On the Rhythm Academy’s ‘Sampling’ course, you will familiarise yourself with sampling as a technique for producing music. The course instructor is Toni Kurkimäki. For more information about the instructor, see the biography below. The course will introduce you to sampling as a useful skill you can use to bring a unique sound to your music. With sampling, you can edit sound material from new or previous recordings, find new inspiration and set your music apart from so-called basic sounds. The course will cover topics such as sampling your own voice and instrument, samples in pop music, up-to-date sampling software and its use, copyright issues in sampling, obtaining samples with permission, and sample manipulation. The platform used on the course will be Logic Pro X. Students should have a working understanding of Logic Pro X’s basic functions prior to the course. You can view the course topics in the Course content section at the bottom of the page. Course videos will become available to the selected students during the first course meeting!
COURSE DELIVERY
The course is free of charge in the pilot phase, and is primarily aimed at people living in Southern Ostrobothnia. As this course is a part of a project funded by the European Social Fund (ESF), participants are required to fill in monitoring information and feedback forms related to ESF projects. The course consists of pre-recorded video material, two online meetings, and one assignment. Please refer to the Schedule box for the dates of the joint online sessions and their contents. Following successful applications, a maximum of 15 people will be selected for the course.
ASSIGNMENT
In the assignment, the student will make a short piece of music (min. 4 bars) consisting completely of sounds – drums, bass, melody etc. – that they sample by themselves. As for the source of the sounds, the students’ imagination is their only limit: you can sample your own voice, tap on the table, clap your hands, use sounds made by household appliances or your own instruments… Using only these recorded sounds, each student will create their own samples and make a short piece of music. Each piece will be listened to at joint meetings. The instructor will give feedback on the assignment and suggestions for improvement.
HOW TO APPLY
Click the ‘Submit application’ button at the top of the page and fill in the application form (make sure you are registered prior to submission). All applicants will be notified personally of their admission to the course and sent further instruction on how to proceed. Send in your application by Friday 28th April 2023 at the latest.
PRELIMINARY ASSIGNMENT
Find out more about the possibilities in sampling by watching for example the following videos:
- Tracklib: Sample Breakdown: Daft Punk – Discovery
- Splice: 3 Levels of Sampling
INSTRUCTOR TONI KURKIMÄKI
With a 30-year career as a DJ, Toni ‘DJ Tony’ Kurkimäki is an expert in electronic music, having started making music in the early 1990s with an Amiga computer and a sampler. His best-known music project, Syna, has achieved international renown in electronic music circles. Besides his active career creating music, he also works as a radio journalist.
WHAT DO YOU NEED TO PARTICIPATE?
A computer, a sound card, and Logic Pro X or some other DAW. In the instruction of the course, Logic Pro and its internal sampling plug-ins and features will be used, but the course subject is sampling in general – the same principles and possibilities largely apply to all software (Ableton, Cubase, FL Studio). Good headphones or monitor speakers help with the creation and editing of sounds and samples. We also recommend that you use a MIDI controller while you are learning. You can play samples without it, but playing with a MIDI controller makes the work easier and more intuitive. You will also need a way to share sound in Zoom, although you can also achieve that by sharing your screen in Zoom with the share sound function.
