General Sample Questions

Fckthwrld

New Member
Joined
Aug 7, 2013
Hey,

i hope you dont mind if i ask one or two very basic sampling questions.

First of all - what can i sample? For example High Contrasts Kiss Kiss Bang Bang has 3-4 samples from other songs in it. Most of them just pitched up as far as i can hear. Do i have to ask the copyrightholder of every sample if i can use it? Most of the used samples are from very old songs. So are there any "rules" - like i can sample everything from songs that are older than x years? Or i can use samples as long as they are not longer than x seconds?

Second thing is: HOW do you sample? What source do you use? (I dont have the money for vinyl...) What do you do with your samples before working with them to "clean" them out? I like personal tips and links for further reading :)

Thank you very much!
 
i think the jist of it is don't be blatant about it and get caught :P if your gonna sample something at least try and change it a little bit, also just because you say its a bootleg remix or up for free download or whatever, doesn't mean you cant get sued....http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/music-sampling2.htm

as for actual sampling i use audacity, you can record stuff that goes through your soundcard, hope this helps :)
 
If you have a good sound card it will be fine, as long as the source is clean. Sometimes the dirt can add character to the sample though, other times not so much.

I've used samples that I have recorded on my phone and with a bit of processing, it comes out pretty good.

You can sample of youtube but the quality won't be the best but you can definitely use it as a source for samples. Audacity allows you to do this and there are 100's of Youtube to MP3 converters online you can use.
 
i've used samples that have shitty background noise on them and still managed to make them usable, i just use the standard realtek soundcard that came in my laptop, good processing is key. most of the stuff i sample comes from youtube or films :)
 
You can sample anything you want, as long as it fits the overall flow of your tune. I like to use old horror movies sounds on my productions.

All samples I get on the interwebs (mainly youtube).

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You can sample anything you want, as long as it fits the overall flow of your tune. I like to use old horror movies sounds on my productions.

All samples I get on the interwebs (mainly youtube).
 
Like a few other people here are saying, you can sample whatever you want as long as you don't get caught lol. Legally, yes, you would have to pay the original artist to use it or at least have their permission, but if that was the way most people did it, James Brown would have been as rich as Bill Gates by the time he died probably :teeth:

And I sample all my stuff from youtube using http://www.youtube-mp3.org/.
The quality isn't the best, but it really doesn't matter that much in my experience, and it's very convenient
 
Thank you very much for all your answers. Do you have any tips on further reading about Sample Processing with audacity, like cleaning them etc.? Audacity seems great since Audioediting in Ableton really is a pain :/
 
Samples gotten from tracks usually involve buying the track as a wave than chopping the bit you want. You can use EQ, expansion and gates to get rid of the stuff you dont want.
 
Far as copyrights go, I wouldn't worry too much about that unless you get it on a label or make money off of it. If it's for non-profit it should be okay.

I hear high-end audio recorders are very good for recording sounds, and would probably be pretty good as mics for picking up stuff off vinyl too. I only have a budget one and use it for recording ideas (those files never actually get used in w/e's being worked on).

Here's a website I found the other night for drum breaks when I was struggling to find a decent one for a tune I'm slowly working on. Massive selection, they seem pretty good quality or at most some would need a little EQing. Most of them are .WAV files, too.
 
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