Sound Sampling and Design

To help myself improve sound design techniques for my experimental and production skills films, I researched various artists who are known for their sound design and sampling of other tracks and noises to create music. The two main artists I looked at were The Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers and the tracks 'Voodoo People' and 'Hey Boy Hey Girl', both electronic dance music from the 90's.

Both pieces sample sounds from other previous songs, The Chemical Brothers sample from both a 1980's Hip Hop song: Pee-Wee's Dance by Joeski Love, and another 1980's hip hop song: The Roof is on fire by Rock Master Scott and the Dynamic Three. Both segments of samples taken from these two songs are manipulated in post production by the producers to create a whole new listening experience from the original sounds. They do this by either adding effects, changing EQ or levels and in this specific example, repeating the sample over the top of another and changing the pitch slightly. The sheer amount that is done on just one sound to make it perfect is amazing and full length songs can take months to fully complete. I will take this into account when producing my own sounds for both the experimental, and short film pieces, and even though we aren't allowed to use samples in our project, I will incorporate the techniques used here to design the sound specific to the clip or sense of place. I think the use of sampling in this piece is very effective as it underpins the whole of the piece and makes it not only memorable, but also somewhat original because of the use of the sample in a very unique way.

Voodo People by The Prodigy samples over 4 songs including Very Ape by Nirvana, a 1990's punk, grunge metal group and Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin, a 1960's rock/metal band. The fact that the song they produce is a electro dance music piece, the way they sampled these two pieces is truly impressive. They use the same techniques as The Chemical Brothers, repeating small clips, reversing and adding effects, and they still produce a very unique piece of sound when combined. It is also clear that there is a large amount of tracks within this song as a lot of different sounds occur at once. Whereas this could be difficult to digest and enjoy, the way it is done in this is very powerful and gives a very unique sound. I will take this into consideration for both my films soundtracks, especially in the experimental piece, as the use of multiple tracks could prove very effective when trying to give a sense of place.