What is Sampling?
Have you ever found yourself hearing a new song, but though being the first time you heard it, already know how it goes? Well, this is because the melody, drums, or bassline were “borrowed” from another song that you have most likely heard before. For example in Sean Kingston’s Beautiful Girls, the bassline is from Ben E. King’s Stand by Me. People refer to this method of making music as borrowing, recycling, or just sampling.
Types of Sampling
In underground music and especially PHONK sampling. Typically there are two types of sampling; sampling for a melody and sampling to fill the track out. Producers who are considered some of the best samplers today are names like Dj Smokey, JAK3, and Ryan C.
Example of Melodic Sample:
Example of Filler Sampling:
You Have to Have an Ear for It
Sampling is not as simple as it sounds, yes you are stealing the work of another person, but you are expressing a different set of skills. Rather than creating you are using only what is placed in front of you figuratively to manipulate and turn it into something else, utilizing your skills that come with familiarity to whatever DAW you are using. Remember, limitation breeds creativity. Another skill necessary for sampling doesn’t really come with experience, you need to be able to recognize when something will and won’t be a good sample.
How do I Find Samples?
Everyone has different approaches to finding samples, some go above and beyond buying records/cassettes and sampling through real record/cassette players, and others just go on youtube, type in “samples” and download the first thing they see. It’s good to be diverse when finding samples. Tyler the Creator said on a recent Nardwuar interview, “I wake up every morning and spend two hours listening to music I’ve never heard before.” So, if you are looking to sample, try to really dig, and find things that haven’t been heard in a long time. Force your listeners to experience and entirely new vibe.
*note
I would explain how to sample, but that takes the unique quality away of sampling if you copy someone else’s process. Right?
Smoked Out, Positive Squad
Underground Music Production 