It felt more informative than anything, but still an interesting read. A couple things:
The examples for complex generations use a lot of renders, but could easily be done in 2-3. I think this is important because, as is admitted in spite of the rebuttals, there are artifacts which pile up through multiple re-samples.
Although these artifacts can be framed as a negative thing, I find that they add character to the sound. It depends on what you’re going for, but sometimes it can create very satisfying effects. One such example is a crackle when a sound loops/cuts off. You could mitigate this distortion, but you could also create a cool rhythm out of it, which I have seen done in some real songs.
Finally, the most important thing is to see how these things are used in reality. Hip Hop (the most widely-known to resample) is a good example of many resampling techniques, but more can be found within any genre, including but not limited to:
House (Stereotypically french house)
Ambient
IDM (obviously)
Soul
Pop
If you notice something that sounds reversed, crackling, looping, or something really weird, chances are it involves resampling. So think about how it is being resampled. Try to recreate the sound with it. Although I think this practice was most popular in the 2000s-2010s, there are still many things which can be done, and it remains widely used to this day.
I’d love to see more examples of resampling in action! I think this could be a good place to dissect the way some sounds are resampled.
If you can still hear the clicks or notice the quality, you’re not doing it hard enough
I think a lot of people are afraid of ruining something, but there’s really no limit to how many times you can rinse and reuse a sample, take it to the depths of just noise and revive it into something meaningful again. Even noise becomes useful if you add some silence to it again, and whatever phase shifts and strange artifacts emerge can really become part of the performance. Or it can just be tossed into the noise oscillator to add flavor to your next set of designs.
It’s different when you want to retain the quality and keep the source mostly intact (although I’d argue that that’s just regular sampling), but that’s where fades (including creative crossfading) and, if it’s botched, declicking can help. Never underestimate the power of chopping with zero-crossings and just timestretching it back to normal. We have the technology!
Even noise becomes useful if you add some silence to it again, and whatever phase shifts and strange artifacts emerge can really become part of the performance. Or it can just be tossed into the noise oscillator to add flavor to your next set of designs.
Yes, but at a certain point, it just feels like a convoluted form of synthesis rather than a transformation of the source audio. In my opinion, it is very important to have a good base before you resample, because if you don’t, you’ll have a much harder time getting a good sound out of it. It is a lesson I learned a bit ago, that sometimes it’s better to go back to the composition and tweak it rather than continue jabbing at a dead sound.
It’s different when you want to retain the quality and keep the source mostly intact (although I’d argue that that’s just regular sampling), but that’s where fades (including creative crossfading) and, if it’s botched, declicking can help.
I don’t really consider them separate things. But yea, there are ways to sustain quality for longer periods of time. There are ways to combat the artifacts. But that work can be avoided if you minimize the generations.
