Phrase samping originated with DJs in New York such as Grand Master Flash. They played funk records from the seventies in which there were frequently sections in which the pitched instruments and melody gradually dropped out to reveal a purely rhythmic accompinament. This process of "breaking down" the music backing accounts for the term "break". The DJs noticed that their dancing audience particularly enjoyed these breaks so, using two copies of the records and cross-fading and re-cueing two decks, they found they could extend these sections indefinitely.
From here it is a small step to recording the break onto some form of digital storage and using this recording over and over again in a "loop". Sample based musical instruments obviously provided a plaform for this technique, although being conceived with a different function orignally in mind. Once inside a sampler, the functions of pitch shifting (the rate at which the circular memory is addressed), may simply be applied to the loop and this is a very comomon techique; the resulting slowing down or speeding up causing timbral as well as tempo change.
Back to Contents
Address all mail to richard@richardbrice.net
Web link richardbrice.net