To the collective artists known as Skulltunes :

[crime]

I think you all need to sit down with a nice cup of tea and a few Si Begg records, show you a thing or two about sampling....

[MARKEG]

yeah.. bin listening to his new novamute album for the last month... very different stuff i thought :D .

[miromiric.]

show us your music stick of the death!

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)

i have to contact my lawyers to see am i allowed to give anyone my music.



pm me and we will arrange something.

[crime]

I suppose this all highlights the problem of getting your groove from a loop off a record or a sample cd, it's never going to be your own groove that you sequenced.. not that I'm anti sampling, I use the odd loop myself, albeit a totally mangled in soundforge loop, and lets face it, dance music was built on sampling, but if the source materiel is limited to sampling from techno these things are going to happen... I have a little rule for myself which is never sample techno, I've broken it a few times, but whatever I've sampled I've usually mangled beyond all recognition....

[eyes without a face]

yeah Mark of course id change the loops, thats a rule id learnt b4 this topic came about.

THERE IS NOTHING MORE FUN THAT SITTING DOWN WITH A NEW SAMPLE CD AND CHECKING OUT WOTS ON THAT BABY!!!!

im with mark all the way on this one, sample cds and loops are great. u cant some seriously good traxs put together when used originally and with a bit of thought.

sorting out ur loops into clearly marked folders on ur computer will help u out no end, im currently sorting out my loop library and am looking for the sample CDs in question, i look forward to putting some loops into acid, ****in em up and throwing them together in cubase baby!!!!

[MARKEG]

i really do recommend you dont pick the sample cd's that that were mentioned earlier. there's been so many samples taken from these (eg techno trance essentials) that you're totally wasting your time with them now.

like me, become a total sample cd trainspotter. i know my sample cd's just like i know my records, just like i know my equipment. like you say, it's all great fun...

[eyes without a face]

good advice mark, i understand wot u mean about the cds in question.

could u put me onto some sample cd sites or decent places to check em out?

[gunjack]

dude, i am sure most of us could make patterns better than the ppl who make those often times horrrible zero g CDs etc.....

[The Divide]

I only just stumbled across this post, amazing points from all sides. I don’t want to resurrect this whole argument, to be honest I find debates like this are great for all people unless it's becomes a bitch fight. I think its all great, loops, samples, audio, midi and at the end of the day its what you do with it. I think ripping a loop of some one else's record and using it your own is wrong as is using a loop as the main riff and not doing anything with it. My opinion is...

Creating a decent track that sounds new and original that works is hard to do using loops and is the same with midi. I don’t feel I have as much control over how you can shape and change the groove/feel or the track with loops. Sometimes using acid and getting something down that ways great for a backbone of percussion and then I tend to take the track from there. Mostly turning out nothing like what I started with. But what I find is it defiantly gets the creative juices flowing (and I have done some tracks all the way like this). Its then when all the Rewire and the Akai gets used and the main riff of the track will come from using midi with the use of single hit samples and manipulation or whatever. I think there all great and useful tools and what I think is the problem here is people not really expressing themselves whist writing a track. If you do that and don’t put the effort in the final result ends up sounding like something you have already heard before (ie the chopped up loops you have put in). Look at it this way, its not just techno people that use loops. All kinds of music is created with them…

Here's a quote from http://www.musicoflife.com/beatsbreaks.htm Breakbeat sample and loop c.d.

"just look in the record boxes and sample collections of talented producers such as The Dust Brothers, Fatboy Slim, REM, Luthor Vandros, George Clinton, Public Enemy, Basement Jaxx and Doctor Dre, you'll see why Beats Breaks and Scratches is much more than just a collection of breakbeats and samples. It's an invaluable tool, a dance producers trade secret that's guaranteed to make the beats heavier, the basslines rock and any dancefloor explode!"

Difference is they build a song based track or arrangement on top of it. I find that you have to go along tho lines to an extent too otherwise it will sound like 6mins of the same over and over.

Okies. Who knows, I am only a beginner and only learning the ropes. I do use as much midi as audio but i tend to construct the main patterns mostly. But that’s only because it suits the stlye or sound that I am trying to produce. Way I see it, good the only people who are wrong are the Artists that rip the other ones off, not the Artist/producer (whatever) using loops.

So there you go, that my view. To be honest its not totally valid because my tracks arnt that good but its my what i think. If you don’t like it do be honest I don’t care :P :P :P

[The Divide]

Hmmm, perhaps we should carry this on in the underground techno production part of the forum. :roll:

[Paul Nisbet]

Good topic, but think this has got way out of hand. Careers on the internet can be made and destroyed right here, right now. It looks to me that this whole situation was never as sinister as first made out, yet names ave been dragged about on both sides rather unfairly i think.

Sayin that maybe better out in the open??? Who knows...

Appreciate both arguments, dont do any production yet, but would agree that usin loops is ok if done creativly, and creatin them... well nothin but respect for havin the forward thinkin innovative way of makin music.

In the end, its all techno... and we are all (most) in it with the same passion and love.

[eyes without a face]

hey gunny

i know wot u mean, id much rather use all original patterns to create my beatz, but i work soley in the computer with no outboard gear and loops are a wikid way to keep going with

[Heroes]

normally i dont get involved on board discussions but heres my view anyway. hits n small sound snippets from loops r fine to use and tweak but what i think is not good r 0ne or two bar loops of full blown peak time hooks from records. Non creative full stop. My tonal path tune got totally ripped for a german label, the most anoying was they said they dont use loops and that insults your intelligence because all producers know there tunes. iam gonna upload a link so you can all make your own minds up....stay tuned

regards G W

[eyes without a face]

glenn would that label have been SubSounds? my friend got a Sandy Warez record on that label and one of the tracks was identical to a track off Tonal Path. i play tonal path alot and recognised it within a second of hearing it.

all that seems to have been done is the record sampled, then re sequenced but with some very cheesy scratching over it

[Adverse]

that would be probably the 3 or 4th time someone has ripped it off eh mate?

[John Vella]

Man I read about 5 pages of this argument and its making my head spin... It's really taking alot of the fun out of this techno stuff so I stopped reading.

I think sampling is completely 100% fine as long as you can make that sample "YOURS" by fukkin it up somehow....

Personally I would never feel good about releasing something that clearly revolved its sound around an untouched loop or 2 of an existing track or tracks that were out there....

But man alot of the times this seems to be a gray area with people using the same sample CDs!!

Honestly... Its a combonation of 2 things I think... Both sides of the spectrum can probably benefit by this simple combo:

1)People need to take their heads out of their assess....

2)People using samples should use common sense....


P.S You all just need to sample the geezer playin his bass guitar at the train station and you'll be a-ok I think. hehehe....

;)

-jOHNNY

[karlo]

All people give some look on this....i didnt so i will now!

Realy, never heard any release of skull tunes rec. so i cant give my comment, i just know that i make remix for skull tunes cat no. 10

So will see.

Karlo

[Jimfish]

good lord, im not really going to even bother going into this one..

actually, i will have a brief chat..

i dont give a **** if someone is using a sample cd or doing it all themselves.

i dont give a **** if someones tracks are mind bogglingly simaler dancefloor tunes or tripped out eclectic brain candy.

All i care about is quality of the music and the production, how it is made is of no concern to me, and thus, anybody is free to sample anything i ever do and i will be only too happy for them to make a really nice track out of it and be honoured that they chose my bits to sample..

[Jimfish]

saying that i would never actually sample a main groove or hook from somebody else's record. And actually i would think it a bit weird if somebody else did it to another record thinking about it..
duh

I myself use sample cd stuff some of the time, this is cos i like working with audio and the sound you can get from loop mashing. But alongside this i sometimes spend long periods of time making my own percussion etc loops and storing them in my library for future use. Be it with home-made loops or sample cd loops i then tend to chop and mash etc etc.. This really is a great, and can be a very creative way (depending how far you go with it) of achieving good end results (and a very 'large' sound).

Also though, i engineer a lot of other types of music where i use no loops whatsoever and work in a completly different way, with mostly synthesised parts, and i still get good results (i think). To me loop work in techno tracks is just a part of the creative process needed to attain the sound i am looking for.

[DJPAUZE]

i think i will have to totally agree with Jimfish on this one. When i buy a record, i listen to the quality of the track and the imagination behind it. If a producer can take a loop and make a whole new track out of it without plagerizing the arrangement i dont see the harm in it at all.
I bought Skull Tunes 3 with the Varela loop, I bought Hydraulix 15 with the Speedy J loop. Ill buy anything as long as it makes me move my batty hole!!!!

Peace Out
Pauze