Subject:What is sampling?

Posted by: Djbigbeat

Date:2/1/2003 6:46:48 PM

Hi~everyone I am a new Acidp4 user.I don't know much about it. and I was wondering
how can some one get a bass line from other song and to use it on their own song?
Anybody know how?
I have tried to extract audio from CDs, but that is a entire song. I can't
just pick up the bass line or vocal without any background music?
then what's the purpose of extract audio from a CD? is it for remix?
THANK YOU ~

Subject:RE: What is sampling?

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:2/1/2003 8:20:53 PM

For the same reason you cannot separate vocals from a mix, you cannot separate a bass line from a stereo mix.

One purpose I've heard someone use the extract from an audio CD function was to simply make a continuous mix of favorite songs. (While ACID only has Track-at-Once burning, you can use its export feature to work with the file in other programs.) This was, of course, also before CD Architect hit the scene again.

You also do not have to draw/paint in the entire extracted audio. You can use the Chopper to insert portions of the audio that you want, for example.

HTH,
Iacobus

Subject:RE: What is sampling?

Reply by: RasKeita

Date:2/2/2003 12:09:06 AM

Hee's a little info...
http://www.sospubs.co.uk/search/query.asp
Your original question would take a chapter to explain. Simply a sample is just a short piece of audio. Extracting audio from a CD will bring the whole song up, find a part you want to use and get rid of the rest. I personally use a mini-digital recorder to get a lot of my samples. I also use vinyl,tape,CD find something I want splice just that part. In order to get a vocal,bass,drum, you must find a section where that paticular instrument or vocal part is pretty much soloing...Level Vibes

Subject:RE: What is sampling?

Reply by: dkistner

Date:2/2/2003 6:51:02 AM

Ron Gorow's book, "Hearing and Writing Music" was helpful to me in learning how to listen for various thematic elements I like, then get them into a scoring program or piano roll editor so I can then use them in my work. I'm not a musician but have managed to teach myself the rudiments of music theory--there's SO much to learn--and also how to use software (sequencer/VSTi hosts, editors, mixers, and such) in lieu of real musicians so I can make the music I want to make.

The Gorow book teaches techniques for listening to a piece, then transferring it to a score. My son fell in love with Spencer Nilson's "The Machine," for example, and wanted me to compose something like it for use in one of his multimedia projects at school. He wound up not doing that particular project, but I was so captivated by the bass line that I borrowed it and built an entire composition around it. It just took listening carefully, dragging notes around in my scoring program until it sounded like what I heard, then working around it. I could just as well have gotten a few bars down and made an audio loop out of the bass line to pull into Acid to combine with other loops; but I prefer to score everything, render out long one-shots for the individual instrument lines, then mix/effects process them.

So don't fool with trying to extract individual instrument lines from audio. As others have stated, it's darned near impossible. You'd be further ahead to do what I've done: Attempt to re-create something somebody else has done (or maybe something you've done but didn't have the foresight to record separately from the rest of the mix) by trying to duplicate it in a scoring program. (This is a great way to learn how to compose things on your own, by the way.) Just downloading midi files of works you like and studying them is also a great way to learn. (Beatles' tunes are really in my blood, so those are the ones that taught me the most.) You may even be able to find the piece you like so much and snip the bass line out of the midi file.

Of course, you have to make whatever you "borrow" like this completely your own or you risk copyright infringement. But quoting other composers has been done since music began; many of the great composers have done it--Bach especially. Actually, it's a way of honoring the original composer, as long as you don't try to pass it off as original material. I don't know if there's a "fair use" equivalent to textual quotations for music. Maybe somebody else here can tell us what it might be.

Diane

Subject:RE: What is sampling? Legalities

Reply by: RasKeita

Date:2/2/2003 10:34:23 AM

Sampling is the use of portions of prior recordings that are incorporated into a new composition and it has become an integral part of many genres of music today. If you sample someone's song without permission, it is an instant copyright violation: the unauthorized use of copyrighted material owned by another. This actually violates two copyrights—the sound recording copyright (usually owned by the record company) and the copyright in the song itself (usually owned by the songwriter or the publishing company).

If you want to use a sample legally, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. The copyright owner is usually a publishing company or record label. [You can find the owner of the copyright by contacting the Harry Fox Agency: 212-370-5330.] Remember that you must obtain permission from both the owner of the sound recording and the copyright owner of the underlying musical work. The fee for a license to use a sample can vary tremendously, depending on how much of the sample you intend to use (a quarter second is a minor use; five seconds, a major use), the music you intend to sample (a Madonna chorus will cost more than an obscure drum beat), and the intended use of the sample in your song (it is more costly to build your entire song around the sample than to give it only minor attention).

There are two different ways to pay for a license. First, you can pay a buy-out fee, which can range from $250 to $10,000 [a band on a major label is going to have to pay more to use a sample than a garage band because the label can afford it]. Most fees fall between $1,000 and $2,000. The other way to pay for the license is to pay a percentage of the mechanical royalty rate (the amount a person pays to the copyright owner to make a mechanical reproduction, or copy, of the song). This generally works out to be between 1/2 ¢ and 3¢ per record pressed. Everything is negotiable, and it is not unusual to get a license for free if you ask.

If all of this sounds confusing, there's hope. There are businesses devoted entirely to securing and negotiating clearances for samples. These firms charge less than an entertainment attorney would charge and are generally more knowledgeable about the going rates for uses. If you use samples without obtaining the proper clearance licenses, you have to be aware of the penalties. A copyright infringer is liable for "statutory damages" that generally run from $500 to $20,000 for a single act of copyright infringement. If the court determines there has been willful infringement, damages can run as high as $100,000. The copyright owner can also get a court to issue an injunction forcing you to cease violating the copyright owner's rights. The court can also force you to recall all your albums and destroy them.

There is also a rumor going around that you can use four notes of any song under the "fair use" doctrine. There is no "four note" rule in the copyright law. One note from a sound recording is a copyright violation. Saturday Night Live was sued for using the jingle, "I Love New York" which is only four notes. The test for infringement is whether the sample is "substantially similar" to the original. Remember, a judge or jury is the one who determines this and these people may be much less receptive to your music than your fans. My point is you cannot rely on fair use as a defense. Sampling can also have tremendous consequences if you have a record contract. Most record contracts have provisions called "Warranties," "Indemnifications," and "Representations". These provisions constitute a promise that you created all the music on your album and an agreement to reimburse the label if it is sued. These same provisions are included in all contracts throughout the entertainment distribution chain. The record company has them with the artist, the distributors with the record company, the record stores with the distributors, and so on. Well, all these warranties point back at the artist who is responsible to everyone else! Therefore, if you violate someone else's copyright, you will be paying all the bills of your record company, distributor, and any stores that incur expenses as a result of your infringement. This can run into serious money as you can imagine. You will also be in breach of your record contract. So, read your record contract carefully before using any samples.
by Michael McCready, Esq.

Subject:RE: What is sampling? Legalities

Reply by: dkistner

Date:2/2/2003 11:07:50 AM

Very good information!

I want to make it very clear that when I was talking about quotation, I did not mean sampling. I meant using the actual musical notes, played my way with my own instruments, not a copy of the audio recording of somebody else playing those same notes themselves, with their own instruments and expressions.

In the case of the notes themselves, it would be impossible to infringe copyright by using one note. If this were the case, then nobody could write any music at all and not more than 12 people could hold the copyright to it--that's if each one held the copyright to a single note. ("Hey, man, I hold the copyright to E flat and you don't!" And then the attorneys argue over what frequency range E flat is, and the jury has to decide if a double-flatted E is the same thing as a flatted E!) I doubt anybody can lay much claim to owning very short note sequences either...certainly not four notes of a bass riff that are all the same pitch. It does get trickier when you start talking about longer sequences of notes; and then it's going to depend on whether the composition is in the public domain and if you want your work to sound like Beethoven wrote it or not.

It's very good to clarify the difference in composition and sampled recordings. For myself, the only way I'm going to use something sampled is if it's soundfonts, little one-shot royalty-free waves (like maybe a whale sound from Mean Rabbit), or royalty-free loops that I have the right to use either because they were legitimately free or purchased from someplace like Sonic Foundry.

Diane

Subject:RE: What is sampling? Legalities

Reply by: dkistner

Date:2/2/2003 11:58:25 AM

Oh, and one more thing. Before I realized that it was going to be a whole heck of a lot cheaper (and more fun!) if I just knuckled under and learned how to compose things myself, I purchased some very nice royalty-free music from PBTM. It would have been perfect if what I had wanted it for was to make multimedia productions or voice-overs. But the license prohibited me from using the music by itself. That's when I started learning how to compose. Good thing, too, because now I can make my own loops. If I played my own instrument, of course, I could do it by recording (sampling) myself playing and then make the loop from the recording. But I don't!

Diane