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Sampling is when you take a part of a song, single note or sound and reuse it in another context. It is common to use a sampler to either record, manipulate and / or play back these pieces of audio material.

Working with samples

• Triggering a sample means to start it playing, e.g. by pressing a key or button or by sending a MIDI command
• Pre-1980, sampling could be achieved using reel-to-reel tape loops, splicing small pieces of tape together or via tape replay keyboards like the Mellotron and Chamberlin; samplers were subject to the limitations of tape e.g. wow and flutter, degradation, oxide wearing off, hiss / poor high frequency response
• From the late 70s / 80s, samplers used early digital technology; they had limited memory / storage space which meant that samples had to be short or the sample rate / bit depth had to be low to keep the file size small
• If the sample rate was too low, some aliasing was introduced when capturing high frequencies and the sample may have been muffled; if the bit depth was too low (e.g. 12 bit), the sample would sound grainy / hissy
• Drum machines embraced early sampling technology; this was a huge step forward in how realistic they sounded
• This is because drum samples are short and don’t need shifting to lots of different pitches, taking up less space
• Drum samples are not affected as much when lowering the bit depth and sample rate, and are mostly mono
• In the late 1980s, hybrid sampler / synths used a sample for the attack of a sound and synthesised the remainder
• From the 2000s, sampling became a realistic prospect on DAWs; because of increased memory / storage space
• Samplers will play ‘one shot’ samples in full regardless of how long you hold the trigger key down for; if you switch one shot mode off, a sample volume will be controlled by an envelope like on a synthesiser.

Sample manipulation

• When looping a sample it is important to choose an appropriate loop point to avoid a click or glitch
• Samples should be edited at a zero crossing to avoid a click, or fades can be added at the start / end
• Truncating or trimming is when you cut off unwanted sound from the start and end of your sample
• Time stretch slows down or speeds up the sample; on tape, slowing the sample down will also decrease the pitch
• Pitch shift moves the sample up or down in pitch; on tape, a higher pitch will result in a faster sample playback
• Beat slicing is the process of chopping up a drum loop into smaller samples of each individual hit and replaying
• Reverse plays the sample backwards; this is normally digital but historically you would reverse the tape direction
• Normalising finds the loudest moment and raises its volume to the max and everything else by the same amount
• Small parts of the sample are repeated to create a ‘stutter’ effect; gapping adds silence – both create rhythms
• Transposing changes the starting pitch / key of a sample to match it to other musical material
• Keyboard mapping spreads a sample across the keyboard; the pitch shifting is noticeable beyond a few tones
• Each group of is called a key zone, and the overall set of zones is called a key map
• Multisampling is when a sample is taken every few notes so that samples are not pitch shifted too far up / down
• Velocity layering switches between a number of different samples depending on how hard the note is played
• With keyboard tracking, the filter cut off increases with pitch so that higher notes don’t sound too filtered / dull.

The impact of sampling

• Sampling allowed musicians to incorporate sounds and snippets from existing recordings into their own music, creating new and unique compositions, and styles of music such as hip hop and trip hop to come to the fore
• Sampler instruments were created – where you can carry around a set of samples and ‘play’ that instrument
• It also led to the use of found sounds / musical samples, as well as the ability to create mashups and remixes
• The use of sampling raises issues of copyright; some musicians have been sued for using uncleared samples
• The Mellotron was capable of reproducing the sound of orchestral instruments, such as strings and brass and was used extensively by bands e.g. The Beatles, The Moody Blues, King Crimson in psychedelic / prog rock
• Equipment limitations at this time led to very short mono samples used to provide exciting percussive textures
• MIDI meant samplers could be triggered via sequencer; the Atari ST was popular as it had MIDI ports for this
• Hardware samplers in the 90s were often 12 bit; samples were noisy and distorted.
• This became a part of the sound of some genres; loops such as the Amen break in drum & bass became famous
• A greater affordability / memory led to a more realistic representation of acoustic instruments as samples
• 1997 saw a DAW technology revolution with Cubase VST; software samplers/virtual instruments followed
• Sample libraries had been commonplace since the 90s but are now bundled with software e.g. GarageBand
• Professional sample packs of e.g. specific pianos or instruments can sell for lots of money / libraries e.g. Splice.