Does traditional sampling have a future?

[afreshcupofjoe]

----Not legally.

Jeff

Couldn't have said it better.

[Mokafix]

But otherwise, PM sure is the future. not only because it get rid of that waste of HD space, or because it' expressive, but simply because it let you do things that are not possible withh samples.

Errr... what about sound FX? Which probably accounts for the vast majority of my sampling needs.

Hi hi, yes of course...

But do not sound FX come from a synth?
Poster seemed to talk about classic natural instrument, that's why I went this way.
PM is the future for those kind of instruments. But of course, i don't see why samplers would disapear.
Books, newspapers, radio didn't dispear with TV or computers...

We didn't stop painting when photography appeared. We just started painting differently

[asnor]

What kind of douchbags use multi-sampled instrument libraries? Traditional sampling = sample cool shit from the world around you and mess with it to create new sounds, sequence, repeat. Use samplers to SAMPLE, not to load bloated stupid fake orchestra sounds. And YES "traditional sampling" has a future, but multisampled instruments have no future because they SUCK and they always will! j/k

yes, that tradition will live on

[Roel de Witt]

Hi,

Try to define what PM means to you.. Then check the products out there and try to figure out if the ones who claim to fully use PM actually are telling the truth.

All VSTis I know who claim to use PM for simulating acoustic instruments use a combination of PM/synthesis and samples, no matter what their website says. Doing some quick attempts at (compressed) sample extraction does wonders with most instruments who claim to use only PM.

In the end however it's the result that counts, just don't get too caught up with website hyping based marketing

---
Roel / 4Front Technologies

Physical modeling is probably going to be the future, but I imagine convolution as well as a limited degree of traditional sampling will be used. For example, as I understand it, TruePianos is mostly physical modeling based on a small amount of real samples. Synful Orchestra is PM based on a small amount of sampled phrases.

[Krakatau]

We didn't stop painting when photography appeared. We just started painting differently

I think the abstract painting of al kind went unlashed at the moment they where no need of painters for realistic reproduction

Extapolate this to the work of sampling...

[aMUSEd]

I don't see sample libraries as "traditional sampling". To me sample libs are a recent invention and probably their time is limited as physical modelling gets more sophisticated. To me sampling is primarily about creating an audio equivalent of collage and that sort of sampling as an art form has a bright future provided people are willing to keep challenging the copyright everything police. In the visual arts collage has always been used as a means of commenting on culture and re-framing cultural icons and quotations. Too heavy an emphasis on copyright makes that sort of cultural re-representation much harder in the musical domain than it is in the visual or literary domains which is a real pity but my hope is eventually common sense will win - but only if enough artists are willing to keep subverting the thought police.

[Bernard Quatermass]

But do not sound FX come from a synth?

Oh really? Thanks for setting me straight on this.

I was under the mistaken impression that nature, animal, machinery and ambient sounds were made by using field recorders. Silly me, I had no idea that they were synthesized.

So, do you have an patches that you can share with me then?

[Roel de Witt]

Hi,

Part of the current downside to sample libraries is the size. This itself has nothing to do with sample libraries. It's just no longer reasonable to work with.

Most libraries (e.g. piano) are mass production work which are very inefficiently made. My guess is that the average piano library is around 1, max 2 days of work after the initial sampling session.

Instead of clever programming which would reduce size and actually could improve realism and playability they usually just pump as much samples in a virtual instrument as possible as this saves work, time and thus money.

More samples doesn't however mean better instruments since this market has gone so towards mass production that it doesn't really matter for the experience anymore.

Amazing things can be done with samples and some filters alone (see the old hardware synths).. It's however starting to look more and more as a forgotten old-skool skill.

---
Roel / 4Front Technologies

I don't see sample libraries as "traditional sampling". To me sample libs are a recent invention and probably their time is limited as physical modelling gets more sophisticated. To me sampling is primarily about creating an audio equivalent of collage and that sort of sampling as an art form has a bright future provided people are willing to keep challenging the copyright everything police. In the visual arts collage has always been used as a means of commenting on culture and re-framing cultural icons and quotations. Too heavy an emphasis on copyright makes that sort of cultural re-representation much harder in the musical domain than it is in the visual or literary domains which is a real pity but my hope is eventually common sense will win - but only if enough artists are willing to keep subverting the thought police.

[shamann]

To me sample libs are a recent invention

The grotesquely bloated iterations we have now, yes, but the Fairlight was well-known for its sample library (in fact, it's often attributed as the main reason most users bought it).

[Sascha Franck]

Amazing things can be done with samples and some filters alone (see the old hardware synths).. It's however starting to look more and more as a forgotten old-skool skill.

I totally agree on that. And when you look at what, say, Steve from Hollowsun is doing with a rather minimal amount of samples, you just know that a lot of sample library producers are simply too lazy, especially given that most of nowadays samplers (the soft samplers at least) offer an incredible wide variety of tweaking options to make your patches "live up", such as sample start modulations and the likes.

[shamann]

a lot of sample library producers are simply too lazy

I often get the perception that several (of course not all) are more interested in their expensive recording gear than the actual content (and the usefulness of same).

[Sascha Franck]

I often get the perception that several (of course not all) are more interested in their expensive recording gear than the actual content (and the usefulness of same).

Yeah, that might be true as well.
And while I certainly appreciate more or less pristine recording quality in case I want a most naturally sounding sample set, it's not all that important for a lot of other things.
I also don't understand why, when you purchase, say, a guitar library, don't get some more experimental sounds along with it as well. With nowadays samplers' tweaking options, you can for instance get a shitload of extremely interesting sounds out of a single distorted power chord, certainly not easy to replace with a synth. "Creative Sampling" seems to be a rather forgotten art indeed, unless it comes to mangling up beats or so.

[aMUSEd]

To me sample libs are a recent invention

The grotesquely bloated iterations we have now, yes, but the Fairlight was well-known for its sample library (in fact, it's often attributed as the main reason most users bought it).

Yes that's true but that is still comparatively recent compared to use of recorded samples in a creative way as musical collage and composition. What we call sampling these days has been skewed by the use of readymade libraries and collections (essentially often little more than musical clipart) and in part this has been a one-sided response to the constraints imposed on artists by an over emphasis on copyright at the expense of creative fair use. Sampling really goes back to the work of pioneering composers and electronic artists such as Pierre Schaeffer and his Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrète, Edgard Varèse and Iannis Xenakis who first introduced the use of real world sounds and tape loops in a creative way to make music. It was later developed by composers like Boulez and Berio but also increasingly began to be used by "progressive" artists such as Pink Floyd and Annette Peacock and eventually entered into mainstream popular culture.

Of course it should be understood that "quotation" of snippets of other people's work has been common throughout the history of music and many composers have created music based around such snippets - either in their original form or re-purposed and transformed in various ways (think of Beethoven's Diabelli Variations for example). The significant difference with sampling is the ability to directly and exactly reproduce a sound or piece of music due to recording technology which, as I said, makes sampling much closer to techniques used in the visual arts like collage, found art and mixed media creations. It is a necessary and vital aspect of art that it should be able to quote and paraphrase in order to reflect upon itself as a self conscious medium and in doing so develop further and one concern I have is that the way sampling has been distorted by copyright damages art's ability to do this but I have no doubt artists can rise above such pettyness in time.

[herodotus]

I often get the perception that several (of course not all) are more interested in their expensive recording gear than the actual content (and the usefulness of same).

Yeah, that might be true as well.
And while I certainly appreciate more or less pristine recording quality in case I want a most naturally sounding sample set, it's not all that important for a lot of other things.
I also don't understand why, when you purchase, say, a guitar library, don't get some more experimental sounds along with it as well. With nowadays samplers' tweaking options, you can for instance get a shitload of extremely interesting sounds out of a single distorted power chord, certainly not easy to replace with a synth. "Creative Sampling" seems to be a rather forgotten art indeed, unless it comes to mangling up beats or so.

I think it might be more that 'creative sampling' is something that people like to do for themselves, whereas making, say, a virtual piano with multisamples is thought to be the province of professionals.

Or rather, sampling is so widespread on so many levels that it is disappearing into the fabric of technology.

I mean, one hears an 808 kick sound: is it an original recording, a multisample, an emulation, a user programmed patch on a soft synth or a sample thereof? In a mix, who can really tell?

Or sound effects in a movie: same questions.

[BITWORD]

Similar to animation, has traditional animation become obsolete?

3D (or physical modeling) has replaced a lot, but not everything. Even when 3D is used, it is at times used to emulate traditional cel based animation (southpark).

So, IMO I think similar things will occur with audio, just not so quickly. There is plenty of room for both.