Over the past year or so, I've kind of been re-discovering sampling. Not that I've ever really stopped using it, but ever since I started using software samplers (which don't actually sample), I found myself doing less of the crazy, "plug in a mic and see what happens" kind of sampling. It seems silly, but the extra layer of having to record something into a DAW, editing it in an audio editor, and then importing into a softsampler really makes the process less spontaneous than when you just plugged in a mic, hit 'sample', and pressed the key you wanted to map it to.I know I'm not alone in feeling this way. You need only listen to how music with samples is made these days to sense that something has changed. Sure, musical trends change all the time, but when is the last time you heard some really creative sound design with a sampler and not just cut-up loops? Watching the documentaries on the Depeche Mode re-issues (where they sampled anything that could make a sound) reminded me of how much I used to do this kind of thing and made me realize just how much I missed it.
This kind of sampling is not only fun, but it really stimulates your imagination as you try to think of what sounds can be transformed into something musically useful. Take the lowly 60-cycle hum (50-cycle in some countries outside the US). Anyone who has played live or spends any amount of time plugging and unplugging audio cables has probably heard this before. Also known as "mains hum", it's the audible sound of alternating electrical current often heard when a piece of gear isn't properly plugged in, or even when you touch the connector of a plugged-in cable. It just so happens that 60Hz is a very common frequency for sub-basses. So why not use that to make your own? Just plug in an audio cable to your audio interface, hit record on your DAW, and then touch the unplugged end of the cord with your finger. Be sure to get a good, sustained recording for looping purposes.
The advantage of this over just using a sine wave from one of your synths is that this kind of hum usually has extra harmonics aside from the fundamental that give it a pretty unique, buzzy sound - perfect for dub, drum n' bass, and anything else in need of a dose of butt rattling low end. Don't stop here, though. Think of what other sounds we normally try to get rid of or consider annoying and how you might be able to transform it into a cool synth sound. Stick a piece of paper in the blades of a fan... record the rumble of a distant train... record the sound of your refrigerator's motor - just about anything can be transformed into a synth with a little work.
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I have always had a passion for noises, even from my earliest recollections, playing with found trinkets, making a percussive background to whatever music played in my parents 8 track or on early 70s radio. When the 80s came about, and bands like DM, Skinny Puppy and Cabaret Voltaire showed me how to creatively alter those sounds, I knew my direction. I had a job in Chicago at a Guitar Center in 1988. I was only 19, but I was so excited to have access to SP 1200s and EPS samplers. I even sold an EIII based on my ability to transform noises in it! It wasn't until the early 90s that I was able to buy my own sampler. I went to town on an Akai S 900 and a Roland S 330. I later managed to sell them and buy a few E-mus, but they have all since broken. I really need to get them fixed.
You make the argument I've been making for years for hardware sampling. I love the fact that software samplers load the correct samples into the song when you open them, but we have lost the creative interface that allowed us to play around. I can't tell you how many songs my partner and I have made based primarily off the inspiration of samples we collected. I'd load zip disks with noises from Metro trains, delayed noise loops from shorting cables, fans, metal cages, chains, glass bottles, reverb tails from TV newscasters run through effect processors, analog synths through an analog delay, mistakes and more! It is a place I frequently visited.
For years, I got deeper into playing with a decent number of hardware synths and soft synths. I loved tweaking filters and playing with the velocity of notes to warp my synth lines. I'd split out the drums from my software and process each to give it its own space and identity. This was great development, but it felt hollow. I was missing a texture. It was like painting with no yellow pigment.
I wanted to get back to sampling. I feel I want to make my samplers work again and integrate them, but I really need to be able to take that stuff out of the studio. I do my work on a MacBook Pro these days. I don't often have the time at home to work. Most of my creative output is at work or on my commute. Why can't the software manufacturers make a record interface so we can just work in the software? They could simply make a record insert plugin that saves for the instrument plugin, or they could make a rewire standalone that you map your DAW to. Two plugs handle the front and back end of the instrument in a DAW, or one does it as a standalone.
I really have enjoyed the freedom of working with Alchemy, lately. The interface is much easier to look at than EXS 24 or Kontakt. The sound is wonderful and the ability to use samples in sampler mode or grain mode really adds to the flexibility. The engine imparts its own personality on the sounds and I find that very appealing. The main reason I have used samples is NOT to sound like the source audio did. It is to take my source to a new dimension; to put it into a new context. I really hope the software manufacturers choose to make this reality simpler by allowing a recording interface like we had on hardware samplers.
It would be nice, but I'm not holding my breath. You've got a whole generation of musicians who have only ever worked with soft samplers and I don't see software companies catering to dinosaurs like us. Although if I recall correctly, I think that Mirage emulator might sample from within the plugin. Maybe that's not the one, but I could swear I;ve read about at least one plug-in that'll do this.
Also, birds' singing sounds great, especially with all sorts of effects and pitch shift.
I've used the 60Hz hum to great effect. Try "performing" it with the open end of a 1/4" phono cable, and running it through some filters with envelope followers (I used Quad Frohmage).
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