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Music vocabulary · Recording and Production

Sample

Meaning in music, with examples

/ˈsæmpəl/nounCommon term

In music, sample means: A short piece of recorded sound, such as a drum hit, a vocal phrase or a part of an existing record, that is reused in a new piece of music.

In Turkish: sample, örnek ses, ses örneği

How it is used

Central to hip-hop and electronic music. Producers use, chop, flip, loop or trigger samples, and buy 'sample packs'. Using part of someone else's recording needs permission, called 'clearing the sample'. The verb is 'sample'.

Example sentences

  1. The beat is built on a sample from an old Anatolian rock record.

  2. The label delayed the release until the sample was cleared.

Common collocations

  • clear a sample
  • chop a sample
  • sample pack
  • drum sample
  • sample-based
  • MIDIShort for Musical Instrument Digital Interface: a standard that lets keyboards, computers and other devices send performance data such as which note, how hard and how long.
  • copyrightThe legal right that protects original creative work and lets its owners decide how it is copied, performed, recorded, adapted or shared.
  • hip-hopA culture and music genre that began in the Bronx, New York, in the 1970s, built on rapping over beats made from drum patterns and samples.
  • DAWShort for digital audio workstation: software used to record, edit, arrange, mix and produce music on a computer, such as Pro Tools, Logic Pro, Ableton Live or Cubase.
  • producerThe person who guides a recording project creatively and practically, shaping the sound, the arrangement and the performances, and often programming or engineering too.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Recording and Production

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