Month: March 2023

I decided to look into journals and found this one on digital crates, interesting as I first discovered digging in the digital domain before the analogue, youtube has been a huge archive for me to discover music to flip and sample.

“Digging the crates” generally refers to a practice where hip hop and electronic dance music DJs and record collectors search through bins of vinyl and compact disc recordings for rare music often obscured by time and limited availability

This is a great description

the practice of crate digging is appropriated as a metaphor for sifting through extensive quantities of information artifacts of expressive culture capturing the experiences of diverse cultures and communities

I think crate digging as a metaphor for sifting through extensive information is really interesting. I agree completely, digging through cultures, communities and artefacts, discovering how I will use them or just listening.

Milo sent me an email discussing this J Stor article he found discussing the ethics of sampling from an engineer’s point of view. I decided to read it and see what I could find within it. Here are a few quotes.

Another common use of the sampler is to extract a fragment of sound from one context and place it in a new one, with no appreciable loss of sound quality over each generation of extraction and repositioning.

this is interesting as I definitely disagree, sampling and re-recording always have a level of sound loss and quality reduction. But the idea of samplers being able to take fragments is true and interesting that it’s considered fragments, it can also be huge chunks.

These three capabilities of the sampler – the mimetic/reproductive, the manipulative and the extractive – are crucial to understanding both the sampler’s popularity and it’s potential to disrupt the production process in the music industry.  

so the fact does three things, the mimetic/reproductive, being that it can reproduce and copy works, then the extractive, meaning we can take parts that we like and then reappropriate these sounds. then the manipulative, which is directly editing the recording we take through other means.

Their cost has fallen dramatically over the years (making them relatively more available to a greater number of musicians and engineers)

I agree completely, something that has also happened with music and home studios is access to technology. How does that affect the usage of equipment? As well the industry, the music industry is benefiting from artists and the monopolisation that they own. How can underground artists break free from this chain?

Sampling has forced the music industry and the legal profession to ask who – if anyone – owns a sound, and as a logical extension of that question, is it possible to a sound? 

These questions are important to ask, since the development of copyright law and ownership. We can really try to think about who owns what? What sound is owned by who, and why do they own that? Who says so?

The musicians position has been documented elsewhere, in both trade public and popular magazines, yet the engineers’ voices are strangely missing from the press. ‘Strangely’ because it is the engineers whose fingers are on the trigger, so to speak, pushing the buttons which create, manipulate, and re-place samples.

So the engineers sit in the middle, they are paid for services and typically receive no royalties for the work. How come we have ignored the engineers? This will focus on their opinion as they are the ones that hit the fire button.

If the sampler has the potential to rupture the discursive practices of the industry – as rap suggests it does

So the power of the sampler, to rupture practices of the industry is powerful, I like this aspect of it.

First, all the engineers do feel that there are certain uses of sampling which are undeniably unethical, and that sampling should not be a technological free-for-all. 

It’s interesting because who can decide and draw the line in the sand between what is okay and what is not?

The engineers represented here were not in agreement as to when sampling begins to violate the ‘rights’ of the musician. 

So they cannot agree, which further shows that sampling and its ideas are subjective.

Central to this discourse is not only the nature of sampling and copyright law, but a deeper issue of the creative role of the engineer in the process which begins with composition and ends with the published sound-recording.

I guess for me this is not that important, but I am also an engineer for myself.

If there is one point of agreement among engineers in the debate about the ethics of sampling, it is that sampling from pre-recorded materials is at the least unethical and, at worst, is outright theft. According to the engineers I spoke with, the type of lifting common in rap records, in which an entire phrase (usually verbal) is extracted from a pre-existing recording and repositioned in a new context, falls into outright theft category. 

Theft? It’s interesting that they consider this theft, but making money from artists is not theft? Taking royalties is not theft? Interesting that they consider rap’s usage of sampling as theft, I am interested in the types of engineers they have contacted, is this because rap only needs engineers for their mixing, mastering, and vocal recording?

Creativity is embodied not only by composition, but by transposition of meaning and thus semantic – shifts.

So creativity is not just making but also moving things around, shifting this and putting that over here. Sampling is the re juggle of making music and taking parts into a new sound.

The engineers I spoke to did not agree with that view. The prevailing attitude was that such recontextualisation amounts to little more than theft: 

Again this idea of theft from engineers is interesting as it poses a question of who is right and wrong? Perhaps it’s society again that is to decide for us, I fall into the other side, and see it as being creative and not theft.

In the previous section, we saw engineers falling into line with the legal precedents, but in the case of a sound being sampled live, no legal precedents exist, and the question of whether a sound can be a privately owned entity, or at what point a sound reaches a distinctiveness which makes it the unique property of its performer, is perhaps the greater point of contention among the engineers. 

again style is something that is copyrighted not the chords, melody, or live recording. Who owns the style? The engineers in this journal are focused on the style of performance and the vibe of the artists being something they own, more than the music.

I would feel that if a sound could be recreated … in another studio, it would be kind of hard to say that you actually own that sound. That would steer musicians away from a tool that they could use. You know, ‘I’m sorry, but you cannot record this frequency with that texture …’ There will only be certain frequencies available to public domain. You can take it to its end result and see that there’s obviously going to have to be a lot of give and take … 

Again this engineer is correct, imagine where certain frequencies were available to the public domain? We cant use that guitar as that is some other artists style.

The final product doesn’t end when you’ve got the sample. You play around with it lots. And even after you alter it, you’ve still got to work with it in the recording… It’s one thing to have a killer violin sample. It’s another thing to play it like it’s a violin. So there’s creativity going on right there. (Peirce) 

Pierce is correct, it is creative, although I disagree again, artists such as Alchemist simply find the loop, and the loop finding is the skill within his work. But yes putting together fragments makes everything.

but when it comes down to legalities I think it’s true. If the engineer doesn’t push that button to make the sample, it won’t be done … The executive producer should be held ultimately responsible and get a longer jail term than the engineer who samples it. (Brewer)

Jail time for sampling, it’s interesting that some people are pushing for this sort of punishment. And that the engineer who needs to eat is to blame.

reminds us that the question of the relationship between art as a finished product and the materials which are employed to that end was problematised by members of the Dada movement in the early part of the century 

Art as a finished product and the materials that were used to get to the end is something the Dada movement has been interested in. Something I need to do research on.

In one sense, the ‘revitalisation’ of popular music spoken of by rap producers amounts to little more than a rehashing of the Dadaist prob- lematic. Today it’s called post-modernism, but the question remains. If a text exists in some form in some public venue, as sound exists in air, are individual uses of that text unique creative acts? 

again Dadaist? what is this, I should do further research. But yes it’s true, public ownership is difficult to argue with within sound.

Thus the reasons for likely development of copyright laws are not attributed as much to the theoretical issues of whether a sound is ownable, but to the realities of the music industry.

So again its more to do with the industry of music that is stopping sampling rather than the theoretical ideas of sound ownership and who can control what. it’s all to do with money. Not ideas.

 Complicating this model is the role distinction between the labourer and the producer, between blue-collar and white- collar, between the hourly wage-earner (studio cat) and the professional who is on salary (the producer).

It’s true, the blue-collar vs white-collar, the creative vs the owner. The owner owns it, and the creative makes it. Without either party, it would not work.

I’ve been meaning to buy some drumsticks as the drum graphic score I made I want to perform, and the location I want to go play the drums does not give you sticks.

I purchased sticks, and a small tambourine as well as some shakers of different densities. I found this procedure really interesting as if I should have done this ages ago.

I want to use the shakers, tambourines and Drum sticks for the drumming, of course, make my own samples etc and incorporate this within my composition. I also bought a shock mount for my condenser microphone, as I don’t have one, and a mic stand, a round heavy base. K&M as these are great mic stands.

I chose the normal non-boom arm mic stand as I have an Aston shield which on booms it fails to work with the weight. I guess the next step is to record the drums.

I met with Milo, being two months after our original meeting. I have found that it is helpful to take what I’ve done and ask for advice on what I can do next. Milo saw my work and said that I’m up to scratch but also that I should nail down exactly what my vision is, in the sense of the academic side of this piece of work.

What am I trying to do with it? He said he was not worried about the more practical side and me actually working hard, but rather that I should take some time to analyse exactly what the meaning and decisions of reading I am taking.

Going on and forth I want to read a journal a day to speed up the process, I did find that in my original prototype I had so much free time and space to work that I read so many and it genuinely helped me understand my work process and what I was doing.

Here’s to more work.

On my way back from seeing my family in Portugal I used the time in between events to create more instrumentals, for the first instrumental I created using only the stock sounds within Ableton. Layering a Wavetable synth, bass and synth drums. I layered sends and returns of time-based effects. Something I learned in mixing secrets.

The following two beats were quick and intuitive. I didn’t try to think too much but I just used samples within my MacBook as I was flying at the time, and I didn’t have any internet.

The first one was funky, and I looped up a rough section and another part of the same sample, I didn’t try and keep it to the grid, I just looped what felt right. I then added a drum loop and extended it. I really liked it.

The last instrumental called ALLL RIGHT was chopping up in the same way J Dilla did in Donuts, picking sections at 1/8 chops and playing these back in a different order. After layering it up and finding the right sections I was really happy with the progress.

Since I now have 7 beats on the SoundCloud project group, and a few more not on there I want to make last few ones and then commence writing, recording, mixing, mastering.

I decided to share my work during the WIP for the university, I was not prepared but I felt it would be useful to show my work in progress and have something to help me with reflecting and improving my work and greater contextualising it. I decided to go for something simple, put the ten instrumentals I’ve made so far into one file, each a minute long, influenced by the Madlib Beat tapes he gives to artists and then the graphic score which I’m yet to perform with or do anything with.

This was the final outcome and the bench felt nice, when listening to I felt like it really connected well with the graphic score, even though it was not used to the composition, I also had mixed feedback, some people called it lo-fi hip hop beats to study to, and others completing getting what I was doing, and that my sample choice was great. I discussed this with someone with my ideas about copyright law and I felt perhaps the next thing I can do is create a copyright graphic score, using copyrighted photos and images as the score for my composition.

As well as this I felt the beats needed rapping, now is the time to start!

As we had the WIP coming up, I felt it would be a good time to get feedback and see what people think and test a few things out. I decided to paint a graphic score, as I had a canvas I had not used yet, and play the drums on it. I don’t have enough time yet to actually play the drums, but I will hang up the canvas with some music for my WIP show.

I started by making a few trials on my small notepad, exploring more chaotic versions, circles and lined graphic scores.

At first, I decided to add masking tape to add some straight lines and texture and then I felt like I was overthinking it. I have been reading about Basquiat and the way he would paint, I read he would think quickly and intuitively so I decided to stop being methodical and just go with the flow.

This was the outcome.

Again perhaps not the greatest painting but I did enjoy the process, I thought it went really well and I can totally imagine painting to this, I went with what I felt, and I can see different sections of chaos, calmness and rhythm within this. I will now go and hang this up alongside the current instrumentals I’ve been working on.

After looking into Christian Marclay I saw he had released a graphic score work titled Ephemera in 2009, which only had 100 copies I can not find all the scores online but I did find a few, here are some examples.

I’ve been really interested in this and I feel like I want to try a graphic score and see what I can do with it, perhaps use it to compose some drum performances? Or a collage version?

I was looking for further context into Madlib as an artist. Through research, I found this thesis online which helped me understand the relationship between samples and sample-based musical works such as what Madlib is doing on his label Madlib Invasion.

Here are some quotes,

David Hesmondhalgh argues copyright has become the main means of commodifying a culture.

Copyright is to own something as property, to commodify culture one has to claim it as their own, using copyright is the worst way to dominate culture, this is what record companies are doing.

If we focus on the problems surrounding commodification in relation to copyright, the main issue is not the abstraction and concealment of labour and exploitation, which can be located at the production side. Rather, there is the limiting of access, which happens through consumption, as “commodification spreads a notion of ownership and property as the right to exclude others.

Exclusion, when everything is sitting on top of the shoulder of giants is a huge negative, to focus and understand it shows and gives us a revelation of thought within this.

Copyright holders use their bundle of rights to exchange access to their works for money. However, copyright is also used in order to maintain exclusive ownership over a work, and copyright holders use their rights to only permit adaptive or derivative works when properly licensed 

so it’s this idea that only if you can afford it, or if I like you, can we collaborate and work together, this gatekeeping mentality does not push forward the idea of creativity.

Kimbrew McLeod and Peter Dicola argue in Creative License (2011) that through the current copyright regime, sampling hip hop artists are pushed to the margins of the music industry and forced to release their music in a more ‘underground’ fashion. In doing so, unestablished or lesser known artists have found a way to release their music that possibly keeps them from being sued, or at least minimises the risk of litigation 

It’s sad to think and realise that these hip-hop artists are pushed to the margins of the music industry and are forced to operate in this way in order for it to be a functional way of working, to limit the ways of being caught and sued.

Jackson confessed to not having a mission statement for his label, describing his approach in a 2016 interview as: “Just putting out stuff I want to hear and it has nothing to do with anybody else.”11 The label’s first release, Madlib Medicine Show #1: Before the Verdict (2010), does indicate an off-centre approach, stating that: “Madlib Medicine Show is a music series by producer Madlib consisting of experimental hip-hop, jazz fusion and electronic music, produced, marketed and released with little concern for traditional norms of the commercial record industry 

So Madlib in his work does acknowledge this in his work, he’s self-aware, and he knows that he has little concern for the commercial record industry, this is what he likes, but is this because the industry does not allow room for people like him?

Furthermore, the booklet to the CD Madlib – Madlib Medicine Show #13: Black Tape includes a reprinted review of an earlier Madlib release, which critiques Madlib over his use of other people’s work, with the only given context that the review is reprinted without the author’s permission.15 Together with the extensive use of uncredited sampled material, it becomes clear the Madlib Invazion label does not operate along the guidelines of copyright law. This is why the releases as found on the Madlib Invazion label are used as object of study, since they show an obvious neglect of copyright. 

When Madlib includes a sampled review saying that he does nothing and just steals people’s work, and then includes that in the booklet of his CD, you know what he is saying is exactly that. I’m here to do my art and not care about the industry.

How does the use of copyrighted material by practice of sampling as issued by Madlib Invazion problematize the commodification of music through copyright? 

This a great question to ask, and I think this Is the main idea presented in this thesis.

Sampling practice, copyright laws and commodification of music 

So this book questions these three main questions and three main points, it discusses sampling practice, copyright laws and commodification of music.

I will predominantly draw on the writings and theories of Vanessa Chang and Brian Kane. As outlined earlier in this introduction, I am not so much interested in establishing sampling as a creative practice. Rather, it can be argued that the distinguishing feature of sampling as a practice is the use of pre-existing and/or pre-recorded material. Through the use of pre-existing material, the sample-based song has a relation to its origin 

It’s interesting to see that the author does not want to argue about where sampling is a creative practice, but more that what distinguishes sampling as a practice is using pre-existing or pre-recorded material. And that through sampling, without a shadow of a doubt, it begins to have a relationship with the sample it used.

“[W]hatever the music-commodity is, it is utterly dependent on the circumstances surrounding its commodification, which is largely driven by its means of reproduction, themselves commodities.”18 In a later article, Taylor further dissects the circumstances under which music becomes commodified, establishing three regimes of commodification, namely as a published score, a live performance or as recorded sound.19 

The only three ways of commodifying are through these three ways. Live performance, recorded sound and published score. This is the circumstance in which commodification begins.

I will focus on the Madlib Invazion label as being a particular circumstance in which music is commodified. Being strictly an artist endeavour, the releases on the label showcase how far an artist is permitted to go, or how an artist is capable of securing his own place in the market despite the hostile stance towards sampling of the copyright regime. 

So Madlib still does commodify his music and compositions, but it’s interesting to see how far an artist will go and take his work, even though it is illegal and technically breaching copyright laws.

By isolating a sound from its context and source, possibly recombining it with other dislocated sounds, the sound becomes aestheticized. Like Chang, Kane emphasises the reification of sound. In order to capture sound within a recording, objects are necessary. These sound objects can be of any medium, for instance, vinyl records or digital files stored on a hard drive. Sound objects are acousmatic of nature, as they are capable of bringing about a sonic effect, obscuring the sound’s cause in the process.

The writer here discusses the idea of dislocated sounds, and that the process of sampling does this in effect when composing, as well as this the sounds become then aestheticized in the process. Sound objects in this case, such as vinyl records or digital files stored on a hard drive become acousmatic, as they play sounds without a noticeable source.

In sampling however, particularly the sampling in hip hop, the sources used are sounds already considered music, like the vinyl records included in Imaginary Landscapes No. 1. There is however an important difference between Cage’s and Schaeffer’s employment of sound objects. Imaginary Landscapes No. 1 uses records for the simple reason it preceded the invention of audio tape.

It’s drawing a contrast here that hip-hop is not the first culture or work that uses sampling, cage in his piece Imaginary Landscapes No. 1. uses a vinyl record with automated speeds, essentially a sample, and the author makes a point that this was before the audio tape, so sampling had to be in this form.

One reason for which vinyl records are preferred is for their characteristic sound, and it is not uncommon for producers to sample a worn-out record, leaving the sample with static and other vinyl related noise attached. 

The author makes a point that in modern times, vinyl records are chosen as a sample source for the aesthetic and audio quality they deliver, with the vinyl crackle being an interesting sonic quality the producers enjoy.

As Chang herself says, it is ‘somewhat strict’ to use vinyl for samples. Like any musical genre, hip hop too has artists that do not play by the rulebook. Although known as an avid record collector, Madlib has acknowledged drawing from other media for sample sources, such as cassette, VHS, digital files or even YouTube videos. 

And although people and artists enjoy vinyl records as samplable items, it’s not just that, Madlib samples VHS, cassette, digital files, and Youtube.

The more frequent and trained jazz listener however, is able to recognise when a standard is being played or reinterpreted. The same can be argued for the use of samples. As Chang notes, it is perfectly possible for a listener of hip hop to not know he or she is listening to a sample-based composition. More dedicated listeners of hip hop however, know that most of the time they are listening to music which is produced through recombination and re- contextualisation of other sound objects. Together with the characteristics such as surface noise or hiss, implicating the use of sound objects as source, there is an understanding within the hip hop audience that samples are being used. 

This is an interesting notion, something I had not considered before, but the idea is that each sound object has a specific sound source that a seasoned listener can identify.

Producers recognise that histories are constituted by various interpretations of the past, and that the archive is a creative medium rather than the static imprint of that past. 

Well, it’s a great point to make that hip hop and sampling is a modern imprint of the archive, that a static imprint does nothing but show us what was, sampling can allow these sound sources to come alive again.

If we suppose that the listener is aware he or she is listening to sample – either because the recording reveals that other sound objects were used in the process, or because the listener recognises the recurring use of samples within hip hop – the listener is also aware there is an origin, a cause, albeit obscured. 

This understanding has shaped its own archive for the use of sound objects by practice of sampling. Amongst other initiatives that express a concern for the origin as well as a practice of archival memory, internet users have created online spaces that disclose the original sound objects used in hip hop recordings. One of these is the website WhoSampled.com, which allows its users to make entries disclosing how two different compositions are connected. As the website’s main page boasts: “Discover music through sampling, cover songs and remixes. Dig deeper into music by discovering direct connections among over 517,000 songs.”54 Interestingly enough, samples can only be contributed when posted with a link to an online file, such as embedded YouTube videos, SoundCloud audio or streaming services such as Tidal or Spotify 

It’s true that if you are aware of the sample you know it’s not there, hip hop makes it obvious, the sound object and its uniqueness or sample through memory can give away the fact it’s a sample and not composed. Who sampled existing shows that people are interested in the direct connections from this, that listeners are not stupid and know it’s a sample and are curious to discover who created it.

These online spaces point to hip hop’s own logic of archival memory, with its listeners trying to restore the relation between sample/origin, and perhaps more fundamentally, sound/cause. The websites rely strictly on the input from users and are only remotely moderated. 

So it’s only users that can input within this website, Who sampled. This makes a great point that the popularity of the site shows how curious and interested people are in their own archival memory, with listeners trying to restore the gaps between sample/origin and sound/cause.

With the approach of copyright as a property, the possibility of artificial scarcity is created. This artificial scarcity is far from desirable because it installs the possibility of monopoly: 

Therefore, Jefferson feared, the monopolists could use their state-granted power to strengthen their control over the flow of ideas and the use of expressions. Monopolies have the power to enrich themselves by evading the limitations of the competitive marketplace. Prices need not fall when demand slackens, and demand need not slacken if the monopoly makes itself essential to the economy.66 

the control of ideas and expression, is what copyright law does, monopoly the ideas and expression within their ownership. The state granted the power to strengthen its way of ownership and enrich itself by evading the limitations of the competitive music marketplace.

Vaidhyanathan’s point is thus that such protection invokes the idea that composers are lone geniuses, who create original work which they can consider their property. Whilst in reality popular music is subject to an ambiguous creative process which any number of people can take part in, each of them bringing their own set of influences and inspirations with them, conscious as well as unconscious, on which their ‘original’ composition builds. No work of art is ever created in a vacuum, void of outside influences, and therefore copyright law should be critical towards awarding composers their absolute originality. 

Copyright makes an idea that these people did this alone, that anything that is similar or takes inspiration from is considered their property. even music genres can be affected by this. No art exists within a vacuum and the laws around copyright are negative and impact this creative activity.

The case ruled that the Gaye’s should be awarded 5.3 million US dollars for reimbursement, together with 50 % of Blurred Lines’ royalties, because of the similarities between the two songs. The ruling was heavily criticised because it rendered a very broad copyright to Gaye’s composition. One of the rulings criticisers, Judge Jacqueline Nyugen, stated that the court’s decision “accomplish[ed] what no one has done before: copyright a musical style.”74 

When the song blurred lines got sued for sounding close to something else, not even a direct sample, compositionally or sonically of the recording. This is when a dystopia exists where people say they can’t create anything because someone owns it. Sonic collages are that, a reflection and creative outlet of ourselves.

The war is not about new forms of creativity, not about artists making new art. (…) But every war has its collateral damage. These creators are just one type of collateral damage from this war. The extreme regulation that copyright law has become makes it difficult, and sometimes impossible, for a wide range of creativity that any free society (…) would allow to exist, legally.101 

The collateral damage from the way of copyright is the creativity of certain artists, such as hip-hop artists. it is what it is and this is how they are affected.

Why should it be that just when technology is most encouraging of creativity, the law should be most restrictive? Why should it be effectively impossible for an artist from Harlem practicing the form of art of the age to commercialize his creativity because the costs of negotiating and clearing the rights here are so incredibly high? 

So this author wants to make a point that the main reason sample-based music struggled is the negotiating and clearing of the rights, which is on the owner, no law can create a fair argument as to what it should and could cost to do this process. And that in modern times, the law does not reflect the actual technology that is present, which de la soul and their work three feet high and rising shows, as they were ahead of the curve on sampling causing the law to catch up.

If sample clearance is testament to the pragmatic nature of capitalism, the releases on Madlib Invazion such as Low Budget Hi-Fi Music, are testament to the pragmatic nature of independent labels avoiding the high costs of licensing. 

I sit well within this Madlib Invazion label and even though I am not signed, this is what I am about.

I decided to read this journal about sampling and the idea of it as a composition tool, something I’d previously read in a Brian Eno essay. I’m interested to see someone else’s interpretation of this idea and what they think in relation to samplers and how they are compositional tools. Here are some quotes.

“rap producers have inverted this logic, using samples as a point of reference, as a means by which the process of repetition and recontextualisation can be highlighted and privileged”. (Rose: 1994, p. 73)

This quote started speaking about how microsampling is something other than re-appropriation. It makes a point that rap producers are interested in samples as a point of reference, the loop and recontextualisation is the idea of it, how can we take sections and turn them into a whole thing.

like plunderphonics pioneer, John Oswald, Lacasse recognises that “manipulations can make it difficult to identify the recording from which the quotation has been extracted”. (p. 39)

This constant battle that sometimes you can’t tell what is being sampled is confusing and at times beneficial due to copyright laws, but this idea that sampling isn’t always obvious, sometimes you can’t tell it’s a sample.

These kinds of manipulations are relevant to the musicians who will form the basis of this case study and whose approach to sampling has as much in common with the use of everyday sounds and musique concrete than quotation.

So this essay is about these artists that use sounds and argues that sampling is closer to music concrete than quoting the samples it’s using.

However, Rose too often focuses on sampling as a “tactical priority” (Rose: 1994, p. 73) rather than the musical priorities and aesthetic choices made by producers in the recording studio. She also appears to be guilty of a rather crude essentialism by concentrating on “black cultural priorities”

So this writer Rose focuses too much on the idea of sampling as the main subject of interest. Rather than sampling as an aesthetic choice or style that a producer has when taking or recording samples.

Does the sampler form part of what Eno describes as “an additive approach to recording” which enables musicians “to chop and change, to paint a bit out, add a piece”?

This quote considers and reflects on the Eno essay, where he describes what the tape machine does for him, and what it allows him to do, as someone who cannot play an instrument. He can become a musician. Is a sampler the same?

the recording of music has moved from booths to the bedroom to the laptop, a meta-device that enables music to be produced, distributed, and consumed.

The idea of a laptop as a meta device in the modern recording world is interesting, perhaps this is my interest when using something like an SP404MK2, do I not want something to have dominance over everything I do?