Erm... you've told me twice about the amen break.. I saw Aphrodite, dieselboy, and a bunch of other jungle artists live, sometimes in small hole in the wall places before they got big.. hung around the goa/psytrance scene a bunch too, and was idealistic about temporary autonomous zones and stuff for a while.
Not unfamiliar with how the sausage was made. Long time ago though.
Not a musician myself.. I dabbled a bit in Max/MSP, Acid (the program), Fruity Loops, and used to go wild with Rebirth or whatever it was called, but it was all just messing around.
Did have had plenty of conversations with musicians who called themselves composers, esp. as they would make their living composing tunes for video games and film etc. Sure "producers" is the more common term, but it's a bit reductive for you to say "nobody". How about Squarepusher, Simon Posford, and folks like that? Guarantee you they have been called all kinds of things, hehe.
Anyway, when it comes to actually creating original tunes, my experience and recollection tells me it's by far mostly about synthetic instruments and laying out tracks, e.g. actual original compositions. Significantly large samples of copyrighted material play a very small part, in the big picture. Of course there's some notable exceptions, but it's a drop in the ocean compared to original material.
Not talking about DJing. By definition that is literally just sampling/remixing. And of course you have famous DJ's who put out mixes and nobody knows how hard the original music synthesis freak worked to get that fat bass line sounding just right. (Not dismissing the skill of a DJ, I liken it more to a conductor than a composer or the orchestra. Hard and important skill, just different)
Re: fair use, I believe you're wrong. It isn't a hard law but in general the length of the sample is one of the major factors taken into account to determine whether a judge will lean one way or another.
> Erm... you've told me twice about the amen break
Because you believed I wasn't talking about copyrighted samples and yet that break is copyrighted. Hence why I reminded you of that break.
> Did have had plenty of conversations with musicians who called themselves composers, esp. as they would make their living composing tunes for video games and film etc. Sure "producers" is the more common term, but it's a bit reductive for you to say "nobody".
That's because they're a different scene entirely from what we were originally discussing. I didn't say "nobody in music calls themselves composers". I believe the term "producer" originates from "record producer", which film and game composers are not.
> How about Squarepusher, Simon Posford, and folks like that? Guarantee you they have been called all kinds of things, hehe.
From wikipedia:
Squarepusher: Musician record producer DJ
Hallucinogen: DJ, record producer, sound engineer
Yeah I'm sure they have been called other things too but that doesn't mean it is the common vocabulary nor even what they identify themselves as.
As an aside, Squarepusher is one of my all time favourite artists. Seen both live but I have a special love for IDM
> Anyway, when it comes to actually creating original tunes, my experience and recollection tells me it's by far mostly about synthetic instruments and laying out tracks, e.g. actual original compositions.
You keep saying that and I keep saying that it depends on the genre and artist. However that doesn't mean that sampling wasn't a massive part of the scene. I've cited examples to that end too.
> Significantly large samples of copyrighted material play a very small part, in the big picture.
Shall we just overlook the examples I've cited then....
> Of course there's some notable exceptions, but it's a drop in the ocean compared to original material.
That really wasn't the case when I was active in the scene as a DJ and producer. However lets avoid the anecdotes:
"Sampling has influenced all genres of music.[5] It is a particularly important part of pop, hip hop, and electronic music,[14] equivalent to the importance of the guitar in rock.[5] It is a fundamental element of remix culture."
If one compares the sampler to dance music as the guitar of rock, then it's hard to argue that sampling isn't a significant influence on dance music.
"A popular element of Goa trance is the use of vocal samples, often from science fiction movies."
However I'm not disputing that synths are also used heavily too.
> Not talking about DJing. By definition that is literally just sampling/remixing.
DJing is not remixing. Some techno DJs will argue otherwise but as one of those multi-turntable techno jocks I found the arguments about DJing being "live remixing" to be overstated. That doesn't mean it isn't still a creative process though.
> And of course you have famous DJ's who put out mixes and nobody knows how hard the original music synthesis freak worked to get that fat bass line sounding just right.
I really don't understand your point here. DJs can't "fatten" up a bassline of an existing track live. They can layer other basslines over an existing track (a trick I'd do regularly) but that's very different to remixing and sampling.
"To legally use a sample, an artist must acquire legal permission from the copyright holder, a potentially lengthy and complex process known as clearance"
Responding to all your points would require repeating things I have already said above, and I feel like you are deliberately trying to pick an argument at this point, which is clouding your judgement.
I guess that's not a super nice thing, so I'll share my reasoning, but I'm not really interested in taking this further unless you have something new to add:
1. your quote on fair use literally stops a few lines before citing the opposite of your point. any basic search on fair use will tell you that the length of the sample is one of the fundamental factors.
2. it's trivially easy to find music industry sites that call Posford and others "composer", such as discogs
3. Your distinction of exactly which types of music we are talking about appeared out of nowhere and doesn't seem to have any rules, feels like changing the goalposts to me.
4. I literally said that the original music synthesis person makes the bass line fatter. This is the work that goes into producing electronic music. It's original and not an issue of sampling.
5. You're ignoring the most fundamental fact: if we take the sum total of modern music, the amount of it which is composed of definitely copyrightable samples is extremely small relative to the amount of synthesis and traditional composition. I don't want to guess an exact number, but I would be shocked if it came anywhere even close to as high as 1%. You seem to think it's somewhere like 50% or more. My takeaway is you are only accounting for very specific sub-genres (e.g. if you think Goa trance is mostly composed of vocal samples, waaaayyy off, but vocal trance, certain kinds of hip hop.. yeah, of course).
Whatever, man, to be honest I am just not enjoying this convo anymore. Forgive me but I'm gonna bow out.
I think the issue here is you're conflating a whole bunch of other genres as "electronic dance music" but which are not. Film and computer game music, early goa, etc. None of that is part of the underground clubbing scene. So yeah, the points you're making are correct but you're arguing a different point to the one I was.
Take Posford for example. Discords says he is a composer and record producer. This suggests that Simon has released other creative works outside of dance music; and given Goa's roots I'd say that was more likely than your argument that they're both listed as synonyms. The fact that Discogs also describes him as a sound engineer further illustrates that it's a list of his achievements rather than a thesaurus of related terms.
> 5. You're ignoring the most fundamental fact: if we take the sum total of modern music, the amount of it which is composed of definitely copyrightable samples is extremely small relative to the amount of synthesis and traditional composition.
I agree but I also never once said "the sum total of modern music". I was talking specifically about the evolution of electronic dance music. I said:
"Electronic music wouldn't exist if it wasn't for ignoring copyright laws. The entire scene is built off the back of sampling and mix tapes."
Quite why you decided to bring film scores into the equation and then blame me for moving the goal posts I don't know.
Lastly I'm not denying fair use exists. I'm saying selling records doesn't fall under fair use. There are a thousand other ways to use samples outside of that and some of those will constitute as fair use.
Not unfamiliar with how the sausage was made. Long time ago though.
Not a musician myself.. I dabbled a bit in Max/MSP, Acid (the program), Fruity Loops, and used to go wild with Rebirth or whatever it was called, but it was all just messing around.
Did have had plenty of conversations with musicians who called themselves composers, esp. as they would make their living composing tunes for video games and film etc. Sure "producers" is the more common term, but it's a bit reductive for you to say "nobody". How about Squarepusher, Simon Posford, and folks like that? Guarantee you they have been called all kinds of things, hehe.
Anyway, when it comes to actually creating original tunes, my experience and recollection tells me it's by far mostly about synthetic instruments and laying out tracks, e.g. actual original compositions. Significantly large samples of copyrighted material play a very small part, in the big picture. Of course there's some notable exceptions, but it's a drop in the ocean compared to original material.
Not talking about DJing. By definition that is literally just sampling/remixing. And of course you have famous DJ's who put out mixes and nobody knows how hard the original music synthesis freak worked to get that fat bass line sounding just right. (Not dismissing the skill of a DJ, I liken it more to a conductor than a composer or the orchestra. Hard and important skill, just different)
Re: fair use, I believe you're wrong. It isn't a hard law but in general the length of the sample is one of the major factors taken into account to determine whether a judge will lean one way or another.
P.L.U.R.