Sample packs and artistic integrity

Never used these.
For me, creating custom sounds is part of the fun and might lead to a stronger musical identity (though it’s not the only way to achieve it).

Now I’m on a sampling, CMI rabbit hole dive thanks (gratefully) to this thread…

Kids like samples, packs or not.

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If it’s fun for you using sample, use them. If it isn’t, don’t.

There is too much pressure already for musicians to sum critics on how they make their music.

Do whatever you think it’s fun for you, it could be your only benefit from music to throw it up.

Just be sure to clear the sample if you earn good money from the song, as if you were paying to bandmates that make music with you.

I guess this adds to the conversation. Some Bass artist was caught releasing tunes that sounded pretty much the same as the sample pack demo songs :joy: :joy: :joy:

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the Weaver Beats video on this is kinda more directly about the issue in this case…

Venus Theory gets kinda lost in talking about sampling in general, and using sample packs.

That’s not really what’s f’d up about what the artist did - the released tracks are really, really close to being 1 to 1 rips of the Demo Tracks for the packs .

Which a) the licence says you can’t do and b) is kinda a different thing creatively to using loops, which is a different thing to using loops and mangling them, which is definitely a different thing to creatively sampling from old records and using them to make something entirely new.

(in my opinion, your mileage may vary etc etc)

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Yeah it’s a weird one but in a way its thrown a bit of light on how I feel about this stuff myself. A few folks here talk about it in this thread, and the general feeling seems to be the absolute bare minimum would be that you could take 2 royalty free loops and modify them a little to work together in a new way. This isn’t exactly the artistic heights of crate-digging by any stretch, but it is also a legit route for the hobbyist. If you use royalty free samples, whether you dig that route or not, if you use them in a way that builds up your own unique composition, that’s cool. That can include keeping some elements of the loops similar to the original, but in the absolute ideal world - these would be recontextualised together.

Obviously the actual case in question case is a wholesale copy & paste job, which I guess is what many feared could happen with these commercial packs if left unchecked. Or as the dude says - busted!

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I can’t think where I saw it now, but somewhere in this haze of conversation somewhere shared the results of their remix competition and showed that like 40% of people had basically just moved a few drum hits or turned the bass up.

Seems mad to me, all the fun is in absolutely monstering the stems into something unrelated, but people are all different I guess.

Still seems a lot better than opening the project file of the demo track, replacing a few bits and then pretending it’s a 100% original. Not sure if it’s worse or better than employing a ghost producer and pretending you made all your tracks though.
That is kinda sucky too.

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I don’t care as a listener (=naive, joyful attitude), and I try not to care as a performer (=snobbish, miserable attitude).

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I don’t use sample packs but I will use vocal samples for two reasons. First, I can’t sing and second I like to use vocals people know. Same with lead and piano parts etc. If I’m gonna use something like that I play the part and sample that.

How is a sample pack different from sampling a record or using a preset.

The end result is all the matters.

Source

Release

…mmm gooood

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I’ll never use so much of another’s work that I need to worry about “integrity” with nicking a sample or MIDI fill here or there.

I’ve never liked remixes (or covers really) that use too much of the core with too little transformative changes.

I’m more concerned with voice over “integrity” or “authenticity” since I’m a solo musician, not doing live drumming and need to focus on better proficiency with one live instrument (bass, in my case) versus overextending myself in every area of production.

Maybe this bit in the Venus Theory vid on the same topic?

Yeah that’s valid of course; to me the answer to any question about sampling, is that it definitley depends.

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I enjoyed (and was quite surprised to learn) how Fatboy Slim’s stuff was often a straight up recontextualisation of a track with fairly small changes, almost like a collage. Then you have someone like the Prodigy who smashes something beyond recognition, which is amazingly inspiring. And then there are those like the Chemical Brothers who borrow snippets of other material (again often without completely changing the sound) and then play with them and also weave their own parts around those replayed samples. I guess from that little self-schooling on how artists I like deal with samples; I feel like in the era of royalty free loops, maybe the Chems/Prodigy route feels more legit as those approaches will take you somewhere else to the sounds you started with.

The only other caveat to all that is that the vast majority of musicians are hobbyists. I think the bar is a bit lower for folks who do this just for fun, and from talking to others on that level, they know that using royalty free sounds isn’t the same as doing it yourself, but they aren’t holding themselves to the same standard as an artist on a label, and I think that should always be noted. Obviously when it comes to pros and signed artists, they are held to a higher standard as they should be.

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I picked up “Artistic Integrity Vol. 2” sample pack but it just sounds like loads of other sample packs.

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Been a huge BoC fan but never liked Nlogax.
I have been quite suprised recently too see how many samples are used in their music, even for basic synth sounds. They could tweak a sample pack beyond recognition.

Ya they sample the shit outta stuff.

Source

Release

I’ve always maintained that’s why the proposed box set of the tapes WARP had mentioned never came to be. Way too many samples to clear. :man_shrugging:t5:
speculation

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I’ve been watching some Drum & Bass docs and other 90’s era music and kept noticing several sample cd’s popping up, which has caused me to go pull them out of the shed.

Spectrasonics Vocal Planet series is an amazing series, especially the quality of the samples, but you wouldn’t expect anything less from this company. Something that blew my mind, was that the ah, ah, ahhhhh sample that opens up Kendrick Lemar’s “Alright” was taken from this sample series, as were countless other big tracks from the 90’s and 00’s.

Zero-G’s Datafile series doesn’t need any introduction, as they’re responsible for 1000’s of singles made during the 90s, but it’s also great.

X-Static Goldmine gets a lot of nods as well.

I’ve found myself really enjoying the process of going through these old sample CDs and doing a bit of train/sample spotting.

Sidenote-
Samples and sampling are dope, and have been integral to the creation of so much over the decades. Why on earth would anyone limit themselves from making dope music. There’s an old saying I like to live by “work smarter, not harder”, but that’s me. If you are one of those people, who likes to spend a lot of time crafting every single one of your own sounds, then hey, more power to you. Respect. I’m going to go get these samples though.

Warp seems to be dropping the ball recently. Danny Brown has been a bit upset over the fact that they haven’t released his latest album he did with them. Supposedly it’s been done for over 2 years. Makes me wonder if maybe it’s the same story for that album too? Sample clearance too expensive.

oh shit…love Danny Brown.

seems like they are focused on just being a distributor…of shit music. all kinds of junk at WARP these days. kind of a shame. too bad SKAM is kind of a non thing. they could take over that side of things…the good stuff :slight_smile:

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