question about oldskool chords...

24 Replies, 4676 Views

why did peeps nback in the day always use the same chords?

what I mean is - everyone wou;ld play (for example) the C and G type of chord and then maybe then play d and A etc...

examples of the worst culprits are pfm, seba, & artemis

did nobody know any other music theory? Baffled Baffled Baffled
pfm, seba, & artemis Lovesmilie
Cos they would sample one chord to a single key and then play it back at different pitches.
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Don Cherry Wrote:Every human is blessed in her or his life with one love (passion), no matter how long it may last. This Absolute love will last in one's heart and soul forever.
...so they all sampled the same key? nobody could find any other keys with other chords to sample? Roll
When I say key, I mean one key on a keyboard, not a key in the musical sense. A standard 4th or 5th chord like those is what you get on sample CD's from them days.

So once sampled, you press a single key down and it plays the sound, ie the chord. If you press a key 4 semitones up, then all elements of the chord are transposed by 4 semitones.

Musically (in theory I mean) this doesn't happen, or rather, it is unconventional - one or two of the notes usually move by 3, or 5 or whatever, in order to keep all the notes actually in the same key. That's why those ravey pads/chords sound they way they do.

It's nothing to do with the producers writing in the same key, it's to do with a) limited samples available and b) very limited sample time available in those days. It wasn't all gigabyte libraries with 64 velocity layers per key etc etc...
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Don Cherry Wrote:Every human is blessed in her or his life with one love (passion), no matter how long it may last. This Absolute love will last in one's heart and soul forever.
harmonic parallelism. Smile
I knew dodz would say it much better than I could Grumble Wink
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Don Cherry Wrote:Every human is blessed in her or his life with one love (passion), no matter how long it may last. This Absolute love will last in one's heart and soul forever.
Ruffneck Dave Wrote:why did peeps nback in the day always use the same chords?

what I mean is - everyone wou;ld play (for example) the C and G type of chord and then maybe then play d and A etc...

examples of the worst culprits are pfm, seba, & artemis

did nobody know any other music theory? Baffled Baffled Baffled

I know absolute shit about music theory, butI imagine they used it because it sounded good oris relatively easy to discover based on trial and error. But to be fair, samplers like the s950 is limited to 8 polyphony. So if everytime you trigger a sound from a midi keyboard.... ike 2-rfor the break, 1 or 2 for the female vocals, 1-2 for the cartoon samples, 1 for the e'ed out breathing noises..... you get the point. Whenever a sampler is playing a sound there's corresponding MIDI data being relayed.

Those chords are usually played in the breakdown right? They're probally just trying to save resources. Think about all the piano tunes. If you're going to get elaborate with piano samples, you can't go much further than an octave without the piano starting to sound weird (what macc said about semitones). Keep it simple.

Ruffneck Dave Wrote:...so they all sampled the same key? nobody could find any other keys with other chords to sample? Roll

I don't think they sampled chords at all. I think they played a single C note sampled from a piano transposed by semitones accordingly. That or they're straight up basic MIDI (wot? what's that?) - either way, I'm pretty sure the limitation is still how many notes the sampler could receive at once.

I'm not sure, but I think shit like sysex was what you had to deal with when assigning midi notes to when a sample starts, stops, rate @ which its played, velocity etc...whatever. If I'm wrong, please, somebody school me, because I'm oddly interested in this Grin

p.s.: oh word, I forgot about sample time. There's no mawfuckin' waaay they could have sampled that much of a piano solo. nevah.
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It sounded good. It still sounds good. Grin

That's all the theory anyone needs to know.
I can't stand it, never have liked it.

In fact, I'd say it's my least liked thing in dnb/jungle. 99% of the time they just sound silly IMO. But taste is taste.
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Don Cherry Wrote:Every human is blessed in her or his life with one love (passion), no matter how long it may last. This Absolute love will last in one's heart and soul forever.
WiLSHY Wrote:It sounded good. It still sounds good. Grin

That's all the theory anyone needs to know.

Icon_yippee
I usually don't think it sounds that great, but I like to hear it occasionally because it makes me smile and think back to good times Smile
it still gets used a fair bit......total science built an entire career on it! :P


you just might not notice it as much these days with different patches and aesthetics.
I love it - and I'll keep doing it! Grin
ceremony Wrote:I love it - and I'll keep doing it! Grin

same Icon_yippee
dwarde78 Wrote:
ceremony Wrote:I love it - and I'll keep doing it! Grin

same Icon_yippee

Me too. Cool
This was one of the best things about old jungle...and I do think most of it was about sampling or resampling chords - though you can tell from people like omni trio that they played chords still.
dionysus Wrote:
dwarde78 Wrote:
ceremony Wrote:I love it - and I'll keep doing it! Grin

same Icon_yippee

Me too. Cool

Yep!

I've got a hell of a lot of oldskool chord samples (as used by PFM, Seba, & Artemis etc...) if anyone wants them. Pretty large files though... Some of them last for about a minute...
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rob haigh put a set of oldskool piano loops on one of the parliament releases Smile
bhima Wrote:I've got a hell of a lot of oldskool chord samples (as used by PFM, Seba, & Artemis etc...) if anyone wants them. Pretty large files though... Some of them last for about a minute...

gwaarn then, would be much appreciated Smile
gotta love those oldskool chords Grin
^^ agreed. Bring the noise bhima
gwan bhima Grin
Check your PMs in a few days.
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Just been doing searches and finding old threads.

dodz Wrote:harmonic parallelism. Smile
I've recently noticed that a great deal of older Boards Of Canada tunes do this, probably for the same reasons listed above. But they sure make it sound good.
sugar coated shite lugs Lovesmilie

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