Please note that the view point here is of the writer and not necessarily that of the club or it's members.

Are samplers musical instruments?

Samplers, are they true electronic musical instruments? Is their use truly creative? Should we be using them? The creation of electronic music has always been controversial, a previous article "What is Electronic Music?" should have created a debate amongst you. This article put some good points, but many people from other classes of music, most noticeably the Classical musicians claim that synthesizers are not real instruments, this argument started in 1967 and still pops up from time to time. So what chance do samplers have of becoming accepted ? The basic concept of a sampling is simple, record a sound on any sort of medium and then be able to play the sample back. Early attempts where made using tape recorders, once the sound was on tape it could be played back over and over, at various speeds even backwards. Not very practical for most musicians as it was very time consuming particularly if a series of samples are required. However with the introduction of the Mellotron, it suddenly became practical to sample other instruments and the keyboard player could become an orchestra or choir. Once again other musicians became hostile as this was not a real instrument and threatened jobs in the music industry. The later point is certainly valid, one good keyboardist and a number of instruments could replace a whole group of session players. The introduction of electronic samplers did not initially trigger the same sort of response, probably because not many were sold due to the sheer cost, but as prices dropped the same arguments where made against sampling. But with samplers becoming ever cheaper these instruments where being bought by small bands and bedroom composers and they could never afford to hire other musicians so are they threatening jobs? probably not. A less desirable aspect of the ever increasing use of samplers was the new practice of sampling from other artists music to achieve that elusive sound. With time, samplers have continued to become cheaper or more powerful, (faster, larger memories, more samples, hard disc drives etc.). This has led to perhaps the worst misuse of samplers, recording complete passages of music from other artists. This to my mind is not only cheating the other artist, but also themselves as they are restricting their own creativity, both in the creation of music but also new sounds. I own 2 samplers and over the years have used samples of pianos in the past, before good sounding piano modules became available, then only because I have no room for a baby grand or an upright. My own synths have been sampled to try and produce layered sounds that the source instruments are not capable of producing. This may not be considered as creative as sampling the sound of dust bins being hit, an aircraft fly past , animal noise etc. and turning them into musically acceptable sounds, but at least I am trying to create new sounds. I have also purchased sample CD's, only because the sounds on them are not available from my present kit. These have been mainly old analogue synths. I shall probably add other samples in the future of sound sources such as choirs. If the complaints against samplers had been heeded, some very creative work may never have been done, and where would that leave synthesizers that use samples as sound sources . The use of samplers will cause debate for years to come, but I hope that the behaviour of a few will not spoil the pleasure of many.
At the beginning I raised 3 questions


If anyone has any strong feelings about samplers, contact BSC


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