audio sampling

This demo video offers a simple tutorial on how to slice WAV / AIF samples in Propellerhead Reason’s NN-XT sampler, when you don’t have Recycle.

Requires Reason 2.0 and higher.

via williamlamy

2009 NAMM Show: Redmatica previewed its “next generation” sampling applications, Compendium Pro Bundle 2.

The new set of applications include Keymap Pro 2, AutoSampler 2 and ProManager 3 and offers both evolutionary and revolutionary features, building over the foundation of Keymap 1.5, AutoSampler and ExsManager 2.

“‘Revolutionary Evolution’ was the concept behind the entire development of the Compendium Pro Bundle 2. We didn’t just want to introduce a killer set of new features, but also offer new ways to use already existing technologies. All I can say is that we are tremendously excited about what we are going to release in a few months.” said Andrea Gozzi, Founder and Technical Director of Redmatica.

Details below.

The Compendium Pro Bundle 2 is set to be released in Spring 2009, with price TBA. Read more…

Avant Garde samplemeister Johannes Kriedler is using his latest work, product placements, to create a nightmare for GEMA (the German RIAA, and explore the ways that copyrights limit art in the process.

Here’s the text of his announcement:

If you want to register a song at GEMA (RIAA, ASCAP of Germany) you have to fill in a form for each sample you use, even the tiniest bit. On 12 Sept 08, German Avant garde musician Johannes Kreidler will —as a live performance event—register a short musical work that contains 70,200 quotations with GEMA using 70,200 forms.

This doesn’t sound like it would be much fun to listen to – but it’s a great performance piece that challenges the status quo when it comes to the arts.

via Crate Kings

Travel blogger Matt Harding (Where the Hell is Matt) traced a sample around the world to its origin:

I went to the Solomon Islands to research the origins of Rorogwela, a traditional folk song that was sampled in Sweet Lullaby by Deep Forest and reused in my dancing videos.

In the years 1969/1970, the ethnomusicologist Hugo Zemp made recordings on the Solomon Islands in the Pacific. These included a lullaby sung by a member of the Baegu tribe called Afunakwa.

The vocal sample, reissued in 1990 on a UNESCO CD, found its way into the studio of Deep Forest, among others. Enswathed in sugary synthesizer sounds and provided with a leisurely swaying dance beat, the a-cappella piece mutated into Sweet Lullaby, Deep Forest’s first big world hit and subsequently the background music for countless advertisements.

Zemp, who had been the first to bring this recording within the audio horizon of the West, raised an objection to the use of this and other samples. Here, too, a long debate ensued about the legitimate usage of ethnic sound material, a debate that has not yet led to any unanimous solution.

Do electronic musicians have a responsibility to pay money, or at least respect, to the native musicians whose work they sample?

It’ an interesting controversy.

via magnet, music of sound

Michael S. Schneider, author of A Beginner’s Guide To Constructing The Universe, has published an interesting analysis of the Amen Break (probably the most important sample ever).

In his analysis, the Amen Break may be popular because of the way the Golden Ratio is found it the break’s timing:

Having looked at the geometry of the Golden Ratio a great deal, and its expressions in worldwide art, I have a decent sense of its place along a line. The Amen Break had that feel. For a quick check I used homemade Golden Ratio calipers to examine the peaks. Indeed, peaks pop up at Golden Ratio intervals, as do smaller peaks within them, reminsicent of the fractal structures in nature.

For more exact visual analysis I examined the wave image in my computer, in which I have a palatte of geometric forms and proportions for quickly identifying an object’s ratios. Sure enough, Golden Ratio relationships were indicated among the different peaks. Am I seeing things? You decide. But the appearance of the Golden Ratio may help explain its popularity.

The major wave peaks of the Amen Break, and many of its smaller ones, seem reasonably close to being an expression of the fractal nature of the wonderful Golden Ratio. I wonder what it would sound like if it was more precisely proportioned to the ideal, but I also know that slight differences are what make it human and alive.

What do you think? Is the Golden Ration behind the popularity of the Amen Break, or is this a bunch of intellectual wankery?