I especially don’t understand how they get from a single sample to a whole track.
In: Other
Let’s just take one song for example. “Gettin jiggy wit it” by will Smith. They took the song “he’s the greatest dancer” by Sister Sledge and they recorded the audio from that song onto their equipment. Then using their equipment they create a loop of that recording. They then add their own drums and bass over it in a more hip hoppy groove with more pronounced drums and bass. Then will smith records vocals over it. And the song is complete.
That’s all “sampling” is. Taking a previously existing recording and taking an excerpt of it (sampling it) onto your own gear.
[Here’s a video](https://youtu.be/eU5Dn-WaElI) showing how the samples were manipulated to make *Smack My Bitch Up* by The Prodigy.
The video moves along at a fair pace, but he plays the audio that was sampled and then processes the samples.
Manipulations used include
* Beat slicing: Chopping up samples and re-arranging the order and timing of the slices.
* Pitch shift: raise or lower the pitch without changing the length
* Time stretch : change the length of the sample with out changing the pitch
* EQ: change the balance of frequencies
* Saturation : adds distortion
* Compression : make loud sounds quieter so that all sounds can be made louder. This evens out sounds and makes them louder/punchier.
* Synths: synthesisers were used for some parts.
[This website](https://www.whosampled.com) has a wealth of information on what samples were used to make most records.
Latest Answers