Sampling
Sampling is recording sound and then using that sound as an instrument. Two very different practices hide under one word: playing a library piano is sampling, and chopping a four-bar break into a new rhythm is sampling.
- 2 meanings
- chopping
- formants move
Where you run into this
- Hip hop
- House
- Pop
- Film music
In short
As a sound source, sampling means someone recorded an instrument at several velocities and mapped those recordings across a keyboard. As a compositional technique, it means taking a fragment of existing audio and building something new from it, which is a different craft with different problems.
The first time you pitch a vocal up and hear it turn into a cartoon, the whole subject of formants becomes concrete.
How it works
Pitch and speed are linked in the simplest form of sampling: play a sample faster and it goes up. Modern tools separate the two, and that separation is where the artefacts live. Pitching a voice moves its formants along with it, and formants are supposed to stay put, which is exactly why a pitched vocal stops sounding human.
Where you run into this
- A chopped break that is recognisably from somewhere and entirely new
- A pitched vocal that sounds like a different person or a different species
- A loop that only works because of where it was cut
In practice
Chop on transients and keep the timing loose. The interest in chopping comes from the fragments landing somewhere other than where they originally sat, which means the grid is a starting point rather than a destination.