Sample-Based Music Composition

Excellent thread:

RJD2 "Sample based music is making something good out of something bad"

I'd almost sware RJD2 helped write Sonar BeatScape.

Hypothesis:  2 types of artists

1) Those that use primarily samples
2) Those that use primarily performance

Unfortunately, someone here will probably negate this hypothesis and hypothesize that samples and performances are the same!

"Technically its illegal or morally questionable"

RJD2 seems to make a strawman out of the whole copyright infringement thing.  "They copy my samples but I don't file suit".

In reality, IIRC:

Copyright infringement might not be an issue for stealing *short phrases* ... perhaps until a signature riff is blatantly stolen.

Fortunately, Beatscape is CW's liability.  But, I'd be a liar to say I have never stolen a phrase from anyone.

... like children learning from parents, perhaps we all do that on various levels.

To play the devil's advocate here - what is the difference between paying someone to play your song using their own style (unless you play all the instruments) or using loops/etc.  For example, the "studio band" that did most of the west coast hits in the 60/70s?  The walking bass line from "These Boots are Made for Walking" was something the bass player came up with as an intro on her own.  The most famous part of the song and instantly recognizable.  Yet she got paid for the day and gets no residuals.  Nancy or Lee Hazelwood (whom I think wrote the song) didn't write it.  There are plenty of other examples of performers coming up with "original" riffs that make the song - more than what was written by the author.  This is esp. aural on live stuff.  Going back to the 60s again, unless you hear the lyrics it is almost impossible to tell Cream's live takes of "Tales of Brave Ulysses" and "White Room" apart.  My wife's jazz band recordings of a coupleof songs suffer the same - same chords, same tempo, etc.

Just how is that different than a "writer" using premade riffs in their song?  I think a good arguement can be made for such.  A different skill set is required to build a song from prefab loops, I'll grant that, but not a totally different beast.

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To play the devil's advocate here - what is the difference between paying someone to play your song using their own style (unless you play all the instruments) or using loops/etc.  For example, the "studio band" that did most of the west coast hits in the 60/70s?  The walking bass line from "These Boots are Made for Walking" was something the bass player came up with as an intro on her own.  The most famous part of the song and instantly recognizable.  Yet she got paid for the day and gets no residuals.  Nancy or Lee Hazelwood (whom I think wrote the song) didn't write it.  There are plenty of other examples of performers coming up with "original" riffs that make the song - more than what was written by the author.  This is esp. aural on live stuff.  Going back to the 60s again, unless you hear the lyrics it is almost impossible to tell Cream's live takes of "Tales of Brave Ulysses" and "White Room" apart.  My wife's jazz band recordings of a coupleof songs suffer the same - same chords, same tempo, etc.

Just how is that different than a "writer" using premade riffs in their song?  I think a good arguement can be made for such.  A different skill set is required to build a song from prefab loops, I'll grant that, but not a totally different beast.

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You make a good point here ! And just to go further on that line of thought - how original can one be when composing anyway ?  The other day I used the progression Dm,Dm (with F in Bass),E 7,E Flat,back to the Dm. I love these chords but I know I'm not the first person to use them.Isn't this like sampling too ? Taking something already in existence and turning it into your own ? OK you can add your own 'twist' or 'stamp' to the progression,but you could argue that without having that intial knowledge of the progression in the first place (which is open public knowledge - no copyright) it wouldn't be possible to make anything in the first place anyway. Theres musical cliches being used over and over again in pop and yet no-one says 'thats been done before therefore its against the rules' If you took those cliches away,you'd also be taking something away which makes the genre recognisable. Sampling in that sense has been going on for way before the computer arrived on the scene !
Kev
 

you probably saw this or something like it ... 4 chords many hits.... Here

 I'm not the biggest fan of this kind of thing but,it still takes an imagination to make this kind of music even if you're using a product of some one elses imagination.

As Paul Harvey said...  And now for the rest of the story...

Check out this podcast featuring a copyright lawyer: http://ftp.wrlt.com/production/mbr/podcast/10/ave/mbr126harrington.mp3

Interesting stuff.