RE: re-mixing/sampling

["Javier Miranda V." <gnominus@earthling.net>]

My theory is that such lazy bums should (a) play the instrument themselves,
or (b) get somebody to play the darn thing.

This is the same argument from the time synthesisers first came out.  The
threat was that "real" musicians would not be needed anymore because the
synths would replace them.  Well, the reality was that the synthesiser
became an instrument of its own, developed its own identity in its own
right, and became another part of the huge collection of instruments at our
disposal.

I think you guys ought to stop thinking of "sampling" an instrument, and
concentrate on producing new and fresh sounds out of distorting and
otherwise destroying "other" sounds, be them from a truck driving by, or a
Star Trek show, or an old LP, or somebody playing an instrument.

Once a sound is metamorphosed by software sound processing or changed any
other way, it pretty much doesn't make a difference what the sound was at
the start.

All this talk about deconstructing a mix that somebody spent many hours and
sweat on is a little bit disconcerting and desperate-sounding to me.

Make your own damn mix.

My US$0.02.

  | -----Original Message-----
  | From: matt davignon [mailto:mattdavignon@hotmail.com]
  | Sent: Sunday 25 June 2000 2:17 AM
  | To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com
  | Subject: Re: re-mixing/sampling
  |
  |
  | I think that it's possible. I'm impressed by the fact that
  | these aircraft
  | headphones are the instantaneous equivalent of what noise
  | reduction software
  | does. It detects the frequencies and deletes them by "phasing them 
out".
  |
  | The problem with doing this to an instrument, or for the sake of the
  | argument, several instruments (leaving one or a few to be
  | sampled), is that
  | an instrumental performance in a song contains a lot of variations in
  | intensity, frequency (notes) and all sorts of other elements.
  | I've heard of
  | software (and some hardware) that can take out instruments, but I'm
  | skeptical for this reason. Aircraft noise, while wavically
  | complex, doesn't
  | vary anywhere near as much as individual instrumental elements
  | of a song.
  |
  | Some pop artists appear to have been able to sample a single
  | instrument in a
  | song (in which the instrument originally never plays by
  | itself). My theory
  | has always been that they sampled from the multitrack tape of
  | the original
  | artist somehow.
  |
  | Matt