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When Radiohead sampled Paul Lansky (2000)

paul.mycpanel.princeton.edu

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Re: When Radiohead sampled Paul Lansky (2000)

#51

Post by hnlmorg »

jjulius wrote: post #45
hnlmorg wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm talking from experience too. And from experience I found the opposite was true. Most of the time I found a snippet and knew what I was doing with it. Admittedly sometimes it sounded lousier than I'd expected and I thus scraped it but that's not really the same as having a sample and accidentally discovering it sounded good. Usually I'd pick a simple because I thought I could sound good (otherwise I wouldn't have…

>So I think the term "happy accidents" is disingenuous. I think, actually, that both of you are right. Everyone hears music differently, and some people may be better at putting together happy accidents, while others are better at hearing things beforehand. Ya know, just like the two of you. :)

Maybe now, but when Kid A was recorded hardware was a little more limited. So you'd spend a lot more time hunting for what sounded like good samples than you would ingest everything and see what sounded good.

These days it's pretty trivial to do the digital equivalent of "jamming with your band mates" when it comes to sampling but in the 90s you had to develop an ear for it because the process of capturing a sample through to cuing it in your tracker was longer and a lot more painful than what we take for granted now. And you often had to create all of your own samples, there weren't web sites you could download these things from like there are today. Even percussion needed to be sampled if you weren't lucky enough to own a drum machine.

One of the reasons I got into circuit bending in the latter end of my exploration in music was because I craved that instantaneousness with electronic music that I had when jamming with my guitar.

As for Kanye, I don't pretend to be an authority on his music but the few tracks of his I have heard haven't exactly been imaginative when it comes to sampling. He has taken tracks that were already good, taken the main riff from them and looped that. So I'd argue the creativity in his music is the lyrical content rather than his use of samples. Whereas you compare him to Daft Punk, Fatboy Slim or Prodigy and you can see that lyrical content is less important but the sampling is really creative, to the extent that the samples they've used are often unrecognisable from their original source.

edit: There's a YouTube video of Norman Cook (aka Fatboy Slim) talking about sampling using his Atari ST and how he'd hunt records for good sounding samples.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLjgXPDzeZo

Re: When Radiohead sampled Paul Lansky (2000)

#52

Post by smoldesu »

fumblebee wrote: post #5

I’m in no way surprised it was Jonny Greenwood who discovered the record; imo he’s far and away the resident “nerd” of the group (intended in a positive light).

Greenwood is the real unsung hero of Radiohead. He's supposedly responsible for composing a pretty legendary MF DOOM Remix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZByHno9Jpsw

Re: When Radiohead sampled Paul Lansky (2000)

#53

Post by vadansky »

royletron wrote: post #44

I almost giggled when I heard it. I recognised it instantly (but have heard the end song more times then I could possibly count). I still listened to the rest hoping there might be more, and was fascinated by the whole thing. This is a truly wonderful thing to stumble across and further support for my love of HN. Perfectly bisecting all of my geektastic tastes. Good job

Same, I haven't listened to Radiohead in almost a decade and thought I would never spot it, but when it came on I got a huge smile on my face right away.

Re: When Radiohead sampled Paul Lansky (2000)

#55

Post by racl101 »

killtimeatwork wrote: post #20
setgree wrote: post #14

I'm always amazed when artists and producers can recognize a sound as something that can be radically transformed, because I'm pretty musical but my imagination doesn't work like that. Kanye is a genius at this. Here are two other examples I like: * Daft Punk's 'One More Time', represented visually: https://twitter.com/nehhlmao/status/1363925150958317568 * Pusha T's 'Numbers on the Boards' sampling and reimagining a…

Do you think they imagine the end result at the beginning of the process or do they just play semi-randomly until they find something that has potential, and then refine it?

If you have a synth that can sample you can load a sample and then play with filters and other features to see if it will work or not.

Very rarely do artists just know that something will work out, but the more they do it the better their skills get at recognizing samples that will work or can be turned into interpolations that work.

Not everyone gets to be DJ Shadow (king of sampling).

Re: When Radiohead sampled Paul Lansky (2000)

#56

Post by eyelidlessness »

setgree wrote: post #14

I'm always amazed when artists and producers can recognize a sound as something that can be radically transformed, because I'm pretty musical but my imagination doesn't work like that. Kanye is a genius at this. Here are two other examples I like: * Daft Punk's 'One More Time', represented visually: https://twitter.com/nehhlmao/status/1363925150958317568 * Pusha T's 'Numbers on the Boards' sampling and reimagining a…

> I'm always amazed when artists and producers can recognize a sound as something that can be radically transformed, because I'm pretty musical but my imagination doesn't work like that.

I’m usually the same way. I will say though, I once had what felt to me like a stroke of genius when I realized that a sample from the theme from American Beauty fit perfectly in my cover of NIN’s The Day The World Went Away.

I’d share, but I hate my vocals and I don’t have the original source tracks to make an instrumental mix. But if you listen to the Quiet remix you might be able imagine how it fits.

Re: When Radiohead sampled Paul Lansky (2000)

#58

Post by rStar »

rsfern wrote: post #34
rStar wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you injured? as in, did I personally injure you with my aggression?

It’s not about me personally, I’m just saying you could have been more constructive. Edit — thanks for taking the time to reframe your point about the spoiler :)

these new hacker news people are soft. i like them old stonewall hacker news people, who were a lot less thin skinned and just cared about getting to the root of whatever the issue was without worrying if someones feelings were hurt by being asked if they read tfa. the soft in this world are at a disadvantage, that is not recoverable no matter how smart you are or how many good calls you make, or how many good people you surround yourself with. that softness is an invitation to be walked all over, just so you know. i’m typing all this because of that smiley face by the way, so please take my point in the “help you to survive in this world” type of way.

Re: When Radiohead sampled Paul Lansky (2000)

#59

Post by rStar »

rsfern wrote: post #34
rStar wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you injured? as in, did I personally injure you with my aggression?

It’s not about me personally, I’m just saying you could have been more constructive. Edit — thanks for taking the time to reframe your point about the spoiler :)

so i obviously disagree that i could have been more constructive by doing originally what i eventually did.

Re: When Radiohead sampled Paul Lansky (2000)

#60

Post by elpakal »

rStar wrote: post #15
fumblebee wrote: post #5

I’m in no way surprised it was Jonny Greenwood who discovered the record; imo he’s far and away the resident “nerd” of the group (intended in a positive light).

i’d go with the drummer if i had to pick the biggest nerd. amazing artist.

which one? :) there are 2 now...
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