Friday, November 16, 2012

Making Hip-Hop Beats For Sale (Purchase Beats): The Sampler

By Frank Lubsey


Today's article is focused on the sampler and it's critical role in hip-hop. We'll cover the exact function of a sampler and how it can be used in your studio.

A sampler allows you to playback audio material via your keyboard. This is important because the sampler offers a less expensive way to update your sounds. Instead of having to buy a new keyboard, you can simply record your own new sounds or purchase a sample cd. Furthermore, since samples are sourced from live instruments, they tend to sound much more realistic than synthesizers. Let's say for example; that there was this interesting sound that could make with your voice and you wanted to be able to play it like an instrument. With a sampler, you could record your voice ;and by pressing the keys on your keyboard; it would play back the sound of your voice. Furthermore, it could change the pitch of your voice via pitch shifting. In other words, if the pitch of the original voice sample was in C, the sampler could play it back in D or E. Samples can also be sourced from other sources as well such as:

Sound Design Firms: Many companies are dedicated to providing sample cds to electronic musicians. The sample cds can be genre specific and can include drum sounds, instrument samples, and entire loops. Some companies to check out include Big Fish Audio and Modern Beats.

Other Records: With this method, you slice certain segments of audio from other commercial recordings. These segments can be as small as individual drum hits or brass stabs, or they can be entire portions of a song that loops. With this form of sampling, there are also very serious legal ramifications. Be sure to clear your samples up front and go through the proper legal channels before releasing a record with a sample on it.

Self-Recorded: If you look around your immediate environment, there are plenty of objects that can make great sounds if you experiment with them. How about dropping change into a cup or beating on your chest? Take out your mic and start recording.

The possibilities that a sampler opens up are endless. A sampler really is critical to the role of a hip-hop producer since sounds that are in fashion are constantly changing. In our next article, we'll talk about some of the more advanced terms that you'll hear of when discussing samplers.




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