Did Producer Timbaland Steal From the Demoscene?

[CannonFodder]

Piru wrote:
Timbaland comments the controversy (Warning: This probably will raise your blood pressure)

update: text transcript (for the Youtube impaired)

So, other than showing himself up to be a complete twat, he did actually admit he sampled it.

Therefore, I imagine his lawyers will be offering the original composer some poxy amount in sampling fees.

[CannonFodder]

jkirk wrote:
hmmmm i have never heard of any of the songs he performed or produced(and i listen to that style of music)it is amazing so many people think his stuff is great but relatively unheard on the radio(at least in my neck of the woods).

i really don't think of him as a big deal as others apparently do in the music biz.

Over here he has the public persona of some bloke who produces crappy popstars when they want to look ¨cool¨.

Hardly in Dre´s calibre!

[CannonFodder]

JJ wrote:
You probably have heard his stuff, a lot of missy eliiots stuff has been produced by timeberland.

and no he is no where near Dr dre's standard.

How people can generalise about Hip hop or gangsta rap is above me.

Although a man of contridiction( spelling) ,if you listen to a lot of Tupacs tracks, there is a message and something to be understood about life in general and its associated struggles.  The same can be said about DMX also.

There are rappers who only talk about Drugs and killing etc without any real message or hope for the future, Fiddy cent, the game, snoop etc.....

For me HipHop died when they stopped using breaks.

Which is just about when DnB/Jungle nicely took over. :-)

[CannonFodder]

CannonFodder wrote:

JJ wrote:
You probably have heard his stuff, a lot of missy eliiots stuff has been produced by timeberland.

and no he is no where near Dr dre's standard.

How people can generalise about Hip hop or gangsta rap is above me.

Although a man of contridiction( spelling) ,if you listen to a lot of Tupacs tracks, there is a message and something to be understood about life in general and its associated struggles.  The same can be said about DMX also.

There are rappers who only talk about Drugs and killing etc without any real message or hope for the future, Fiddy cent, the game, snoop etc.....

For me HipHop died when they stopped using breaks.

Which is just about when DnB/Jungle nicely took over. :-)

Edit:

I´ll give Timbaland his dues, he did (IIRC) produce that Try Again track by Aaliyah.

Such a gorgeous filthy bassline. :-D

[CannonFodder]

this is true but i don't listen for a message. i listen for the bass track and rhythm. if it has a great message i like it more but i don't restrict my music to the message contained in the song. tho i prefer 80's and early 90's rap.

A man of fine tastes! :-D

Did Drum & Bass/Jungle ever makes it´s way over to Georgia?

This is getting OT, but I shall PM you with some recommendations. :-)

[CannonFodder]

LoadWB wrote:

I am sorry, but the fan-kids will have to take a dive.  First off, it was not "sampled," it was played in its entirety in a song which he claimed was his original creation.

I´ll have to disagree on this point.

A sample is a sample, there is no defined ¨industry standard sample lemgth¨. ISO-5AM9L3 perhaps? ;-)

[CannonFodder]

The record Loose has 12 tracks,. "Do it" is one of them, that'd mean 1/24th of the profits. Loose has sold 3 million copies (early december 2006, so it's more by now).

Well, I can see Nelly Furtado personally suing the arse off Timbaland too for loss of earnings. :lol:

[CannonFodder]

rkauer wrote:

cv643d wrote:
I dont think this guy is so involved. It is probably some of his employee who came up with some cool sounds, he is maybe involved in the demo scene himself, then he gives a new "beat" to timberland and he aproves it and stamps his name on the tune.
ZIP
  :lol:

If was that T guy or an employee, that no matters: STEAL IS ROBBERY (and vice-versa :-D).

 If T gay put his name on a thing, it belongs to him.

 If he put his name on a stealed thing HE IS A THIEF! :pissed:

Sampling is not theft, it´s an art form.

Sampling without giving due credit is naughty.

What are your views on Danger Mouse´s Grey Album?  Or anything by the Beastie Boys who hardly ever used to get their samples cleared.

[CannonFodder]

jkirk wrote:

CannonFodder wrote:

The record Loose has 12 tracks,. "Do it" is one of them, that'd mean 1/24th of the profits. Loose has sold 3 million copies (early december 2006, so it's more by now).

Well, I can see Nelly Furtado personally suing the arse off Timbaland too for loss of earnings. :lol:

i'd bet nelly furtado didn't see any of the profis off the album.

Sell your soul to satan and reap the rewards! ;-)

[CannonFodder]

ral-clan wrote:

I´ll have to disagree on this point. A sample is a sample, there is no defined ¨industry standard sample lemgth¨.

The very word "sample" means "a small bit".  i.e. if you taste a little corner of a cake you are having a sample, but you cannot claim to still be "sampling" it if you eat the whole thing (like Timbaland did with Tempest's song).

No it does not mean ¨small bit¨.

Please explain how Danger Mouse Grey Album, which is made from 100% samples taken from the Beatles White Album to re-create Jay-Z´s Black album would fit into your myopic view of what sampling is.

edit:

Sampling!=sampling

[CannonFodder]

jkirk wrote:

ral-clan wrote:

I´ll have to disagree on this point. A sample is a sample, there is no defined ¨industry standard sample lemgth¨.

The very word "sample" means "a small bit".  i.e. if you taste a little corner of a cake you are having a sample, but you cannot claim to still be "sampling" it if you eat the whole thing (like Timbaland did with Tempest's song).

the meaning has since changed.

merium webster defines it (in this instance)as
3 : an excerpt from a musical recording that is used in another artist's recording

notice there is no length specified so a full song can also be considered a sample

Agreed, I could take an entire song from an album, add vocals and maybe a few breaks, and some effects, and change the order of different sectios of the song.

It´s still sampling.

[CannonFodder]

jkirk wrote:

Danger Mouse Grey Album, which is made from 100% samples taken from the Beatles White Album to re-create Jay-Z´s Black album

excellent album btw  :-)

Yeah, much better than the Black album too. :-)

[CannonFodder]

ral-clan wrote:

Please explain how Danger Mouse Grey Album, which is made from 100% samples taken from the Beatles White Album to re-create Jay-Z´s Black album would fit into your myopic view of what sampling is.

edit: (Wikipedia link on sampling)

Sampling!=sampling

To use your own defence against you, the Wikipedia article you cite above says in the very first sentence:

"In music, sampling is the act of taking a portion, or sample, of one sound recording...".

and...

"Often "samples" consist of one part of a song, such as a break, used in another..."

The key word here being PORTION or PART.  Not the entire track.  If you take and entire song and just layer stuff on then that is then a re-mix.

Re-mixing and sampling are two sides of the same coin.

The art of sampling is to use small snippets of audio and re-create an entirely new work.  Much like  how in collage artists use small scraps of images to create an entirely new piece of visual art.  To paraphrase one YouTube pundit: to simply take an entire page out of a magazine, change it slightly and call it your own is plagiarism.

Raving I´m Raving by Shut Up and Dance
Lamborghini by Shut and Dance

I could go on and on............

If the DANGER GREY MOUSE album you mention takes bits of the White Album and makes all new original works that don't mimic the original, then that I agree is SAMPLING.  If it merely takes the unmodified tracks and layers stuff on top, that is NOT sampling, it is re-mixing.

Re-mixing is the art of taking samples from various sources to create a new song. Hmmm.... sounds familiar.

Another trait of a talented sampling artist is that he or she takes their short samples from lots of different sources to assemble a single new, original sounding work.

Take away the word ¨short¨ from that statement and I would agree with you.

  They don't simply plunder/sample a single song to create a new work.

No one is denying that this is what Timbaland has done.  Only you are looking for an argument where there isn´t one.

[CannonFodder]

I don't agree with this statement. Re-mixing can be totally unrelated to sampling. For instance: think of the latest re-mix of the Beatles album "Let It Be" called "Let It Be - Naked".

The producer George Martin took the original multi-track masters and re-mixed them. He changed the EQ and emphasis of some of the parts, turned up other parts that weren't as prominenent in the original mixes (i.e. Billy Preston's keyboard), and turned down or shut off other tracks (the Phil Spector orchestrations). The resulting tracks were the same length as the originals, but sounded different due the the "re-mix" on the board. I suppose you could also call what he did a re-master in some elements.

So George Martin taking the original tape reals and putting them onto a different medium is not sampling in your book?

[CannonFodder]

ral-clan wrote:

So George Martin taking the original tape reals and putting them onto a different medium is not sampling in your book?

When you're burning a copy of a CD in your computer or ripping it to your I-pod, do you tell people you are making a "sample"?

No, because I am not creating a new piece of music.

No. In George Martin's case I'd have to say that what he did is just archiving or making a transfer recording.  In fact, there's already a word for this action in audio/video tech circles - it's called a 'dub'.

A sample, to me, is a snippet or phrase of audio which can then be be used as a musical instrument in its own right.

To you it may be that, but to millions more it doesn´t.  Majority rules, you know that.

i.e. a drum loop, or a brass hit, or a 1 or 2 bar bass phrase, or a James Brown "Yeeeahh!".  That sort of thing.

Otherwise, I could call the entire contents of a CD a "sample", the entire contents of my i-pod a "sample" or a whole library's audio section a "sample".  The work "sample" just gets watered down and meaningless if it is given no boundaries.

Please use a p2p app and get hold of ¨Raving I´m Raving¨ by Shut Up and Dance, then get hold of ¨Walking In Memphis¨.

Please listen to both then tell me what you think SUAD did to make ¨Raving I´m Raving¨.