To the collective artists known as Skulltunes :

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Originally Posted by Greg Silver

first of all something to deafmosaic:
in a german board, boris and me DID apologize, we never used CONSCIOUSLY a loop, which has already been used in another record. the loops we were blamed for are from a record we have never possessed. i promise. there was a real loop-rip of one of sven´s records from another artist (3 loops in one track!!!) also and sven huddled it together. now sven and we are friends again,we phoned about 1hr and all the differences are cleared.

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o.k. mate fair enough. i jumped the gun in accusing you, but you must admit that using these loops so prominently in your arrangements can easily create a situation like this.

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Originally Posted by Greg Silver

another thing is dj amok. and it isn´t of interest for me, if he is an artist from you, too. he is only a friend of sven, not directly affected in any way and called me and boris "motherf...", "dick suckers" and lots more and spread this over the boards. sorry, this is definitely NOT objective and we pull our consequences out of that.
i´m not angry about any of your statements, but please do a difference between objective discussions and insults. would you accept them? i don´t think so.

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ok, i understand ben has insulted you personally. he has apologized. I WILL TALK WITH HIM. i would consider it a personal favor if you boys would stop giving him a hard time and allow me to convince him to not speak about you folks any further. i am not trying to be a dick, but ben is one of ours and if you all continue to try and damage his career, i will not be happy.

again, i would look at it as a favor to me, if you boys would lay off him, he is having a tough time and is learning hard life lessons every day. anyone who knows me knows that i am a man of my word so the ball is in your court. if you insist on persuing retaliation against Ben (amok) i will have to consider it a personal insult on my word and will be very ............ disapointed.


i appreciate your time in answering all of these inquiries and hope that you boys will make an effort to create music which is less limilar to others in the future.


now i would like to say a word to the board. firstly, death on a stick has a noble point about originality, mark also has a good point and i always used to say: "it aint the box, its how you bang it." but at the end of the day, the trouble here is that folks cant be bothered to stay on the right side of that originality line, and in some cases the culprit is the thought that "my new track sounds like 'that other track'"

this is the poison of our industry. all of us are guilty of this to some degree whether we admit it or not, but we must make an extra effort to create our own approach to making music, otherwise homogeny will eat us all up.


i was also caught up on one side of this debate without examining all of the possibilities, my excuse is that one of my own was very passionate about "his side" but beyond all this, you skulltunes boys and the rest of us alike should be learning from this ridiculous fiasco:

try to make some music which is easily recognized as yours.

i like to think i have my own "gunjack sound" as does emergence/mark and miro/the anxious/etc. but it isnt enough to think this way, we have to prove it with every release.


a close friend once told me that my work gets better with every track, it is a compliment i will cherish for ever. the day my work goes stagnant and i am unable to find a new approach to expressing myself effectively, that is the day i begin with a new medium.

will someone clarify something for my brain that know little about production...

Sven was in here earlier this week after tripleX had started the topic that certain groups had stolen his loops fopr use in their own production? yes?

when the "certain groups" finally posted they claimed the loops had come from sounds banks other sources (such as CD's) etc...?

if this is true is Sven not claiming that a loop he had taken from a CD is his own work and that some one was plaigerising it? After taking 20 mins to read the whole discussion im still confused....

Did Sven actually make some thing original or has this discussion just drawn to the conclusion that both groups of artistes use pre programmed loops?

cheers lads

dan

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Originally Posted by BritishMurderBoy

Did Sven actually make some thing original or has this discussion just drawn to the conclusion that both groups of artistes use pre programmed loops?

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Yes. Very sad, do you not think?

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Originally Posted by BritishMurderBoy

has this discussion just drawn to the conclusion that both groups of artistes use pre programmed loops?

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that would seem to be the case. It seems the fight is over who is the least original.

"I used the sample CD!!"
"I used it first"
"yeah but I'm less original than you"
"no way, my ideas are the stalest"

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/oliphant/thoa048.jpg

deafmosaic: now i have a better impression of you. first i thought u were just a troublemaker. i appreciate your reaction and hope we can have lots more discussions in a friendly way here.
i also understand that you protect amok as a friend of yours. but the whole thing is managed by our adcocate since last week. we didn´t make a report, he just will be admonished for the insults and all the real bad things he did. if he is calm, objective and friendly again, nobody will push the trouble further. but this lesson he has to learn. and i can´t stop anymore.

Sounds like the most original person here is the person who made techno trance essential CD :)
It isn't hard to tell which CD's these artists all use. They do use the same kind of equipment (if any) when making these records. 1 good tune on a record with 3 shit ones they made in one day. Some do have nice ideas when putting the music together though, but not much of the loops/kicks/hats are made from scratch.

It would take too much time for them to make everything from scratch, and why waste time when this sells.

peace
/serox

Stop these pussy threats and get to some action. Anyone can play tough on a message board.

this group of three threads has to go down as the most unusual of all time.. i wonder if sven will post again in response...

as for u butty :roll:

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Originally Posted by BritishMurderBoy

as for u butty :roll:

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As what for me?
Am I the most unusual thread? =)

cheers greg, but i must repeat: if dj amoks young career is attacked any further by your people, i will not be a very reasonable person for very long. i must ask again, as a PERSONAL FAVOR to gunjack, that you call off the actions you have set into motion. I WILL ACCEPT THE RESPONSIBILITY TO MAKE SURE HE REALIZES THE SEVERITY of these sorts of actions.... if you insist on further retaliation, this could get very dirty and the situation may require an outside element to "clean" it.


also i have a quick question: your bio states that you came up first in the game through early releases on "Generator records", but Alan Oldham (T-1000 of Generator records) is a friend of mine and says he has never heard of you.... could there have been another Generator records around that time?

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Originally Posted by death on a stick

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Originally Posted by MARK EG

yes we've realised that skull tunes need to be more creative with their loops.

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Not just them, what about the people that have been raging at them for doing exactly the same thing they did themselves? LAME!!!

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to whom do you direct this please? at DJamok? if this was directed at me you are SORELY mistaken.

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Originally Posted by herman

It seems to me that the main part of the problem here seems to stem from people using sample cd's rather than the fact that they sample.Much the same as people who only use presets on there synth's etc, the lazy unoriginal way to do things is always going to sound like the next lazy unoriginal guy isn't it?

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yes my man. yes.

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Originally Posted by Buttman

Do you honestly say that making good loops from scratch (and I mean from a totally empty pattern) is easy??

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if one is inspired, it should be easy.

the most unusual poster maybe.. what i meant i thought i was ironic that

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Anyone can play tough on a message board.

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came from your mouth....

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Originally Posted by BritishMurderBoy

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Anyone can play tough on a message board.

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came from your mouth....

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Hehe yes, I am not so tough in real life as on this board. I am quite sure that goes for everyone on here (ok, maybe not Gunjack).

agreed, some people are just throwing out music for the $. And it would take them too long to be original about it.

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Originally Posted by deafmosaic

to whom do you direct this please? at DJamok? if this was directed at me you are SORELY mistaken.

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It was directed at any and all "artists" who, in the course of this saga, have accused another "artist" of plagiarising their work, when in fact it would seem to have become apparent that the truth is that they are all equally unoriginal. I'm not aware that you are involved in that in any way other than by association with certain members of one "side", and that you are representing your friend's interests. I don't know who DJ Amok is or what he has said, and in fact exactly who is who has evaded me.

I'd really like some clarification on this now. I was just thinking about this while waiting for my prawn and salad baguette...at first I just thought it was real sad that people were getting worked up over their generic loop tracks. Now it's looking like some sort of campaign has been run against one group of people via various forums and probably other means...by another group who have just been revealed as total hypocrites as they were using the same lame methods to make the music they were claiming to have had STOLEN from them. That makes me pretty f.ucking angry if it's true.

Is that actually what has happened, or am I misreading the situation? I just want that clarified in case I start railing off about things I've not understood. It seems so ludicrous I can hardly believe it could be true.

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Originally Posted by death on a stick

I'd really like some clarification on this now. I was just thinking about this while waiting for my prawn and salad baguette...at first I just thought it was real sad that people were getting worked up over their generic loop tracks. Now it's looking like some sort of campaign has been run against one group of people via various forums and probably other means...by another group who have just been revealed as total hypocrites as they were using the same lame methods to make the music they were claiming to have had STOLEN from them. That makes me pretty f.ucking angry if it's true.

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that's how i've read it as....and a good read it was too!
glad y'all lovely techno peeps r sorted (kinda...)

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Originally Posted by Buttman

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Originally Posted by BritishMurderBoy

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Anyone can play tough on a message board.

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came from your mouth....

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Hehe yes, I am not so tough in real life as on this board. I am quite sure that goes for everyone on here (ok, maybe not Gunjack).

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c'mon, i am a pussycat! :D

Of course it is what has happand, why do you think so much of the music sounds the same on the labels, it was sure to come out at some stage. How many of the same artist are using the same studios? How many have a template techno loop they use, and just do small changes it to them...

Can you feel it?

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Originally Posted by serox

Can you feel it?

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your gonna feel it in a minute smartass.... ; )

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Originally Posted by death on a stick

total hypocrites as they were using the same lame methods to make the music they were claiming to have had STOLEN from them. That makes me pretty f.ucking angry if it's true.

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this is what i was confused about mate and i think the sad thing is that it is true...


however as for the discussion between deaf/greg i believe there is something behind this conversation that is not made entirely clear on this topic..

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Originally Posted by death on a stick

while waiting for my prawn and salad baguette

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no wonder ur bluddy angry mate, were they all out of cheese :D

deafmosaic...you seem closest to the issues without actually being involved...is my appraisal accurate in your opinion? Did it really happen as it appears to myself and others?

[quote="deafmosaic"]i must ask again, as a PERSONAL FAVOR to gunjack, that you call off the actions you have set into motion. I WILL ACCEPT THE RESPONSIBILITY TO MAKE SURE HE REALIZES THE SEVERITY of these sorts of actions.... if you insist on further retaliation, this could get very dirty and the situation may require an outside element to "clean" it.

like i told u. i can´t call them off,because they are out by mail already. but i told the advocate to stop any further persecution of this case. this is the only thing i could do besides trusting your words. so after that, everything is fine and i have never again a problem with him nor do i anything to constrain him on his career.

[quote="deafmosaic"]also i have a quick question: your bio states that you came up first in the game through early releases on "Generator records", but Alan Oldham (T-1000 of Generator records) is a friend of mine and says he has never heard of you.... could there have been another Generator records around that time?

there was a label "generator records" in germany, near mainz. i don´t know this guy, too.

ok greg. i understand. may i have a copy of the piece that went out? i will need it for damage control. private message will be fine of course
DJ Amok will not bother you folks again as i have made it my business to straighten this out with him. cheers and good luck with future, original projects.


death on a stick (love the screen name btw): it would appear the culprit in this case is relentless sample(train)spotters, ready made loop producers, over zealous protesters of "theft" and a heavy dose of circumstance.


i am glad that this wasnt as ugly as it could have been.

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Originally Posted by deafmosaic

it would appear the culprit in this case is relentless sample(train)spotters, ready made loop producers, over zealous protesters of "theft" and a heavy dose of circumstance.

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hhmmm..well, it seems to me the whole thing could have been avoided in a couple of ways. Aside from the obvious (i.e. making decent music with a bit of effort) it seems reasonable that the accusers in this case could have considered that the people they were accusing used the same source material for their music before embarking on a campaign against them. Is there so little thought put into this music that someone doesn't remember where they lifted an untreated loop from?

I think some people have some serious back tracking and public apologies to be getting started with. I think it's f.ucking disgraceful. No matter how seriously one takes one's efforts (if there are any) at producing original music, there is NO EXCUSE for doing what has been done here given the eventual truth we have seen revealed. These accusers should be ashamed of themselves!! I'd also recommend selling all their studio equipment and going to work in a factory. Obviously the repetitive production-line formula appeals to them, and bar any industrial accidents it would seem to be less of a minefield. Very sad. I'd like to see those who have posted their accusations here come back with an explanation that refutes what appears to have happened as I'm still unconvinced that anyone could be so carelessly stupid. If they don't, I feel it's safe to assume they have realised their errors and are unable to back up their actions.

indeed.

stop please accusing anybody. let us do music mates!

sven wittekind is building his loops by himself, i know that. but unfortunately you also get his loops like tons from others all over the web. and this must be a loop we have taken unconsciously. for us it´s over, i never take a loop from the web again, because i never can know who made this thing as original.

for better understanding: visit www.flashkit.com and take a look at the loops

Greg could you post the direct link, from where you downloaded the Psycho shock loop?

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Originally Posted by Greg Silver

stop please accusing anybody. let us do music mates!

sven wittekind is building his loops by himself, i know that. but unfortunately you also get his loops like tons from others all over the web. and this must be a loop we have taken unconsciously. for us it´s over, i never take a loop from the web again, because i never can know who made this thing as original.

for better understanding: visit www.flashkit.com and take a look at the loops

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wait a second. i thought you gys said sven was using the same samples from a sample cd and that is how this got started.... you had better explain from the beginning. and quickly. i am beiginning to lose my patience.

i don´t know where it was from. we have a directory "loops" on our harddisk and there we put every loop in. sorry, but i don´t really know. but with hundreds of loops this is impossible.

"we got a live one"

now its getting boring to tell everybody the whole story again. deaf i pm´ed u.

i never got your p.m. lets icq this out i am 227786742. please log in.

this topic has suddenly become as dull and looping as the music you're all fighting about.

well, that was the most interesting thing that's ever happened on this forum since I've been here. there's been like, more than 4 posts today.

what about getting overdoxx on? curious what he gotta say

overall...constant use of loops other people made (dont care if its even from sample cd's) is gay....maby sometimes if u make something really cool out of some loop and its totaly diferent....but using 10 loops on your every track someone else made and changing them shows that all you have as a producer is SOME skill, and that skill is playing with other peoples stuff....ok, you create something new and diferent, but being an artist isnt just to create, it is to express yourself tru sound creation....and what your doing here with all these looping is creating just to make something that sounds cool....you depend on the loops others made and they influence your music just too much to be art....u recycle other peoples work and declare its art...

mark, if loops are so easy to make and the real skill is to blend and change them, why dont u make your own loops then and play with those?
wouldnt you feel better if you knew that everything in your tunes are your ideas and your work ?

rather start from scratch and learn how to express YOUR SELF for a couple of years, even if you dont release 10 vinyls per month and your not so c00l in "da scene" :lol:

seems to me many people here here just to be producers and not artists....how does your conscious give you satistaction when you finish a tune with other peoples work in them?

i dont even want to coment people who take a whole tune and put them in their own.....whats the point? you will maby get released on vinyl and be cool? most likely youll get busted and be knows as a ripoff like so many people (on this forum :wink: ) will be .... bekeke....

> mark, if loops are so easy to make and the real skill is to blend and change them, why dont u make your own loops then and play with those?
wouldnt you feel better if you knew that everything in your tunes are your ideas and your work ?

we do this for sure. my loop library is a miss mash of mangled sampled cd's and mess arounds with reason, cubase add vairous midi instruments and rebirth etc etc. what i like about loops from sample cd's is it gives you feelings and grooves that you wouldn't have usually put in yourself on a midi sequencer or with reason etc. it's a very quick way of getting different inspiration.

but i do totally see where you're coming from. it would give you TONNES more satisfaction knowing everything was 100% your own and still be able to get the same sound. give me more time on this planet and i'll build up more and more personally created loops and reduce what i use from sample cd's. i'm heading that way anyway. i've only been producing for about 8 years and only really got half decent at it in the last three.

for example bass guitar loops can make really interesting basslines. i'd love to record my own but i can't play the guitar. so i chop and paste a guitar loop and eq it to my liking. perhaps add distortion to flatten it out a bit. i dunno there's load you can do. this is a quick and effective way of adding something i wouldnt normally be able to add to my work. which in turn helps the creative process and keeps my fresh with new ideas. down the line - yes - we'll get a session musician in record him on the guitar.

but for now this is sometimes the only option for us to test out different ideas and sounds. it works for me and i always feel excited and can be inspired really quickly in the studio. it never felt like this with only midi.

wow this is a good topic isnt' it?!?!! :D

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Originally Posted by MARK EG

wow this is a good topic isnt' it?!?!! :D

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yes, it feels so warm and pleasant...

ooops wrong topic. this should have been posted under FOR THE RAVER GIRLS.

:lol: *ggggg* :lol:

yeah for things like that bass guitar example I think sample CDs are valid...it's using CDs geared towards dance music that already have the whole thing done for you that is particularly lame.

A few years ago I actually put a record out with a track that directly sampled a very well known techno producer for an element of the track. It never occurred to me that he would mind as we were acquainted, and fortunately he didn't, but he was a bit miffed that I didn't ask him. I learned from that.

I'd not like it to be thought that my rants on this thread are in any way anti-sampling, or even that I've not used sample CDs, cos I have (I got one free with my sampler back in '96...dogs woofing etc), but if I've lifted a sample in that way I make sure it's not the focus of the track, or I change it so it's totally unrecogniseable. Most importantly, I focus on making every element of a track into part of a whole that actually means something. Just having a cool loop means nothing if you don't do something good with it.

hi! i have just had a long talk with greg silver on icq..... he denies ever consiously using any unauthorized material. he maintains his position that the sven loops came from a hard drive with many loops of which he was not aware of the origins. the official skulltunes statements seem to be: "drums can not be copywritten" "this was a problem between sven and us, and now its finished" "we never intended to use unauthorized loops on a commercial release"



i have asked them to come up with a comprehensive public statement regarding the now excessive mass of artists who are standing in accusation against the label. they have refused. they maintain that if any artist has issues with skulltunes, to please contact them directly..... i am tired and will now go to bed, but i hoe you all will post any new infromation that becomes available.

to be frank, this is a mess, but i am not one to f u c k around with ppl. frankly - this will end one of two ways - badly or worse.

okay mateys here is my last statement and then i will do my work, this discussion is going on my nerves. i got a another long discussion with via icq and i repeat what i said there:

me for my person never used consciously any unauthorized material for my tracks. i also don´t mind if anybody uses sample cds, if he changes these samples or leaves them in original condition. that´s what they are for. the rest ist the personal thing of the producer.

i do not want to hear threats or insults anymore. so i leave this thing here.

have a good time.

just to clear some stuff up here. my understanding is sven makes his tracks in a standalone sequencing package without the need for sample cd's. THAT's my understanding after one conversation with him three weeks ago. fair bloody play to him if this is the case.

i think what greg is saying is that he gets one loop from all types of sources sample cd's, the interent etc etc. he's found one particualr one whilst surfing, ie a loop from one of sven's tracks which he didn't realise was one of sven's track, stuck it in his hard drive and forgot about it. then he used it on a track of his without realising the need to change it. it came out and the shit hit the fan.

i reckon from what's been said here that greg and boris have learnt a big lesson from this. boris says he now uses recycle to chop up loops and greg has said he will never be getting his loops from the internet again. good. let's see what happens in the future.

but i think that a few of you haven't read the original situation properly here. to recap: sven had a go at skull tunes for taking a loop of his. which they did. which they've admit. if i'm right about the way sven produces, this would have been a totally original loop. fair play. he was right to have a go. now the situation is resolved. good.

but as far at the other tracks - the submissions sample etc etc.... it wasn't the other artists eg patrick and glenn etc that were making a fuss about this. to the best of my knowledge, none of these artists who used these same 'clean' loops from sample cds have ever turned around and accused skull of nicking their loops. it was everyone else who came to the wrong conclusion!

it's just been a huge lesson in creativity. one which i hope we all take note of to improve the genre. :D

just one last question to greg or boris.
you guys said you didn´t know it was sven´s loop, right, but you had that specific track "Psycho shock" on your charts right?

triple x ... the only and last thing i say to that: the issue is cleared with sven! i think that's enough!!

over and out.

we have done enough statements!

greetings,

boris

Whew! I've just read this topic from start to finish and it's been enlightening to say the very least.

It's certainly cleared up some of the mystery of tunes production as far as I'm concerned.

When I first started mucking around with making music I used loads of samples (from CD's not other tracks). I'd try my hardest to "disguise" them using plug-ins, eq-ing, and chaning the start-end points.

A while down the line I discovered vst instruments and started to add my own sections on top of my loops, but I still felt that my aim was to eventually sequence whole tracks without loops, which I eventually managed.

My understanding was that this was how 99% of tracks would have been produced. I can now see that this is how a number of people on here feel it should be.

I thought I was "cheating" by using loops and trying to "hide" them in fx and eq, but I think Mark's points about making loops your own are valid, and it has made me rethink my position on some of my previous tracks.

Now I can understand that you could give the same samples I used in those tracks to many people and no one would have come up with the same track I did, so in that sense my track were original.

I'd have to say that as far as the discussion here goes I think mangling samples and "making them your own" is just as valid as designing original loops, it's just a different route to an end product.

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Originally Posted by daviec

I thought I was "cheating" by using loops and trying to "hide" them in fx and eq

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I don't think any method is cheating. Ultimately the only thing that matters is what comes out at the end - the music. It just happens that some methods seem to consistently produce very low quality music, and as has been illustrated here, some methods can show people up as unimaginative and unoriginal in their thought processes.

i really respect what you said man on the skull tunes post...

you're obviously very passionate, but also very ****in diplomatic

how then does one police a forum? it's driving me mad. the last thing i want to be responsible for is ****in someone's life up on a stupid forum. i love this place, i created it, but it obviously holds too many -veity's and i'm not too keen on this at the moment.

please give me your thoughts man....

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Originally Posted by miromiric

show us your music stick of the death!

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And where can I get to hear some of yours Miro ? You keep mentioning things like abstract minimalism, Reich and you talk about recording your own noises and sounds which really interests me.Very intriguing. Sounds right up my street. 8)

Irony...I was going to post a question in the "Techno Production" forum about whether or not people used sampled drum sounds...the individual sounds...in there production, or whether people made new, fairly one-of-a-kind drum/percussion sounds from a synth(s).

Now I see this debate about using entire pre-made loops in tracks.

This discussion has certaily change my understanding of electronic music production. Maybe I am naive, but I thought we were all creating our own sounds...our own mark.

Again with the disclaimer, I'm down with using samples, but not to the point of calling them a track of your own.

On Spinwarp, a Dnb forum, you can read tutorials about how to create any drum sound you want from a fairly simple synth. I thought everyone was doing this, at least to some extent.

I don't have a "label", nor do I produce for a label, so I don't fully understand the industry, but when all of you do here what I'm make'n, you will hear my stuff, and not other peoples work/loops, liscense free or otherwise.

No offense to anyone, just my belief.

I think I'll hold off on the question of whether people make their own percussion with synths, or use sampled kicks, snares, toms, etc.

fair enough professor. i look forward to hearing your stuff mate :)