Sampling Things
Palms Out Sounds:
I'm still struggling with the question of sampling - how much is appropriate, when it becomes "cheating" and if whether it's ever appropriate or ever wrong. Honestly, I'm starting to lean towards the "it's not cheating, it's good sense" argument. In the web programming world, we use a lot of frameworks like CakePHP, Django, and Ruby on Rails to avoid "reinventing the wheel." For the longest time I tried to avoid frameworks and scripts like Wordpress and Movable Types simply because I felt that using someone else's code for my projects was "cheating." And yet, that violates the entire principal of the open-source world: code should be shared, the wheel does not need 100 inventors.
So, what's different between code and music? Why should we be afraid of using samples to lay the groundwork for a song? As long as you are creating something new with it, is it really "cheating," or just skipping the tedious parts?
This also has a lot of implications for digital copyright. Boing Boing and company have fought for the "right to remix" for artists like DJ Danger Mouse, and have made great mention of the innovation they can bring to old ideas. I'm currently stuck on John B's album Electrostep, which remixes some great 80's tracks ("Hey Mickey", "Tainted Love") into a fusion of drum & bass and 80's that's highly original, and deathly enticing. Even if you support copyright, how could you draw the line between innovation and imitation?
So, I don't have any short, quick answers -- but I am tempted to whip out ACID and see what I can do with some of the obscure little tracks I love.
...as you hear these tracks you'll either decide Daft Punk isn't as genius as you thought they were or that they're twice as amazing. I just know that for any Daft Punk fan out there- these tracks are essential. In other words, don't skip this one.Palms Out Sounds exposes the not really hidden: Daft Punk are DJ's first, and master re mixers more than instrument builders or synth freaks. They show in their wonderful post songs like Edwin Birdsong's "Cola Bottle Baby," which were used extensively to create the main beat in Daft Punk's work.
I'm still struggling with the question of sampling - how much is appropriate, when it becomes "cheating" and if whether it's ever appropriate or ever wrong. Honestly, I'm starting to lean towards the "it's not cheating, it's good sense" argument. In the web programming world, we use a lot of frameworks like CakePHP, Django, and Ruby on Rails to avoid "reinventing the wheel." For the longest time I tried to avoid frameworks and scripts like Wordpress and Movable Types simply because I felt that using someone else's code for my projects was "cheating." And yet, that violates the entire principal of the open-source world: code should be shared, the wheel does not need 100 inventors.
So, what's different between code and music? Why should we be afraid of using samples to lay the groundwork for a song? As long as you are creating something new with it, is it really "cheating," or just skipping the tedious parts?
This also has a lot of implications for digital copyright. Boing Boing and company have fought for the "right to remix" for artists like DJ Danger Mouse, and have made great mention of the innovation they can bring to old ideas. I'm currently stuck on John B's album Electrostep, which remixes some great 80's tracks ("Hey Mickey", "Tainted Love") into a fusion of drum & bass and 80's that's highly original, and deathly enticing. Even if you support copyright, how could you draw the line between innovation and imitation?
So, I don't have any short, quick answers -- but I am tempted to whip out ACID and see what I can do with some of the obscure little tracks I love.
posted by Agius at 7:33 AM
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