‘Past’ masters, present beats: exponential sound staging as sample-based (re)mastering in contemporary hip hop practice

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Exarchos, Michail ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1045-3540 (2020) ‘Past’ masters, present beats: exponential sound staging as sample-based (re)mastering in contemporary hip hop practice. In: Perspectives On Music Production: Mastering in Music. Taylor & Francis/Routledge, Focal Press, Bushey. ISBN 9780367227197

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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429276590-10

Abstract

Previous research dealing with sample-based music production has favored notions of musical borrowing in sampling over the sonic rationale of the practice—that is, the appeal of past ‘sonic signatures’ to samplists and the processes involved in incorporating them within contemporary phonographic constructs. This appeal can be attributed not only to recording and mixing approaches, but also to mastering strategies. A more recent phenomenon in hip hop music production involves practitioners creating their own material for subsequent sampling and infusing it with convincing phonographic qualities, to satisfy a sample-based aesthetic that until recently has relied heavily on the past. In this sample-based context, the lesser attention given to the sonic ‘object’ calls for a focused investigation of the variables involved in the fusion of ‘past’ (or previously constructed) and present phonographic processes. This inquiry focuses on the merging of ‘staging’ illusions as a subset of such variables, questioning how full-range masters function as source content in sample-based engineering and production processes. The examination explores how hip hop producers negotiate the dimensions of ‘depth,’ ‘height,’ and ‘width’ imbued into masters when used as sampled sources, and the ways in which beat-makers stage previously-constructed mix architectures into newly-juxtaposed sonic illusions.

Item Type:	Book Section
Identifier:	10.4324/9780429276590-10
Additional Information:	This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge/CRC Press in Perspectives On Music Production: Mastering in Music on 30 December 2020, available online: https://www.routledge.com/9780367227197 or https://www.crcpress.com/9780367227197
Subjects:	Music Music > Musicology Music > Record production
Related URLs:	Publisher Publisher
Depositing User:	Michail Exarchos
Date Deposited:	30 Apr 2020 12:44
Last Modified:	04 Nov 2024 12:30
URI:	https://repository.uwl.ac.uk/id/eprint/6875

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‘Past’ masters, present beats: exponential sound staging as sample-based (re)mastering in contemporary hip hop practice

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