another grime thread: this time concerned with sampling

[Grievous Angel]

Logan's right, the bass presets in Fruity are poor. But for beats it's the biz! I suspect people do the beats in Fruity, chuck the files into Logic / Cubase, and do the bass there. Don't forget, Dizzee used "the first preset on an SE1 and said, That's it, that's all we need!" But the SE1 is a two thousand pound Moog clone and is one serious bit of kit. Grime tracks aren't all Playstation grooves.

Having said that I intend to test Logan's contention that the Fruity sampler is shit by loading it up with some more bass samples and seeing if the envelopes will do that whump-whaaa sound... (I should be using the Virus but that means switching on something other than the computers )

Right now Fruity is giving me sticky garage beats crossed with techno blips, might actually make some more tunes soon if I spend much more time in hotels...

 

[Tactics]

1) are there any big grime tracks that are sample-heavy (whether beats, strings, dialogue, effects or other)?


- there are a few but my crap memory can only remember the 'gype riddim' and some recent terrah danjah an' aftershock stuff.


2) if not what do you think prompted this move away from sampling? can it be linked to the similar shift in hip-hop that saw the Neptunes, Dre and others get #1 hits without building the tracks around familiar samples (what is the earliest example of this again incidentally? i can't remember if this was asked before but have a feeling it was).


- the fact that grime/nukg tempo is too fast to effectively sample well and also because grime/nukg producers cant sample well too be honest in the vein of say pete rock or 9th wonder but someone will do it and the person who does will take the sound global.


3) is this the first self-facilitating genre (either in the British 'underground dance continuum' or more generally) to emerge without this reliance on sampling?


- I dont enough to answer this


4) is this rejection of sampling in fact the key factor in grime's critical approval and authenticity? an admirable statement? or is it not quite as conscious as all that?[/QUOTE]


- imo the critical approval stems from UK journalists really wanting to champion a new underground Black music and the thirst of a country wanting to say to the States 'We can make something too!!'. An identity crises innit lol..............

 

[Poet for Hire]

Simple answer....
The sampler in fruity loops is shit.

bollox
some producers manage to get a nice clean sound of it
and i've heard amazing basslines made with fruity and vsts
its more than enough for most purposes except vocals
no point blamin the tools, blame the producers ears more

 

[outraygeous]

i dont think fruity even contains a sampler, you have 2 record it in soundforge or something similar and work with it.

fruity is a big program

grime is big on sampling. fidgits bounce riddem seriously worked out an akai s3000.

 

[SIZZLE]

yeh definitely gonna have to respectfully disagree about fruity's sampler being shite, I know kids here in NYC making straight up golden era style sample based hiphop and using only fruity and getting amazing results. I find fruity actually lends itself more to sample based music (although maybe not loop based) then to synth work, although I am no fruity expert. Also 9th Wonder was mentioned (he produced Threats on the Black Album) and I know he uses a laptop and I'm pretty sure Fruity is his weapon of choice as well.

A big big sample based tune right now, maybe heralding a new era of sampling in grime with it's sucess:
Low Deep - Str8 Flush

Pure Kanye vocal chirp sample biz on a grime riddim. The flip 'Cats' is big too, beautiful strings (also sampled I assume).

And to those wanting to get that eski grime 'whoomp' bass sound, the key is the pitch 'glide' or 'portamento time' setting on whatever synth your using, not necessarily the envelopes, although they are necessary too.

 

[cooper]

yeh definitely gonna have to respectfully disagree about fruity's sampler being shite, I know kids here in NYC making straight up golden era style sample based hiphop and using only fruity and getting amazing results. I find fruity actually lends itself more to sample based music (although maybe not loop based) then to synth work, although I am no fruity expert. Also 9th Wonder was mentioned (he produced Threats on the Black Album) and I know he uses a laptop and I'm pretty sure Fruity is his weapon of choice as well.

A big big sample based tune right now, maybe heralding a new era of sampling in grime with it's sucess:
Low Deep - Str8 Flush

Pure Kanye vocal chirp sample biz on a grime riddim. The flip 'Cats' is big too, beautiful strings (also sampled I assume).

i know 9th, and he pretty much just chops loops up in cool edit and samples them in fruity loops. but whatever - you can run kontact/intakt or whatever vst sampler you want in fruity or ableton or most anything now. i really <3 ableton 4.1.

i reviewed that low deep tune for xlr8r next month - i'm really glad to see everybody's picking up on it now.

 

[SIZZLE]

yeah fruity and all the other vst hosts are making it less and less relevant what gear you use. I wish people could get their heads around the idea that people can make almost anything with almost anything. Some things are more likely to produce certain sounds because that's what they're designed to make it easy to do, but really you never know what people will make with it. I think it's great, I'm so tired of the 'well if I had all the gear that guy had I would definitely be a top producer like him' ranting.

 

[minikomi]

i wonder why tracking didnt take off in the grime community like it totally dominated the breakcore scene? freeware, sampler, mechanical interface...

lots of the new ones can do vst as well...


Virgo - Monster

= sample based dubstep/grime 4 sure

 

[Keith P]

I think the author of this thread was referencing a bit more to pre written drum loops. This doesn't seem to be very common in grime. Any urban/dance genre is built on samples obviously. Grime is unique b/c of what the producers were doing with these samples. Alot of people wouldn't have thought of getting as complex a beat out of an 808 built tune.

 

[SIZZLE]

'complex beat out of an 808 built tune'

I definitely agree with this and I think it's another area where grime is working in sampling. All the use of 808/909 16 step sequencer sounds in a very non 16 step way is a very cool use of sampling. They are referencing the plastic techiness of a lot of the old school hiphop and techno sounds while bringing them into the current day through their use of interesting rhythms and efx. This is very much 'sampling' in the traditional sense of taking something old with attached meanings and recontextualizing and repurposing it to make something new. Admittedly a little off topic from the beginning of the thread, but about sampling nonetheless.

 

[fldsfslmn]

That track "This Ain't a Game" -- a bit long in the tooth, but that's how you sample. That flute thing, damn.

I like the grime that's more obviously "written" better than the sampled grime, though. It reaffirms that no matter how far music disappears down the tunnel of self-referentiality, bashing out your own beat -- on a keyboard, whatever -- will still cause a good track.