Sound Samples / Sample History

Several sound technologies came into their own in the 1960´s that were to massively expand the possibilities for work with sound samples, the most significant were multi-track recording and effects.

Many people thought that one of the Beatles´ great innovations in the 1967 album, Sergeant Pepper was the extensive use of tape manipulation. Indeed tracks like A Day In The Life or Strawberry Fields were technically very innovative for the pop world and there is no doubt about the impact that they had on the sound of 60s psychedelia, but the techniques of repeated overdubbing and the assemblages of sound samples in various manipulations were all techniques pioneered and established long before. It´s simply the case that more people liked what the Beatles did with it all.

That they did it all with a four track tape recorder now seems utterly remarkable. Within four or five years the world´s recording studios would be filled with 8 or 16 and later 32 track recording machines which would make recordings with large numbers of overdubs so much easier to create.

Effects
In the 60s, few people loved the new ways in which you could manipulate sounds in the studio more than Jimi Hendrix, but he is particularly remembered for his extraordinary live performances and prominent use of guitar effects and in particular the wah-wah pedal.

The 60s saw the creation of numerous devices whose sole purpose was to alter, distort and transform sounds. Many which were originally designed for guitarists later became built into recording studio mixing desks and other equipment along with reverb and other effects.

Nowadays adding effects to recorded sounds is standard practise, in fact it is extremely rare to hear any modern recording that has not been processed in some way.

In the following two decades the ability to sample sounds, record performances, mix sounds, generat sound and add effects to aler them would all converge into large computerised systems that do everything but at the end of the 60s these things were all separate and depended on completely separate technologies.