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And a tragic story at that:

>Coleman died homeless and destitute in 2006. It was unlikely he was aware of the impact he had made on music. Neither he [band leader Spencer] nor Coleman received royalties for the break.


"Samples" were kind of like musical memes in the 1980s. What made for a good sample had a lot more to do with convenience and luck. The sounds that were picked for drum samples had more to do with how useful they were - the dynamic range, how isolated the drums are, how easy they were to mix.

The other famous drum sample - the "Funky Drummer" as drummed by Clyde Stubblefield for James Brown, Stubblefield didn't think the particular drum pattern he used was particularly noteworthy. In that case, James Brown's production choices were actually more key - his signature sound revolved around really crisp drums that he insisted needed to be clear on AM Radio and Jukeboxes. Which is what made it so useful for sampling.


I saw a video about popular/influential/most-used samples the other week[0] and it mentioned James Brown becoming aware of sampling (I guess mid-late 90s?) and specifically making sure that anything he thought might be sample-able was "clean" from that point on.

[0] GFL finding anything in YouTube history / search these days hence no link. Wasn't from Synthet, I don't think.


You said it wasn't from Synthet, but they did release a video ~2 weeks ago which talked about exactly that. Super interesting, whether it's the correct video or not!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K71XefOlJh0


> You said it wasn't from Synthet, but they did release a video ~2 weeks ago which talked about exactly that.

Good grief, I thought it might be that video but somehow completely blanked on it when I double-checked and decided it wasn't. Thanks for actually checking usefully!

(Synthet videos are almost always worth a watch even if you can't remember them a couple of weeks later. Old age, innit.)


Maybe, but the amen break has a very specific je ne sais quoi that makes it way more useful and pleasant as a sample than almost any other sample. There's just so many situations in the kind of music I make where the amen is like the only loop that fits. Funky drummer might come in second.

It could just be its cultural weight has me hypnotized. But maybe its just that good


I’ve produced music through much of 2010-2020, I wasn’t there in the 1980-2010s but it wasn’t uncommon see discussion online about different samples or things like this. Never really seen any mention something like this unquantified “je ne sais quoi” or at least don’t really recall

My take is, it was the first of its kind to widely circulate exhibiting desirable quantities for sampling, a combination of good enough and path dependency. After a certain level of saturation/entrenchment it carried an aesthetic compared to readily available samples (maybe this is what you meant).

Whenever I couldn’t find a breakbeat sample (or wanted some starting point at least) I’d default to it. When I did music production it was very easy to get your hands on a loop but obviously that’s much later.


amen and funky drummer are fun but I find it funner to chop up the apache break. it's got a little bongo in there

Samplers became accessible at the time which allowed music production with just loops. Look at snap I got the power. All looped samples

I mean, look at any house or hip-hop track, sampling's like the most fundamental part of both genres.

The track you've mentioned is the prime example of the blend of those two genres. Before the term Eurodance caught on, this track would be referred to as hip-house (as in hip-hop + house). Chicago and the broader NY area did it first, but it was a Belgian track that first topped the US charts (Technotronic's Pump Up The Jam).


That's why one of the super simple improvements I'd make to music copyright law, if I had to choose one thing rather than a massive overhaul, is for sampling to also be subject to the compulsory mechanical royalty system.

So any artist could sample something, do some paperwork, and send of a fraction of royalties. Rather than the current system where you need explicit permission from the recording artist and have no recourse if they say no.

So many music genres exist because of sampling, and the shit legal precedents set in recent decades ruined an amazing thing.


Your proposal makes complete sense and would allow artists the creative freedom to use samples in unusual and novel ways that the original artist might never have envisioned – or agreed to.

I’m a big fan of the KLF (Kopyright Liberation Front) and when the artist says “no”, I’m always reminded of this funny, surreal story about the KLF physically destroying their music: http://klf.de/home/the-abba-incident/


Completely agree with you, but good music always finds its way around copyright, you just can't find it on streaming services.

For example, if the sample's small enough to not be recognisable by algorithms, they often end up on Soundcloud with a free download via Hypeddit. Some even get away with charging money for their track with non-cleared samples via Bandcamp. Because those types of bedroom producers are almost always clueless about copyright, they often cite fair use in the description and choose a Creative Commons licence, which is not how anything works. Even some B-list celebrities that damn well know what they're doing still decide to do that when they fail to clear a sample. Soundcloud would be completely irrelevant if they did a good-enough job at enforcing copyright, so they do the bare minimum labels require of them to keep running, but that definitely kills their odds of ever competing with the likes of Spotify.

Then there's a whole "gray area" of online record pools where the audio preview and download links are hidden behind a $25/month or so paywall, so record labels can't scan it directly to even know about the infringement. Usually just listing the names of available tracks in HTML is enough to get them de-indexed from Google, but they rely on word-of-mouth anyway.

And, of course, even if all of that were to stop, you can never prevent a bunch of DJs and producers DMing each other tracks, hottest of which always end up getting shared too widely at some point and uploaded to Soulseek or something.

Meanwhile, streaming services are being flooded by unethically-trained, AI-generated music, which is actually incredibly easy to detect if streaming services actually gave enough of a fuck to do so. There is one that gives a fuck rather publicly (Deezer) and according to them, it's ~34% of everything uploaded as of a few months ago, may have passed 40% as of now.


> Belgian track

What a wasted chance to say "Belgian techno anthem"!


Reminds me of Motown's James Jamerson [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Jamerson


I’ve heard conflicting accounts about their knowledge and royalties.

While I’m certain they didn’t receive royalties from all artists, I heard many 80s artists did. And Amen Brothers took others to court. So they would have know about the use of the break.

I will admit I haven’t done any independent research into this matter personally. Just echoing accounts I’ve read and taking their reports at face value.


> And Amen Brothers took others to court.

Who is "Amen Brothers"?


"Amen, Brother" is the name of the track it's from, so the parent is likely referring to the band.

Yeah, the band is The Winstons. I'm curious how parent knew that they went to court when they don't know the name of the band.

> I'm curious how parent knew that they went to court

I didn’t say I knew they went to court. I just said I thought I read about it.

Looking into it again now, all I can find is a 10+ year old article about a crowd fund (eg https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-34785551). So I’m likely misremembering what I read previously.

> when they don't know the name of the band.

I just got the name of the band muddled with the name of the song. I also sometimes get get the names of my friends and loved ones muddled. But that doesn’t mean I don’t know them either. I’m just shit with names.

I do however remember every useless number I learned as a child. Including phone numbers to kids TV shows. Human memory is weird :-/


It’s pronounced “Allman Brothers”

It's pronounced "Doobie Brothers"

That's true, though there was a community fundraising a while back. Many well known dnb and jungle dj's donated there.

https://ra.co/news/28370


A reminder that your society will be judged not on how the most fortunate lived but how the least fortunate lived. Context still matters but there's a meaningful difference between "Anne Brontë died of Consumption (Tuberculosis), at that time there was no cure" and "Dave died of TB, he couldn't afford the cure at current market prices".

What is a mote in such a society to do though? Dave couldn't afford the cure, but neither can I. What do you suggest I do to make it affordable for both of us?


Sure. Which is your society though?

Unless you are one of the rare unintegrated humans†, in which case you wouldn't read HN because you don't have any of the necessary technology, there is only a single human society. Given that, we should be uncomfortable about how we're doing on that "least fortunate" thing...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontacted_peoples


So why is it not our society? Are you an unintegrated human, hence why you have the external view on things?

No need to nitpick. Being one among many in an X, one can perfectly use "our X", "my X" and "your X" to denote the same X, there is no logical error in that.

Now, the connotation is different: saying "our X will be judged by.." spreads the responsibility among everyone and makes it too easy to shift the blame onto the next guy, while saying "your X will be judged by.." stresses on your personal contribution to the X, making it not that easy to shy away.


I think the personal pronoun you use is very interesting.

In your case, you seemed to be representing the common idea of a different culture, ie 'my society thought your society was this or that', eg 'Muslims think western societies to be greedy and unkind'.

Do you really think of yourself as one of many? If so, which type do you identify as? And then, do you think you are personally responsible for the actions of others of your type?

I personally think the general usage of a general collective pronouns to be inevitably misleading, but has the benefit of allowing one's preferred poor and unsubstantiated beliefs to be stated as indisputable fact.


This is our manifesto. We are creative people. Here is our strategy for advancing creative work and supporting the people who do it.

We upvote comments that completely miss the point of how this algorithm works. We upvote comments that claim the algorithm does nothing at all. We downvote comments about how the creator of the original drum break died destitute.


Its absolutley mind boggling. My work machine (lenovo) regualry roasts itself to 0% battery in my backpack during my commute


Unplug before closing. I'm not sure where I read this, but this is the cause for the backpack cooking. When plugged in it goes into active sleep or something, not really sleep. When unplugged and it goes to battery mode, and activates the real sleep mode.

Something something windows something something shitty power management.

Try it for yourself and see if that makes a difference. It worked for me!

I remember at some point dell had a warning to not sleep your laptop and put it in a bag, as it can actually cook the lcd panel!


The question is, why has Apple been able to figure this out, but Lenovo and Microsoft haven't?


This is likely some monitoring/attendant software your employer is running remotely, not the fault of the hardware directly.


Happens on my ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14, personal laptop frequently enough i do a full power down when not using it. Definitely a hardware/Windows problem.


For anyone else wondering. Im also a 33 or 34 in pretty much any brand, just measured my waistline (where my pants usually sit), 38.5 inches.

Never knew!


Its worse than that. Cameras (plus DToF if you want tracking in the dark), imus, gyros, and necessarily onboard compute/SOC to handle processing that data. Shipping it all off to a remote computer and then making the round trip creates an untenable amount of lag. Thats not even accounting for controller and hand tracking.

And once you have the pipeline and computation power to enable inside out tracking all on device, adding an OS is essentially free.


It already has an IMU and gyro, obviously. Time of flight cameras are unnecessary. Steam Frame doesn't have them either. At most you would put IR LEDs for illumination which are tiny but also optional (Quest 3 doesn't have them), and there's no reason they have to be in the headset, you could just have a standalone IR illuminator on your desk.

As for sending data over a cable, there's nothing inherently laggy about it. After all, the display signal already travels over the cable, and the cable transfer is by far not the limiting factor in latency. The camera data is lower bandwidth than the display signal, too.


It really is a damn shame, but before AI, it was cryptomining. Desktop GPU prices have been inflated to nonsense levels for gamers, to the point where console vs. PC isnt even really question anymore.


And even with increased priced you often still get paltry amount of RAM. All for market segmentation due to AI use cases. Which is bad as requirements have crept up.


Really frustrating for a hobbyist 3D artist. Rendering eats gobs of RAM for complex scenes. I'd really love a mid-level GPU with lots of VRAM for under $500. As is, I'm stuck rendering on CPU at a tenth the speed or making it work with compositing.


3d rendering can use multiple GPUs right? Maybe pick up a couple MI50 32GB cards off Alibaba. A couple months ago they were $100 each but it looks like they're up to ~$160 now.


In some ways though, the increase in visual fidelity has been _marginally_ improved on a per-year basis since the PS4/Xbone era. My GPUs have had much, much longer useful lives than the 90s/early-2000s.


AMD just tried to get away with stopping support for cards that were still being sold new in stores. Nvidia cards are just getting worse and more expensive over time (https://www.xda-developers.com/shrinkflation-is-making-nvidi...).

Part of what made PC gaming in the late 90s/early 2000s so exciting was that the improvements were real and substantial instead of today where we're stuck with minor improvements including bullshit like inserting fake frames generated by AI, and the cards back then were usually pretty easy to get your hands on at a normal price. You might have had to occasionally beat your neighbors to a best buy, but you didn't have to compete with armies of bot scalpers.


Exactly plus upscalers are pretty amazing. Upscaling from 1080p to 4k is 80-100% of the quality of native rendering at a far lower cost.

Now if only major studios would budget for optimizations..


If you stay off of the upgrade treadmill, you can game with a pretty dated card at this point. Sure, you cannot turn on all of the shines, but thanks to consoles, a playable build is quite attainable.


If you're willing to accept the performance level of a console, then you can buy a second-hand 3060 for cheap.


Agreed that more studies are required. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25705824/ This and some others studies correlate a 40% reduction in all cause mortality (that is, 40% reduction in risk of dying from anything) with sauna use. Even if the correlation is proven to be weak, still seems worth it to get a shvitz whenever you can.


> "We performed a prospective cohort study of a population-based sample of 2315 middle-aged (age range, 42-60 years) […] During a median follow-up of 20.7 years […] A total of 601, 1513, and 201 participants reported having a sauna bathing session 1 time per week, 2 to 3 times per week, and 4 to 7 times per week, respectively."

They are comparing the health differences of the number of sessions, using only people who claim to do sauna at least once a week over 20 years. They have nothing to say about lower frequency or no sauna at all.


"Chinese national" feels like a pretty critical detail to this sentencing time.


Can't wait to cash my $2.43 check is 3 years!


Ok, so dont shower, and punch my date in the nose. Got it!


It's an intriguing idea, but the scope of any such formal definition would essentially be the entire scope of physics, materials science, thermodynamics, etc. For much more bounded problems (like that very fun website you linked) I think something like that would be more attaintable, but still challenging.

Take the example of the differential gearing shown. I doubt there exists any functional differential/mass produced assembly that looks exactly like the example presented. The concept of differential gearing may be able to be broken down into more symbolic representation of forces and motion, but at some point it becomes simplified to the point of impracticality.


All models are wrong, some are useful.

Form follows function.


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