You can even do your chopping by frequency band, as Zach demonstrated in the Youtube video above. The volume characteristics of the original sample are almost never going to be exactly what you need in your track.

This is hands down the most overlooked part of cleaning samples or maybe even sampling in general. Maintain a folder of samples where you tag the type of sound Snare, Clap, Ambience, Voice, etc , the key of the sample if there is one , the BPM if there is one , and any other important identifying information. They exist in a folder specific to the year I sampled them. This is hands down the ultimate solution when it comes to learning how to sample, because you can control multiple parts of the frequency spectrum.

This means regardless of your sound source, you should be able to carve into any sound and extrapolate whatever you want. These pioneers made stripped-down instrumental mixes of reggae tunes, which started out simple but became more complex over time through the addition of effects like reverb and delay.

This created new genres, like dub and early riddim no, not the brostep type. These techniques were then generously shared with hip-hop artists — giving birth to a completely new sound.

Yet it was the MPC that arguably had the biggest impact on the modern form of sampling we know today, with artists such as J Dilla and DJ Shadow using the tool in unprecedented ways. With the advent of sampling, what can we point to in order to showcase its historical impact on music? Here are some key examples of tunes using a sample that you may or may not recognise, pulled from the sampling info website WhoSampled.

Look, many of you probably know this one. When anybody talks about sampling, this is usually the example that is brought up. This has got to have been the first electronic song I heard that used such an iconic and obvious sample. A true classic and a rite of passage for all electronic music producers. J Dilla is a true pioneer of sampling, due to his unique way of chopping in a free and unquantized way.

In fact, these very techniques inspired a new generation of hip-hop beats by producers who used samplers in similar ways. This is evident in the popular examples above. But sampling encompasses a much broader art form in practice. It can be used in chill hip-hop beats, in catchy pop music, and in beautiful sample collage tracks that really push the envelope of sampling.

The possibilities are truly endless. Many songs out there probably use samples without you even knowing. Even Justice has even admitted to using a large number of samples on their debut record, most of them uncleared too. Combine that with the advent of digital technology — using samples shifted from relying on pre-recorded, usually non-royalty free music to companies creating dedicated sample packs with royalty free sounds for producers to use. These sounds were arguably better, because they came from a higher quality source, had a specific use a one-shot clap sample vs ripping a clap from a full track and could be used without risk.

Now the techniques combined with the resources allowed sampling to reach a tipping point, democratizing the practice. More than that, the variety of sounds available in astonishing. You can get field recordings, piano sounds, drum hits, foley noises, synthesized FX, sampled phrases, pretty much anything. Sampling has reached new heights, and it could go anywhere in the future.

Now that we know what sampling is and what can be sampled, where do you go to get them? Here we will cover where you can find any sort of sample, from completed music to sample to individual drum samples or obscure audio recordings.

But using the medium as-is is the most common form of sampling. Then just create a new audio track in your DAW, change it to the correct input, and hit record.

Over the years there have been countless debates as to whether the art of sampling was a true and original art form. However, nowadays it is mostly accepted as an element of modern music. So why sample when you can create your own sounds using synthesizers? Additionally, the process of finding a sample and then creating something entirely new with it is an extremely rewarding process. Many people believe that sampling originated with Hip-Hop. A song in which the popular drum break is now known to be sampled in over songs according to whosampled.

The MPC opened sampling to a much wider audience, which perhaps almost single-handedly revolutionized the Hip Hop genre. Then, using the MPC would chop up sections of the sample, playing out new melodies using the intuitive drum pads. The possibilities of what can be sampled are truly endless. When most people think of sampling they think about sampling full recordings of songs.

However, basically any form of audio is fair game and sample-able if you get creative. From film sequences and dialogue, to documentaries, YouTube videos, and ambient sounds. You can even record sounds straight from the street with one of our field recorders.

Get inspired by Hip-Hop producer Mr. Green as he does just that, sampling street artists and sounds from the street to create some amazing new songs! Combine these methods of sampling with new advancements in technology and you have everything you can think of at your fingertips.

With royalty-free music companies and even fellow producers providing you access to high-quality sample packs. Allowing you to use pre-recorded field recordings, piano sounds, drum hits, synthesized FX, sampled loops and more!

How to Find Sounds to Sample Use The Creative Commons — Creative Commons is a licensing organization that fosters the fair use of artistic work for other artists to use. Their search engine CCMixter is great for finding all types of sound that is legal to sample. Search The Public Domain — When an artist creates something they keep certain ownership rights. But after a certain amount of time these rights expire and their works enter the public domain.

A great place to find public domain sounds is the music page on archive. Make The Sample Unrecognizable — Apply effects to your sample. Reverse it. Pitch it down. Layer it. Or bury it in the mix. This basically just means making your sample an entirely new thing. Sure, the original sound is in there somewhere.