Do You Use Sample CDs? Do You Hate Them?

[Anderton]

Just curious...how many of you use sample CDs? If so, are you more into instrument sounds loaded into samplers, loops loaded into Acid, or whatever?

 

Do any of you consider it "wrong" or cheating to use sample CDs? Have any of you made sample CDs, and if so, how did they do for you?

 

Discussion, please.

[hiraga]

Yup, they suck ass. Hate 'em.

 

Hell, half the fun is MAKING samples. I would never consider using them.

[-]

I used to use them, primarily for drum sounds. I don't use them any more, as I tend to get or buy the sounds I want online and then transfer them to my sampler that way. (I've had good experiences with Sonic Implants .)

 

My beef with sample CDs is that they're so darn expensive that it's tough to justify spending $100+ for a CD where you're not sure if you'll really get your money's worth.

 

I mean, I know how much it costs to make a CD vs. what's it's being sold at, and I also understand that sample CDs cater to a limited market, and how much $$$ it costs to produce a good sample CD... But part of me can't help but think, "They want $500 for a 50 cent CD?!?!?" I'd rather just pay $30 for the sounds I need *right now* and then go back for more later if necessary.

 

I don't think there's anything wrong with using sample CDs -- they're just another way of getting sounds. However, anyone who's read my posts here know how I feel about sampled drum loops, no matter what the source... http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

 

 

 

This message has been edited by popmusic on 06-12-2001 at 12:24 PM

[Anderton]

Hey popmusic -- I'm interested in your online experiences. Have you used companies other than Sonic Implants? Do the downloads take a long time? Are you downloading WAV/AIFF files or something compressed?

[alphajerk]

i get soundFX from sound dogs but not for musics sake.

 

to answer the thread... nope, yep. just been recording it all in real time with real instruments played by real people. cant say i have ever had more fun doing so either... beats the shit out of programming some sample or mapping them out or step by step recording.

[-]

Originally posted by Anderton:

Hey popmusic -- I'm interested in your online experiences. Have you used companies other than Sonic Implants? Do the downloads take a long time? Are you downloading WAV/AIFF files or something compressed?

 

No, I haven't tried any other companies than Sonic Implants. I have a ton of samples I've built up over the years, and my music has been moving towards becoming more guitar- than keyboard-oriented, so I haven't had as much use for new samples as I once did. I think I have all of the basics covered with my samples, at least for what I'm doing.

 

If I remember correctly, I ordered drum sounds in SoundFont format, and then used a number of freeware/shareware programs to extract the sounds into WAV format, then get them into .EFE format for my ASR-10. I'd transfer the new sounds to my ASR either via SCSI with a program called EpsM (only available for the mac) or via floppy with a DOS program (can't remember the name). Lastly, I'd put the kits all back together with multi-velocity layers. It was a lot of work, but it was worth it. I really do like their drum samples.

 

I think each set I ordered was maybe around the 5 MB range, maybe a little more... Whatever it was, it was still very downloadable with my dialup connection. The file was compressed when I got it, so after it was expanded there were a number of megabytes more than what I actually downloaded.

 

I still love my ASR-10, but digitally transferring samples to/from it is not the easiest thing in the world. That's probably another reason why I only buy/download samples that I really, really, really want. http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif

[lisencocasema.net]

Hi,

 

I've used ACID a lot, but when I'm going true my loop librairy I can hear which loop I used on what song http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/wink.gif

 

I used ACID for my multimedia productions in Director.

 

These days I'm using Reason. The REX format I find very nice. It's easier to work with and to make them sound personal. Integration in Nuendo is very nice, so notbody will notice where I got them from....

 

By the way, programming with the LM4 is more original ofcourse. So I do that a lot of the time, but sometimes, a few REX-files is just... easier.

 

 

 

------------------

[Mark Zeger]

I'd only used sample-playback synths until January when I got a K2500RS. I just used the Kurzweil Take 6 library for a jingle where every track, except for a live lead vocalist, used T6 vocal samples including the percussion (made my own loop from a MIDI drum file re-mapped to a Take 6 vocal percussion kit).

 

Only have 1 loop library, Liquid Grooves, that I haven't used on a project. I'd like to do more loop-based music - what would use suggest for a Mac G4? I guess I could get a product like SoftWindows or Virtual PC and just run ACID.

 

Are using samples "wrong"? Was Andy Warhol "wrong" when he "sampled" the image of a Campbell Soup can or photographs of celebrities? Roy Lichtenstein "sampled" images from comics strips (WWII combat scenes, Donald Duck, Dagwood, etc.). It's all what you create with the materials in producing new art.

[alphajerk]

Originally posted by mzeger:

Are using samples "wrong"? Was Andy Warhol "wrong" when he "sampled" the image of a Campbell Soup can or photographs of celebrities? Roy Lichtenstein "sampled" images from comics strips (WWII combat scenes, Donald Duck, Dagwood, etc.). It's all what you create with the materials in producing new art.

 

actually, that was the origination of the pop art movement sort of commenting on the redundency that manufactured life incites. it was a case of art imitating life. BUT no other artists were able to successfully do the same thing... one is enough.

 

however, this is not the case with the use of sampled cd's and so forth. EVERYONE is doing it effectively taking any social comment out of the intention and bordering solely on "manufactured" music which is not art. imagine if every artist suddently sampled campell soup cans and thats all that filled galleries.

[Philip OKeefe]

I have Acid and a Emu sampler, but I'd never consider doing loops and so forth in a sampler anymore. Acid is so much easier to use. I do have several disks from Northstar and EMu for my sampler, and they're mostly instrumental samples. Need a cello TODAY and you don't have a player available? Looks like we're stuck doing it with a sampler.... that kind of thing.

 

I don't do much in this regard. I use Acid mostly as a drum machine substitute for the occasional songwriting demo and that's about it. I have sample CD's from East / West and Sonic Foundry, as well as a couple of others. I don't really consider it major cheating for those people who do use them on commercial releases, but I prefer it when it's done in an original and creative fashon. Too many times it seems as if it's just a direct "lift" from the sample CD and there's been little creativity involved in the assembly of the loops.

 

I usually prefer the interaction and emotion of real people playing real instruments, but that's just my preference.

 

Phil O'Keefe

Sound Sanctuary Recording

Riverside CA

http://members.aol.com/ssanctuary/index.html

pokeefe777@msn.com

[Guest]

I'm using the Mads Michelson CD at the moment with very good results.

 

Aside from the traditional "Let's play stagnant along a click-track" bits, it's got some some really nice free-form loops in all styles, along with the individual hits etc.

[hiraga]

Ohh yeah, I use ACID too, but I don't have a computer..

[alphajerk]

i have an issue with them naming that software package ACID. ACID is just so NOT what that program is in the least bit. they should of called it xtc or some other amphetamine...

 

 

personally i want to be a good engineer to begin with, not rely on samples to do what i cant do naturally. synths are great for creating waveforms and using those as an entity themselves but samples... i got bored with those quick. even the strings, they just sound so fake. i would probably not put strings in the recording if i didnt have a real player to play it on the real instrument.

[Alndln]

I guess theyr'e mostly usefull for drum loops for people who can't play,but I hark back (60's-70's)to the days when whenever the drummer left his kit I would grab the sticks and start playing.So when midi arrived I eventually got a Roland Octapad which I play with real drum sticks and enter my drum parts that way,sometimes I use Acid to loop those parts.As far as keyboard sounds?? Sometimes I'll use an Akai disk in Gigasampler,but Iv'e collected so many cool hardware synths that I can sample I'll usually use those first.I have nothing against people who rely on them(sample disks) but I think theyr'e missing out on all the fun(playing).I became a musician so "I" could do the playing. Also it's so much faster than scouring through a disk or downloading samples.

[aeon]

I use a couple of sample CDs, but never for loops or other "real" instruments. I use them for waves of old analog string machines and wave spectra from oddball synths which I then program a patch around. So basically I guess I use them and my sampler as a S+S synthesizer with a large wave selection.

 

I had planned to make a percussive-oriented sample CD with sounds from vintage (1978-1983) coin-op video games, but I found that once I was done it all fit on a 1.4MB floppy, so I abandoned the CD idea.

[soapbox]

I must have at least 60 or 70 sampling CDs. Im "more into instrument sounds loaded into samplers" than I am into loops, but I also like to roll my own. I have an E-IV, an E4XT Ultra, an S1000, and I just installed Unity DS-1 and Osmosis in my Mac.

 

The samples I most commonly use are drum samples for dance music and orchestral samples, but I have a lot of variety in my collection.

 

I love the real stuff and sometimes I get to do orchestrations for real symphonies. Sometimes I get to sit down and play a real piano too, but most of the time I use the samples because either the budget doesnt allow for anything else or because the samples sometimes actually work better for the song in question than the real thing would.

 

Believe it or not, Ive actually worked with recording artists who paid the money to hire a symphony and then replaced the real strings with keyboard strings. Ive also worked with recording artists who tracked a symphony and then doubled the real strings with keyboard strings.

 

Its all a matter of whats best for the song and/or whats best for the project...

[Master Zap]

I've used some. Mostly corny, cheesy, intentionally-whacked-out vocal samples.

 

Drumloops... I have used as spice... extra percussion, very very VERY rarely as the main groove of a track (especially not when the drumloop is off a drummachine anyway!!)

 

The only "good" thing with a drumloop off a drummachine is that gnerally, the sample CD is already well mixed and mastered, so it already sounds "right". The audio out of your-average-drummachine might not be so well mastered http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/wink.gif

 

So once I actually did use a drum-machine-loop... although the loop was, rythmically, trivial, the engineering on it was just so ace, I simply had to use it. But other than this one example (so far, knock on wood), I engineered all my own drum sounds.... with sometimes good sometimes less good results. http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif

 

Drumloops of REAL drummers, on the other hand, I have used.

 

I never use samples off synths. I've used guitar loops as well.

 

 

The problem is sample CD's are too damned expensive. And you can't buy the popular ones, coz "then everybody else has em", so you can only buy the "obscure" ones, but then you get a lot of crap... its kinda a lose-lose situation actually. Hmm.

 

But in general I REALLY avoid sampling off music CD's/albums to avoid the legal headaches. Rather a bad sample off a sample CD and be safe, than a good sample off some vinyl and be toast.

 

/Z

[Mr Darling]

We love samples. Infact, the way we work we treat allmost every rocrding as sample. If we record a live giutar we'll uselly chop it and loop it etc...

Check out the great guitar riff on "Sugarcane" (available http://www.darlingnikkie.com/sounds ) The main riff was constructed from three differnet takes.

As for sampled loop, I'm not crazy about them when they sound to much like a full song, we prefer a simple drum loops or efx. Never use bass, piano or the likes loops - only sounds. And we never ever smapled some one elses music.

 

The bottom line - It doesn't matter as long as it sprikes you into creativety.

Enjoy

 

------------------

Visit http://www.DarlingNikkie.com/sounds for free MP3's

[seclusion]

I do the giga studio stuff..

I run a dedicated puter with a 2408 adat out just for it...

The samples I get are 24 bit, sound awesome and are very useable..

So far I use the giga piano/sample heads kikn I forget.. Some bass stuff..

I've goofed around with some of the looped stuff but haven't used it on anything... Very realistic sounds.. I'm able to run a st piano, 6 out drum kit, a bass, and some percussion stuff without screwin the puter at all..

With the quick sound feature... Search... Kik, boom so far I have 82 of em.. Very simple.. Reliable now that it's on it's own puter..

Brian

[F7sound -]

Originally posted by Anderton:

Just curious...Have any of you made sample CDs, and if so, how did they do for you?

 

Discussion, please.

 

I've made 3 sample CDs, the first one I released in '97. They've done very well for me. Enough in fact that I've changed my business plan to focus more on creation of new CD-ROMs. My CD-ROMs (the Concept:FX sound effects series) are not "typical" in that they are not loop CDs or samples of vintage gear. I figured that there was already plenty of good stuff out there. So my thing was to create something that contained unique sounds that could be used in a variety of production work - music being one aspect.

 

I understand that prices for these things can be high. With that in mind, I've kept my costs lower than most. Keep in mind that it takes me months to crank out a single CD-ROM. Then there's the time in creating artwork, web site, and please don't forget marketing. Loads of time. Literally thousands of dollars that are laid out before ANY discs are sold.

 

I've learned a lot from this experience, and am making a living doing it. I always value input from customers, fellow musicians, and other production people. That way I can create even better CDs in the future.

 

 

Michael Oster

F7 Sound and Vision

http://www.f7sound.com

[Notape_dup1]

Originally posted by hiraga:

Yup, they suck ass. Hate 'em.

 

Hell, half the fun is MAKING samples. I would never consider using them.

 

Totally with you there, I've been making my own loops and samples using non-conventional musical instruments like: pots & pans, old brake drums and other volkswagen parts. A buddy of mine works at a printing shop and I've taken samples of some of the machinery there (very rythmic). You'd be suprised what you can do with everyday noises. My latest song I'm working on has a sample of the garbage truck emptying the dumpster - I reversed it, added some echo and other effects - sounds like something out of a NIN tune.

 

-nt

[synthiboy1]

I use many cd roms. from loops to"real" instruments

There are great cd roms .

For me it it is like a palette from painting.

Although I can get copys I do buy them because of the respect for the makers .it is alot of work to make them.

 

C

 

C

[Curve Dominant]

Oh, gawd, we get so opinionated and dogmatic over this issue...

 

There is quite a wide spectrum between sampling 2 measures of a song and looping it to create a groove (which we all seem to agree is quite lame), and sampling a short sound and tricking it out beyond all recognition to use to spice up a mix.

 

Another local producer recently ripped a sample CD for me, and I had great fun slicing and dicing flute and saxaphone passages, recombining the pieces, playing them in reverse, changing the pitch, adding effects, and flying them into my mixes. Craig, your tape's first song, "Slow She Said," is a good example of this.

 

Just last week I FINALLY learned how to copy and paste bits of tracks on the VS. It is so dreadfully fast and easy to do, and now I'm pasting bits of tracks all over my mixes, re-copying the combinations of pastes and re-pasting them around. "Gee, that vocal refrain would sound cool during the guitar solo," and BLING it's done. Smashing, Baby!

 

My next step is to start sampling bits of my tracks, tricking them out, and flying them back into my mixes. The E-TribeS is positively smashing for this type of exercise. You don't even have to fill up the unit's memory with sample info! Merely sample the sound that you want, slice it and dice it, add effects, get the pitch right, press the reverse button (I luv the reverse button), and fly the sound into your mix BEFORE you save the sample to the unit's memory. If you don't save the sound, it doesn't occupy memory space. Once the sound is in your DAW, you can copy/paste it anywhere, or fly it back into the sampler for further destruction if need be. SMASHING, BABY!!!

 

I'm just luving it, and my mixes are starting to sound quite smashing, indeed. Work should be fun, don't you agree? You do? Smashing!

 

le curve

[Max Ventura]

I, for one, think that the sampling era is over and gone.

It started in the early 80s, but by '97 it had already peaked and spilled over in the "been there, done that" area, in terms of exploitation and possibilities offered by it. This is the virtual reality era, and I think everybody's moving into that direction. Hans Zimmer & friends are free to use their GigaSamplers and Kurzs and superAkais to their heart contents, but no matter anyway you pump it up, twist it and turn it, a sample is just a photograph of a sound; there is no 'elastic audio' as proposed by Roland, no Loop Remix as proposed by Yamaha, that can revitalize a passe' technology. Virtual recreation of a sound is a different approach, and one that I see no end to.