in music, what is the difference between a sample and a remix?
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A sample is if you take a small snippet of what is otherwise a finished track. Like if you take a 3 second clip of a song – but it will include all tracks (drums, vocals, guitar etc.). Or, if you have access to the individual _tracks_ of the song, perhaps you just want to snip a really good drum fill.
A remix, is where the remixer has access (and permission) to the original isolated tracks that make up the song: vocals, guitar, drums etc. Not only can each individual track be edited and manipulated, but entire tracks can be added or thrown out. Its a little bit like the Song of Theseus problem – how much of the original song can you discard before its no longer that song, but really a _new_ song that _samples_ the original.
The most famous _sample_ that comes to mind is the Amen break, which is a drum fill from a (of itself really great) 60s R&B track called Amen Brother by the Winstons. side note: [really cool video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SaFTm2bcac). Sliced into its component drum hits, it has formed the drum track of gobs of R&B and EDM hits for the last 40 years.
Another would be the small bits that Vanilla Ice sampled from Queen+David Bowies Under Pressure to make Ice Ice Baby. That cool bass lick, the tink hook, but otherwise his own lyrics and arrangement. Or the Rick James funk bass sample that MC Hammer used for Hammer Time. Its really just that bass hook that he uses.
A good example of a _remix_ would be [Elvis x Junkie XL’s A Little Less Conversation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx1_6F-nCaw). Junkie reuses almost every track from the original (backing vocals and all), just slices and dices it into a little more uptempo modern EDM song.
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