Sampling question: What can you do with a folk song?

[fantasyvn]

May ask I for your advice on songwriting and sampling?

I've never worked with samples before and am still confused. So your experience is greatly appreciated.

Suppose you like a traditional folk song and would like to use part of it for your song. I suppose you will import the song/recording as a wav file into a sampler like Kontakt.

Then what can happen? Could you pls suggest some ideas?

Thank you

[whiteaxxxe]

there are 2 things to consider, that are completely different:

1. the copyrights of the composition: if the song is free of copyrights, you are good to go.

2. the song, you want to sample from: if the song is copyright-free, the actual recording you want to sample from is not. its the work of some musician. you cant sample that - of course you can - but you need to have the permission of the musician(s) that performed that song.

example: Amazing Grace is public domain. so the song is copyright free. but if I sample the version of Steve Vai, I have to have to his permission because I sample his work.

that all goes for if you want to publish the song. if you do a song for your own entertainment and private fun, you are free to do whatever comes to your mind.

[dub tree]

It depends on the type of production, really. I've gone through phases where I sample my own older recordings, and I generally like to go through the whole song and snip little parts (a chord strum, a 2-bar loop, a funny sound, etc) and have a folder of just these individual wavs.

There's the "ambient-maker" technique of slowing down the playback of a sound and reversing it; this usually works better with samples of whole bars or sections.

Find a couple chords and map them out to different keys on your sampler, and come up with new chord progressions; this can have a very 90's techno sound (think minor 7th chord stabs in those old dance/trance beats). Play with sample start point, attack/release, and looping, throw an effect or two on there, and jam out. This is particularly fun with chords but can be used for any sound source.

Of course, there's always the vocoder; sometimes it's fun to modulate a drum track with some strumming/plucking.