Some recent sample highlights

I haven't said it a while but I have been thinking it. The quality of samples at ccM is just amazing. Just to prove a point I am listing some recent sample highlights. What's incredible here is that all these samples were submitted by members within the last 10 days. Seriously. Damn.

72 Strings and Them Say Piano by The3amAssociation. Flebby Accordion Cesar and Samba Já...zzzz by Cdala. FlyingKowi_strings and money strings 3 by BritishCouncilNZ. Walkman Blues and Baby Bird Acoustic by admiralbob77. Techicolor Lover (rhodes) and Do it Now (clav) by Scomber. Qualquiehmohtreta (Sounds) and Qualquiehmohtreta (Beat) by ThirteenthMonkey. Epic Sweep by illusivemind. 020209 pad 02 and 040209 drums 01 by Morusque. Sampler Jam session by shagrugge. Cold Hard Cash and Bubu Cha Cha by Neurowaxx.

The Sounds of Space

I'm very partial to the The Jodcast, the podcast of the Jodrell Bank Observatory in England. It's got a cool astronomy subject matter, as one might expect of a radio telescope institute's podcast.

One of the many admirable things about the Jodcast is that it makes its programs available under a Creative Commons license. This is the best kind of "science popularizing commons". They hear a sound with a mega-pound-expensive instrument, and they share it with everyone.

I'll see if I can't get a sample pack created, with proper attribution, but I thought in the meantime I'd share the playlist:

The Sounds of Space:
1. The sound of supernova remnant Cassiopeia A recorded by the Lovell Telescope
2. Whistler waves
3. Proton Whistlers
4. Leonid meteor echoes
5. Jovian Chorus
6. Jovian S-Burst
7. Jovian S-Burst speeded up by a factor 128
8. ESA Huygens lander radar signal
9. Solar sounds generated from 40 days of Michelson Doppler Imager data and processed by A. Kosovichev.
10. Solar Energetic Particles data from the HELIOS mission
11. X-ray observations of Cygnus X-1 from the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer
12. PSR B0329+54 observations from the Lovell Telescope
13. Vela pulsar observations
14. Crab pulsar observations
15. PSR B1937+21 observations
16. Pulsars in globular cluster 47 Tuc
17. Double pulsar eclipse
18. The first million years of the Universe
19. The Cosmic Microwave Background

This is what I call deep space ambient.

I can hardly wait to do 3 minutes of the first million years of the universe.
Kudos to the Jodcast, and to outer space in general. The only natural limitation upon sampling is the limitation of small, legalistic minds.

OLPC donates 8.5+ Gigs of Samples

From the press release:

Several prestigious groups of musicians have donated their sound libraries to One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a non-profit organization focused on providing educational tools to help children in developing countries “learn learning.” The XO laptop’s unique user interface and applications enable children to create and share music, drawings, video, personal diaries and other things they make online with family and friends worldwide.

Leading musicians, colleges and companies making their sound libraries freely available on the XO laptop are: The Berklee College of Music in Boston, Berklee Music Synthesis alumni – including electronic music superstar BT, the international Csound Developer community, M-Audio and Digidesign (parts of Avid Technology, Inc.), and the Open Path Music group.

All the samples are free to share under a Creative Commons license. Additional info and links to the samples at Create Digital Music. Thanks to Mike Linksvayer for forwarding this info to us. : )

3/28 - Victor has added them to the ccM sample pools. Awesome. : )

jaspertine

Jaspertine's companion video for his latest sample upload.

Jaspertine has submitted some wicked samples lately. Check some out.

SamplingLaw.com

SamplingLaw.com is a great site with tons of info on sampling law.


Check out some of the great reading like: Horror Stories of Sampling and the History of Sampling.

iBeat.org

iBeat.org - offers CC licensed loops, samples and sessions for download in wav and mp3 formats. The quality is excellent. It's easy to navigate (ccHost), no ads, no crap. Just a great group of folks trying to spread and share their work.

A couple of random samples:

ViolinStringOrchestra by p1rj1s


BossaBeat by T Birch

* p1rj1s has also uploaded some sample to ccM

Voco Clock

Boing Boing had an interesting post about the Voco Clock with Stephen Fry. The Voco Clock is a full sized alarm clock with wake up messages from Stephen Fry - "The perfect valet. Every morning. Like clockwork."

Some of the voice samples are available for download under a CC NC-SA 2.5 license.

Overmixter & Adrenalinicsound

Check out Overmixter and Adrenalinicsound. Two good looking ccMixter relatives.


Here's some really nice Italian Prog Rock by LASCeNTIFICA -
Vivo Nel Mondo Delle Caramelle A Molla

Intelligent Machinery Pieces Remix Compilation

Intelligent Machinery is a Creative Commons netlabel which offers albums for free download pursuant to Creative Commons licenses. The label has a number of solid releases, including in particular jfox, whose work provides interesting soundscapes for the casual hike or the profound search for the inward meaning of everything.

Intelligent Machinery has a fun remix project going now. It's called "Pieces".
Pieces is described as "a project designed to stretch the borders of incidental sound composition". The remix samples are four-second chunks of a live performance featuring the ambient/experimental artists Khate, FERALCATSCAN and Controlled Dissonance. The submission deadline is March 1, 2007.

I've had fun this weekend creating my own intended submission, "Soul Gourd", and recommend this as an interesting challenge for those looking for a different kind of remix adventure. The samples range from things that almost sound melodic to things that create great noise and ambient atmospheres. I enjoyed this project very much, as it's been a really fun way to stretch my mixing skills, so I mention it in case anyone else wants to try creating songs from four-second experimental samples.
I participated in an earlier compilation on that label, and it was fun to ultimately see my piece get released.

Even if one has no interest in the compilation, the samples are fun atmospheric sections, and worth retrieval.

I hope all are doing well, and enjoying the new mixter features as much as I am.

Philharmonia Orchestra Sample Pool

UK's Philharmonia Orchestra offers a sample pool, which offers classical touches ranging from notes to phrases, across an array of instruments. The site says the samples are royalty-free, so long as one is using them in creating pieces, and not trying to sell the samples themselves.

This looks like it could be a very useful resource, from a players with a real, live orchestra.