Learn About Sean "LiveWire" Smith

Ahhh, sampling. One of the many things a newbie doesn't really understand. As a matter of fact, I probably shouldn't put anything about sampling in a tutorial that can be reached by newbies. Once they read the title they'll start searching the internet for samples and sampling tips. Yes, that is what they'll do. They'll end up with copyrighted samples, use them in their music, and get sued if they make it anywhere. Then they'll blame me for exposing them to sampling at such an early stage in their career. So, I feel that I should warn you all of what I'm goin to be teaching you. General Surgeons Warning: The following may promote the acts of ripping, stealing, and manipulating copyrighted material for commercial use. Please take note that being caught doing such may result in federal offenses and being considered a "biter" by a large percentage of the population. In order to prevent such happenings, please use the method of sampling correctly. Thank you.

Ok, now into what I'm here to speak to you about. One of the first two ways I know of sampling that are completely legal is the actual recording of an instrument. That means either you, someone you know, or even someoine that you don't know, must be recorded playing an instrument and use that recording as a sample in your music. This is considered a brute force technique that is used by certain producers, who use it as a gimmick. If you ever hear about a producer who says "my music is made with real instruments and all of the sounds were performed" or something of that nature, let them know that just because they wasted more time in the production of their beat does not mean that their beat is better than someone elses. You've gotta realize that most of the samples that sound like instruments were probably performed with an instruiment, but that doesnt mean the entire melody was performed, just one note. Oh, by the way, if you do record your sample, try to make it a long sample. Why? Umm... well, short samples hold you back with what can be done with them. You can always shorten a long sample, but you can't really lengthen a short sample without it sounding odd.

The second method that is completely legal is synthesizing a sample. For those of you unaware of what this is, its making a sample from scratch. If you look at the name, it is called synthesizing which has the root word 'synthetic' in it. So, it's not a real sample, assuming real means actually performed. Now, its not REALLY from scratch, but more from a sample you already have. But, if you change the pitch, length, reverbing, and various effects as well as ways of "bending" the sound. All of these are done in a sound editing program or with the use of a synthesizer. Some sequencers also do these, but to a limit that a sound editor can surpass. This way involves a lot of tweaking and experimenting, and the only way to really become good at it is experience. There are MANY tutorials on this, or at least websites with tips and tricks about this on them. By all means, be my guest to search the internet for related topics. You won't hurt my feelings. Really.

The final method, although not the only other method, is ripping. This is something that you have probably heard of way before getting into music production. How do I know this? Because ripping is illegal, and, sadly, many of the underground music producers who use software have obtained their software illegally. Especially Reason... poor PropellerHeads. I myself was once an internet pirate, but I eventually paid... you know, after my music was locked away in a password protected zip file. Now, back to ripping. In relation to music, ripping is taking sounds or music directly off of someone else's sounds or music. Just so you know, ripping is a useful tool in hip hop and is common, but you should not be stupid enough to use the ripped samples raw. That would be dumb. Even when sampling vocals, producers tend to raise the pitch of the sample. Good ways of making a sample unrecognizable are reverbing, chorusing, and effects, such as from that one Buzz program. Another easy way is by layering it with other samples or by taking samples that are commonly used such as deep bass or something of that nature. Making them unrecognizable is the best way to avoid being sued. And no, just because someone is underground and probably doesn't have the money to copyrigt their music doesn't give you the right to steal their samples. They're on the same level as you, trying to make it just like you are. Besides, if you do, they WILL tell on you and you'll lose all respect in the underground community.