Transcripts
1. Intro: There is a fundamental truth
of the music industry today. It is that everyone is sampling. When I say sampling, what most people
think is like, Oh, Nikki manage is using a little bit of a soundbite
from beyond, say, or Madonna, use the riff from one of
Michael Jackson songs. That is what people are doing, but that is what sampling
that is in the foreground. That is sampling that you're
supposed to know about. The real sampling going on, is the sampling that you're
not supposed to think about. It is the many,
many melodies and harmonies that are
being sampled from composers that come up
with them and release them either in full as WAV files or as midi files
to be worked with. This is widespread. All produce a well, many producers are using
sampling all the time. It saves a lot of time. It is much easier and you can create a full song
and lightning speed. That sounds great. Hi, I'm Jordan. I'm a
producer and composer. And today we are going to
make a song from samples. It is a very fast and
easy thing to do. When you work with
the sample correctly, you can make something
that's still sounds uniquely you while not having to come up with your
own chord progression. Now having to come up
with your own melody, well, we're still going
to come up with a melody, but that melody is backed by a strong counter melody or chord progression that
somebody else has come up with. So today we're going to
work with both a wave and a midi sample that somebody
else has come up with. We're going to make a track
and we're going to make something that's really
exciting and great. Using these samples. Come along, join me. Let's get started using
samples to make our own track.
2. Sampling & Ethics: If you're not really sure
what I'm referring to, sampling is using
somebody else's music in your music to so
that you can create something that is
fuller and richer and doesn't rely on
you having to come up with all of the
ideas yourself. It's perfectly legal and
even ethical to do so. Far, far more of the music
that you think is sampled. Music where the producers or the singer songwriters
have fully claimed that they have
written the song themselves, will still have
elements of sampling. Whether that's
just the baseline, whether it's just the drums, whether even it's just a little
bit of harmonic support. People are using
samples constantly. There are many, many, many companies out
there that employ composers that just
come up with samples. Sometimes it's just a mini, it's eight bars of money
with which you can go crazy. You can make anything with. But what it is is it
helps you to come up with something better than you would have
come up with yourself. One thing that many
producers I'm missing it is a knowledge of music theory. Without music theory,
it's very hard to come up with a satisfying
chord progression. A chord progressions have a
lot of things that they need. They need notes that, that go away from the
cord and then resolve. They need a knowledge of when something should be
subdominant and then dominant, and then when should it
go away from the key, which has a really
risky thing to do? When should it come back? Where, where should
the key even be? When you're a composer or a producer that doesn't
really know about keys. You may produce in C major, G major all the time. You might go down a C minor
if you're feeling like you want to make some low-fi and you want to jazz it up a bit. But produces that really
understand music theory can compose in wild keys and even some very unusual keys that you may
not have even heard of that, or some scales that you
may not even heard of, or some modes that would
never cross your mind to use. When you sample, you are using
the knowledge that someone else who knows a lot more
about music has in your song, you might get a
line of money that is in the pentatonic scale. You may not know how to
use the pentatonic scale, but you may know that
you want it in a track. Well, somebody else
has put these bars as, put these notes within bars in that scale for you,
and you just use it. Sometimes you will use
a straight-up wav file. A WAV file has a track that is completely scored
and mustard, it's done. What you can do with it though, is you can filter it so that
it sounds uniquely year. You can mess the BPM. But well, we're going to
do today is we're going to lay out our own
elements over top of the wave file so
that you can hear a WAV file as it was
originally made bar with many, many, many other
elements at the top. When producers of
major records do this, they will use a WAV file of
something that's so subtle. Like maybe it's
just a bass riff. Something where
you may have heard the same base riff in 45 songs. And it's a wave file that's being shared
amongst everyone. And you may have no idea
that it's the same. And the only reason you
the only reason you aren't picking it up is because
they've changed a little bit. They're filtered it down. So they've cut off the high end so that it's just
harder to hear. They may mess with the BPM of it so that it's sometimes it's
faster and has a slower. But then again, the major, major thing to remember is just not listening for a baseline. We're not listening for something that's just
going don't don't, don't, don't don't don't don't don't don't don't when
I'm listening for that. It's just when it's part
of the summer as a whole, it's far harder to tell whether
it was original enough. And artists as saying, Yes, I wrote this song, yes, I can post this so they
can have the drum and the bass be something
that they didn't think of and still
ethically say that, when does it cross
an ethical line? I believe it crosses an ethical line only in
certain circumstances. One circumstance would be if
a fellow producer hears it, especially if
you're going to use sampling like we're doing today. Well, we're going
to do today is so obvious because we're
using a WAV file of a completed track in our track that we're going
to layer instruments over. But if someone has
heard it before, we're also going to use a major company which is schematics. They, their whole business
is making samples. We're going to use it in such a way that it's quite obvious. So if another producer hears it, and I've released on Spotify, say another producing
his enemy asks me, Oh, that sounds familiar. Did you sample some? Someone? In that case, it's my opinion that it's
much more ethical to say, yeah, it's a somatic sample. It's much more
ethical to do that. It's so taboo to talk
about it openly. So some people may not. I always would. And the major reason
is if I say no, if I say no, I thought of that. And then that produce it goes. And here's the same melody, the same sound at
someone else's track. They're going to accuse that
person is stealing from me because I said that
it was original one, it wasn't I wouldn't lie
in that circumstance. I think that this is a
case where it's ethical to lie only in the
omission of truth, meaning that you just don't
have to advertise it. But if asked directly,
I wouldn't lie. For example, I would put this
track that we make today. I would put it, I would
clean it up first. I would filter the
**** out of it. I would add a lot of sounds and maybe some crackling
for that lo-fi sound. I would, I would do
a lot more to it, but I would put it on Spotify. I would not credit semantics because schematics
don't require me to. When you buy or even when you download somatic
samples for free, they come with licenses. So the only way to breach semantics license agreement
with us as producers, the only way to breach it is to re-release their
samples as samples. So if I download
semantics, ultimate, ultimate dance sample pack, and then I re-branded as mega awesome sample
pack and then resell it. That's the only way to
breach their license. As long as I take
this sample and I use it in a new track and I
change it in some way. It's fine. I don't need to cramp up. I don't need a credit semiotics. There's no need for that. They don't require
it. So I will release the salon Spotify at only credit myself
and that's ethical. I can omit that information
and that's ethical. If asked directly by a, by a fellow producer, I
would tell the truth. But the average listening
public doesn't care, doesn't know, and
don't need to know. It's not important
that they know because I compare it to auto tune
and pitch correction. Auto-tune is that really obvious sound that when the voice is modulated up and
down in a big way, like to share effect. That's really obvious and
you're meant to hear it. It's a stylistic choice. That's what I compare
sampling major artists too. When you sample Michael Jackson, you sampled Nick
human knowledge. And it's so obvious that stylistic and it's sampling
that's meant to be known. Your mentor know that
it's being sampled. But 99% of sampling
is not that just like 99% of pitch correction
is not meant to be obvious. You're not meant to watch Disney's live-action
Beauty and the Beast. And hear how heavily.
3. Getting Started & Adding Bass: We began with my choices
for samples today, I have semantics, save
me as a WAV file. So the way that this sounds, it has been produced
already and is finished. I can still make
some changes to it. I can still re-mix it
and add effects since, and I can still filter it, but it's largely made. And then here I have saved
me also from schematics. It's the same thing,
but it's miti. All that's there is the chords. I can do absolutely anything
that I want with them. They're the codes and there
are arranged and that's it. Then I have a lo-fi full drum
sample also from Semiotics. It isn't included as like
save me, it's not part of it. It's just the one that I like. And I've chosen it
because I think it goes with this quite well. And it adds more
of a lo-fi sound. The save me samples are from
semiotics RMB sample set. It's not supposed to be Lo-Fi. It's not like that's
not like what it's for, but that's how I intend
to use it, which is fine. You can make anything Lo-Fi. You just have to alter it. You just have to make it lo-fi with the way that you use it. I'm going to put them all in together all at the same time and then I can just meet the
trucks that I don't need. And then later when
I'm arranging, I can move them and put them
where I want them to go. But let's just hear the
chords. How they are. I hear, I like to hear
everything as a piano. First off, those who've seen my most recent classes
will know that I'm quite into Spitfire
Labs recently. So it's their piano that
I'm really into lately. Okay. How does it sound with the keys? So what you could do, What's
a quite popular move today is to alter codes so that they're not the
same as the sample. So you can do that. I often like to add extra
base elements, two codes. I generally won't move
them unless I'm moving them to a different octave. Like say I've got to
erase them higher. That could be one way
I would alter them. Probably the largest
alteration I would make would be to alter the key. To alter the key, I would have to go
into these chords, choose a new scale degree here, which would tell me
where they should go. If I want to change the K, you can see what code, what key they're already
in here, D-sharp minor. You could use the
circle of fifths to see what is the next
scale degree higher? What is the next key
that it could go to? And be a natural lift? And then just move all of
the notes individually up. I've done that rarely I did at one time where I thought
I let a song play out. For a couple of play. I'll let the chorus
play a couple of times. Then I raise the K right
near the end to just give it a shot in the arm to make the song feel more
impactful before it ended. But it's, it's pretty
old school move. It's not one that
I do very often. I appreciate it when
other people do it, but I gotta do it very often. So today I'm not going to
change the codes too much, but I will be filtering them. But what I am going to do is
I'm going to use the codes to make what will
be the layering. So I will use it to make
all kinds of layering. So I'm going to take these codes and then the first
thing I'm gonna do is just keep all
the bass notes. Now, when it comes
to bass notes, I don't like to change
too frequently, so I'm going to cut off all the ones that are quite short. And I'm going to level
them out because I hate when bass notes cut out. I think that you
should be able to hear bass notes always. I need to show it gets cut
out. Not that last one. Because I want a constant,
consistent bass sound. I suspect for this that I will want bass guitar. So I'm
going to put that in. Donna Harris, cutting out that showed
it was the right move. But I don't like that. The
bass guitar leads that shift, so I think it should follow. The same thing here. Say I want to remind the
patient should follow the lead. I thought I could do something a little bit unusual there, but I don't like it. It's got to stay in uniform. Yeah. I think that I feel strongly about
things and then I still owe maybe I don't
maybe I do at an air. You got to try. Okay, so now I want a stronger base
sounds with serum. Love and Sarah really getting
a kick out of serum lately. If you don't know
anything about serum or anything about
synthesising your notes, I do have a Skillshare about that specifically on synthesis
that you can check out. Maybe that one, maybe a high
amount, slightly detuned. Some attack on that. Gosh. It's quite nice. Just a little bit loud. Right? Another layer. But this time I'm going
to lower it an octave. Say here we have
it, D-sharp, one. D-sharp, Sarah says
true bass sound. I'm going to put Sarah back on. But I'm going to
turn off oscillator a ton on the sub-oscillator. That's quite nice. Guy. Yeah, just like
that's our main chords. Bass guitar, and
then out to base synthesizes creating
that deep base e sound. We've made a great stat.
4. Creating Our Unique Sound: We have our lovely bass notes, and now we can try to
create something on the high-end new midi track and put this one n. And then I chop off everything
that's low this TO. I still want to fill
in this sounds. That would go maybe a
string on some blur. Perhaps. Contexts. I go through phases
where I enjoy set and instruments and plugins and I get really into
them for awhile. For those of you
who've seen me use the free orchestra a few times, I'm really into it.
Okay, let's see. God, that's loud. The any sounds I don't
like others lower one. So I'm just going
to cut this out. Other than that, I like maybe, let's say how it sounds
a fight like to start. Maybe with a ethereal like app, like a reverb on it
That's that could help. That could give it like
a, like a lovely quality. Not bad, not bad, not bad at, overstates
its welcome a little bit. Not bad. Let's hear how it sounds. If I do it with a
piano and higher. T4, T5, perhaps a
something lights. Class grads soft. Yeah, I like that. So I sat on even turned up. I mean, I still like it. It's subtle, but I like it. Okay. It's more needed to
drive things turned off. They're just the melody. Okay, Not bad. Now, what it needs
is we have a melody that's provided to us
by the sample itself, but that's not enough. We need to create our own lips. Our own melody that can
exist outside of the sample. What matters is that we're
not reliant on the sample, the sample, the world, the full wave sample is
what I'm talking about. The full wave sample is
not leading our song. We're not reliant on it. It just comes in and provides a wonderful
boost to the song. On our terms, it does
not lead the song, it is not the melody that
the song is relying on. And it's entering
and leaving the song has no bearing on the song's
quality or listen ability. That's what we want. That's when, when you, when you need the sample
for the sun to sound good, for the sun to be
musically coherent. That's when you're in trouble. That's when the sample wins. That's when the sample,
That's what it's more sudden like in the case that we're
using somatic sample. That's what it's
mostly schematics sung than ours when we
need the sample. Although in the case of
the many sample, we, everything we're
doing, including right now exists on the back
of the middle sample. But we're still
creating from it. Let's see how that
sounds, right? I didn't give him
an instrument yet. Let's give it the mandolin. I've been favoring that lightly. And it kind of cuts through quite nicely so you can hear it. I think it's an acoustic. Yep. The cuts through
easily here. It's distinct. What about ensemble? Why don't we in
wherein D-sharp minor? So if I want to start
coloring outside the lines, I can put this on. Now. I can color outside the lines without
coloring outside the key. Just trying to create
something that sounds distinct and exists on its own. It stays within the key but
makes sense within the sun. It's got a sound good, but it starts weird. Okay, I found a kind
of sound that works. I think this one could be, could be elevated higher, repay it's perhaps God. Got it. I had to know that no snake it, but that kinda repeating
sound is going to be good. All it needs is a little
reverb tail to just kind of like push it into this sound
as a whole to make it sound. That's a little bit
much smaller than that. Let's keep going.
5. Fleshing Out Our Sound: I am. I moved the, this final note to G and
I changed the Valhalla. Say that it's
swelling synth Vab, which are River,
which is in the, which is in the medium presets. So it sounds like this. It's way it, there's
a few notes in there that are like wasted because they're just
not sounding out. These middle notes. And then that final note. Maybe they could be like
keys with a reverb on them. So as you can say,
like, you really, really want to build
up a lot of layers. Who maybe Anthem? Did they even sound? Maybe a hop, where the heck is half. I know it's in here. Auto hop, slice, drums, seventh, seventh, chord, gosh, it's such a gap but no. But maybe just to pluck. Maybe maybe I put that
same reverb tail on there. I suspect it's nice. I just wish it were on a night. Like I don't know. Like it it's it's all right. I want more from it, but I don't know. I don't
know what I want. Okay. Gosh, got a
lot of layers here. So, golly, gee, I definitely want to
start with this piano, or do I, or do I. Maybe I want to start with our kind of manufactured melody. Perhaps. They need some level of bias. Okay? We want to layer
it, we want to lay out, we want to start
with as little as possible while having
the nice complete sound and then build up a track from there. So dark. I like how mysterious it is. Kind of a weird entry or what. The good thing about this is by starting on our own melody. We are not reliant on even
the midi sample anymore. We're not reliant on
the wave sample at all. We haven't even heard it yet. But we've lessened our alliance on the Mideast sample because we created our own melody from that sample and we lead with it. So there's no way anyone
can hear this song. And we'll hear the
beginning and say, Oh, I know this, it's the semantics
saved me sample. They're never going
to do that because we created something
unique from it. Unique enough that there's no way you could
extrapolate that. You could extrapolate the key, but you could never
extrapolate that. It's from the saved me sample. No way. The question
now becomes, when should the drum come in? That's why the
question now becomes, maybe after only maybe after eight bus
front of beginning. I didn't have intended. Whoops. Oh my God. I didn't even realize,
Look at that. Look at that insane BPM icon, icon. Now, I made it with
that high BPM. Bpm is not great for
lo-fi, not at all. Yeah. That kinda like messes things up with
the germ sample. I like that. I think that the hop is like not right? The hop is not right. John snack. I'm going to need
to swap that out. Alright. What good work
we've started to build. Now we can layer and I need
to figure out a new drum. And I need to figure out
where I put my wave in, my, my wave star.
6. Finishing the Track: So I've added a
new lo-fi drum kit that is still super fast, but I think it blends better. So see how, say how you feel. I took the reverb
off of the melody we made so that it doesn't conflict with
the drumbeat so much. I also added back in
these short paths to the base because it sounded
wrong without them. Sometimes, right, but
this time it didn't. Okay, my goal now is
to finally have our, have our wave sample come
in and it makes sense. So I'll put it here. Tenant on gosh, and then put
some drums underneath it. Well, not quite enough. Then see how it goes. I suspect it'll be too loud. Okay, cool. I think it can have a little moment in the
sun with the piano. Without anything
else. May perhaps. Oh, have the jump. Cut out the letter laid in, build a bit of energy back. I think these two need to
keep guy, but not for long. Actually take it back
about the nominating the reverb on that mandolin, gosh, it needs it so badly. Just a medium one. Maybe with the basis actually. Actually that was a nice ending. Actually, I liked it when
it ended on the climb. That was kindness. Kindness. The germs, they are
a little bit more got it needs a base. It's like the life
sucked out of it. Man, what God wanted to say, that was such a special
moment and it got wrecked. That's my info. Making
these super long. Nice. What a natural Finished. Great. Feels nice. It feels nice, feels like an
appropriate use got three times on the wave sample, which is pretty decent.
That's not bad. We build something original
from the midi sample. We didn't just use it. We made a regional
sounds from it. That's the goal. That's
what you want to be doing.
8. Keep Learning & Growing: And then you have, I
hope that you're pleased with your result if you were making a
track along with me, I hope that you are very
happy with what you've made. As you can see, it is, it doesn't take long
to create something that's sounds good
track that I've made. It still needs a
lot of filtering. It still needs
Mastering and mixing. The sounds are a
little bit crazy. The WAV file needs
to blend more easily with the surrounding files that we made or
sounds that we made. It still got work to be done. But definitely, if
you're a YouTuber, you can put that under
a YouTube video. If you're a Twitch stream up, definitely you could
stream to that. The drums speed is crazy because I didn't love
the BPM to start with. So I could post everything a 120 BPM and then I put the jobs and the
jobs are too fast. What I would do next
time is put the BPM at 85 and then create melodies
and harmonies at 85. Then put in a lo-fi drum sample that sounds most natural at 85. And then the drums going
to work right away. It's not going to be
a little bit crazy. A drum at that speed. And if you put a
drama at that speed and in an album that
you've titled as lo-fi, it's going to raise
some eyebrows. Probably I could get
away with it by putting on a plugin that's going to
reduce older fidelity down. Get that real crackly
record effects. That would help a lot. But disguise the fact
that the drugs and nuts. Anyway, thanks for joining me. I hope you learned
a lot about how to sample and how I feel about ethics when it
comes to sampling. And I hope that it has
widened your production game. Stick around here on Skillshare. Skillshare, goodness, stick
around here on Skillshare. I've got a, what have I got? Synthesis, I've got
some music theory class and other ones on production and one on composing fulfilled. So I hope to see you there and I'll see
you at the next class. So keep producing music and
I'll see you next time. Bye.
Misici, Music Composer & Producer
