Do samples kill the *real* electronic music?

[kmonkey]

Is music production *that* easy now? Did what we've been repeating about easiness of music making come true?

Don't understand your problem entirely. Yes anyone can make music now. Anyone could done it 25 years ago with dedication. Today only what changed is technology and content delivery. And yes you can find gazillion of tracks but....

Only a few out of gazillion are real artistic tracks which can be called art or music. And only a few will stand test of time. So? True art still can't be faked even today.

So actually nothing changed. Sample., analog or whatever for that noone care. End listener does not care. Why should anyone care about how track is made. If track is good then it is good.

You have shitty tracks and you have amazing tracks. For both of these categories noone really care if it is made out of samples or whatever the f***

Real talented artist can make art out of anything really.

Others will blame tools and they will find excuses.

It was like that from the dawn of creation.

Nothing new here move on.

[rod_zero]

Some people just stick to uses precorded loops, in no creative way at all, that is lazy but their music won't stand out anyway.

But getting hang up in using one-shots for compositions? personally, I don't see much difference with using an instrument which just has one sound as any acoustic.

[Enkerli]

it might be the fault of sample producers if they market their samples as "all you need to X".

There are many sides to the “democratization of music” process. Including the fact that music was democratic in a deep way before it became a matter of consumption. People were musicking in all sorts of situations, from lullabies and work songs to church choirs and court music.

But “anyone can do music” has also been part of this commercial hype on the use of samples or other tools to easily achieve a preexisting result. “You too can do the exact same thing as this famous person (if you buy our wares)” is about music being easier to reproduce, which is a form of democratization. But it’s a bit of a mismatch with all the other stuff we can do to have music as part of our lives.

Sounds to me like part of the situation comes from the idea that there’s a class of people who are musicians because they have something special (“talent”, support from “The Industry”, training from a really young age…) while the rest of the world “can’t play music” unless they have some special tool which makes it easier for mere mortals.

What people like Christopher Small and R. Murray Schafer have done with things like “musicking” and “acoustic ecology” is get people to understand how making interesting sounds isn’t just for people who identify as musicians. In other words, you don’t have to play music to play with sound.

It's this moment when you realize that you stand before something that you can't change. I really like using samples. Not only because I'm selling them. They are very useful tools and make my everyday music life easier.

This kind of “soulsearching” is useful and important. Step by step.

[whyterabbyt]

Real Electronic music was always about sampling..... The story of Little Fluffy Clouds

Wow. Electronic music goes as far back as the 90s?

[fmr]

Real Electronic music was always about sampling..... The story of Little Fluffy Clouds

Wow. Electronic music goes as far back as the 90s?

SO OLD?

It WAS indeed about sampling, way way back in the 1950s, with the work done at the GRM by Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry

But there was some Electronic Music as early as the 1920s (look ma... no hands on! Is this "Real Electronic"? )

[justin3am]

It doesn't matter. Use whatever you want, to express yourself. Even if you are half-assing it or the result is derivative... if it's fun, don't give a f**k what others think. It's a pitfall, for an artist to care what the audience thinks. Even worse is trying to anticipate what the audience wants.

I work with samples a great deal but I generally record the instruments myself and put a lot of work into every step of that process. It's very time consuming and most listeners do not care where the sounds come from. In fact, many don't like my music or would go so far as to say that what I do is not music. But it's not for them. I work the way I do because it's fun for me.

On the other hand, if you are trying to sell music as content or a product... well, I guess you need to approach the process differently.

[donkey tugger]

You people need to stop twiddling knobs and learn to play a real instrument like guitar, as do I.

[justin3am]

Sounds to me like part of the situation comes from the idea that there’s a class of people who are musicians because they have something special (“talent”, support from “The Industry”, training from a really young age…) while the rest of the world “can’t play music” unless they have some special tool which makes it easier for mere mortals.

What people like Christopher Small and R. Murray Schafer have done with things like “musicking” and “acoustic ecology” is get people to understand how making interesting sounds isn’t just for people who identify as musicians. In other words, you don’t have to play music to play with sound.

I like this! I don't consider myself a talented or even especially skilled person when it comes to making music but I love to play and work with sound. I like to participate in music and the more I do so, the more boring it becomes to listen passively. I still do that and I value the work of others but the music I like the most is stuff that inspires me to do my own music. I think everyone should participate in music, no matter their skill level. It's a form of communication and a language that should be shared, imo.

[AnX]

You people need to stop twiddling knobs and learn to play a real instrument like guitar, as do I.

...via the piano roll in FL

[malachy5]

Real Electronic music was always about sampling..... The story of Little Fluffy Clouds

Wow. Electronic music goes as far back as the 90s?

SO OLD?

It WAS indeed about sampling, way way back in the 1950s, with the work done at the GRM by Pierre Scahaffer and Pierre Henry

But there was some Electronic Music as early as the 1920s (look ma... no hands on! Is this real?:)

And don't forget the bizarre Ondes Martenot from the 1920's also:


Which of course has been painstakingly deeply sampled (by Soniccouture)

[donkey tugger]

You people need to stop twiddling knobs and learn to play a real instrument like guitar, as do I.

...via the piano roll in FL

I've got a plastic midi guitar now, so could play the sinthesiser if I wanted. Would have to be indoors with the lights off and at low volume though.

[AnX]

...and a cape

[donkey tugger]

...and a cape

I could use my stripey dressing gown at a pinch...

[Krakatau]

I could use my stripey dressing gown at a pinch...

old chap !!!??? how are you doing ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

[sin night]

In my opinion, that article makes the assumption that "samples = loops = lack of creativity". A lot of time it is true, but generalizing is not a good thing.

- Not all the samples are loops. For example there are one-shot samples (and usually it's easier to use them in a creative way, because you're "forced" to play/program them as real instruments, instead of dropping a loop into the arrangement).
- Loops don't automatically imply a lack of creativity. In my opinion it is a questionable behaviour to lazily drop a bunch of loops into a sequencer arrangement and then claiming the result is a song; but loops can also be used creatively, for example by cutting them, processing them in unexpected ways (turning them into something else), or by using them completely out of context (so the result is unheard and fresh), or by finding new and unknown samples/loops (crate digging).
- The odd background loop/sample doesn't really matter. Who cares for a sampled tambourine loop in the background if you wrote and performed/programmed a beautiful song? It's almost as paying session musicians to perform, but you don't have the exclusive on that performance. At the end, it's just a tool.
- Conversely, it really matters if a loop/sample is main feature of a song: you'll better have something interesting to show with your use of the sample). Otherwise it is as if your session musicians wrote the song, but you got the credit as author: pretty lame in my opinion, don't you agree? And of course other people can use the same loop/sample as main feature and claiming they are the authors of a really similar song, too... I think it's a really undesiderable situation.


There are a lot of important electronic recordings that are entirely sample based, yet nobody would call them "fake" because they used samples. Conversely, there are uninteresting/bad works made using only instruments...
What really matters is bringing something to the table: it can be something new or a particular taste that only you have... but you have to put a part of yourself into the work, it must be a reflection of yourself, you can't just assemble the pieces as if you were working in an assembly line in a factory.


I don't think samples kill music, I think they just open new opportunities for laziness.
I prefer working from scratch with synths (I would never ever use a melodic loop), but I have nothing against loops, it's all about how you use them, they are just another tool.

What should be clear to every musician (or aspiring ones) it is that you can't fake it (at least in the long run). Lazily using samples/loops as the main feature of a song won't bring you any far, it will just discredit you to the eyes of discerning people. Of course I'm completely against this way of working and I stand against it. Loops/samples are not a shortcut.


But samples/loops don't kill real music (they just add noise that makes it difficult to pick up the interesting works out of a lot of boring works). Laziness does kill music. But laziness exists regardless of samples (autotune anyone? ).


In the end, you need to "say something" through your work (not necessarily deep, but just something). That's what separates "real" music to "fake" music. The latter is a commodity (at best). If your work doesn't communicate anything, then you've got a problem... lazy use of samples/loops brings you closer to this scenario.

"Real" artists will still exist regardless of lazy people or any amount of samples, because there will always be some creative people who will express themselves "for real" (with whatever technique they will find appropriate for their goals).


Just my 2 cents, of course.