Artists that have used samplers as a creative compositional tool

Sigue Sigue Sputnik?

Chewshabadoo, I was thinking that the freedom and possibilities the sampler first gave artists to be a similar situation to the advent of the tape machine and the options opened up to composers in the late 40's - 50's. Does that make sense?

So not looping sections of music just to sing over, and not dropping random crap in everywhere to add colour.

To create narrative is an interesting proposition. Do you have an example?

ppl like bob ostertag, otomo yoshihide, john oswald, yasunao tone have all used samplers "as a creative compositional tool", prob. loads of others too (maryanne amacher? eliane radigue? markus popp?)

errr, the last few Caretaker records are completely boss, if they count.

Matthew Herbert

FYI, you can sample drum breaks in other ways than just looping them "just to sing over". There are many examples of "creative" drum sample use in electronic music; check out the 90s works of drum'n'bass producers like T-Power, 4 Hero, or Apache 61, for example.

But if you're interested in creative use of "found sounds" and other "non-music" samples (as well as more traditional music samples), I'd recommend checking out the the first two albums by 310, conveniently released as a 2 CD comp.

Young Gods

cop shoot cop

depeche mode

trying to remember the firsts attemps to use sampled knives and forks as the basis for beats. prob cabaret voltaire, daf or front 242 did it earlier than DM but in terms of massivity they were kinda crucial in helping popularize the sampling vocabulary.

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

I doubt it's what you have in mind, but I guess it's worth plugging my new band here, it's a duo with myself constructing polyrhythmic musique concrete tapestries entirely with sampling keyboard and a talented gal pal singing disembodied lyrics about, uh, empty deserts and mirages and stuff. I think it fits the "creating a narrative" concept at least!

http://emptydesertblues.bandcamp.com/

Tuomas was ready to drop some science before he got to "check out the 90s works of drum'n'bass producers like T-Power, 4 Hero, or Apache 61"

???

You don't think they've used the sampler as a creative compositional tool?

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.

John Wall

John Wall (born 1950) is an autodidact electronic composer whose contribution to the field is widely noted by critics of new music. His work has moved from early plunderphonic compositions - where he brought together unlikely combinations of musical genres to create fantastical new works – to large scale works composed of thousands of tiny fragments which create the impression of virtual orchestras. Critics have remarked on “his extraordinary feeling for musical narrative” which is achieved through a working method that has been described as “phenomenally painstaking”. According to one critic, Wall’s “releases sound like the most finely crafted audio sculptures, somewhere between the contemporary composition of Lachenmann and the experiments of early laptop musicians of the mid 90s.”

Was coming to post The Caretaker.

The Avalanches, I suppose?

who's the robert fripp of sampling?

Samples or samplers? You can make samples in multiple different ways, but if you're discounting tape loops then you must also be discounting vinyl drops and computer manipulation, yes?

The question's absurd imo. What does this even mean? "So not looping sections of music just to sing over, and not dropping random crap in everywhere to add colour." It's an utterly bogus distinction. A ton of acts use samplers "to create narrative".

ilm is mad stupid lately

"Artists that have used guitar, bass and drums as a compositional tool"

Somehow, the thread premise reminds me of this "classic" thread:

Hip Hop taken to new levels.

i couldn't make it through that thread

Tune-Yards

Amazing thread, the new levels one. "God, I seriously don't think i'll ever post here again. I get more useful responses out of users on average metal music boards- anbd that's saying a lot. Or maybe I'll just stick to more obscure shit in the future instead of bringing up some contentious topic that everyone has a pre-formulated opinion on." OK bye now.

How 'Jingle Bells' by the Singing Dogs Changed Music Forever

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hip-hop_DJ%27s_and_producers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Reich

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music

thanks so much for that link Abbott. So cool that the author of the Singing Dogs was a bird recordist! I even found an archive of some of his earliest recordings online here: http://sounds.bl.uk/Environment/Early-wildlife-recordings

Danish field recordist Carl Weismann was one of the pioneers of wildlife sound recording. His great passion was birds… and his great nemesis was dogs. Back in the 50’s, while attempting to recorded clear uninterrupted birdsong, he found his efforts continually hampered by the interjections of barking canines. As they would wouldn’t go away when the tape was rolling, he was forced to get around this by becoming a master at locating these barks on the recorded tape then cutting them out with a scalpel. This naturally left him with a whole library of snippets of recorded dog barks. Instead of throwing them out, Carl decided to have some fun with them.

http://eastereverywhere.tumblr.com/post/281678037/danish-field-recordist-carl-weismann-was-one-of

the person who started the thread should check out what is commonly referred to as "rap" music. lots of examples there.

sampling in rap is generally more editorial than compositional. i don't think the ability to create narratives is the distinction, though, because anyone who has made a mixtape is creating a narrative, and that's almost a purely editorial/curatorial endeavor.

lol what the fuck ever

rev otm

you guys don't think mixtapes tell a story?

wtf this thread

*places self in same category as Primo because that 1996 post-rock cassette I made for my bro had really nice transitions on it*

Grandmaster Flash
DJ Quik
Dust Brothers
Dr. Dre (I refer you to "We're All in the Same Gang" for "narrative")
Prince Paul
The Bomb Squad
etc etc

They fought the longest war in american history (x2)

In 1965 Vietnam seemed like just another foreign war,
but it wasn't.
It was different in many ways, as so were those that did the fighting.
In World War II the average age of the combat soldier was 26...
In Vietnam he was 19.
In inininininin Vietnam he was 19.

(TV announcer's voice)
The shooting and fighting of the past two weeks continued today
25 miles west of Saigon
I really wasn't sure what was going on (Vet's Voice)

Nininini Nineteen, 19, Ni-nineteen 19
19,19,19,19

In Vietnam the combat soldier typically served a twelve month tour of duty but
was exposed to hostile fire almost everyday
Ninininininininininin 19 nininininninin 19

Hundreds of Thousands of men who saw heavy combat in Vietnam were arrested
since discharge
Their arrest rate is almost twice that of non-veterans of the same age.
There are no accurate figures of how many of these men have been incarcerated.
But, a Veterans Administration study concludes that the greater of Vets
exposure to combat could more likely affect his chances of being arrested or
convicted.

This is one legacy of the Vietnam War

(Singing Girls)
All those who remember the war
They won't forget what they've seen..
Destruction of men in their prime
whose average was 19
Dedededededede-Destruction
Dedededededede-Destruction
War, War
Dededede-Destruction, wa-wa-War, wa-War, War
Dedededededede-Destruction
War, War

After World War II the Men came home together on troop ships, but the Vietnam
Vet often arrived home within 48 hours of jungle combat
Perhaps the most dramatic difference between World War II and Vietnam was
coming home.. .none of them received a hero's welcome
None of them received a heroes welcome, none of them, none of them
Nenene Nenene None of them, none of them, none of them (etc...)
None of them received a hero's welcome
None of them received a hero's welcome

According to a Veteran's Administration study
Half of the Vietnam combat veterans suffered from what Psychiatrists call
Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder
Many vets complain of alienation, rage, or guilt
Some succumb to suicidal thoughts
Eight to Ten years after coming home almost eight-hundred-thousand men are
still fighting the Vietnam War

(Singing Girls)
Dedededededede-Destruction

Nininininininininin Nineteen, 19, Ni-nineteen 19
19,19,19,19
Nininininininininin Nineteen, 19, Ni-nineteen 19
19,19,19,19

(Soldiers Voice)
When we came back it was different.. Everybody wants to know "How'd it
happened to those guys over there
There's gotta be something wrong somewhere
We did what we had to do
There's gotta be something wrong somewhere
People wanted us to be ashamed of what it made us
Dad had no idea what he went to fight and he is now
All we want to do is come home
All we want to do is come home
What did we do it for
All we want to do is come home
Was it worth it?

what no one's said My Bloody Valentine yet lol

thread made me remember this, well done thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqVJ1UpPIjI

"that 1996 post-rock cassette I made for my bro had really nice transitions on it*"

transitions speak more to technique than narrative. what was the tracklist on this cassette?

really?

I mean

really

I didn't know there were people who still thought this way tbh

track 1. the bartman

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.

Intoxicated By Speed, the discs [from the 1994 edition]

The music on these two discs represents two different but related compositional strategies. The first compositional strategy is represented by the creation of the four solo tape works and the second strategy is the creation of the five works for soloist and tape.

The creation of the solo tape compositions involves the composition of several hundred simultaneous musical parts or lines on large manuscript paper. Each part or line is individually performed on an acoustic instrument and recorded. Once all several hundred parts have been individually recorded, they are digitally mixed together with usually no, or very little, signal processing or electronic effects. This working method allows for new and complex polyrhythmic and microtonal tuning relationships between parts that could never be performed by a live ensemble. This compositional technique also allows for unique orchestration and density possibilities that can be constantly transformed.

The exclusive use of acoustic instruments in these recordings could be partially explained by the fact that I regularly perform on the violin, guitar and cello. Therefore I hear a richness of human expression in acoustic instrumental performance which, to me, is largely absent in any other electroacoustic production method. Indeed the sound worlds found in these recordings could not be created by current electronic synthesis techniques, which are unable to produce a large palette of convincingly different timbres or sounds. The narrowness of this range of unique timbres prevents the type of orchestration strategies that can occur for acoustic sounds in which large numbers of sound sources can be combined and the individuality of each sound is somewhat maintained while there is a contribution to the overall sound. Likewise, this music could not be produced by current sampling techniques, which cannot create convincing long musical phrase structures which develop according to the compositional language of each piece.

samples here for anyone interested:

http://www.electrocd.com/en/cat/imed_0317/

you can even sample the samples and make your own composition

http://www.electrocd.com/en/boutique/empreintesdigitales/

plus, empreintes digitales is just a rad label. they put out amazing stuff. and all their CDs now are dvd audio and they sound friggin' great. if you are into state of the art sound that is. if you are an earbud/ipod person than nevermind.

*drops acid*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHj1jY36kGk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJoto35onao&feature=related

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryBVFWd-pxg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEn8Xl8Ve2U

No amen breaks etc.

etc.

Toshio Nakanishi is a hero of mine. Major Force records and his stuff as Tycoon Tosh completely influential in my life. before Major Force he had started the new wave band Plastics. in the early 80's he was doing stuff like this too:

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhJEGUzVjl4&feature=related

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUajcyh-F6s&feature=related

and his stuff as Melon is different from all that!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5WsXWBPzmI&feature=relmfu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZIAwC3ij-g&feature=relmfu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh5wEcLLI-w&feature=relmfu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0b_9X0xFYs&feature=relmfu

scott u just redeemed the existence of this idiotic thread

i dunno.... that stuff is prettttty close to "amen breaks etc" territory!

omg not an amen break! how uncreative

No mention of Public Enemy?

4 independent metions of "the bomb squad" and one quote.
walter ruttmann - weekend.
"artist" / "sampler"

mennnnnnnnnnntions.
how would christian marclay fit in?
i'm not sure i could be arsed to even begin thinking about it