Sampling and the Rise of the Walking Copyrightster
What is Sampling? Sampling is the technique of taking sections of audio tracks and using them for things like songs, sometimes remixed/edited into new unique sounds, this is something mostly unique to digital music, as the advent of digital technology allowed for high quality recordings and edits of sounds for both usage in the moment and later usage at a small or nil cost.
However, this is an extremely controversial practice, both within music production communities and courts of law. Famed by some people as stealing, particularly as something without any creativity and artistry to it, constituted by law as copyright infringement typically. Sometimes it is indeed ruled as copyright infringement in court cases, but sometimes instead viewed as so far unnoticeable that it is deemed as acceptable, or too minor to be taken seriously in a legal sense.
Sampling as of recent times, even further heightened by the internet’s prime, has become incredibly common, many websites, communities, and companies dedicated to just this practice. One of the most famous samples of all time, which you’ve more likely than not heard without even realizing it, is the Amen Break. The Amen Break is a widely used sample throughout many songs, for it being a simple and generally nice drum loop, taken from the B-Side track called “Amen, Brother” of another song known as “Colour Him Father”. The use of this sample has been highly controversial ever since people started using it, as it was technically copyright infringement and done without the permission of anyone involved in its production. Nevertheless though, it still was and still is widely used by many people 54 years later.
Now here are some cool websites that have free samples:
samples.kb6.de (Drum Samples)
orchestral_samples (Orchestra/Classical Instruments Samples)
breakcore is not a good way to get laid (Drums and Drum Loops Samples)
SNES Soundfonts (SNES Games Soundfonts/Samples)
Halley Labs/Heckscaper Samples (All Kinds Of Samples!)