michhill8 wrote:I'm just so worried about sampling to make a great beat, but being caught and having to pay a fine. I plan on selling my beats... So today I actually went back and rerecorded a line that I sampled from Parliament with my own guitar. Even though I detuned it and slowed the beat down. Better to be safe than sorry I say. Do you guys get by like this? Or do you use samples?
You have to be clever about it and don't be too obvious, which in the end should just make the beat better and less gimmicky.
I'm going to use three different examples, both modern since that's the only thing that matters (you used to be able to get away with most stuff).
Kanye West has a few tracks that aren't paid for and he gets away with it for two reasons:
1) The publisher of said original track is either defunct or doesn't have any history at all in tracking down on sampling.
2) He doesn't use the obivous stuff. Now i'm not a fan of him by any means, but atleast he usually takes something from an outro/break or something and mix it up with a few cuts from other tracks. He also mostly doesn't use the hits from old records, which is the way he stays out of the publishers crosshair.
Justice (the french electro duo) has admitted that there's over 400 uncleared samples on their latest record. Now, this is something you can really hear when listening to it. They use short (not short enough to be considered microsampling though) samples from vinyl that are usually just a note and reapeat/timestretch it in time with the beat to add a certain vibe and feeling in a way that has been extremly successful for them. Now, even if all publishers in the world go and listen to that record they are very unlikely to be able to find something they are able to successfully sue over.
And now for the complete opposite,
The Avalanches. This australian duo made a record in early 2000's with something like 118 cleared samples and it's even in the guinnes book of world records for being the record with most cleared samples ever. They were also the first people to ever get a madonna sample cleared, a bassline from the 80's.
So, how do you go safe?
*Cut shorter samples
*Use serveral tracks when making a sequence
*Don't pick anything obivous.
And as i said earlier, these also act as an insurance that we're going to get to see some actually interesting from you and not just some carbon copy of what's hot right now.
But about "separating instruments"... Sure, you can use a low or high-pass filter to shape your cuts a bit but the thing about sampling those old tracks is that you're stuck with the stereo file and therefore have to be creative to get something good going.
You were talking about a Parliament guitar-line and if it was a full line you're not really using sampling as you should. Sampling should be done to capture a certain vibe and feel, not as an excuse to not write your own hooks.
Edit:
I have to add a fourth example.
Now, there's this dude called
Girl Talk. He uses obvious musical pieces and unmodified acapellas to make his songs. One song can include 6 different rappers, britney spears, 80's indie rock bands, 90's big beat techno, the final countdown and a bunch of known hooks. He hasn't cleared a sample in his life and is yet to face any sort of legal pressure. Now how does this work? Well, while he makes records out of all these songs he is still pretty much a DJ since he's not fucking around with anything and just basically join stuff together to cater to different audiences at the same time. Everyone has just let him off the hook since they acknowledge the fact that he's really no different from a DJ and that in the end the spotlight and promotional gain is placed on the original artists.[/u]