This guide contains everything you need to choose the perfect samples and processing techniques to make your hip hop and EDM tracks shine.
Source selection
The most important place to start is why you’re sampling audio in the first place. If it’s because you just need a few vocal clips here and there but not a full vocal line, you want to add live drum fills in between sections or to fill out your percussion, or you need something to be melodic but don’t care if it’s unique … your best bet is likely to find what you’re looking for in royalty-free sound packs. It’s purely about the sound you get, so it’s better not to complicate matters by having to pay out royalties for using found snippets or risking copyright infringement.
On the other hand, sometimes you may want to pay homage to an artist you like or pick a sample because it’s recognizable. In this case, spend some time searching for sample(s) that embody a certain emotion or cultural reference due to the context in the original song — your objective here is to create a certain association in the minds of your listeners, so using more obscure samples works against you in this case. Pick something that fits with the statement or vibe you want to create and run with it! Remember though, on the legal side you need to ensure the attribution and royalty sharing are taken care of in order to stay in the clear.
Selecting and shaping vocals
In contemporary hip hop, it’s common to take vocal samples and pitch them up by an octave or more. This radically changes the timbre of the voice, giving it a squeaky, child-like quality that sets it apart from its original context. From here, you can manipulate it however you like — OTT compression, phasers, chorus, and other delay-based effects work well for this purpose (and it usually doesn’t hurt to slap on some saturation too!). If you don’t like the effect this creates for creative or production reasons, you have plenty of other options available to you; just know that this is one of them!
Since you’re sampling rather than recording a full vocal performance, one of your greatest opportunities is the ability to choose only the words and melodic phrases that benefit your song the most. You can repeat and loop sections as desired, allowing you to emphasize specific parts of the vocal line or play with a particular melodic phrase. If you’re feeling creative, you can even use a tuning plugin to change the melody of the vocals and reshape the sample into something new. This may go against the spirit of sampling if you’re pulling from popular material, though if you’re using sample packs you have nothing to fear!
Quick note: the more timing edits you make as you chop up a vocal sample, the more likely it is that you’ll get large jumps in volume or timbre. If you’re mixing regular vocals, you need to be cautious that you don’t add too much compression and suck the life out of the song; with short samples, it’s far better to overcompress things and add heavy effects to add your own spin. Put simply, it’s not natural and shouldn’t sound like it! If you want to quickly rotate through potential effects, one of the fastest ways is to use any of the tools in UJAM’s Finisher line — in no time, you’ll be able to reshape your vocal samples in ways you never imagined! ………….
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