Gramophone Records

[Commie_User]

I'm glad a few people enjoyed my chip samples and the other bits and pieces I put up.

I've discovered that sounds culled from some of the oldest records you can find make a surprisingly good match for the 8-bit sonics. Probably because both sound carriers came out of their respective arks.

I quite like what I've done with these pieces, relatively cleaned up and ready for use, that I thought I would stick them up as MP3s for anyone without a 78 player or grandad's old records handy. Though my Prosound player can spin discs at 78, they were dubbed at around 40-45 rpm for longer samples, copied via the Ortofon 'concorde' cartridge with the appropriate stylus and were run through Samplitude's OK-level denoiser. The M-Audio Delta 66 input the signal from my Sherwood preamp splendidly.



Notes, chords, beats and other period sounds add their own flavour to otherwise more generic keyboard tracks, especially when there are plenty of arpeggios, slides and the like. Anybody can grab the interchangeable sample CDs, full of the usual drumbeats, synth pads, piano chords and suchlike. But I bet few can match the sounds from a 1932 Aldershot military tattoo, or the huge Abbey Road Wurlitzer which fell out of use when the Beatles were still schoolboys.




So old they're out of copyright: http://www.dustybin.org.uk/104_Gramophone_Samples.zip

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My other studio goodies: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3 ... bf052aff1d

[Razmo]

This is really nice! ... a really good idear, and if they're free from copyright it's even better! ... you are absolutely right, that taking this stuff and being creative with it would be unique! Thumbs up for this!

What a coincidence, that I just got myself a used E-mu E5000 Ultra Sampler today ... I've not listened to the samples yet, but I will soon.

Thank you!

[Commie_User]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm glad there are people who appreciate at least the novelty.

I made a quick MIDI demo: http://www.dustybin.org.uk/ObsoleteSoundsTest.mp3

(I've generally found obsolete sounds and instruments mixed together can sound very charming and different. During the stereo, the left channel contains the Sound Blaster Live synth and a 78 rpm snatch. The right contains the much overlooked Windows XP piano sound.)





I'm surprised there aren't any existing gramophone sample sets out there, though the old BBC sound effects records may have the odd bit. Now the entire library of sounds recorded during the '50s is out of copyright (though not the compositions for we in the UK), a vast new archive of cheap material is waiting to be sold in junk shops across the land. And when we've done with that, the '60s stuff will become available to use publicly. And more often found on CD too.


I look forward to my Penderecki 'avant garde' cacophonous orchestral effects-sold-as-music to fall through the copyright, not to mention all the other weird noises created by stoned hippies. For the first time they could actually be heard in some useful context.

..And I wonder how many people are looking forward to cutting up the Beatles' catalogue without being busted. I reckon the best days for samplers are yet to come, whether used creatively or for plagarism.

[Chris Abbott]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm glad there are people who appreciate at least the novelty.

I made a quick MIDI demo: http://www.dustybin.org.uk/ObsoleteSoundsTest.mp3

(I've generally found obsolete sounds and instruments mixed together can sound very charming and different. During the stereo, the left channel contains the Sound Blaster Live synth and a 78 rpm snatch. The right contains the much overlooked Windows XP piano sound.)





I'm surprised there aren't any existing gramophone sample sets out there, though the old BBC sound effects records may have the odd bit. Now the entire library of sounds recorded during the '50s is out of copyright (though not the compositions for we in the UK), a vast new archive of cheap material is waiting to be sold in junk shops across the land. And when we've done with that, the '60s stuff will become available to use publicly. And more often found on CD too.


I look forward to my Penderecki 'avant garde' cacophonous orchestral effects-sold-as-music to fall through the copyright, not to mention all the other weird noises created by stoned hippies. For the first time they could actually be heard in some useful context.

..And I wonder how many people are looking forward to cutting up the Beatles' catalogue without being busted. I reckon the best days for samplers are yet to come, whether used creatively or for plagarism.

Well, if they were using the original sound recording from an original record from 1963, possibly, though they'd still have to negotiate publishing rights (not easy). Remasters and CD renderings have much later datestamps though, and the lawyers will argue that these are different phonographic recordings. It's probably not the free-for-all that people might think, especially with the amount of money at stake.

Chris

[Commie_User]

Interesting. But that sort of danger is more reserved for people wanting to walk on the wild side and take what would obviously be strings of notes from the most famous songs in the world and release them commercially as their own. Otherwise why do it?


But from what I can see of the legal position for me, making a collection of indistinct gramophone noises is safe. And then who's going to actually take me to court and say 'that's my obscure, now unrecognisable and out of copyright trumpet parp from 1932 buried in your mix'?


(And on top of that, I've had Youtube acquaintances telling me their spoken word vlogs have been arbitrarily deleted, on false grounds of copyright infringement, when people who don't like them complain. Yet I see entire pop songs and videos copied and spread on Youtube with little done about it. So I wouldn't be surprised at a truly cavalier attitude to sampling by others on there anyway!)

[Commie_User]

INTERESTING POINT:

....and the lawyers will argue that these are different phonographic recordings.

For fun, let's pretend this is 2020 and I've cut up a fleet of non-copyright Beatle noises and made whole new tunes from them.

In court I'm told the 1987 CDs from which I took the sounds represent new recordings. But my own lawyer counters that they were merely fresh copies of the old master tapes. (Except for Rubber Soul, which George Martin remastered especially for the CDs.)

Is that a valid counter? And if so, which do you think would be the stronger argument? And are remasters definitively considered fresh productions in your courts?

It's probably not the free-for-all that people might think, especially with the amount of money at stake.

Mind you, the likes of Gerry and the Pacemakers have been worried enough over losing royalty payments for future '60s compilations. So much so they actually wrote around the corridors of power, pleading for the law to be changed to extend sound copyright for as long as the composer copyright lasts (75 years after death). As my memory serves me, that's about right.

[Chris Abbott]

INTERESTING POINT:

....and the lawyers will argue that these are different phonographic recordings.

For fun, let's pretend this is 2020 and I've cut up a fleet of non-copyright Beatle noises and made whole new tunes from them.

In court I'm told the 1987 CDs from which I took the sounds represent new recordings. But my own lawyer counters that they were merely fresh copies of the old master tapes. (Except for Rubber Soul, which George Martin remastered especially for the CDs.)

Is that a valid counter? And if so, which do you think would be the stronger argument? And are remasters definitively considered fresh productions in your courts?

It's probably not the free-for-all that people might think, especially with the amount of money at stake.

Mind you, the likes of Gerry and the Pacemakers have been worried enough over losing royalty payments for future '60s compilations. So much so they actually wrote around the corridors of power, pleading for the law to be changed to extend sound copyright for as long as the composer copyright lasts (75 years after death). As my memory serves me, that's about right.

Well, it gets really complicated the more you dig, and whoever won that case would be the person who had the best lawyers, probably. Big companies with a lot to lose will argue black is white and produce sworn expert witnesses in front of a judge to do that sort of thing. It should be black and white, but it isn't because there are so many technical steps involved. For instance, a judge in Miami might well argue that a SID isn't a sound recording. So what if you sample a Beatles song into a SID and then include that sample in a CD?

Basically once you get into a courtroom it seems that certainties disappear, and judges themselves are woefully ignorant of the technical and legal issues. Which generally means that sampling cases are only launched when the record company is very sure there will be a multi-hundred-thousand pound payout. The rest of the time all they do is launch threatening letters which have no actual legal status.

Chris

[merman]

This is why there are so many reissues, giving a new copyright date. Examples recently include Elvis and The Beatles (who can say that a 2010 remaster now has copyright from that date, rather than the original 1960s release).

[Razmo]

Not to start any debate on the moral of sampling etc. but I personaly find that the laws should be changed, so that it's legal to make new material from other arts, as long as you do not make any money, and credit the person(s) you have taken artwork from to form something new.

As the law is these days it puts a GREAT deal of restrain on artistic freedom that you can hardly touch anything without being sued... I know that not many companies will enforce their copyrights, if no money are made, but still it would be nice if it was LEGAL so that there is no question about it.

This example is a good one, where others artwork is used to create new and unique art... kind of "picture and music patchwork"... definitely art in my opinion, but unfortunately, it's ilegal.... what a shame:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs1bG6BI ... r_embedded

[Chris Abbott]

It's primarily because you can't grant a small number of rights without compromising all of them, because if you give people (or, more to the point, other companies) an inch, they take a mile. You do people a favour, then it becomes an expectation, then it becomes an assumed right. Then they push further and further.

Legally these things are pretty binary: you either control something or you don't. If you leave loopholes, then someone will find a way to rip you off using them. Record labels even have to protect themselves from other record labels. It's a jungle out there.

As long as there are greedy assholes on both sides of the fence (record labels on one side, organised crime and other record labels on the other), then the well-meaning creators in the middle get screwed (although how many of them just want to graffiti over the work of others and get credit for it is open to debate).

And by the way, contrary to opinions held by some, I am not myself a greedy asshole, and it's a completely upsetting warped misinterpretation of my entire life's work to believe that I am. Just ask anyone who knows me personally.

So the reason we don't have an ideal world is basically that there aren't ideal people.

Chris

[Commie_User]

I've seen statements on '60s music CD covers stating 'this compilation copyright EMI' and the like. Obviously there's been some legal precedent entered into the statute books after a court case for this to be valid.

There seem to be two questions in the average sampler's mind - what you should do (as far as you know the law) and what you can get away with. I'm not the sort to take just any old recorded sound, even though it probably would be safe enough for the likes of me. But I can see how others do.


Can you tell the difference between sampled beats in a new rhythm and 'real' recordings nowadays? Can you even tell the difference between individual samples? Unless someone's taken and used whole the opening of Lou Reed's A Walk On The Wild Side, nobody would typically notice. And given the huge range of royalty-free samples knocking about anyway, labels can't just assume that an obvious sample has been misappropriated. And you can usually recreate them these days anyway.


The Law Made Easy (for we Brits anyway): http://openbiblio.net/copyright/calcula ... -examples/





My own morality on this is that so many plagarists have spoiled what could have been a more honest scene and that ruins music for everyone. You remember Bowie's courtroom fuss over Ice Ice Baby for example? I think that taking someone's tune, sticking a few noises on top and representing it as your own work absolutely stinks, whether or not you ask permission, and I don't blame companies from getting heavy handed. But if you do as I do and use a beat or chord from an old record, then you're merely using dabs of free sound to enhance the feel of your own original work. There wouldn't even be any composer copyright for a single note or chord and I hope all this heavy stuff hasn't put Razmo off.

I'm not usually the sampling type, particularly when it comes to 'cheating' by using a record player. Still, I plan to continue making samples. I want to sample chords from my harmonium, harp, zither, piano and other allsorts and I see no reason not to share those either.

[Chris Abbott]

I've seen statements on '60s music CD covers stating 'this compilation copyright EMI' and the like. Obviously there's been some legal precedent entered into the statute books after a court case for this to be valid.

There seem to be two questions in the average sampler's mind - what you should do (as far as you know the law) and what you can get away with. I'm not the sort to take just any old recorded sound, even though it probably would be safe enough for the likes of me. But I can see how others do.


Can you tell the difference between sampled beats in a new rhythm and 'real' recordings nowadays? Can you even tell the difference between individual samples? Unless someone's taken and used whole the opening of Lou Reed's A Walk On The Wild Side, nobody would typically notice. And given the huge range of royalty-free samples knocking about anyway, labels can't just assume that an obvious sample has been misappropriated. And you can usually recreate them these days anyway.


The Law Made Easy (for we Brits anyway): http://openbiblio.net/copyright/calcula ... -examples/





My own morality on this is that so many plagarists have spoiled what could have been a more honest scene and that ruins music for everyone. You remember Bowie's courtroom fuss over Ice Ice Baby for example? I think that taking someone's tune, sticking a few noises on top and representing it as your own work absolutely stinks, whether or not you ask permission, and I don't blame companies from getting heavy handed. But if you do as I do and use a beat or chord from an old record, then you're merely using dabs of free sound to enhance the feel of your own original work. There wouldn't even be any composer copyright for a single note or chord and I hope all this heavy stuff hasn't put Razmo off.

I'm not usually the sampling type, particularly when it comes to 'cheating' by using a record player. Still, I plan to continue making samples. I want to sample chords from my harmonium, harp, zither, piano and other allsorts and I see no reason not to share those either.

Go nuts: the high price of lawyers makes even big companies think twice about actually using them, especially with no financial payback (although sometimes they have to go through with it to make an example of someone or protect their bigger interests: sometimes the payback is by a course of action not continuing). And that's the point I was making: assholes ruin it for the rest.

I'd also add that the burden of proof in these cases is pretty damn high: and if the sample is non-vocal, not instantly identifiable, and processed to high heaven, then that would make anyone thing twice about suing you, unless there was a LOT of money involved. As an aside of the things about SID, of course, is that it's very identifiable indeed, and very difficult to recreate with anything else. But there's never going to be this nice fuzzy comfort zone of legality for samplers to work in.

Chris

[Commie_User]

I will indeed go nuts. The 78 noises fill a gap and there's no straightforward legal reason why I could even be pursued.

But now the subject's up I do think about the game FX samples I uploaded. Again, I'm sure they're legally safe because they're isolated sounds not lasting long enough to infringe composer copyright. And the waveforms were generated rather than reproduced, which to all intents and purposes gets around the recording copyright as far as I can see.

But what about the programming routines which made those sounds? The codes are copyrighted but I don't think there's ever been a legal case in the UK determining whether such copyright extends to the product of that code. And I certainly see no legal bar on using the likes of the SEUCK noise generator to produce samples, with the added bonus that I doubt any programmer would want to pick a fight over .5 seconds of a sound anyway. (Unless he's Bill Gates.)

[Chris Abbott]

I will indeed go nuts. The 78 noises fill a gap and there's no straightforward legal reason why I could even be pursued.

But now the subject's up I do think about the game FX samples I uploaded. Again, I'm sure they're legally safe because they're isolated sounds not lasting long enough to infringe composer copyright. And the waveforms were generated rather than reproduced, which to all intents and purposes gets around the recording copyright as far as I can see.

But what about the programming routines which made those sounds? The codes are copyrighted but I don't think there's ever been a legal case in the UK determining whether such copyright extends to the product of that code. And I certainly see no legal bar on using the likes of the SEUCK noise generator to produce samples, with the added bonus that I doubt any programmer would want to pick a fight over .5 seconds of a sound anyway. (Unless he's Bill Gates.)

Technically sounds aren't copyrightable in a musical sense, so there would be a much weaker set of laws about that. Sample length has nothing to do with it in a binary legal sense, but everything to do with your likelihood of generating trouble.

If a sound without substantial musical content is generated by a predictable mechanical process, then it's unlikely to fall foul of copyright law. A lot of these issues have come up in the past, and are coming up now: for instance, lawyers trying to argue that SID music isn't actually music, and that a SID is not a sound file worthy of copyright protection.

It would be almost impossible to prosecute a copyright case based on pure sounds from 8-bit computer games, put it that way.

Chris

[Commie_User]

Now there's interesting. The age of my shellac snippets put them out of real harm's way because the recordings are out of their copyright and (as far as I've known it in Britain) the length is too short to infringe composer copyright. That at least deals with it on the surface for someone like me, whilst signed acts using samples would get the facts straight from their legal department. So I thought the far younger SID sounds would be the much stickier buns.

But it seems that the legal eagles are employed to deny chiptuners legal validity where possible! But as you say, very often common sense and basic intepretations of the law are trumped by expensive lawyers bending the law about them.