BACK

Sampling

Reusing a portion of an existing recording as an element in a new piece of music.

Sampling is the practice of taking a segment of an existing recording, such as a drum break, vocal phrase, or melodic riff, and incorporating it into a new composition. It is foundational to hip-hop, electronic, and pop production, and it carries rights obligations to both the original recording and composition. Source separation lets producers extract clean individual elements to sample, and helps rights holders identify samples for clearance.