the.com/sampler
the patient thief that steals one second of sound and loops it into legend
means A sampler is either a device or software that records short snippets of sound to play back and rearrange, or a small collection offering a taste of many things — from embroidered cloth to assorted chocolates.
from From the Old French 'essample,' itself from Latin 'exemplum,' meaning 'example' or 'a thing to be imitated' — the same root that gives us 'example' and 'exemplary.' The earliest samplers were pieces of embroidery a needleworker stitched to demonstrate and practice patterns, literally a sample of one's skill. From that sense of 'a representative collection,' the word stretched across centuries to cover assorted biscuits and, in the electronic age, the music-maker that captures fragments of sound — each still, at heart, a gathering of examples.
- hip-hop engine
- the Akai MPC built entire genres from chopped breaks
- amen break
- six seconds sampled into millions of songs
- early limits
- vintage units held mere seconds of audio
- courtroom debut
- sampling sparked landmark copyright lawsuits in the 1990s
- needlepoint roots
- the word once meant an embroidered alphabet practice cloth
akai mpc3000 — hip-hop production sampler released in 1997, used by dr. dre, timbaland, and countless others
e-mu sp-1200 — 12-bit sampler from 1987, foundational to boom bap hip-hop production in new york
roland tr-808 — drum machine with sampling capabilities released in 1980, revolutionized electronic music production