And how exactly do you kill a sound?

April 19, 2006 8:59 PM

Sounds that must die. Yes, the amen break is listed.
posted by bigmusic (40 comments total)

Boo! The amen break still rocks.
posted by pompomtom at 9:02 PM on April 19, 2006

I wish I could find that orignal article online.
posted by bigmusic at 9:16 PM on April 19, 2006

Corporate the amen break still sucks.
posted by Bizurke at 9:20 PM on April 19, 2006

If you set a whole bunch of these to playing at once, it's much more fun!
posted by jacquilynne at 9:32 PM on April 19, 2006

Needs more cowbell.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 9:52 PM on April 19, 2006

Amen is still awesome :( it's just jungle that needs to die.
posted by p3on at 10:19 PM on April 19, 2006

Fuck that. The amen break is forever.
posted by geekhorde at 10:35 PM on April 19, 2006

The 808 bass drum is forever, in my book.

So is just about any 808 sound... the snare, the cowbell, the hi-hat, the synth clap.

It's the drum machine that built the Dirty South.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 10:37 PM on April 19, 2006

That's a great back story linked to the Dolby THX sound.
posted by tellurian at 10:43 PM on April 19, 2006

Glee!
posted by MetaMonkey at 10:50 PM on April 19, 2006

this is awesome.
posted by jeffj at 11:18 PM on April 19, 2006

The "loop of '89" is "Ashley's Roachclip" by Chuck Brown & the Soul Searchers.

It was also used for Milli Vanilli's "Girl You Know It's True".
posted by First Post at 12:14 AM on April 20, 2006

heh, thanks bigmusic . this is great.
posted by jba at 12:27 AM on April 20, 2006

The original twenty was a dumb list.

Wants to kill James Brown vocal samples, and yet ignores the awful Timmy Mallet 'Oh Yeah!'. What's all that about?

Still, you can take my Amens, but you touch my Think breaks over my dead body.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 12:32 AM on April 20, 2006

Hooray for esoterica! Granted, I am an audio/synth geek, but for the most part I could tell you where those sounds came from and how to "dial them in". Back in high school in the eighties I used to sell DX7 patch sheets. The biggest challenge was getting the DX7 so "say" single syllable words (it had no filters). Nuts what you could do with six sine waves in 32 different configurations.

No romance anymore. Anytime I get a new piece of gear with a patch named "FM piano" I delete it without reservation.

The only way to make a DX7 tolerable is to run it through heavy outboard distortion. Otherwise, its all Chick Corea Electric Band shit or funeral home "Wind Beneath My Wings" tripe.
posted by sourwookie at 12:36 AM on April 20, 2006

I also noticed how the ony acceptable use of the "orch hit" was Art of Noise ("Closer To The Edge," I'm guessing) and "Owner Of A Lonely Heart," both cited as the earliest use. I agree.
posted by sourwookie at 12:46 AM on April 20, 2006

Wow, never was a domain name more accurate.
posted by funambulist at 1:06 AM on April 20, 2006

This is just absolutely awesome.

I want to create music. Right now.
posted by blacklite at 1:35 AM on April 20, 2006

Wants to kill James Brown vocal samples, and yet ignores the awful Timmy Mallet 'Oh Yeah!'. What's all that about?

Still, you can take my Amens, but you touch my Think breaks over my dead body.

Er, isn't the Timmy Mallet "Oh yeah" from the Think break?

If you speed up (and thus pitch shift) that break, it creates a high pitched (and annoying) "Oh Yeah."

(from memory, could be wrong)
posted by davehat at 1:48 AM on April 20, 2006

"this sample has built more pads than a mattress factory"

ahahahahah

Great site. They're dead wrong with the 808 kick drum, though. That sound will and should live forever. Actually, I'll put "Goin' Back to Cali" on right now.

And, First Post, how timely. I heard that song on the radio for the first time last week and spent about an hour looking for its name. None of the Soul II Soul sites I found correctly credited the loop. Thanks!
posted by redteam at 2:42 AM on April 20, 2006

The synth sounds just kill me inside... I hate eighties fake music, but the underlying music is soo good! Why the hell couldn't they use real instruments?

/born in the eighties & subjected to the bangles as a child
posted by Acey at 5:13 AM on April 20, 2006

Does nobody read the links any more? From the second one:

Several readers missed the joke and wrote enraged letters accusing me of snobbery. Satire, I learned, requires a light touch, or at least consistency. (The bulk of the article was an interview with synthesizer programmers Eric Persing and Jack Hotop, who had created several of the sounds on the list—sounds so catchy they were impossible to resist using.)

So no, "they" aren't "dead wrong," and "they" don't want to "kill" anything. It's a list of catchy bits of sound, and "they" like them as much as you do. Capeesh?
posted by languagehat at 5:14 AM on April 20, 2006

Thanks, bigmusic, I loved this. Particularly the story of the THX sound.
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 6:01 AM on April 20, 2006

But they should want to "kill" some of them, which is why it didn't work as satire. Not that satire ever really works on the internet.
posted by smackfu at 6:10 AM on April 20, 2006

Why the hell couldn't they use real instruments?

I'm not in the mood for a flamewar but if anyone else wants to respond to this obvious reactionary provocateur, it could be fun... ;)
posted by funambulist at 6:26 AM on April 20, 2006

Haha... I'm asking for it now...
posted by Acey at 6:28 AM on April 20, 2006

The Music Thing blog linked to from the THX example deserves an FPP of it's own. It's been mentioned a couple times here on the Blue.
posted by zsazsa at 6:39 AM on April 20, 2006

okay, not on the list is that one sound I hear in every ad and many movies when they convey "children laughing." It's a high pitch girl laughing with a distinctive, songlike quality.

Although it is very recognizable to me, I have never heard that discussed before. Anyone know the laugh soundclip I am talking about? I think it's the Wilhelm Scream of children's laughter.
posted by piratebowling at 6:42 AM on April 20, 2006

Kill sound before sound kills you.
posted by Dr-Baa at 7:14 AM on April 20, 2006

That "Apache" break may be overused but the song it's in is fantastic. (Unlike a lot of the "break songs", which are just something pedestrian with a good break in the middle of it.)
posted by smackfu at 8:02 AM on April 20, 2006

Wow, this was neat... Now if only someone can answer where that "This is allah's house, and allah house music" sample comes from...
posted by klangklangston at 8:26 AM on April 20, 2006

I, uh, had to register after lurking 18 hours a day for 5 years to post on this topic. (actually, I made one other post, as "jenny18", the irc cybersex bot)

Back before I had any live recording gear, I composed a lot with various "general purpose" sample based synthesizers. Now I can't stop hearing their presets used in pop music, and it drives me nuts.

For example, anything produced by the Neptunes is almost entirely Roland JV-x080 presets - clavinets, guitars. There's an upbeat song by Pink whose drumkit is the "Pop Drums 2" set. Anyone who works with sampled instruments can pretty much instantly tell when they're used in a song, and it sort of takes the magic and mystique out of commercial production.

I guess the human ear is just incredibly good at recognizing specific sound patterns. This is evident not only in recognizing an 80s FM patch, but also in recognizing that the snare drum you just heard was identical to the one before it, so it must be a sampler playing it. This has pushed sample designers to go so far as to record many different hits of a single drum to avoid that "machine-gun" effect of hearing the same timbre over and over.

Moreover, the "HEY WAIT!" reaction you feel when you hear a Wilhelm (or that girl giggle, yes) snuck into something is a horribly familiar feeling among sound designers, who recognize everything from doors closing to cars starting to elevator bells, which are overused sounds from common sound effect libraries like Hollywood Edge. Think about the door sound in "Doom", the generic computer beeps in every movie ever made involving "the internet", etc.

Disturbingly, I've had flame wars with people over using things like "Choir Shout" library samples (if you've ever played "God of War", think of the first level, "HOO! HAH! HEE!!") for effect - they're essentially the new Orchestra Hit, overused for epic / "tribal" effect. New cliches are being formed every day!

Anyway, had to chime in. This is one of my favorite subjects and I could go on for hours.
posted by jake at 8:57 AM on April 20, 2006

That "Apache" break may be overused but the song it's in is fantastic.

Couldn't agree more. I decided long ago that I want the whole track to be the last song played at my funeral (with accompanying organist, if possible). Its ending is très (or should that be vraiment) up lifting...

Now if only someone can answer where that "This is allah's house, and allah house music"

I mean, you know its "our house", right.... Most people know it from Mr Fingers (Larry Heard) track "Can U Feel It."

Full quote:

In the beginning, there was Jack, and Jack had a groove, and from this groove came the groove of all grooves. And while one day viciously throwing down on his box, Jack boldly declared, "Let there be House," and House Music was born. "I am you see, I am the creator, and this is my house, and in my house there is only house music. But I am not so selfish because once you enter my house, it then becomes our house and our house music. And you see, no one man owns house, because house music is a universal language, spoken and understood by all. You see, house is a feeling, that no one can understand really, unless you're deep into the vibe of house. House is an uncontrollable desire to jack your body, and as I told you before, this is our house and our house music. And in every house, understand that ther is a keeper. And in this house the keeper's name is Jack. Now, some of you might wonder who is Jack and what is it that Jack does. Jack is the one who gives you the power to Jack your body, Jack is the one who gives you the power to do the snake, Jack is the one who gives you the key to the wiggly worm, Jack is the one who learns you how to wop your body. Jack is the one who can bring nations and nations of all Jackers together. You may be black, you may be white, you may be Jew or Gentile, but it doesn't make a difference in our house, and this is fresh!"

According to everything2, the original is by a guy called Chuck Brown and its from a track called "This Is My House" by "Italian Ecstasy." Can't vouch for that though....

(irony sensors are fogged today, sorry if you already knew this)
posted by davehat at 9:08 AM on April 20, 2006

Nope, didn't. I was never sure whether it was "our" or "allah," but have heard it over and over and over, so was curious. Thanks!
posted by klangklangston at 9:30 AM on April 20, 2006

Meh, the "The "I've got the power" loop is just the first half bar of "Take me to the Mardi Gras" repeated over and over so it doesnt sound like Peter Piper.
posted by ernie at 9:45 AM on April 20, 2006

Thanks bigmusic. Awesome post. Disappeared my afternoon!
posted by Goofyy at 10:23 AM on April 20, 2006

The syndrome Jake describes sounds a little like how when you work a lot with fonts you roll your eyes at anything done in copperplate, or look for neat ligatures.
posted by fleacircus at 1:09 PM on April 20, 2006

"Daily Bandwidth Exceeded"

So...mission successful.
posted by Smedleyman at 1:12 PM on April 20, 2006

Sounds that must die. Yes, the amen break is listed.
April 19, 2006 8:59 PM PST

Needs more cowbell.
posted at 9:52 PM PST

That's exactly 53 more minutes than I'd have expected for that joke to show up.
posted by ninjew at 5:29 PM on April 20, 2006

This post is a great example of why MeFi will forever live in my aggregator. Jake's comment too. I love that all of his late 80s rave hits are now being played by "cutting-edge" DJs, but with big fat breakbeats dropped over them. Maybe we really have written all of the basslines that are left to write.
posted by thedaniel at 3:06 PM on April 25, 2006