Artists that have used samplers as a creative compositional tool

I get the impression no one subscribes to your arbitrary distinction between editing and composing

I mean the Bomb Squad's method of "composing" was to put five guys in a room, each on a different sampler/instrument, and then have them "edit" their parts together live

if only we could get back to talking about sampling and birdsong

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rKjOR-4964

i'm not sure what you're saying -- that the fact that they do it live doesn't make it compositional? i don't think that's necessarily true.

S- isn't going to come back is he? He just dropped this turd on us and ran away.

http://www.amazon.com/Loiseau-R-A-I-1950/dp/B00491PFLA

that the fact that they do it live doesn't make it compositional?

that editing - in the Bomb Squad's case live, unscripted editing - is a fundamental act of composition

Sure that's why Teo Macero is as much a composer of early electric Miles as anyone

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a6/Sprad/Hildegard_Westerkamp_camel_hi-res.jpg

http://soundcloud.com/pedro-rocha/hildegard-westerkamp-cricket

the scenario re: bomb squad described seems to place more importance on the manipulation rather than the samples itself, which is in alignment with the composition/editorialization distinction. i'm not sure what the mechanical details of editing have to do with it.

John Kongos

Artists that have used samples as a compositional tool
http://imgs.sfgate.com/blogs/images/sfgate/parenting/2010/08/04/costco_sample320x272.jpg

love that Kongos track! really probably is the first pop song built out of a loop isn't it? good thing it's a cool song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Lm0N4YCkgk&feature=related

the scenario re: bomb squad described seems to place more importance on the manipulation rather than the samples itself,

no this is just wrong, it's the combination and interplay of the two that makes the material work. the samples chosen reflect the lyrical/political focus of the group. of COURSE a band focused on black power politics is going to sample James Brown, for example, even if, say, "The Grunt" is not an explicitly political song. But those samples, like the opening sax blare of "The Grunt", were all edited and recontextualized.

I'm gonna stop arguing about this now

It is cited in the Guinness Book of Records as being the first song to have used a sample,[citation needed] however, according to the sleeve note of the CD reissue of the Kongos album, it is actually a tape loop of African drumming, and the use of tape loops and instruments using prerecorded samples such as the Mellotron and Optigan were well established by this time.

This is wrong - see: Simon & Garfunkel's "Cecilia", which is also built around a percussion tape loop. I dunno if "El Condor Pasa" would be considered "sampling", since Simon just took an existing backing track and sang over it, can't remember if they added other stuff or not...

seems ridiculous to assert that the first "sample" predates the invention of actual samplers

you're ridiculous! get back to nature shakey

is it a composition if all the person does is stick a microphone into a pond? what if it sounds like it's a composition you wouldn't have heard otherwise? wow!

http://www.esnips.com/displayimage.php?album=1511125&pid=12071166

^^ don't think you've listened until you've hit about 5 minutes in, I've played this track for hours some nights

you're very right that many pop songs built out of loops before kangos, many people just assume sample inherently means appropriative

simon & garfunkel = self-sampling pioneers with that revolutionary 'save the life of my child' song

"is it a composition if all the person does is stick a microphone into a pond?"

yes.

if bomb squad is reproducing and recontextualizing a section of a known work as a means to produce commentary, why isn't that an editorialization? it's a totally valid form of expression.

love you, seward!

http://www.hughlecaine.com/en/sptape.html

Nunez, the way you've selflessly drawn the dogpile away from the OP is valiant.

Marcus Coates' 'Dawn Chorus': people in offices videotaped while emulating recordings of bird song slowed down 16x, then sped back up 16x

source materials, and in installation form

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCCpnDtgxXk&feature=related
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJfLd2w4Wbw

holy hell, why have I never heard of Peter Szöke's 'The Unknown Music Of Birds'? I must be some kind of idiot

http://www.kalerne.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=144&Itemid=47

Claire Hammill's Voices (Grimes provided my introduction) album from 1986 has some interesting early sampler work (all sounds are her manipulated voice).

My favorite sampler artists remain the academic composers Paul Lansky and Carl Stone:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh1rIBOGSPA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsQ4UdJ-Vww

Technically Lansky is using inverse linear predictive coding on the algorithmic composition computer language Cmix that he originally developed for VMS mainframes back in 1978, but I think its close enough to sampling to count.

Wow, my first clusterfuck thread. Thanks guys.

Young Gods are a perfect example of what I'm looking for, the band simply couldn't have existed without sampling technology. Of course without the Bomb Squad none of the later stuff would have happened either.

At the risk of raising further ire by trying to clarify, would it help if 'compositional' was replaced with 'performative'? While the artists mentioned in the thread indeed used samplers, couldn't most of the suggestions made be achieved through other means, eg with tape loops or turntables?

Also, positively, looking forward to going through lots of the suggestions on this thread.

sampaku plz to tell me more about lansky, this sounds fantastic

Anyway, another obvious example of creative sampler use is Gas (aka Mike Ink aka Wolfgang Voigt), whose albums turn samples of classical music and German schlager into unrecognizable ambient drones and loops.

― Tuomas, Wednesday, 11 April 2012 12:19 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Thanks for the info Tuomas, I love Gas but had no idea that was his work process. Are you familiar with http://www.divinefrequency.com/DivF05.html ?

"Young Gods are a perfect example of what I'm looking for, the band simply couldn't have existed without sampling technology. Of course without the Bomb Squad none of the later stuff would have happened either.

At the risk of raising further ire by trying to clarify, would it help if 'compositional' was replaced with 'performative'? While the artists mentioned in the thread indeed used samplers, couldn't most of the suggestions made be achieved through other means, eg with tape loops or turntables?"

couldn't the young gods have existed with tape loops and turntables? then they would have existed without sampling technology.

plus, a lot of what young gods did could be reproduced by live instruments. they were basically a rock band. a lot of the rap stuff mentioned here couldn't be.

would be near impossible to do a lot of hip-hop stuff with just tape loops and turntables

what can you do with samplers that you can't do (maybe more clunkily) with non-sampler means? is that what you mean by performative -- that the sampler allows you to do these manipulations live?

I suppose in theory you can do everything a sampler can do with tape loops and turntables, but it would a) take forever and b) sound much sloppier

i don't think i've ever centered my attention on one means of manipulating sound. synths, tape, samplers, computers, turntables, its all good to me. probably most impressed by tape manipulation more than anything. as a lover of house and freestyle editing, i am constantly amazed by the ingenuity and craft of the editors of those fields circa 1980's. to me freestyle editors created wholly distinct compositions using nothing more than tape and razor blades (a la the grandpappys of experimental sound) and they did it more artfully than most people i could think of. i'm a huge fan of early severed heads records and lots more like that, but one deft house or freestyle edit takes me closer to god than almost anything.

That David Dunn track is golden!

Depends on your definition of composition. I like the way Depeche Mode and Yello have used samplers, but I would call that arranging rather than composing. Composing (songwriting) is still done best sitting with a guitar or at a piano.

http://www.threadbombing.com/data/media/2/headbashwall.gif

tbh this could have been a good thread if the question hadn't been posed in such a dunderheaded fashion

i'm just glad some hongro science was finally dropped. thread didn't feel complete yet...

At the risk of raising further ire by trying to clarify, would it help if 'compositional' was replaced with 'performative'? While the mentioned in the thread indeed used samplers, couldn't most of the suggestions made be achieved through other means, eg with tape loops or turntables?

Would it sound as good, is the key question.

That David Dunn reminds me of another really awesome sound recording...doing my head in all morning. xp

geir should check this out. just a dude sitting down with a guitar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzK2U8ljJ4A&feature=relmfu

and as far as sampled sound compositions go paul is my go to guy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRWbbWGeeuQ

think thats just layered tape though? later he uses computers. think the 80's stuff was all hundreds of hours of music layered into single pieces of holy hell. its actually not easy to get info on his methedology on the internet. i've looked in the past. someone go interview the guy, okay?

love paul dolden! he goes into detail about his method in the liner notes, and there was a Wire interview around 2005, but he basically scores the piece with sheet music, records each instrument independently, then layers it out until it basically sounds like an orchestra of one to ten thousand people playing in a small room; no electronic processing, rarely even adds reverb, just multiplication, so it is simultaneously a very realistic, plausible, acoustic sound, and one that absolutely could not happen in the real world. Threshold of Deafening Silence and L'ivresse de la vitesse are my favorite two albums.

Why Remaster Old Works? (L’ivressse de la vitesse 1)

In the late 1970’s I started to write and produce music involving hundreds of parts or tracks. In the early days, the analogue recording medium was very noisy when bouncing (or premixing) tracks together. Things improved throughout the 1980’s and ’90’s, but a large multitrack digital tape recorder was still out of my financial reach. By the late 1990’s the new computer and hard drive speeds finally provided me with an affordable multitrack solution. For the first time in my life I was able to achieve the balance between individual voices that I had so carefully notated in the original scores. I achieved further musical clarity and a new depth of sound by using quality compression, equalisation and reverb. To remaster, I went back to the individual tracks. This was a huge undertaking. For example, a piece like Dancing on the Walls of Jericho (1990) may be only 16 minutes and 15 seconds long, but it is a large tape work comprising eighty hours of original recorded materials.

Recordings always ‘freeze’ or crystallise musical and spectral meaning for the listener. An odd sound combination that you have grown fond of in the old master may not appear in the same way in the new one. However, I think you will agree that I have stayed true to the original compositions. I changed some musical moments and transitions in Dancing on the Walls of Jericho, Beyond the Walls of Jericho, and the tape components for Physics of Seduction. Invocations #2 and Physics of Seduction. Invocations #3, all originally released on the L’ivresse de la vitesse CD in 1994. These changes were motivated by compositional concerns and were created using the musical materials from the Walls Cycle. The only new recordings made for the remastering process were the drum parts (performed by Philippe Keyser) in Physics of Seduction. Invocation #2 and Physics of Seduction. Invocation #3.

I invite you to discover many new levels of meaning and clarity in the new masters, which are much closer to my original artistic intention.

yes the liners are pretty much all the info i have.