What is a sampler?

[Steve]

OK... For us guitar playing old farts out here who dont understand this stuff. What is a sampler? I remember going to my local music store way back and coming accross a keyboard that would record a 1 second sample of your voice or anything really! Then you could play it back on the keyboard. BUT... From what I can see now, samplers dont sample anymore! they just use samples. Is that right? or am I on the wrong track here?  :

[davlan]

Hi Steve

Your description of a sampler pretty much holed it. A sampler records sound digitally and allows you to play it back in interesting and musical ways. e.g. spread a across a keyboard. Originally (in the 80's) these machine would have cost the same money as a semi detached house and were the ultimate on stage posing kit. People did spend much time sampling there own sounds - breaking glass, dogs barking, car engines - you heard the records. But it transpires that you have to spend a lot of time recording and programming these sounds when you're trying to play music - therefore it's easier to use samples that some else has already recorded or even programmed.

However samplers have become much more powerful and much cheaper- particular in memory size. The most powerful ones run purely as software on computers - it is not unknown for serious media composers to be powering a virtual orchestra with banks upon banks of computers all running Gigastudio. As suggested the samplers great strength is it's ability to emulate realistically real sounds in musical ways. But the terretories of synths, samplers and other electronic stuff can be very blurred these days. A software samplers like Halion has a fairly competent synth section. Other software synths incorporate a level of sampling. All a bit confusing. I reckon the most interesting area is in dedicated sample playback devices. A good example is Steinberg's the Grand. THis is a soft instrument which emulates a grand piano using 9 gigabytes of hard data in some fairly clever ways. It sounds bloody good. It may not sound as good as a real steinway cosying a semi detached house but for £170 for the best sounding digi piano I'd say that was a steal.

Godammit, this is a GOOD time to be getting into electronic music!

[BongStuff]

Steve - just to add to Dave`s spot-on description - sampling in a way has become a dying art in the way that synthesis has. Not many people actually sample any more - there are just so many vast libraries of off-the-shelf sounds which you can load into your sampler and play back, that attaching a mike ( or DAT out ) to the "IN" socket of your sampler is now as uncommon as tweaking a set of synthesis parameters to come up with your *own* patch.

I must say I do miss the creative days of sampling, tape splicing and "found sound". Meat Beat Manifesto`s 1998 Actual Sounds And Voices was one of the last good sample-based albums I heard.

 Cheers,

    BS ( from Montreal, Canada - praying the power doesn`t cut here too! )

[Steve]

    BS ( from Montreal, Canada - praying the power doesn`t cut here too! )

Thats some serious sh*t going on over there, Im just listening to the news here. Is it really weather related? And can we get a good sample from it.....    

Thanks Bongstuff..

[Rudi]

I think I still have an old sampler. Technosound Turbo for the Amiga. I never got a decent sample recorded. I may have used one in a tune, then bought some pro samples.

[john]

Hey H

I hate to say it, but I disagree. If anything it adds to your  creative capabilities. Simply because it gives you more options.

Just because someone has a sampler doesn't mean they always have to use it all the time.

Samplers can be used like a synth to give very realistic instrument sounds, which allows a songwriter to use instruments they don't normally have access to. Add to that they open up a whole new realm for musicians to be creative with: Loops.

Sure Moby etc. make entire songs based around loops, but that is as valid a method as any to write a song. I guess it depends where you place the emphasis on songwriting. As an instrumentalist who trains for years to play an instrument it's easy to get caught out thinking that all creativity in song writing somehow belongs to those who have devoted such time to playing. The thing is, synth players and sampler users spend just sa much time studying their instruments and how to use them.

Musical creativity can be expressed in many ways: performance, composition, arrangement, production  to name a few. The only true limitation to creativity is to close your mind to new ideas and experience. You might not like the music you think is produced with samplers, but believe me there are a whole lot of songs out there using samplers as an integral part of the song, yet unless you were told you wouldn't know.

Just a few thoughts

Cheers

John

[Steve]

This mirrors my thoughts exactly! The use of samplers is an art! And like any instrument, needs skill and practice to master it. I wish I had those skills....

[Rudi]

there are a whole lot of songs out there using samplers as an integral part of the song, yet unless you were told you wouldn't know.

I think I know when Im listening to a loop. I assume thats what you mean by samplers in this context?

[Steve]

I still don't know what a 'loop' means. I have used in my recordings a sample. i.e. I may record my guitar for the first verse and chorus and then use the same recording for the next verse and chorus. Is that a loop?

[BongStuff]

Steve - I'd call that "spinning in".

A loop is usually something shorter, generally 1 or 2 bars - trigger at the start of every bar or alternate bar. Most typically used for rhythms/grooves.

  BS

[Marc]

I still don't know what a 'loop' means. I have used in my recordings a sample. i.e. I may record my guitar for the first verse and chorus and then use the same recording for the next verse and chorus. Is that a loop?

A loop in time travel is a good analogy. It keeps repeating at two given points: start to end to start to end ad infinitum.

In psychology, it's described by making the same mistake over and over again.

In music, a loop it's playing something only once at different bars with a different tempo with a different technique each time. So understand exactly the opposite, and you've got the definitinon.