I think is fun to sample things you find yourself and is different from buying and using Hip Hop Sample Pack #1024124124 . The sample you get in your digitakt ads to your style, you sample it because you like. Maybe it sounds no different but something is lost because you did not have that fun sample yourself to make your work
I don’t see anything wrong with using sample packs or presets. I think rolling your own sounds can impart a bit more of a sense of personality on whatever you’re writing, but at the end of the day I think it’s up to the person creating the music as to whether they want to do that or not. For my own solo output I’ve tended to lean more toward working more with my own custom palette of sounds, but even that’s become blurred over time.
Case in point: I ended up picking up a big bundle of samples and loops a couple of years ago with the sole intention of just having fun with them, not to create anything with a view to releasing it but just as a way to jump into creating something for my own enjoyment… sort of as a palette cleanser after working on some loud, production-heavy material. As it turns out, I actually really liked what I was creating and ended up releasing it as an album. It was ridiculously fun to just stretch, re-pitch, chop up, and otherwise play around with these loops to get ideas going, and as a whole I’d argue it’s one of the most creatively fulfilling things I’ve done over the past couple of years. It was so nice to just work on something without any expectations with regards to how it would be received, and I wouldn’t have done it without having a bank of samples & loops to draw from.
(if anyone wants to hear this album I’d be happy to share a link but don’t want this to turn into a music spam post!)
I think your bang on, I sometimes use looped phrases and beats from sample packs etc. And I agree that context is a massive part of what sets the music you make apart from the base sample used, if I were just making beats out of premade construction kits then I’d probably feel pretty lazy and bad about my output but picking a melodic or rhythmic sample and building from it has been a staple of electronic music for years… just because you arent digging in the crates doesn’t mean there’s no skill in picking the right sample or building a beat from it…
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Very much depends on the context, as someone above wrote. I understand that for some, it looks like cheating. On the other hand, what about using arpeggio and scale runs in piano sonatas in the 18th century? You could say that it’s a cheap trick, with no originality, but everyone did it. What about using a sample of Db major arpeggio, but you put it in a context of, say, G7—now the chord becomes G7b9#11, etc.? Does this count as being creative? So, to me, it’s a tough call to say one way or the other exactly. 
that’s exactly my thinking too.
All honor to the crate diggers, this is a challenge in itself. But I’m a track maker, not a crate digger. It’s something I have to do sometimes… But it’s 2022. There is stuff easily available in high quality without the need of digging through records.
Yes, others might use the same material but your track can still sound totally different and totally you. What you pick and how incorporate it can make a huge difference
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A sample can have musical attributes and cultural attributes. The musical attributes are universal; the cultural attributes are ephemeral. Great art withstands the test of time.
I no longer care. If that top loop works and aides my groove, I’ll use it. After many years of never using loops, now I’ll even use melodic loops or vocal loops. If it works, it works. I tend to mangle the melodic loops in various ways, but I don’t see why not doing so would be wrong. I got nothing to prove cause I’m not a newbie, and samples are another tool in my toolbox.
Loops are only a dirty word if all you do is put a few of them together and be done with it. 
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Right ? Why break your back if it makes you happy ?
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I prefer creating my own samples. Doesn’t feel personal enough to me otherwise.
This is not to say there is anything wrong with using sample packs.
I was going to comment, but then I realised I’d just be repeating what others have said.
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Sampling something off a vinyl record or the radio vs using a sample pack are two different beast altogether. “Digging in the crates” is a art onto itself. Going with a sample pack is letting someone else curate your samples for you. It could come off as cheating but it really depends on what you do with the samples you use.
…some prefer to take the long and winding road, while others prefer to take the shortcut…
both ways can take u home…
on that long and winding road u grow a lot and gain in individual skills how to prepare a well done meal…
on the shortcut u saved lots of time by skipping all the experience how to cook it up for real…
so take a look around u…
how much truu skill individual stuff u find to feed u…
and how much fast food sonic’s sourrounding u that says eat this…
meanwhile, too many mouth to feed…
who’s making a living by art…who’s making a living by selling a dream…who’s making a living by fake it til u make it…
end of the day, u can’t cheat on ur taste…if u once had one…
it’s easy to live without such a thing, to begin with…
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Samples of any type are not inherently bad, people with samplers (and DAWs) just seem to be getting more boring creatively and lazy.
Take that melodic loop, slice it up and rearrange it. There, you’ve already taken a step towards making it your own. Apply some destructive editing and change the timbre. Step two and now no one even knows you used a melodic loop from a sample service.
Vocals I’ll give people some wiggle room. I love doing remixes with vocals from popular songs. And I honestly don’t care for recording my own voice.
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When I first got into electronic music after playing guitar in bands and was exposed to the world of samples and loops I always assumed loops were for other types of productions like films and commercials where non-musicians just needed quick access to music which they could edit into there video without having to hire a real musician. So it definitely feels like cheating to me, and there’s always that nagging thought that 600 other people are probably using that exact same loop. To me, crate digging and sampling are not comparable to purchasing loops and are an art unto themselves.
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For me it comes down to whether or not the loop takes on more layers of meaning when it’s used. For example, if you sampled Darude Sandstorm in 1999 because you just needed a dirty synth riff, you’d be making a cheap knockoff. But if you’re sampling it in 2022, you’re invoking your artistic heritage. It feels similar for less famous loops: if you use a 90s pop-rock drum loop because you need a drum track, you’re probably going to end up with a generic, unremarkable 90s pop-rock sounding song. But if you manipulate your loop or the rest of the arrangement cleverly, you can make it say things about the styles of music that it draws on, and then you’re really being creative.
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This is perfect. I’m going back to the 90s dance I liked and then forgot about for a couple of decades and like you say it’s very much part of memories and heritage driving that; and now I just want to sample it all to bring it back into a modern context.
I used to listen to a fair bit of sample based music, but didn’t know it at the time. Looking into how it was made with fresh ears has been really interesting. Just 3 simple examples off the top of my head are: The Prodigy - Smack my Bitch Up (mangling, repitching & chopping extensively = a whole new track) The Chemical Brothers - Block Rockin’ Beats (chopped up bassline = replayed as a new melody) and Fatboy Slim - Build It Up/Tear it Down (= mostly light chopping, pitching & arranging into a new whole.) This really opened my eyes to 3 very different approaches from complete repurposing and mangling audio, to recontextualising it but staying relatively true to the original.
Aside: the state of play with Splice and sample packs etc...
Of course this was all done before sample packs. One thing you often hear is that artists use the tools available to them at the time. I know Liam from the Prodigy said he used the odd sound from a sample CD. So my guess is that had these guys come out today, they would use the tools available to them, including YouTube and Splice, which are a staple of musicians like Burial or Fred Again… both artists lauded for their interesting use of samples.
Sample packs and Splice are not only more ubiquitous, but they’re now at a volume where it’s less and less likely that folks will end up using the same samples (unlike when everyone had the same 10 sample CDs.) The more this becomes the case, finding the right pre-made samples becomes as much of a task as finding and chopping up an existing record. (Of course being 2022 shops like Tracklib that have sprung up to capture that specific niche too.) It’s up to you whether this is or isn’t in the spirit of things, but it’s something I’ve noticed recently.
I come from a band background and to some degree building a guitar/bass/drum sound all hinges on what you might call modified presets. An amp has a pre-defined character or tone, as does a specific guitar or guitar pedal. (Sure, you can shape your sound, but the reality is a Marshall is a Marshall and that’s going to sound different to an Orange, and that choice will define your output.) Hell, not only that, people actively buy gear because it already has a sound or a tone baked in.
Given my background and biases; I prefer and prioritise “playing” my notes in melodically. And that means I’m happy to use a chopped sample, a single note from a sample pack, or a one shot drum (as well as just playing a synth/instrument) to make my sounds. I’m also happy to sample entire sections from other songs to put into my own as a bit of a homage to music I like. When it comes to loops, if I’ve built 70-90% of the track already adding in texture, pads, top-loops for the last 10-30%, I’m OK with that if it supports the song. I guess a lot of your approach to samples has to do with your background and how you make music. If you’re a drummer, vocalist or guitarist, making pre-made loops for “your bit” may well feel like outsourcing your part in the band.
In electronic music, you are very often “the band” yourself, and so you have to pick and choose to what degree you want to make everything yourself. It’s not just pre-made loops and one-shots, but there’s midi patterns, presets and much more to consider as part of the “from scratch or not” thing. And I don’t think there’s any shame in choosing to take these shortcuts if you don’t have the skill/time/patience to do everything yourself (although ideally this would still be done in a way where you retain something of yourself into your music.) Personally, I’m not a drummer, so I take any help I can get to develop drum patterns. I try and play them myself, but I look to loops and example tracks to get a feel for how to make them interesting.
Overall, I’d say give yourself a break. Decompiling and rebuilding tracks via samples, loops or oneshots is a super fun way to learn about how individual tones and sounds come together to make a whole, and this is a relatively new luxury we have with stems and seperate parts being commonly available. Trying loops, one shots, or sampling full productions to see what feels right for you is literally never wrong. And if you learn something trying something you’re not feeling, then it’s worth it because it’s just one step on the way to working out how you like to work.
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“Talent borrows, genius steals”
Yes make your own shit but also Everything is a Remix. A handful of purely original tracks are truly great, 99% of original tracks are usually not great. Ditto for sample based tracks. Do whatever gets you to the work and then make it as good as you know how to make it
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Samples are great, even if they aren’t your own.
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It’s more common than I realized before I found lists like this. It’s also interesting to hear different takes on the same sample.
https://www.whosampled.com/Spectrasonics-Virtual-Instruments/