Tips For Sampling Vinyl

In this quick tutorial mad zach shares his techniques for building a unique soundpack out of a simple vinyl sample.

Tips for sampling vinyl.

Following up on monday s popular why new djs should start on vinyl we thought it d be good to look at the importance of sampling records for producers and djs. Sampling is one of the most used techniques music producers use to recycle old songs and bring them new life. Distortion is a powerful effect. If it sounds ok to you it will sound ok on the track and miles ahead of a sample taken off a beaten up piece of vinyl.

When digging for samples it s easy to fall into the trap of working with the same re cycled digital libraries floating around the internet yet there are thousands of records that have been long forgotten and can not be found. The vinyl sampling process is simple in its early stages. Both will help tho. Sampling from old records can be a great way to get inspiration from generations and times past.

Vinyl is also a great source of analog tone to craft mangle and tune. Nowadays with practically all our recording done digitally sampling doesn t seem like quite such a clever trick but it s still a technique that has an astonishing amount of creative potential. Cut out individual drums and sounds from your favourite tracks. Try to normalise all samples so you have less headroom work to do later.

Crate digging is the old school practice of rummaging through the crates of vinyl records at a record store to find unique material to sample. Don t be shy about sampling from an mp3. Price amazon a top rated sampling turntable that will capture samples at a high resolution sample rate. If you really wanted to you could just sample mp3s and music off cds but that wouldn t be as authentic.

Ideally for sample based producers or general users that want to digitize vinyl records as it has some easy to use controls. Getting the music to that stage is the first step and it s more of a technical process. Mostly looking for recording vocals and putting effects on vocals for now and beat making later. You can still crate dig in the digital domain by browsing samples and using selector to find unique combinations.

There is nothing quite like sampling off an old vinyl record. Sooner or later as a producer you ll want to start sampling. With these 11 sampling tips we aim to help you unlock much of that potential within your own projects.