Loop and Sample Beats Simplify Recording Process

Hip Hop musicians and others will tell you that one of the most time-consuming and expensive aspects of recording an album or demo is getting all the pieces, from drums to acoustic guitar sounds synergized, recorded and packaged for sale.

Music sampling and looping offers artists the ability to bypass much of this process by giving them the option of selecting portions or “samples” of a previously recorded song or a part of a previously recorded song and reusing it as an “instrument” in their own music production. They simply borrow beats to layer behind their vocals and other instrumentation.

Sampling or looping is widespread now but it can be traced back to the 1970s and 1980s with the birth of the electronic dance, hip hop and industrial music scene. A sampler can be either a piece of hardware of a pre-recorded track that is downloaded from a computer, or taped “loops” of a beat sound or in conjunction with vinyl records played on a turntable.

Often samples consist of one part of a song, called a break, and an artist may use, for example, the drum beats from Aerosmith and the acoustic guitar sounds from Bob Dylan to create a new, mixed sound that incorporates the old with the new, the funky with the psychedelic, even urban sounds with the country licks.

Many sampling and looping library owners carry a license to distribute these recordings to musicians without having to pay out royalties to the original artists. One of the most popular forms of sampling is looping, usually a phrase played on one instrument.

According to Wikipedia, possibly the earliest equipment used to sample recorded instrument sounds is the Chamberlin, developed in the 1940s, and the Mellotron, marketed in England in the 1960s. These are two kinds of tape replay keyboards in which each key pressed triggers a prerecorded tape loop of a single note.

Sampler production companies have managed to use these samples and resell to music producers to manipulate sounds and beats to match other parts of their own original composition. By “mixing” or blending, the recreation is an “original,” which is why royalties are not an issue.

There are many sample sound labels out there producing sounds for this market, including MVP Loops, VIP Loops, DangaSonik, YnK Audio, Strategic Audio, JPlanet Entertainment, Boss Loops, R-Loops and Loops-Lab, providing artists with very large and accessible catalogues of sound loops and samples to get ideas for a sound or vibe and quickly lay down back tracks and mix and record with their own production pieces and vocals.

Vocals from pre-recorded songs are also often looped into new recordings. Think of the Fugees version of Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly,” which incorporates the vocals from Roberta’s original version with Lauren Hill’s updated vocals and hip hop beat sounds.

These looping and other sampling options are designed to offer musicians the tools they need to inexpensively build their own recordings. Obtaining loops and other sampling products from providers allows them to inexpensively purchase what are commonly called “construction kits” to create the sound and back beat they need to round out their own original sounds and vocals.

These looped and sampled construction kits range in price and size, and they are based on a large variety of popular music formats, such as Acid Loops, Garageband Apple loops, REX loops, and old school break sound beats, which means an artist is able to narrow their search down to their specific genre, test the various libraries for sound quality and style, and select the kit that best suits their vision of their finished recording, saving time and money.

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Music producers and artists alike must strike a balance between high-quality and real-sound production in order to keep fans happy and serve the marketplace.