Do samples kill the *real* electronic music?

[Krakatau]

Sampling is simply a technique that has been made available with computer technology...
But surely there is something to behold in terms of "old skool" electronic stuff, from the 1970's, just synth sounds, for sure!

+1 excellent comparison, if you allow me...

[Acid Mitch]

Sampling is simply a technique that has been made available with computer technology

It was made available with tape technology. It just became easier and more advanced with computers.

[Acid Mitch]

Really? I don't recall hearing any samples on any of Kraftwerk's seminal albums, on any of Gary Numan's most successful work or that of any of the great pioneers of electronic music, from The Who to John Foxx and Ultravox. Sampling came a long, long time after that and bred a few very different styles of electronic music, from Howard Jones to Skinny Puppy and, eventually, to EDM.

.

Delia Derbyshire among others, were sampling in the 1960’s.
You might know her work from things like the Dr Who Theme or the group White Noise.

[Krakatau]

Sampling is simply a technique that has been made available with computer technology

It was made available with tape technology.

for the beginners :

one of the best current emulation : https://www.gforcesoftware.com/products/m-tron-pro

[Tj Shredder]

Delia Derbyshire among others, were sampling in the 1960’s.
You might know her work from things like the Dr Who Theme or the group White Noise.

Even earlier, Pierre Schaffer and his musique concrète... 1950s
Certainly it didn't kill electronic music, it rather brought it into life...

The Mellotron btw. killed all real orchestral music...; - )

[BONES]

I'm constantly inspired by stuff I hear. I've worked with lots of different artists over the years and no matter the genre they work in, I always try to find something that interests me. I take those ideas and I try to apply them to my own music.

I got that but it's never been the case for me. The thing that inspires me more than anything is the equipment in front of me. e.g. I just bought Output Substance, a Kontakt library thing that makes amazing sounds that are so not the kind of stuff we do, but at the same time it's the kind of stuff I love. Add in the weirdly wonderful Analog Keys I recently bought and I can see the album we are working on now deviating significantly from the sound we've spent the last four albums establishing (hopefully in a good way) because we are going to find as many opportunities/excuses as we can to put those things into the songs.

Delia Derbyshire among others, were sampling in the 1960’s.
You might know her work from things like the Dr Who Theme or the group White Noise.

In the words of the immortal NMA, one swallow doesn't make a spring. You have to read posts in context.

But surely there is something to behold in terms of "old skool" electronic stuff, from the 1970's, just synth sounds, for sure!

Utter bollocks! "Old skool" synths sounded awful. I was there, I remember it all too well.

[cron]

If we're taking the post hip-hop definition of sampling, sure. But then there are countless examples pre-Schaeffer in the form of sound effect and novelty records. The word "sampling" directly implies digital capture (storing as 'samples', as in sampling rate). This is the earliest work I know that meets both definitions (and AFAIK the first to use digital sampling full stop.)

[Straight2Vinyl]

Samples don't kill anything. They merely provide another palette of sounds for artists to use at their disposal.
What does kill music, for me personally, is a lack of creativity by many making music and often a total lack of effort in songwriting. I make primarily urban music(older style hip-hop, r & b etc.)and there is lot of sameness right now. Part of this seems to me to be the result of how hip-hop used to sample all kinds of music and so there was a variety of sound. Now everything is trap, which is based around the same few drum machine sounds and someone mumbling a couple words over it. I don't even blame the guys making it though because they are not dedicated artists. They're just people wanting to make money.

I've started getting back into writing more personally because simply making a beat is something anyone with a computer can do. Creating a song including lyrics and vocals however always takes skill and effort and there's no way around it.

[Armagibbon]

Doin shit without understanding is what kills the art. Can't solve that on your end fam.
Education is dead.

[_al_]

1969, with vocal chops and effects all over the place, and still true art IMO. This album gave me more bad trips than anything else i can remember, and i had absolutely no idea it was made back in 69. it fvcked me up even in the 90s

and i guess i should add the fact that this was made before we had electronic samplers, and all the sounds and effects were created by cutting and slicing reel to reel tapes. i think not just the samples, but even all the synth sounds were created this way.



haha that white noise album i linked has been online for years, and the moment i post it on kvr, some creepy kid comes out of the woodwork and reports it.

oh well, it gave me another excuse to listen to it again.
this album still haunts me after all these years

a few tracks:

[vurt]

classic album! love delias stuff and the rest of the radiophonic guys n gals. grew up with it all over tv.

[pettinhouse]

Using hardware or samples is a matter that concerns only the producer.
The majority of listeners of electronic music doesn't care if the music is made with samples or hardware.
They don't care if the music is in mp3 rather than 1000 bit / 383738 khz... . ...imagine about samples or hardware.

Just my opinion.

Andrea

[BONES]

EXACTLY! The only thing that should matter is the result and if using a boatload of samples gets you there, then why wouldn't you use them? Of course, if you're worried that all your music sounds too generic or something, then maybe you need to look for other ways of working. e.g. We've recently realised that we do the exactly the same drum/percussion stuff with the same drum sounds in all our songs so we decided to shake things up in that department by buying a Maschine Mikro. Mine should arrive on Monday and I'm hopeful it will open up a whole new world of possibilities when it comes to our percussion tracks, not just because of all the sample content that comes with it but because it will change the way we approach the task. We might end up with Battery as well, as NI have a really good deal on at the moment - buy two expansions for $50 each and get Battery for free.

All this has also made me realise something that I hadn't previously thought of. Back in the day, when I started out in the '80s, there were only 20 or 30 synths around, so if you used a DX 7 preset, for example, chances were that three-quarters of the musicians on the planet would pick it because they also had a DX 7. And everyone knew which drum machine you were using because, again, there were only a few to choose from and they all had their distinct character. So if you only ever used presets, everyone knew it.

Fast-forward 30 years and there are hundreds, probably thousands of different synths out there and almost certainly hundreds of thousands of presets and samples to use. Even if you stick to the big names like NI, you still get to choose from tens of thousands of sounds so the chances of anyone picking a preset or a specific sample you use is almost zero, which means it hardly matters if you do it. You just have to find your own path through the maze and not choose the same stuff as everyone else. It really becomes a matter of stubborn pride to stick with using only things you've created yourself from scratch and it almost certainly has to limit your creativity, not expand it.

I've steered clear of all the big names for more than a decade, preferring to do it all myself, but lately I've started to check out what NI, in particular, has to offer and I've realised what a complete idiot I've been to ignore them for so long. I always thought it was overpriced but now I've discovered some of their bundles and deals, I realise you can grab some absolute bargains. If things work out half as well as I expect they might, I can see us becoming total NI whores and I think our music will improve out of sight as a result.

[melomood]

Here's my two cents

No

[deastman]

Really? I don't recall hearing any samples on any of Kraftwerk's seminal albums

I guess you don’t consider Electric Cafe one of their “seminal albums”? What about the TI voice samples from Computer World?