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Matt Shacklady

Mr Gooch

22/11/2014

Discuss the development of


samplers and how they shaped
the direction of popular music in
the 1980s
Samplers are electronic instruments such as a synth but plays pre recorded
noises or music (samples) rather than the classic notes you would get on a
synth. Prior to computer memory-based samplers, musicians used tape replay
keyboards, which stored recordings on analogue tape. When a key is pressed the
tape head contacts the tape and plays a sound. The Mellotron was the most
notable model, used by a number of groups in the late 1960s and the 1970s, but
such systems were expensive and heavy due to the multiple tape mechanisms
involved, and the range of the instrument was limited to three octaves at the
most. To change sounds a new set of tapes had to be installed in the instrument.
The emergence of the digital sampler made sampling far more practical.
The first digital sampler was the EMS Musys system which was developed by
three men in a London studio in 1969. The system ran on two mini-computers
which had 12,000 bytes of read-only memory, backed up by a hard drive of 32k
and by tape storage. The first commercially available sampling synthesizer was
the Computer Music Melodian by Harry Mendell (1976), while the first polyphonic
digital sampling synthesiser was the Australian-produced Fairlight CMI, first
available in 1979. The Fairlight was one of the most prominent synths of the
early and mid 80s and set the way for how ordinary synths would later
develop. This sampler was the basis for many technological advances in the pop
music industry with such concepts as; sampling, graphic sequencers, softwarebased synthesis and the concept of the 'workstation'. However, the main
problem with this sampler was the price tag as it was hand crafted using cutting
edge technology for its time.
In 1987 the E-MU SP-1200 percussion sampler progressed hip hop away from the
classic drum machine sound. It made it easier to access samplers as it had a far
cheaper price than the Fairlight CMI sampler. This allowed studios to start
experimenting with samples and the first genre to really embrace this was the
pop genre with the likes of the Sugarhill Gang being cut up and mashed into
new songs. This gave birth to a genre which without these samplers would never
have been created; Hard core rave. It combined the sped up hip-hop beats with
sampled techno stabs and high vocals to create a new style of hi-tech music.
Affordable, all-in-one sequencers and samplers like Roland's W-30 workstation
keyboard would allow musicians like The Prodigy's Liam Howlett to practice an
early form of 'in-the-box' production, putting together beats, bass lines and leads
within a single piece of hardware. Howlett and contemporaries like Joey Beltram
would pioneer re-sampling by recording sounds from synths and using their

Matt Shacklady

Mr Gooch

22/11/2014

samplers' editing and modulation features to twist them into exciting new
sounds, resulting in revolutionary tunes such as The Prodigy's Charly and Second
Phase's Mentasm.
The company Akai pioneered many processing techniques such as crossfade
looping and time stretch to shorten or lengthen samples without affecting pitch
and vice-versa. Akai designed and produced the Akai S-1000 which was brought
out in 1988. This sampler brought with it stereo sampling at and at full CD
quality 16-bit depth and 44.1 KHz sampling rate. You could access up to 32MB of
sample RAM and perform all manner of sample editing acrobatics, including autolooping, and even, after a bit, time-stretching. The S-1000 was such a pioneering
sampler that it created the file format for all other samplers to follow. Even today
many producers would think twice about creating a sampler which isnt
compatible with this file format.
During the 1980s, hybrid synths began to utilise short samples along with digital
synthesis to create more realistic imitations of instruments. An example would be
the Korg M1 which was a mixture between a synth and a sampler and was
released in 1988 and included a sound set which allowed artists to play with new
exotic instruments which had never really been heard before in mainstream
music.
In the late 1960s the use of tape loop sampling influenced the development of
minimalist music, the production of psychedelic rock and also jazz fusion in the
late 1970s. DJs began experimenting with manipulating vinyl on turntables which
gave birth to hip hop music. Since the birth of EDM in the 1980s, sampling has
become more and more common and started with some of the hardware
mentioned above but has quickly become more common with computer software
such as drum sampler Ultrabeat on Logic Pro 10.
Samplers have allowed artists more freedom with the songs they create with
being able to take snips of sounds and lyrics from other songs and merge them
together with original tracks to create new styles such as EDM and Hardcore
Rave.

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