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Subject: Understanding Sampling and What You Can Do With It

From: "ostanhlcrfha" <ostanhlcrfha@...>
Date: 2009-08-30

When you are getting started with songwriting, you may find that you are drawing inspiration from a number of different sources. There are many things that you can do when you are looking at moving forward and getting the right sound for your work, but what happens if you want a specific sound, whether it is a specific and recognizable few bars of music from another song or something more odd? Sampling is essentially the process of reusing existing sound recordings when you are looking at creating new works, and you may be surprised at what you can really do with it.
When you are looking at a way to work sampling into your songwriting, you will find that you are going to need a sampler, which is an electronic musical instrument that is not all that far removed from a synthesizer. However, unlike a synthesizer, which will generate sounds from scratch, a sampler will let you make multiple records of different sounds and then you can play them back. The sound that you will get will depend on how you have the mechanism configured, and you will find that because the recordings are stored in RAM format, they can be very quickly accessed. The sampler has become a staple in musical genres including hip-hop, electronic music and avant-garde music.
When you have a sampler and you are looking to see what you can do with it, you may be interested in understanding some of the ways that other people use it. For instance, some people use samplers specifically for their looping ability. Think about the drum and percussion parts in a lot of modern music. Though it is by no means always the case, you will find that the percussion line is very frequently composed of a variety of short samples and beats strung together. You can find many libraries of beats online and of where they are licensed and you can use them without paying royalties. You will even find that there are some pieces of software out there that will let you specialize in creating loops.
Where a loop is often just a single note over and over again, you can even get more complex sounds through sampling of individual instruments, and this can give your song a much richer sound.
You may also use a sampler to help you put in samples of recordings, where an artist will use a phrase or musical line from a well-known recording. There are many different ways that this can be done, and though there are legal issues to think about, it can be quite helpful in recalling a certain mood or set a certain scene.
You can also use a sampler to create a polyphony, where you will be able to layer sounds together and on top of each other. This will let you create a richer tone as well as leave more instruments free to create additional sounds.
If you are a songwriter, a sampler can be a great thing to add to your career. Consider what your options are and what you can do to move forward when you are looking at integrating one into your work.

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