Sampling: The Technology & Sounds (part 1)

Beat machines to samplers and the early sample collages

I miss it — the sound of a scratchy record, an unfamiliar baseline — trying to discern the origin of the music because it was highly unlikely that the music was original.

Sampling is a skill that requires mastering the mechanics of a drum machine or sampler, the acquisition, and study of, rare beats, and an ear for what sounds work well together. We already laid out how the imitators who became rich off of their mimicry shunned sampling as talentless thievery. The racial component was handled.

So this is a companion piece to “Negros Need Not Sample” and is an exploration into the developments that led to the rise and subsequent fall of sample-heavy, Boom Bap rap. It’s not the most comprehensive piece as I won’t cover the many other regions that were developing at the same time. Nor will I be going into the evolution of samplers and drum machines. Doing so, would require a book unto itself. This is really just about one person’s (mine)relationship to samples.

Sound on Sound did a six part series titled “The Lost Art of Sampling” and if you can read it and understand it, chances are, you’re a producer and you already know all this info. But for the rest of us, we’re going to learn together; me in researching to write, and you in reading. This will be a producer-centric piece so, no offense to fans of rappers or singers or whoever — we’re writing about the people who made the music.

As years go by, less people have an affinity for that sound. They are either used to interpolated funk tracks or FL Studio created beats. In retrospect, sample-based Hip-Hop was a regional phenomenon and a short-lived one at that. But it was a sound that inspired producers and casual listeners (like myself) to learn the music, musicians, and eras of the source material — it turned us into musical historians.

For this writing we will look at some of the technology and machines that pushed the music forward. It would be impossible to talk about rap music without looking at the technology. And we will be looking at the sounds that were produced from said technology, chronicle how that sound advanced, sample layering became more complex…and eventually vanished.

First…

The Technology

I always say, history is important to me. I want to get names and dates, places and context correct. What makes history a living science is being able to see where my life fits into the timeline of events. I can only tell it how I saw it. Of course, my life experiences will be buttressed with my research but you won’t read me talking about the impact “Trans-Europe Express” had on me…it didn’t. In 1977, My parents were rocking Marvin Gaye’s “Got To Give it Up,” Brothers Johnson’s “Strawberry Letter 23,” Heatwave’s “Boogie Nights” (I can still remember my Aunt Carrie’s dance routine to that one), and other R&B hits. I didn’t know a drum machine from a Fisher Price Adventure Person.

We have to fast-forward to 1982 to begin our story. Yes, you know the song I’m speaking of before I even write it — the Arthur Baker — John Robie produced “Planet Rock.” Again, there are great pieces written about the making of this song — so I won’t recount it. But what I will discuss is how revolutionary the sound and process was.

Perhaps most importantly, moving to drum machine and electronic based production immediately spelled the end of band-dependent music. To produce “Planet Rock” a few years earlier would have required at least two to three more musicians — who would have had to have been paid and who would have all had to be in the studio at the same time. For all intents and purpose, John Robie was a one man band.

According to Arthur Baker, no one knew what they were doing when it came time to actually program the Roland TR-808. Nor did anyone have one. As the story goes, it was rented via an ad in the Village Voice and Robie was technically proficient. To watch what it took to program a beat into one of those machines is complicated unto itself.

There are sixteen red, orange, yellow, and white buttons. The red, orange, and yellow ones are numbered 1 to 12. on the bottom of the machine with a label to the left that reads ‘Basic Rhythm.’ The four white buttons are 1–4 on the bottom with a label to the left that reads, “Intro/Fill In.” At the top of the machine there are 12 orange, ‘Level,’ knobs with 5 white knobs underneath them…. If you were confused by that description, imagine someone handing you the machine and asking you to make a beat with it.

Arthur Baker, John Robie, and Afrika Bambaataa bunkered themselves into the Intergalactic Studio (yes, that was really the name), and emerged eight hours later with “Planet Rock” and what they called the “leftovers,” “Play it at Your Own Risk.” Both songs were released in the Spring of 1982 and the rest, as they say, was history.

And not just rap history. The more I become a student of music, the more my ears open up to sounds. The other day while strolling through a produce market, “Sexual Healing” lightly played in the background. I’ve heard the song thousands of times. Everyone has. Like I said, it was background music. But this was the first time that I LISTENED to the music.

The question that I asked myself was, “who programmed those drums and what kind of machine was it?” So I looked it up. Finding out the drum machine, the 808, was easy but when I read that the song was produced by Marvin Gaye…I had to investigate. Not that I doubted that Mr. Gaye was a musical genius, I just had a hard time picturing the then 43 year old Gaye fiddling with that machine. But low and behold, I found this Atlantic Magazine interview with guitarist and producer Gordon Banks where he states:

“Columbia Records gave him some new toys to play with. They gave him two drum machines, a synthesizer called a Roland TR-808 and a Jupiter 8. Marvin didn’t know too much about technology so it was my job to figure out how to get the stuff working. He kind of liked the sounds that came from it and he went from there. Marvin was a great pianist. After getting past the challenges with the Jupiter 8, it was like he had been playing it his whole life.”

Banks goes on to say:

“The toys we had to work with were amazing. To see this genius working on these new state-of-the-art instruments at that time was amazing. His ego wouldn’t let him do anything wrong. He really knew what he was doing.”

This may seem like a huge aside, but I think it’s important to illustrate how the aural landscape had changed. The drum machine became an active instrument in most Black music. The habit of historians is to separate things which contextually belong together. A study of Hip-Hop jams from the early 80s will show that modern R&B and Dance songs were just as much a part of the party as old classic breaks.

There was no separation.

Who doesn’t hear Hip-Hop when they listen to the Linn 1 driven, Prince produced, “777–9311?” Or Mtume’s “Juicy Fruit?” Also created with the Linn. So this aside was necessary to show the shift in the entire landscape of music. Dance music had Michael de Benedictus dropping, “Don’t Make Me Wait” — yes, with the Linn (and that hand clap). So we can talk rap and that would be a straightforward story that could be told in five minutes. But Hip-Hop is inclusive and inclusiveness will lead into other forms of Black Music. So that aside, we’ll continue on.

I heard Flash playing a record and playing a Dirty Harry tape over the top of it — you know, ‘do ya feel lucky punk?’ — and I just thought the combination of a beat and music and spoken word over the top of it was pretty magical to me. I found some Malcolm X speech records from the record company — they’d put them out a long time ago — and I started listening to them and experimenting with them over a drum beat. I played it to Marshal and he said ‘this is a great idea.’ Keith LeBlanc

What Keith LeBlanc is credited for, producing the first sample based song, “Malcolm X — No Sellout,” was not a new idea; that was, in essence, what Hip-Hop was — a smorgasbord of genres and styles. What was new was the technology and the idea to put a common Hip-Hop expression on wax. Funny thing is, LeBlanc didn’t do it alone.

Apparently, and this would make sense, all-around musician extraordinaire, Reggie Griffin, also a member of Sugar Hill’s recording stable, helped out on making “Malcolm X.” It makes sense because Griffin, as early as ’82, knew his way around the Oberheim DMX and LeBlanc had to learn from someone.

Thing is, “Buffalo Gals,” attributed to Malcolm McClaren, was produced by Trevor Horn and came out in ’82. (Two years before “No Sell Out.”) Using a Fairlight CMI, Horn sampled various sounds, which took an extreme amount of time due to the limitations of the technology and topped it off with what the song became famous for — scratching. He assembled the beat itself with the Oberheim DMX and DSX.

Of course Horn would go on to form Art of Noise and arrange beat-heavy tracks “Beat Box” (’83) and “Close (to the edit)” (’84) both based off a throwaway Alan White drum riff. These songs were a part of the Larry Smith led, stripped down DMX/808 sounds of ‘83–85.

We discussed this music briefly in “The Devil Killed New York Rap” so we won’t go into detail about that here. But there is a song that came out in this era — 1984 — that is worth noting. I’m not sure of the songs popularity aside from my own particular affinity for it, and like most things from bygone eras, it is rarely — if ever mentioned now. That song is “Megamix II (Why is it Fresh)” by Grand Mixer DST.

Similar to Grandmaster Flash’s “Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheel’s of Steels” DST’s song is a mix of other popular songs — but that’s where the similarities end. The backbone of “Megamix II” is the beat produced by either the DMX or the 808. It’s hard to determine exactly how this song was created. It’s possible that it was recorded in the same vein as Flash’s scratching opus but it “feels” different — it “feels” like this was a sample record.

Although there are ten listed “samples,” the song is made up of way more than that. Take the opening of the song, “So Why is it — Fresh?” — it repeats seven times before the beat kicks in (which was our cue to get the cassette set up to record). The “So Why is it” portion seems to be from another song as does the “Fresh.” I’m no turntabalist, but it seems like an impossible feat to cut that title, bring in the beat machine and conduct all the other layers of sound that we’ll hear later. I bet the engineer, Bob Musso, has the answers.

Over the next few years (84–90), the DJ collage track became common place (DJ Jazzy Jeff — ”Touch of Jazz,” 3x Dope — ”Who is This,” Jungle Brothers — ”Sounds of the Safari & Good Newz Comin’, “ & X-Clan — ”Shaft’s Big Score” — to name a few). Again, not sure of how much of these tracks were assembled with two turntables in the studio and how much was sampled. Whatever the case may be, these songs, beginning with, “Megamix II,” would be the prototype for several sample-heavy, almost entirely instrumental, mostly white produced albums…but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

I’m sure my brother, Ade, would have bought this 12" based on the Gemini and Gnome cover alone. Being separated from any sort of progressive rap radio, He and I began scouring the list of new releases and chart toppers at Buckingham Plaza’s Sound Warehouse. Familiar names, top songs, popular labels, all were reasons to order a 12". “Needle to the Groove” was one of those.

We dug it. It was cool, but didn’t stand out as innovative. But it made the name Mantronix familiar.

When Just-Ice came out a year later with Back to the Old School (’86) produced entirely by Mantronix, it was a no brainer. The entire album from “Cold Gettin’ Dumb” to the last track “Turbo Charged” was entirely different. But as far as being knocked on my ass, the first track, “Cold Gettin’ Dumb,” would have been enough.

We’re talking almost 30 years later and I’m still asking, “how the hell did Mantronix make this beat?” Interviews yield nothing. My resident beat consultant, Bashir Allah, says “the intro is a one bar sample being looped,” and further surmises, “then it changes to a chopped sample and sampled drums, programmed to create the beat.” Earlier I had asked, Ringo “Tumbling Dice” Smith what machine was used, thinking it was the 808. He guessed that it could have been the DMX.

The “Back to the Old School” cover (also illustrated by Gemini & Gnome) has one of the women characters in a Mantronix hat carrying a Roland 909.

If we listen to T La Rock’s ‘Bass Machine (‘86),’ he says, “kickin’ it live on the bass machine, better known as the Roland 808” — now, not knowing which came out first, it lends one to believe that the 808 could have been Mantronix’s machine of choice.

Who knows.

That introduced triplet hi-hats, triplet snares, pitching down — all of that stuff. It complemented what I was doing. I didn’t know that 20-something years down the line they would call it “trap” music. I remember people asking me, “What do you think of people copying some of the stuff you used to do?” and I didn’t understand what they meant. It wasn’t until about a year ago I listened to “Bass Machine” and understood that it sounds like trap.

Mantronix remembered that song as the song, “That introduced triplet hi-hats, triplet snares, pitching down — all of that stuff. It complemented what I was doing. I didn’t know that 20-something years down the line they would call it ‘trap’ music. I remember people asking me, ‘What do you think of people copying some of the stuff you used to do?’ and I didn’t understand what they meant. It wasn’t until about a year ago I listened to “Bass Machine” and understood that it sounds like trap.” He also remembers using the SP-12 on that record….

Mantronix to me was the first. He had this song called ‘King of Beats’ and that song, I was like, ‘How did he do this?’ because it’s like what computers do now, he kind of was starting the element back then. I didn’t know how he did. I thought it was unique how he’d take Peter Piper beat and slow it down and do certain things and trick it out a little bit. I’m like, ‘This dude is ill’ Timbaland

No matter the machine, what Mantronix was doing on the drum machine, was unprecedented and I would argue a large step forward. He played the DMX, 808, 909, or SP-12 like an actual drum.