Ableton Forum

what's this only 12 notes thing? a little eurocentric, yes?

as for the sample hijack, there are a lot of people who are real "musicians" by your definition, but nonetheless sample (beck, prince, whatever). if it's good enough for them, no one else should feel shame.

and how far does this go? shouldn't you be pushing for everything to play everything live without a click so that it's real or whatever you're prioritizing. while i make my own loops, i may play only 2 seconds of guitar or rhodes. am i cheating by looping it instead of playing the whole song? am i cheating if i quantize midi? am i cheating if i create my loops by using some of the machines in reaktor that pretty much do the work for me while i make some tweaks?

lines are too hard to draw, people should do what they enjoy, what sounds good, what works for them. and i'm with whoever ref'd shadow -- if that's not art (or old PE or whatever), even if all sampled, i don't know what is.

It's crazy that even today people get all uptight about sampling records .. in my opinion, the majority of the best music of the last 15 years has had samples in it..

This issue is totally subjective, but here's my take on it: it's one thing to sample a classic break from a funk LP and put it into a new context. I totally respect that. It's another thing entirely to sample a kick drum (not to mention a whole bar of percussion) from a techno record and use it to make another techno record. That does nothing to improve the diversity of music out there; you're just copying and pasting someone else's style into your own track. It's kind of like those little towns in Kentucky where everybody's a little bit too related...

On the original topic: someone mentioned using the saturator instead of compression on kicks. That actually can act like a compressor if you drive it hard enough, since loud transients are going to get smooshed down a bit, but I like the sound better than simply compressing a kick. Sometimes I run drum sounds through my space echo (with the actual echo turned off) to get the same feel. In general, I'd advise not doing any compression (especially on the master outs) if you can avoid it; let the mastering guys deal with it.