Sample craft: Section

Section gets deep on one of the most integral traditions in the craft

Samples… Besides the technology that powers everything, they’re the most consistently influential factor in electronic music full stop.

Whether it’s licks from old tunes, vocals from movies and TV, sample packs made by your favourite artists or massive online libraries; the whole culture is characterized by the artform of sourcing, processing and manipulating a sound to make it sound like your own.

Samples also play a vital role in the culture as an important form of revenue for many producers. A few months back we spoke to Serpnt about this and how lockdown led him to launching his OneZero sample pack company. Today we lock in with Section for a similar conversation about sample craft. He’s just dropped a new sample pack DNB Production Kit Vol 1 via DJ Crystl’s sample pack series Crystl.Store.

Connected with pioneer Crystl though his love for the foundation sounds and high level of production values, it’s safe to that James Section didn’t take the collab opportunity lightly. In fact the creation of this sample pack was so intense it brought back an old member of Section who hasn’t been active in D&B for a while, it inspired him to finish a whole bunch of tunes and even re-think about his whole production process!

File under ‘man went in’. James called us up and told us more. Grab DNB Production Kit Vol 1 here and get to know more…

 Tell us about this sample pack, then…

So it’s been done in conjunction with DJ Crystl who I’ve respected for a very long time and bought quite a few sample packs from. Off the back of that he contacted me and asked if I was up for doing a pack with him. Obviously I jumped at the opportunity.

Crystl’s a genuine pioneer. Did you pinch yourself?

I did. I aspire to work with that level of artist. Not fanboying, I massively respect his history and production and I’ve worked hard on my sound personally to be able to work at this level of peer. I was massively grateful for the opportunity and took it with both hands. I worked hard on the sample pack throughout the summer and I’m glad to have finished it and see it out there. Music never feels like work but this did feel quite work-like at points.

Very different discipline, right? It’s less creative and more mechanical, I’d imagine?

Yeah it’s the antithesis of creativity in a way. So going back a few years, Section was two of us. My best mate Nathan and me. He likes D&B but it’s not a way of life like it is for me. He’s such an important part of my musical journey. He taught me everything I know about Cubase and production and we did a sample pack five or so years ago and had a few bits ready from that. So it didn’t feel like I was starting from scratch. He wrote the sample pack with me, which was great.

 

Oh you reconnected?

We never lost touch, he just lost patience with the music and we hadn’t made a connection like this for a long time so yeah I guess. Crystl sample packs are super sick , I’ve bought several. I wanted to do him justice, I wanted to do myself justice and the label justice. It felt like quite an onerous task to be honest.

But to have Nathan with me and have a few things to start off with was good. The process was very mechanical, as you said. It wasn’t creative but we approached it by sharing the work load. Making breaks, subs, pads. I had so many unfinished projects which I was able to take ideas from. It made me go back into my history a bit so I drew on some of those old ideas and fresh ideas so it was a bit of a balance.

Ah this is where old WIPs come in handy

Absolutely. I’m constantly making things. I’m always practicing. It’s a brain exercise. Even if it’s not going anywhere,  I need to be messing around and testing ideas. So in a way the sample pack was already there, I had to draw these sounds out and reprocess them. It came together very organically in the end. I had to take my focus off writing music and put my focus on this. I hadn’t really written anything all summer.

 

 

But you’re sonically trained and hench now. You need to go for a nice long creative run!

I finished seven tunes on weds! Since finishing this pack I’ve got really inspired and I’ve actually used my own pack

I was gonna ask if you’d used them in your own tracks!

Yeah of course. Some of these sounds are the best I’ve made in the last couple of years! I stand by my samples; if they’re good enough to sell, they’re good enough for me to use. It’s helped me finish some specific tunes which have been sitting there waiting for seasoning. That’s what’s happened with all my projects. I’m really pleased I did it. And it demonstrates if you spend time doing more technical stuff it helps your creative output. I don’t often stick to that and I’m glad I’ve been in this situation to remind me how important that side of the writing process is. I plan on making a sample pack every year now. Even if it’s just for internal use

That’s sick. It’s been cathartic experience maybe?

Absolutely and I will spend time each year doing this. I love laying ideas down and writing because creative time is tight for me. But this has made me realise that I can save time in the long run.

That’s quite a big paradigm shift for your process. So props to you and Crystl for doing this pack. If I produced I’d definitely invest in specific ones like this rather than draw from the same pool everyone else is. You might have seen me be quite critical about everyone using the same sample pool right now. I’m often put in my place about it, though, so please defend massive sample libraries that everyone is using…

Okay so for me it doesn’t matter where the sample came from, it’s how you use it and what you do with it. What I don’t like seeing or hearing it someone just use a bunch of samples together with no type of ingenuity or character of their own. If you take a sample and mould, distort and process it so it sounds like something that represents you and your personality and sound. If you just lift the samples and chuck them in it’s soulless, it’s beige and it’s not creative. It has to have your soul in there. Samples are there to be manipulated. And if you’re not using your soul then it’s soulless by definition. Massive pools of samples are fine. That will never go away but make sure your personality is part of it too.

Section – DNB Production Kit Vol 1 is out now

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