Creating music samples with vinyl records by Ishac Bertran

From: Ishback

Analog Vinyl Sampling from Ishac Bertran on Vimeo.

"Music sampling has been done for years using different techniques. Currently samplers (either as a piece of hardware or as software) is the most extended tool for playing samples that can come from digital formatted music, live recording, vinyls or tapes. One of the most old techniques for sampling was cut&paste the audio tape. I love this video from Delia Derbyshire using reel-to-reel recording, creating loops by cut&pasting the audio tape, and sync the samples to create music.

Driven by my devotion for vinyls and analog processes (perhaps a bit of Dj wannabe too), and emulating the audio tape cut&paste technique, I tried to make the vinyl sampling a bit more analog – literally cut and paste pieces of vinyl to create samples.

I bought some second hand vinyl records, different music styles: Supertramp, Wagner, Paul Anka, Chicago, Lil Jon and some random ones to make the first tests. I spend a couple of hours browsing and listening to old records – I remember thinking “all projects should start like this”."

Full details of the project at the above link.

Immortal Melodies (dead)

As part of my own experiments, I got around to lasering some items today. I realised that the machinery's cutting funtion is different to the etching function in as much as the software traces the basic outlines of the jpeg. This also offered the option of altering the contours of the outlines so I further simplified the serif stencil-friendly typeface I had used. It ended up bolder and more 'custom'. You can see how it was used on the 'Immortal Melodies' 7" that finally had its date with destiny. The message reads "WHAT GOES AROUND".

Immortal Melodies

I bought this old 7" classical release and really needed to document it as tomorrow it has a date with a laser-cutter. It's a bit of a shame really as I love how it currently looks: from the layout, logo and use of colour through to the grubby old Sellotape holding the back together. The title - 'Immortal Melodies' - might suggest otherwise but, sorry little record, all good things must come to an end.

Autechre - Quaristice by The Designers Republic

Another beautiful project that has been documented over at Hard Format. This limited edition version of Autechre's 2008 album is a combination of elegantly printed card and laser cut steel by The Designers Republic.

In 2009 Ian Anderson announced that his influential tDR would be closing. After the announcement of redundancies, he later explained that the design company could be reverting to its origins with a smaller practice that, he said, would hopefully bypass the dealings with account managers and return to working directly with like-minded creatives. Earlier this year Autechre's tenth album Oversteps was issued complete with stunning artwork by The Designers Republic.

Niklas Roy & Jari Suominen - Laser Cut Phono Record

"We used a vector program to draw the record. With different line colours, we could modulate the laser’s intensity. We also experimented with different depths of the groove within one loop (track 6). Track 2 was something like a random noise experiment where the needle would jump in a different way over the grooves, each time the track is played. So every track has a different idea."

(Excellent use of Youtube as an interactive device too.)